Perhaps it would have mattered. Perhaps not. It seemed unlikely the two groups could have continued to exist for much longer in utter ignorance of each other. The world was a shrinking place.
Honor held the proclamation between her fingertips, pinkies extended, as if the page might fold over and bite her. She had that drowsy, cat-eyed look she sometimes wore first thing in the morning, indicative of a long Weave or a restless night.
Or not precisely restless, Lia amended to herself, her gaze shifting to the prince standing beside her, his arm curved about her shoulders.
It had been many years since Amalia had been around males of her own species. She'd never flown with the dragons of her shire; her Gift had come too late for that. She recalled being enamored of the village boys as a maiden, their shining skin and brilliant eyes. The way they'd work the fields in their shirtsleeves, plowing, sowing, reaping, sweat darkening the cloth just enough to cling, to show off the unbearably sensual concurrence of muscle and bone.
The same boys at her mother's social balls, dancing with their eerie grace, everyone fair, everyone gleaming, and the scent of lust in the air a near tangible mist.
Young or old, it seemed that drakon males seethed with the instinct to seduce, not merely sexually but intellectually, emotionally; without even trying, they could hit every pitch-perfect note. Unsuspecting females tumbled like skittles in their paths.
Poor Honor, because this male would be no different. Ebony hair, which didn't happen in her tribe, but the same sinuous elegance, the same instinctive sensuality that lured the eye and kept it there, appreciating every last detail.
The same lust too, she thought. Prince Alexandru and her daughter clung to each other like wool in winter static. If they pulled apart, Lia was sure she'd see sparks.
Useless to ask if they were already lovers. She knew that they were, but even if she hadn't, she would have guessed by the intimacy of their postures, how they leaned into each other, how even shaken, he hovered over her, and even drowsy, she accepted it.
Honor, the timorous child who'd never relaxed enough to fully welcome physical touch, not even a buss on the cheek.
Oh, Lia thought, watching them, aching,let this be true. Let what they have be real and true.
Honor looked so vulnerable. She wore no paint, and her hair had been pinned into an uneven pile that tumbled down her back, and the style of the gown she wore was both too old for her and too young. A wedge of lace from her shift showed past the edge of her bodice, as if she'd had no maids to help her dress.
When she lifted her eyes to Lia's again, some of the sleep had vanished from her gaze. "What does it mean?" she asked. "Wait," said Lia. "There's more."
Then she gave them both the second letter, the one that sealed their fates.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lia,
You don't know me. My name is Rez. I used to be Honor Carlisle.
My Natural Time now is well ahead of yours. I'm older than you, than I ever knew you to be. I live in what you would call the former Colonies.
I'm trapped. My life has dwindled to a pinprick. I survive in individual moments. I eat, I sleep. Every third day I walk to the village market to wander the stalls and the chitter-chatter colonists stare at me, five hundred forty-seven steps there. Five hundred forty-seven steps back. I count the alien insects that creep across my floor. I sleep.
I sleep.
Even awake, I'm so tired I don't have the power to lift the carving knife I keep ready on the kitchen table, right there in front of me, such a friendly shape. I can't even lift it to finish this misery. Everything is gray and mud.
I cannot remember the precise day my life ended. I've tried so hard my head aches and my entire body trembles, but my mind is in tatters. So much about those years elude me now. But in the sum spring of 1792 1791 the English are going to attack Zaharen Yce. They are going to kill everyone.
It's been decades since the assault on the castle, and as I've said, my life has dwindled. Details drift away from me. I'll tell you, though, I'll tell you what I remember most are the screams. Even as I pen this, I still hear them how they
The weight of my daughter in my arms just before she was torn from me. Her head beneath my chin. Her hands around my neck.
I had a daughter.
I Wove away that day. I did not mean to I swear to God I never meant to i would never have but it happened and i couldn't stop
They're all dead. I cannot Weave back. Every time I try, I'm thrown here again. The best I may hope is to Weave sometime near you before it happens and post this letter. I'm enclosing something else, a declaration I stole from Darkfrith, the one time I was able to Weave there before they stopped me. I found it in the desk of the Alpha. I don't know when that was, but I know I never saw it before that day.
My tatty mind keeps thinking. I think and think, and the one phrase that never leaves me, that remains my constant miserable companion is this:sanf inimicus. And by the stars, Lia, sometimes that phrase seems more like deliverance .
The things in my head, Mama. The hobgoblin, nattering things. Please. If you ever loved me at all, I beg you to please save my family.
—Rez
Last Princess of the Zaharen
"Would you like to know how it's going to happen?"
Lia's voice floated with casual nonchalance through the parlor, which seemed very hot to me. I did not know why the room had to be so hot; it was nearing winter, and the sunbeams slanting in held at best a tone of ambered coolness. Motes of dust danced through them, spinning their own small jigs.
I'd already read Rez's hobgoblin letter. Read it, absorbed it, let the horror of it pass into Alexandru's hands.
"How what will happen?" I asked, unable quite to tear my gaze from the motes. It seemed to me they were dancing to the unearthly poem of Draumr, keeping time with its funeral dirge.
"The manner in which they try to kill you," she said. "Your English parents, I mean. Would you like to know? It's in the late afternoon. It's summer in Darkfrith, and lilies are in bloom. There'll be a measure of laudanum in your tea. Your mother will hand you the cup. You're going to drink it. You speak of missing them—of your prince—and I believe you were even attempting to tell them about your daughter—"
"Our daughter," Sandu whispered, less than a sound, a scant parting of the air.
"—but the laudanum is potent, and you fall asleep first. They plan to behead you, which you may recall is our traditional method of handling drakon enemies. Your mother will cry, your father won't let her watch. They both agreed to it, though."
I wrenched my gaze back to Lia. The cooling sun put fire in her hair.
"I remember that," I said. A pulse of fright reached me, breaking past the numbed horror of the letter. "I remember Sandu telling me in the meadow ... how I'd go to them, to tell them we were engaged ..."
"In an effort," she continued steadily, "to soothe your mother's sensibilities, they plan to use an ax instead of the Alpha's teeth. It's really all very civilized."
"But Hive." I jerked a hand toward the letter Sandu still held.
"Yes. You Weave away, even after falling asleep. You Weave back here, I assume. But the English know about you now, that you're aligned with the Zaharen. After you go to Darkfrith, they know, and they know also that you're sanf . The proposal for unifying the tribes is merely a ruse, one they decide they no longer need. They come here to destroy you."
I'mnot —"
"But you will be,"bit out my second mother, a sentence so sharp it stilled even the motes. I faced Sandu, desperate. "What does it say? Can you Read it?"