The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala Read online

  “What—are you two my escort?”

  In answer, Ursula jerked her head at the men behind us. Three lieutenants of the Royal Guard trailed behind, in full armor. “No, they are.”

  “We are coming to your room so you can tell us everything,” Amelia supplied.

  I opened my mouth to protest, then glanced at the sober lines around Ursula’s mouth. “Perhaps Ursula could fill us in on a thing or two, also.” She was too young to remember, Ursula had said.

  She rolled her head on her shoulders, neck popping with a loud crack. “Yes,” she sighed, “perhaps that would be the thing to do.”

  Wine awaited us in my chambers. Amelia poured while the ladies-in-waiting withdrew. Ursula instructed the guards at their stations outside the door and in my antechamber, then checked the window.

  I looked out, too. My chamber sat high in one of the turrets because I liked to see out. It helped that no one else particularly liked to climb so many stairs. From there, the whole front of the castle grounds was visible. The arched white stone bridge over the river and the outer walls bristled now with soldiers. Had I known we had so many?

  “Where did they all come from?” I marveled.

  Ursula snorted. “I swear to Danu—you pay attention to nothing at all, do you?”

  “I just didn’t think we kept a standing army.”

  “Yes, well, you don’t think much at all, do you?”

  “You know, Ursula, I’m really not in the mood for being beat up any more today,” I snapped. “I’m sure everyone will be lining up tomorrow to tell me in excruciating detail every single thing I did wrong—again. You’ll have ample opportunity then.”

  Her lip curled and I braced for her snarling response. Then she stopped herself, rolled her shoulders again. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “What?”

  Amelia appeared between us, jeweled goblets of wine in her hands. Ursula took hers and stared at it. I cradled mine, grateful for something to keep my hands busy.

  “I would never criticize our father, as King.” Even though she knew we were alone, Ursula automatically glanced around for eavesdroppers. “But, had you been warned”—she gulped the wine—“perhaps this could have been avoided.”

  “Let’s sit,” Amelia suggested. She fetched her own wine and crawled onto my high bed, arranging herself on it comfortably. She’d taken her hair down, and it spilled around her like fiery gold, her eyes luminous. “Andi can tell us her story, and then Ursula can tell us what our mother has to do with all this.”

  That’s the thing about Amelia: she’s so lovely and sweet, you forget how clever she is and how little she really misses.

  Though we’d only rarely done this as girls—Ursula was already fifteen by the time Amelia turned five—it felt familiar and cozy to sit cross-legged on my bed with them. Ursula reclined back against the pillows, watching us while Amelia pulled the pins from my hair and brushed it out in long, gentle strokes, something she did to her own hair every night and swore by. I told them the whole story, just as I’d told our father while he glowered at me like I’d stuck a knife in his heart.

  When I finished, Ursula reached for the pitcher and refilled all our glasses, frowning.

  “Why was the kiss so damn important?” she demanded. “And the blood thing?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me.” I felt guilty not mentioning the blood bird, but I couldn’t bear for them, too, to look at me with revulsion. If they even believed it.

  “It has to be a magic thing, right?” Amelia mused. “Lady Zevondeth was all worked up about it, and you know how she goes on about the old stories. Except that there’s no such thing as magic.”

  “The kiss and whether his blood passed my lips,” I agreed. I’d told them about the meeting with the King and Derodotur, too. “So, now, Ursula—please. What does our mother have to do with this?”

  She dropped her head back and stared at the canopy overhead. “Salena was of the Tala.”

  She said it as if she expected us to gasp in realization. Instead, Amelia and I frowned at each other.

  Then Amelia smoothed her frown away with the tip of one finger. “So the Tala are real? Father said Rayfe was of these Tala, too. I thought they were a myth, like white bears or sea monsters. But Hugh says they talk of them in Avonlidgh—stories of the Great War.”

  Ursula contemplated us, clear gray eyes troubled, then uncoiled to her feet to pace to the window. As if the sentries needed checking.

  “See, this is a good lesson—history is written by the victors. Never forget it. What you believe to be true is exactly and only what the people who won want you to believe.”

  “But Father stopped the Great War,” Amelia protested. “That’s why the Twelve Kingdoms made him the High King. He’s brought lasting peace.”

  The line of Ursula’s shoulders grew tight, and I put a cautionary hand on Amelia’s slim arm.

  “Tell us what really happened, Ursula,” I asked of her, quiet, somber.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me with brows raised. “Oh, Uorsin triumphed all right. No denying that. But I have reason to think he had help from Mother’s people: the Tala.”

  Those wolfhounds. They had reminded me of something. Tales from the Great War. Giant dark eagles filling the skies, black wolves with blue eyes—those were in the songs, too. Fobbed off as bits of fantastic glory to dress up otherwise dull battles.

  “Shape-shifters and wizards.” The words escaped me before I could pull them back. Amelia looked astonished, her rosy lips pursed in a giggle, but Ursula nodded crisply, turned so she propped her lean behind on the stone sill. So many torches flamed outside, her hair—still tightly pinned up—looked like it burned at the edges.

  “That’s what they say. Not all of the books have been cleaned up.”

  “But those things aren’t real.” Amelia tossed her hair over her shoulder. “They’re stories only.”

  “If they’re only stories,” I pointed out, “why do we pray to Glorianna to protect us from them?”

  “Glorianna is the pure, the protectress, She who banishes the dark.” Amelia looked at me like I lacked all sense. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Yes, but how do we know that?” I pressed.

  “You wear the rose of Glorianna like we all do, Andi.” Amelia tapped the intricate gold rose hanging from the chain around my neck. “Why?”

  She had a point. “Because Father gave it to me, as he did to both of you. Glorianna’s protection. From what?”

  Amelia blinked at me, long red-gold lashes sweeping across her twilight eyes. Something in them stirred, not quite so sweet. I handed her the hairbrush again and she automatically pulled it through my hair. It soothed me while I turned it all over in my head.

  “So, Ursula, I’m guessing you heard a lot of this from Mother, since no one else speaks of it.”

  A pang of the old loneliness shivered through my heart. I remembered only a few things about her. All that long, coiling, dark hair. Her sorrowful eyes. Mostly I had a feeling for her, not a face. That sense of love. With her I’d felt wrapped up in it, like a velvet cloak that protected me from the world. Losing it had left me forever chilled.

  It just about killed me that Ursula had memories of talking with her.

  She nodded, grave, like she followed my thoughts. “Before you were born, but after Father issued the edict that the Tala should never be mentioned. It wounded her, I think. She was pregnant with you, Andi, and I came upon her watching the full moon and weeping. I’d had a bad dream and went to look for her, I think.” Ursula shook her head free of unnecessary detail.

  “It doesn’t matter why I was up. I went to Mother’s chamber and she was curled up on that big padded window seat, remember? Where she’d always sit to stare out. And she watched the full moon setting over the mountains.”

  “To the west,” I whispered.

  “Consistent, no? Yes, the Wild Lands west of the castle. She told me that her people came from there, that she left
them to marry Father. She rubbed her belly, so swollen with you, and said that the first of her daughters to show the mark of the Tala would return to her people and take the place she’d left empty.”

  “She said those exact words?” It was uncannily close to what Rayfe had intimated.

  “If she was pregnant with you, Ursula was five,” Amelia said gently. “She’s not going to remember the conversation word for word.”

  “Oh, but I do, Ami.” Ursula, however, studied me. “I remember because I started to cry, too, thinking I’d be sent away. And Mother took me in her arms and said I was my father’s daughter and would not be the one. She promised me that. All the time she told me this, she stroked the round curve of her belly. I knew, even then, what she wasn’t saying.”

  “She thought it was me,” I whispered.

  “She knew it was you,” Ursula corrected. “What’s more, Father did, too, though he pretends like he didn’t.”

  “He spoke of it today. Derodotur, too.”

  Her lips thinned at the confirmation. “I would have told you, but Mother told me never to speak of it. Not that she had to tell me that—Uorsin flew into rages even then, when the Tala were mentioned. So much so that not even Mother objected when he forbade discussion.”

  “What is the mark?” Amelia asked.

  Ursula shrugged, restless, unhappy. “Who knows?”

  But I knew.

  “Rayfe told me he could tell it about me. He wanted to know if I had some mark.” I got up, too, setting my wineglass down. I didn’t need my head any fuzzier. “Am I so different?”

  Amelia glanced away unhappily and Ursula simply returned my gaze, as she would in swordplay, waiting for me to decide upon my next attack. I knew it, didn’t I? The way everyone had always done their best not to see me. Not to see the monster inside.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I tried to keep my voice steady, but even I could hear the fear in it. The trembling hurt of the betrayed. “How could you look at me and see”—I gestured helplessly at myself—“whatever it is you’ve been seeing, and not say anything?”

  Ursula glanced away finally, fiddling with the hilt of her sword.

  “Fine,” I breathed, slipping my hand into my pocket for the reassuring knife-edge of the black feather. “So. Uorsin made some kind of deal with Mother’s people. They let him marry Salena, help him win the war, and the first daughter with this Tala mark on her forehead gets married to one of theirs in return. Sounds pretty straightforward. Except Father reneged on his word. Not so straightforward.”

  Ursula reflexively glanced toward the antechamber. “Really, darling, you might lower your voice when you speak treason against the King.”

  “What?” I snapped. “Rayfe already doomed me by saying I’d be receptive to his offer. No wonder Uorsin thinks I’ve been consorting with the enemy.”

  “Technically you have,” Amelia pointed out, “rolling around in the grass, kissing.”

  “I did not kiss him.”

  Ursula stilled. “And his blood did not pass your lips.”

  Not much, anyway. I ducked the question and regretted the wine. It hadn’t helped the headache, only tightened it like an iron band around my temples. I pressed my fingertips into the bones around my eyes. “They all made a big deal about that. Those things must seal the pact somehow.” Or make tiny birds.

  “The old ways.” Ursula nodded.

  “We don’t recognize the old ways,” Amelia argued. “You might not think much of Glorianna’s temple, but our laws don’t recognize a marriage outside of that. Not even Moranu or Danu can seal a marriage.”

  Not anymore. But they did in the old ways.

  “True.” Ursula tipped her head at our little sister. “If the Tala want the High Throne of the Twelve Kingdoms, then Rayfe would have to marry you legally.”

  “Okay.” I let out a long breath. “So, it’s not enough to whisk me off. The King has to agree to the terms.”

  “The King has already agreed to the terms—before any of us were born. Now he has to get out of them.”

  “Continue to get out of them.” Amelia blushed when we looked at her. “I mean, none of us knew about this, right? So they’re all in collusion, like Ursula said. Rewriting history, avoiding a political alliance.”

  “What’s important,” Ursula said to her in a stern voice, “is protecting Andi. That’s all Uorsin ever wanted to do. Protect us, protect his kingdom, protect the peace.”

  “What if there had been sons,” I wondered, “did they get nothing in that case?”

  Ursula considered that. “Mother didn’t say. Surely any agreement would have covered that eventuality.”

  “What if”—and this possibility bothered me greatly—“what if the Tala don’t want the throne?” Rayfe had wanted to take me somewhere beyond the Wild Lands. Away from my sisters and the only home I’d ever known. My heart clenched with dread. “What if there’s some other plan?”

  “What do you keep fiddling with in your pocket?”

  Guilty, I yanked my hand out of my skirt. “Nothing.”

  “It’s that feather,” Amelia tattled. “I saw you pick it up. Is that really wise?”

  Flinty anger sparked in Ursula’s gaze. “What in Danu are you thinking, Andi? Burn the damn thing!”

  “No!” I couldn’t bear the thought, though I couldn’t understand why. It tangled up with the terror that I’d be taken away. Cast adrift with no one and nothing. “I’ll get rid of it, but I refuse to burn it.”

  Ursula held out an implacable hand. “Give it to me, Andi.”

  I shook my head.

  Her face went to stone. “That’s an order, in case you missed the concept.”

  “It’s mine. It doesn’t matter to anything else. I just want to study it.”

  “You understand nothing of the Tala,” Ursula hissed.

  “Like you do?”

  “That bird was a creature of darkness—you saw how it behaved. A feather from it is a totem that ties you to them. Is that what you want, Andi? Because if you wish to be a traitor to your people, your kingdom, and your King, then you’d better tell me right now.”

  “My people?” I gasped it out, my heart thudding at her words. “We’re all half her! I might bear this mark from our mother, or whatever it is, but these Tala are your people, too—did you somehow gloss over that part? Maybe I have it the strongest, but both of you have at least some of her blood.” Always back to the blood.

  “Andi.” Amelia scrambled off the bed to stand between me and Ursula. “We understand how difficult this is, but—”

  “Give me that cursed feather, Andromeda,” Ursula demanded, “or I will take it from you by force.”

  “No.”

  “You stubborn git! Give it now.”

  “Andi, just give it to her—it’s only a little thing.”

  But it wasn’t a little thing. I didn’t know why, but I hated to give it up. The certainty filled me and overflowed, digging me into the earth. “I won’t let you have it.”

  Her jaw strained, teeth tightly clenched, hand fisted on her sword hilt. Ursula leaned in, hawk nose flanked by flaring gray eyes. She topped me by a head, easily. For a wild moment, I thought she’d draw her sword, and I wished for my knife. The one I’d left in Rayfe’s shoulder.

  We each had a piece of the other, then.

  “This is about me,” I said. I felt cool now, reasonable, explaining this to her. “My curse, my fate. Whatever happens, it affects me most of all. I decide how to handle things. And I feel keeping this feather is important.”

  Scorn filled Ursula’s face. “You fool,” she hissed. “This is not about you. You’re a blood pawn. A baby maker to be traded between political alliances. The Tala don’t want you—they want to fill you with little shape-shifters and wizards to populate our throne and overrun our kingdoms. And you’d hand it all over to them on a whim? Because you have a feeling?” Contempt dripped from every word.

  A small sound escaped Amelia, and I saw tears
running down her face.

  “You asked me what I see in you, my little sister?” Ursula continued, relentless. “I see someone who is never truly a part of this royal family. I see you riding off to be by yourself, not listening to important policy matters. You care more for your horse than for any of us. Now I’m wondering if I see a traitor.”

  “It’s a feather, Ursula, not the keys to the kingdom.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I shouldn’t have to prove myself to you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t, should you? Anyone else would have never picked up a stinking relic like that—why did you?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “Oh, I think you do know. I think somewhere deep in your mind, there is a reason. Is it him?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, you watched Ami fall in love, you gaze at Hugh with such admiration, and now you think to have a prince of your own. But contrary you, it has to be someone different, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re wrong,” I told her, but my voice wasn’t steady. Rayfe’s midnight-blue eyes filled my mind. My body pulsed, remembering his weight on me. How I’d wondered where his chair might fit in the throne room. Traitor. It’s an ugly word.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Ursula said, soft, deadly.

  “Give her the cursed feather already, Andi—please!” Amelia sobbed out the words.

  I slid my finger along the glassy edge of the feather. Just a thing. It didn’t mean anything one way or the other. I pulled it out and the firelight caught it, gleaming indigo-black. Amelia made a little sound. I laid it across Ursula’s calloused palm. Out in the night, a wolf howled and I shivered.

  Ursula didn’t hesitate. Of course, she never does. She strode to the fireplace and tossed the feather in. For a moment it gleamed there, perfectly black and glossy. Then it burst into flame, a flash, a tendril of blue smoke rising and fading away. And it was gone.

  Ursula folded her arms, watching the fire burn with her back to me, a long, lean silhouette against the bright fire.

  “Don’t give me cause to doubt you again, Andi.”