“You sound as if you’ve decided something, Your Majesty.”
Grace hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but she longed to tell someone what she had been thinking. She looked down at the people moving in the bailey below. They were her subjects, yet at that moment she felt so distant from them. They were like patients who had been discharged from Denver Memorial Hospital; they didn’t need her anymore.
“Melia and Falken will be good regents,” she said, “but in time I think the people of Malachor should elect a leader.”
“Elect?” Larad said, a note of scorn in his voice. “You mean let the people choose who their ruler will be?”
“Yes.” She turned to face him.
His eyes narrowed. “And whom do you think they would choose?”
“You, perhaps.”
Almost never had she seen Larad laugh, but he did now, a sound at once ironic and genuinely mirthful. “I think not, Your Majesty. Yours is a keen mind, but I think in this matter reason has eluded you. I have heard what you speak of before–the absurd notion that common people are capable of choosing their own ruler wisely.”
“It isn’t absurd,” Grace said, a little angry now. “People canmake wise choices for themselves, if they’re given the chance.”
“Perhaps,” Larad said, though he did not sound convinced. “But even if the people of Malachor did choose their leader, whom do you think they would select? A man who spends all day studying runes in a tower? The people do not follow you because they have to, Your Majesty, but because they wish to. They have already made their choice. There is no need for them to elect a–”
The Runelord staggered back, gripping the window ledge for support. “You’re not coming back. You’re leaving, and you don’t intend to return to Malachor, do you?”
So he had seen the truth–the truth which, like a dragon, she had concealed in a fog even from herself. She crossed her arms over her chest, her heart beating with anguish. Or was it excitement?
“I don’t know if I’ll come back, Larad,” she said softly. “I honestly don’t know.”
He said nothing. She had finally managed to astonish Larad, but already his shock was gone, or at least concealed, and his eyes were hard and unreadable once again.
“Farewell then, Your Majesty,” he said.
Grace found she had no words to reply. She nodded, then descended the stairs, leaving the tower of the Runelords.
A short while later she mounted Shandis beside the gates of the keep. Four stern‑faced knights sat ready on their chargers. There was no wagon for supplies, only a packhorse that carried the absolute minimum, for Grace intended to ride fast. She arranged her riding gown over the saddle, then sighed. Now came the hardest good‑bye of all.
“No, Sir Tarus,” she said as the red‑haired knight placed his foot in a stirrup, ready to mount his charger.
He turned around. “Your Majesty?”
She could not bring herself to speak the words, but by his stricken look he understood her. He drew close, clutching the hem of her gown, and shook his head.
“No, Your Majesty.” His voice was ragged with despair. “Please do not do this thing to me. Do not command me to stay.”
She had to keep her voice hard, or she would not be able to speak at all. “You must, Sir Tarus. Melia and Falken cannot run this kingdom without your help.”
His face grew red, but from grief this time, not frustration. “I am your seneschal. I serve you, Your Majesty.”
“And so you must do what I bid,” she said, hating how cruel the words sounded.
“Have I served you so ill, then, that you must leave me behind?” He was weeping now, and Grace nearly lost her resolve, for in that moment she finally understood why he had been so stern these last three years, so grim and determined.
He had been trying to be Durge.
“No, Tarus,” she said, on the verge of weeping herself. “You have served me better than any other. And that’s why I must ask you to do this. For me. And for Malachor.”
“But I have every reason to go with you.”
She thought of the young Runelord Alfin, and despite her sorrow she smiled. “I believe you have a better reason to stay, Sir Tarus.”
She bent over and kissed the top of his head. Then she urged Shandis toward the gates, the four knights behind her, and without fanfare or further farewells, Grace, Queen of Malachor, left her kingdom.
16.
She spoke little with the knights who accompanied her as they rode south from Gravenfist Keep along the Queen’s Way. When she gave Tarus the names of the warriors she wished for her retinue, she had deliberately chosen the most reticent and taciturn in the keep; she had no desire for idle conversation on this journey.
Her only purpose now was to ride as swiftly as possible, to reach Sareth, and have him lead her to Hadrian Farr. Not because she wished to see the Seeker–though, she was forced to confess, the thought of seeing him again did give her a strange thrill she couldn’t quite analyze. For a reason she couldn’t name, she kept trying to picture him, though all she could seem to see were his eyes: dark, mysterious, compelling. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that Farr could lead her to Morindu the Dark. And if she found Morindu, then she would find Travis–she was certain of it.
The weather was fine and clear, and they made good time that first day. Over the last few years, the Embarran engineers had labored on the Queen’s Way, clearing away fallen trees, replacing cracked paving stones, and shoring up bridges. By nightfall they had covered nearly all the ten leagues of the Queen’s Way the Embarrans had repaired. They were deep in the Winter Wood now, and they made camp in a grove of valsindartrees as the last sunlight filtered between silver‑barked trunks.
They ate a supper of the foodstuffs that would not keep– bread, a clay pot of butter, fruit, and some roasted chicken, which was already a little questionable after a full day riding in their saddlebags–then readied for sleep as purple dusk crept among the trees. The summer night was balmy, and the four men spread blankets on beds of old leaves, while Grace slipped into a small tent they had set up for her. She wouldn’t have minded sleeping out in the open like the men, but maybe it was better not to. This way she wouldn’t try to peer through the leafy branches of the valsindarto see if the dark hole in the sky had grown.
Grace had just shut her eyes when she heard the ringing of steel. She threw back the flap and scrambled out of the tent. All four of the knights stood with their swords drawn. As Grace’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, fear stabbed at her heart. A figure stood on the edge of the clearing where they had made camp, hooded and robed in black.
“Move, and you will be slain,” said one of the knights–a stout, gray‑bearded man named Brael.
“How about if I simply speak?” the figure said in a sardonic voice, and before the knights could move, the one cloaked in black uttered a word in a commanding tone. “Lir!”
There was a flash of blue light, and the knights staggered back. However, the light quickly shrank to a ball hovering above the man’s palm, and in its soft glow Grace saw that the man’s garb was not black, but rather deep blue. There was a look of satisfaction on his scarred face.
The knights recovered, and looked more ready than ever to use their swords. However, Grace hurried forward.
“That wasn’t particularly wise, Master Larad,” she said in a sharp whisper. “These men might have killed you.”
The Runelord simply shrugged, as if to say he was less certain of that outcome than she.