'My go.' Piro turned over a wild card. 'Ah.' Swiftly she read the card and found a way to use it to warn her mother. She moved a warlord off his spar and put him on Rolenhold, saying, 'Ostron Isle is always sending surprises with its wild cards. And this one is much more dangerous than I thought. It gives my player the ability to shield himself from those with Affinity and so hide his true nature.'
Would her mother understand the implication? Cobalt had hidden his true nature.
'I fear you are right. How will I warn my king?' her mother whispered. 'He must beware false advisors…'
Piro nodded. But what could she do? She was only a child. Her father would never listen to her.
And so the game of Duelling Kingdoms went on. If there hadn't been so much at stake, Piro would have enjoyed tricking the guard. As it was, she finished up the game, assured only that her mother knew how serious things were.
They hugged at the door holding back tears, while the guard and Autumnwind looked the other way.
'Take care, Piro, I fear you may have to be as fierce and brave and your namesake,' her mother whispered.
'I'm not brave at all,' Piro admitted. 'I thought I was, but I'm not.'
Her mother placed one finger under her chin, tilting her face to look into her eyes. 'We are all as brave as we have to be. Have you any idea how many times I cried myself to sleep when I first came here, a captive of war, surety for my father's honourable intentions?' She smiled through her tears. 'And look what came of us? Rolen and I have been happier than anyone thought possible.'
Until now, Piro thought. Her unspoken words hung in the air. She would burst into tears if she wasn't careful. 'I must go.'
Her mother released her and Seela gave her a quick hug. 'Take care, Piro. Your mother wants you to have these. Remember, a queen always carries her keys of office.'
Seela pressed a ring with a bundle of keys into her hands. The guard glanced swiftly at the heavy key ring but did not intervene since the key to their tower room had been removed.
'But these are yours.' Piro tried to give them back.
Her mother caught her hand and firmly closed her fingers over the keys. 'Until I am restored to the king's trust you must watch over him for me.'
Piro nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks. Her father was under the care of both the castle's healers, but Valens had done a great deal of damage. After consulting with Autumnwind the healers had not accused Valens of having Affinity, only of being misguided. Piro suspected they were protecting themselves and Autumnwind from the king's ire. They declared Valens guilty of using dangerous Ostronite techniques, which did more harm than good. The healers had become quite powerful in that they now said what the king could and could not do to restore his health.
Piro brushed tears from her eyes and headed down the stairs. She undid her belt, slipping the key ring through it. With each step she took she heard the chink of her mother's symbols of power and felt their weight, both literal and figurative.
It was still weighing on her mind when she went up the servants' stairs to the family wing.
'Piro Kingsdaughter?' a small, wizened servant asked.
'Yes?'
Someone grabbed her from behind, holding her against their body, lifting her off her feet.
'Cobalt!'
'How did you know?'
'I smelt you!' The scent of Ostronite myrrh clung to his skin.
Cobalt laughed. 'I'll hold her. See what you think.'
Cobalt's servant approached, his black eyes malicious and bright. She knew him from somewhere.
Piro's nostrils stung and her vision quivered as she slipped into Unseen sight. The servant pulsed with Affinity. Another renegade Power-worker. Clearly, Cobalt had no qualms about dealing with them. She tried to rear back but he held her firmly.
The Power-worker raised one hand, fingers spread. Behind the darkness in his eyes she saw the flash of a manticore tail lifting to strike.
Piro clenched her fists, brought both her arms forwards and drove the sharp point of her elbows back into each side of Cobalt's midriff. Air escaped him in a grunt of pain and his grasp slackened enough for her to duck under his arm. She sprang behind him and shoved, sending him staggering forwards to collide with the renegade Power-worker who cursed, knocked off his feet by the bigger man.
Then she was running up the stairs, running towards the solarium, but there was no protection there, so she changed direction, heading for her bedchamber. But before she got there she skidded to a halt as realisation hit her.
The Power-worker had cursed in Merofynian.
She'd claimed a Merofynian Power-worker was loose in the castle to save her mother, but it really was true!
The implications made her head spin. A door opened along the hallway. Before anyone could see her she darted down the passage, heading for the stairs. She had to warn her father. King Rolen was spending more and more time at the war table, as if staring at the map would tell him the true extent of the Merofynian army and its whereabouts.
Hand on her keys to stop them jingling, she slowed to a hasty walk in the passages where others could see her, and sped up in private.
'Kingsdaughter,' the guard at the bottom of the steps to the war table chamber acknowledged her. 'I don't — '
'I do!' She thrust past his half-hearted attempt to stop her. At least she knew Cobalt would not be with her father right now.
With a quick knock, she thrust the door to the war table chamber open.
The king sat on the far side, alone for once. Relief flooded her and she felt tears sting her eyes. 'Father?'
'Eh, Piro. What's the matter?' He stood up stiffly and opened his arms to her.
She headed around the table towards him. 'Cobalt's new servant is a Merofynian Power-worker!'
He drew back before she could reach him, shaking his head. 'Cobalt warned me of this. He said you'd try to discredit him again. Oh, Piro — '
She stamped her foot. 'I tell you it's true. I heard the man curse in Merofynian.'
Still, her father shook his head. 'You chose the one thing you knew I hated most. It's a wonder you didn't try to tell me Cobalt was a Merofynian Power-worker. But then you couldn't, not when we've already proven he has no Affinity.'
'Not without the sorbt stones test,' she countered, however she could see her father had already made up his mind. Frustration flashed through Piro. 'Cobalt's the true Servant of Palos, not Byren!'
As it left her lips, she realised it was true even if Cobalt wasn't a lover of men. Then, she wished it unsaid.
Radiating fury, the king strode towards the door. She ran alongside him. 'Where are you going, father?'
He flung the door open. 'Guard, come here. Escort my daughter to her chamber and see that she does not leave.'
The guard at the bottom of the steps gaped.
'Move, damn it!' King Rolen roared.
Piro lifted her chin. 'I do not need an escort, Father.'
'But you'll have one. I won't have this kind of vicious gossip-mongering undermining the reputation of an honourable man.'
'Honourable man?' Piro bristled. 'If you cannot see how he had undermined Byren's honour you are — '
'Byren?' The king's hands lifted as if he had only just restrained himself from shaking her.
Piro's sight shifted to the Unseen. She saw the face of a youth of eighteen, a youth who had watched helplessly as his father and elder brother were murdered by a renegade Power-worker. As the horror and sorrow faded, they were replaced with implacable anger. This was the expression the young King Rolen had worn when he ordered the execution of the Servants of Palos. And she realised that he did not truly see her or Byren, he saw only a threat that he did not know how to fight. This was his one blindness and Cobalt had used it, just as he had used her mother's blind spot, her kindness.