Tobin clung to her for a moment, hiding his face against her shoulder the way he used to, before pride made him pull back.
“You knew,” he whispered, remembering. “Lhel told me. You always knew! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I told her not to.” Iya stepped partway into the little circle of light. It left half her square, wrinkled face in shadow, but he knew her by her worn traveling gown and the thin, iron-grey braid that hung over one shoulder to her waist.
Brother knew her, too. He disappeared, but an instant later the doll flew off the chest and struck the old woman in the face. The wooden swords followed, clacking like a crane’s bill as she fended them off with an upraised hand. Then the heavy wardrobe began to shake ominously, grating across the floor in Iya’s direction.
“Stop it!” cried Tobin.
The wardrobe stopped moving and Brother reappeared by the bed, hatred crackling in the air around him as he glared at the old wizard. Iya flinched, but did not back away.
“You can see him?” asked Tobin.
“Yes. He’s been with you ever since Lhel completed the new binding.”
“Can you see him, Nari?”
She shivered. “No, thank the Light. But I can feel him.”
Tobin turned back to the wizard. “Lhel said you told her to do it! She said you wanted me to look like my brother.”
“I did what Illior required of me.” Iya settled at the foot of the bed. The light struck her full on now. She looked tired and old, yet there was hardness in her eyes that made him glad Nari was still beside him.
“It was Illior’s will,” Iya said again. “What was done was done for Skala’s sake, as much as for you. The day is coming when you must rule, Tobin, as your mother should have ruled.”
“I don’t want to!”
“I shouldn’t wonder, child.” Iya sighed and some of the hardness left her face. “You were never meant to find out the truth so young. It must have been a terrible shock, especially the way you found out.”
Tobin looked away, mortified. He’d thought the blood seeping between his legs had been the first sign of the plague. The truth had been worse.
“Even Lhel was taken by surprise. Arkoniel tells me she showed you your true face before she wove the new magic.”
“This is my true face!”
“My face!” Brother snarled.
Nari jumped and Tobin guessed even she’d heard that. He took a closer look at Brother; the ghost looked more solid than he had for a long time, almost real. It occurred to Tobin that he’d been hearing his twin’s voice out loud, too, not just a whisper in his mind like before.
“He’s rather distracting,” said Iya. “Could you send him away, please? And ask him not to make a fuss around the place this time?”
Tobin was tempted to refuse, but for Nari’s sake he whispered the words Lhel had taught him. “Blood, my blood. Flesh, my flesh. Bone, my bone.” Brother vanished like a snuffed candle and the room felt warmer.
“That’s better!” Taking up the bowl, Nari went to the brazier and dipped up the broth she had warming in a pot on the coals. “Here, get some of this into you. You’ve hardly eaten in days.”
Ignoring the spoon, Tobin took the bowl and drank from it. This was Cook’s special sickroom broth, rich with beef marrow, parsley, wine, and milk, along with the healing herbs.
He drained the bowl and Nari refilled it. Iya leaned over and retrieved the fallen doll. Propping it on her lap, she arranged its uneven arms and legs and looked down pensively at the crudely drawn face.
Tobin’s throat went tight and he lowered the bowl. How many times had he watched his mother sit just like that? Fresh tears filled his eyes. She’d made the doll to keep Brother’s spirit close to her. It had been Brother she’d seen when she looked at it, Brother she’d held and rocked and crooned to and carried with her everywhere until the day she threw herself out of the tower window.
Always Brother.
Never Tobin.
Was her angry ghost still up there?
Nari saw him shiver and hugged him close again. This time he let her.
“Illior really told you to do this to me?” he whispered.
Iya nodded sadly. “The Lightbearer spoke to me through the Oracle at Afra. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“The same Oracle that told King Thelátimos to make his daughter the first queen.”
“That’s right. And now Skala needs a queen again, one of the true blood to heal and defend the land. I promise you, one day you will understand all this.”
Nari hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “It was all to keep you safe, pet.”
The thought of her complicity stung him. Wiggling free, he scooted back against the bolsters on the far side of the bed and pulled his legs—long, sharp-shinned boy legs—up under his shirt. “But why?” He touched the scar, then broke off with a gasp of dismay. “Father’s seal and my mother’s ring! I had them on a chain …”
“I have them right here, pet. I kept them safe for you.” Nari took the chain from her apron pocket and held it out to him.
Tobin cradled the talismans in his hand. The seal, a black stone set high in a gold ring, bore the deep-carved oak tree insignia of Atyion, the great holding Tobin now owned but had never seen.
The other ring had been his mother’s bride gift from his father. The golden mounting was delicate, a circlet of tiny leaves holding an amethyst carved with a relief of his parents’ youthful profiles. He’d spent hours gazing at the portrait; he’d never seen his parents happy together, the way they looked here.
“Where did you find that?” the wizard asked softly.
“In a hole under a tree.”
“What tree?”
“A dead chestnut in the back courtyard of my mother’s house in Ero.” Tobin looked up to find her watching him closely. “The one near the summer kitchen.”
“Ah yes. That’s where Arkoniel buried your brother.”
And where my mother and Lhel dug him up again, he thought. Perhaps she lost the ring then. “Did my parents know what you did to me?”
He caught the quick, sharp look Iya shot at Nari before she answered. “Yes. They knew.”
Tobin’s heart sank. “They let you?”
“Before you were born, your father asked me to protect you. He understood the Oracle’s words and obeyed without question. I’m sure he taught you the prophecy the Oracle gave to King Thelátimos.”
“Yes.”
Iya was quiet for a moment. “It was different for your mother. She wasn’t a strong person and the birthing was very difficult. And she never got over your brother’s death.”
Tobin had to swallow hard before he could ask, “Is that why she hated me?”
“She never hated you, pet. Never!” Nari pressed a hand to her heart. “She wasn’t right in her mind, that’s all.”
“That’s enough for now,” said Iya. “Tobin, you’ve been very ill and slept the last two days away.”
“Two?” Tobin looked out the window. A slim crescent moon had guided him here; now it had waxed nearly to half. “What day is it?”
“The twenty-first of Erasin, pet. Your name day came and went while you slept,” said Nari. “I’ll tell Cook to make the honey cakes for tomorrow’s supper.”
Tobin shook his head in bewilderment, still staring at the moon. “I—I was in the forest. Who brought me to the house?”
“Tharin showed up out of nowhere with you in his arms, and Arkoniel behind him with poor Ki,” said Nari. “Scared me almost to death, just like that day your father brought your—”
“Ki?” Tobin’s head reeled as another memory struggled to the surface. In his fevered dreams Tobin had floated up into the air over Lhel’s oak and found himself looking down from a great height. He’d seen something in the woods just beyond the spring, lying on the dead leaves—“No, Ki’s safe in Ero. I was careful!”