When at last Fetnalla returned to her chamber, she found several of her belongings out of place. It didn’t take her long to realize that her chamber had been searched, that her audience with the duke had been a pretense intended to keep her occupied while his soldiers went through her possessions, no doubt searching for evidence of her treachery.
She was furious, but still she did not contemplate joining the renegades. Rather, she wished only to leave the castle, to put as much distance as possible between herself and Brall. She didn’t mean to leave for good-she merely wished to sit astride her horse, her beloved Zetya, and ride out past Lake Orvinti into the Great Forest. The day was cold and grey, but she didn’t care. She wanted only to ride. Upon reaching the stables, however, she was told that she could not. Her horse was fine. The stablemaster was taking good care of her. But by order of the duke, the minister was not allowed to ride her beyond the castle walls.
Fetnalla wandered away from the stables, unsure of where to go. She was too dumbfounded to speak, too enraged to cry. “I’m a prisoner,” she muttered to herself, the truth of this making her chest ache, as if Brall had struck at her with his sword. She wore no shackles; there were no bars on her door or her window. But the duke had robbed her of her privacy, her freedom, her joy, all in the name of preventing her betrayal.
Instead, he drove her to the conspiracy.
The first time the Weaver walked in her dreams, she knew that she would follow him to the brilliant future he described for her, that she would do whatever he demanded of her. There had been no warning prior to that first night-the gold came later. Fetnalla didn’t even know how the Weaver had known to come to her. Clearly, though, someone with the conspiracy had heard of her duke’s suspicions and had gauged accurately her growing resentment of his distrust. For she was drawn to the movement by far more than just fear of the Weaver and her certainty that he would kill her if she refused him. Dangerous as it was, she found that she wanted to join, to strike a blow against Brall. He already believes I’m a traitor, she thought upon awaking from that first dream. He’s earned my betrayal
She had done little for the movement since then. The Weaver had come to her two other times before this night, and she had told him what she could of Brall’s intentions regarding the coming war with Eibithar. Soon he would ask more of her. Others had killed for the movement, she knew, and perhaps she would as well.
She also knew that eventually the Weaver would learn of her role in Shurik’s death. By then, she hoped to have proven her worth to him, so that he might spare her. But it had never occurred to her until tonight that she would lead him to Evanthya. And Fetnalla knew that unless she managed to turn her love to the cause before that happened, the Weaver might well kill them both.
Chapter Eleven
Yserne, Sanbira
It was said throughout Sanbira, and even in the other kingdoms by those who had journeyed to the southern realm and found it impossible to deny the truth, that Castle Yserne, seat of the Sanbiri matriarchy, was the most beautiful fortress in all the Forelands. Rising from the base of the Sanbiri Hills, and built of the russet stone mined from their depths, its soaring rounded towers, elaborately detailed ramparts, and gently curving walls seemed more a work of art than a castle. And on days like this one, when the sun shone and the air was still so that the castle’s image was perfectly reflected in the brilliant blue waters of Lake Yserne, it seemed a creation of the gods, as much a part of the landscape as the hills themselves and Shyssir’s Wood to the west. Yet, as history had shown time and again, marked by the failure of sieges launched by the Brugaosans, the Trescarris, and even, centuries before, by the Curlintes, its battlements and the red walls surrounding Yserne city sacrificed nothing for their grace.
Olesya of Sanbira, the fourth queen of that name to rule Sanbira from Castle Yserne, the Lioness of the Hills, as she was known throughout the southern Forelands, had lived in the fortress all her life, nearly half a century now. To this day, she had found no finer structure anywhere, not even in Curtell, where she had gone years before to visit the renowned Imperial Palace of Braedon. Despite its glazed windows and interior fountains, or perhaps because of them, there was something garish about Harel’s palace. Those who built Castle Yserne had both the good sense and good taste to err on the side of simplicity rather than excess.
In recent turns, the queen had found herself looking at the castle through different eyes. Where once she had taken it for granted, accepting Yserne’s beauty and strength with little thought for its creators, she now couldn’t go anywhere in her demesne without admiring the craft that had yielded such a place. Tanqel the First, the second man of Yserne to rule Sanbira, oversaw construction of the castle more than five and a half centuries before, and though he was remembered for his violent temper and bloody reign, Olesya had decided not long ago that if he could build a castle like this one, there had to be more to the man than cruelty and a quick blade.
Which, she was wise enough to understand, brought her to the core of the matter. How would she be remembered? She had ruled well for twenty-nine years, enjoying one of the longest reigns of any ruler in Sanbiri history, king or queen. She had been wise and fair, tolerating far more from the northern dukes than most reasonable women would have, and striving to maintain peaceful relations with Wethyrn to the north and Caerisse to the west. During her reign, Sanbira had weathered droughts and floods, outbreaks of the pestilence and once, in the earliest days of her rule, a land tremor that devastated the cities of Trescarri, Listaal, and Kinsarta. But in all, hers had been a prosperous reign, and mercifully uneventful.
“Is that how I’m to be remembered, then?” she asked herself aloud, standing before an open window in her chambers. “As the queen who ruled when nothing happened?” She gave a rueful smile. A fine legacy for the Lioness of the Hills.
She had never thought in such terms before Dalvia’s illness. But watching from afar as her dearest friend wasted away, like a wild beast caged against its will, Olesya had been forced to accept that even queens didn’t live forever. She was young yet-merely in her forty-ninth year-but her own mother had died at fifty-one, her father at fifty-three. She felt fine, but so had Dalvia only a turn or two before the illness struck her.
She shuddered, turning away from the window but leaving it open. Diani’s message had made her think this way. She had tried to put Dalvia out of her mind since the funeral. Naturally she had no intention of ending Yserne’s ties to House Curlinte. The alliance between the two families was nearly as old as the Yserne Dynasty, and the army of House Curlinte had fought to protect the matriarchy on many occasions. Olesya was fond of Sertio and loved Diani almost as she did her own children. She merely wished for some time to mourn her friend, to heal the wound Dalvia’s death had left on her heart.
It seemed, however, that Diani needed her, and who was Olesya to deny the girl the comfort or guidance she sought.
The message from Curlinte had been quite vague and brief, nearly to the point of impropriety. It merely stated that she had already left Curlinte and expected to reach the royal city by the twelfth day of the waxing-today. There was no mention of what she wished to discuss, no request for an audience with the queen, a familiarity even Dalvia would not have allowed herself. Perhaps Olesya should have expected this. Diani was still quite young, and she had always been an impetuous child, though no more so than Olesya’s own daughters. Boys, the queen had decided long ago, were easier to raise than girls. She laughed at the thought, wondering if that were as true in patriarchies.