Some time later, the pounding stopped and the angry male voices shouting outside her door quieted. Dani had long since sunk to the floor, her head in her hands, still wondering what to do. Somehow she had to escape Tornk’s clutches and, if possible, keep Lavi from being given to Warro.
But how was any of that to be achieved now that she was a prisoner in her own rooms? Of course, she could always use the secret passageway in the back of her closet—it was the first one she had ever found—to get around the palace. But what of it? She would still be trapped in the palace and eventually she would be caught coming out to get food or clothing.
She couldn’t live forever as a ghost in the walls of her childhood home.
Somehow I have to make Councilor Bray-bray not want me anymore, she thought fiercely. If she could get the evil, lecherous old male to renounce his claim on her she was fairly sure no other male would want her either. And then maybe…just maybe…she could get to her father alone and explain more fully about Ahnai and her scar and the way Warro treated his wives. Even now she didn’t believe her father knew the whole story—couldn’t let herself believe it.
Because if he really was the kind of male who would give away a beloved daughter in exchange for material wealth—wealth he didn’t even need—then her father was not the male she had thought she knew all her life.
He was a monster.
She was just deciding that maybe she could live as a ghost in the walls—at least for a little while—when a tapping sounded at her door and a familiar voice spoke.
“Princess? Princess, dear it’s Yana. Come now, be a pet and let me in.”
“No,” Dani said. “How do I know you don’t have a whole battalion of guards behind you?”
“My sweet, I swear I don’t. But if you won’t open the door then please just listen to me.”
“I’m listening,” Dani said warily. She didn’t dislike Yana but she didn’t exactly trust her or harbor a great deal of affection for the old nurse either. After all, the woman had gone out of her way to let it be known that Lavi was her favorite even after Dani’s mother had died.
Dani, who had been hurting and in need after her mother’s sudden death, hadn’t felt able to turn to the older woman because of her obvious preference for Lavi. She had long since forgiven both Yana and Lavi for her childhood pain but she hadn’t forgotten it—and never would.
“Now my sweet,” Yana began. “I’m just here to beg you to see reason.”
“What? And come out and marry horrible, wretched old Councilor Bray-bray?” Dani demanded. “I don’t think so—no thank you, Yana.”
“But you must marry him, my sweet,” Yana said earnestly. “And it’s lucky you are that he’ll still have you after you pulled a weapon on a male that way. Your dear father the Monarch, may he live forever, is most upset. Most upset.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dani said shortly. “It wasn’t my intention to upset him but to warn him of the danger he is sending Lavi into.”
“Oh my dear Princess, it is you who is in danger!” Yana sounded so earnest that Dani scooted a little closer to the edge of the dresser which blocked the door, trying to hear better.
“I know I’m in danger,” she said dryly. “In danger of being married off to a male I hate who will probably beat me and punish me and…and…” Her throat worked but she couldn’t say the awful words that wanted to bubble to the top of her brain—words that had to do with the act of breeding and ownership and changing the color of her eyes. “And do whatever he wants with me at night,” she finished lamely.
“That’s not the danger I’m talking about, my sweet!” her old nurse protested. “I’m speaking of how you threatened a male with a weapon in the throne room! Princess dear, where did you even find such an awful thing as a sud-stab?”
“I found it in my mother’s things,” Dani said reluctantly.
From the other side of the door she heard a ragged gasp.
“The same weapon…the very same,” she heard Yana mutter, as though to herself. “Gods below and above, it is true—ill-luck does follow in the footsteps of the dead.”
“What? What are you talking about out there?” Dani demanded, scooting a bit closer to the door. “Why do you say the same weapon—the same as what?”
“Your mother’s sud-stab,” Yana explained in a low voice. “It was the same one she…oh Princess, I did hope never to have to tell you this sad story.”
“What? What is it? Is it about my mother?” Dani felt her stomach tighten. “Tell me, Yana—tell me!”
A weary sigh drifted from the other side of the door and she could picture the old woman putting her wrinkled forehead to the intricately carved wood in sad exhaustion. For a moment she thought Yana would speak no more—that whatever secret she carried was too great of a burden to share. But finally she heard the old, tired voice start up again.
“Your mother had that sud-stab as a gift from her brother,” Yana explained. “He had the idea that females ought to be taught to protect themselves—as though males wouldn’t do it for them. Bless me! He was a little mad in the head. I always said nothing good would come of it but he taught her to use it all the same and so when she was called to the palace to become wife to your father, the Monarch, may he live forever, she took the sud-stab with her.”
“Wait—how do you know all this?” Dani asked. “Did someone tell you?”
“Oh, no child—I saw it. I was there. Didn’t you know I used to be nurse to your mother and Lavi’s too when they were young? Old Yana has seen so much…so much she wishes she could forget…” Another melancholy sigh. “So your mother, bless her dead soul, took the sud-stab with her to the palace and that is what got her killed.”
“What?” Dani’s stomach got tighter but she told herself she must have misunderstood. “A fever killed my mother—one so virulent and contagious she had to be taken away at once and buried outside the palace gates.”
“That was what we told you, my sweet,” Yana said softly. “But it is not so. What killed her was her willful pride and her refusal to behave as a proper royal female should—as I am always begging you to do.”
“I don’t understand,” Dani said blankly. “Did…did someone stab her with her own weapon, or—”
“Oh dear me—nothing like that.” Yana sounded shocked. “No, she was killed for threatening the life of the Monarch.”
What?” The fist clenching in her stomach suddenly turned to a lump of ice. “What are you talking about? That’s impossible!”
“It’s not, I’m afraid, my sweet,” Yana said sadly. “You see, she came to the throne room—just as you did today—making wild accusations—”
“What accusations? Who did she accuse?” Dani interrupted.
“Well, it was Councilor Bray-bray—I mean, Tornk.” Yana coughed in apparent embarrassment at her slip. “She said he was trying to…” She cleared her throat. “Trying to do things to her no one but a female’s husband may do.”
“She did?” Remembering the way the disgusting old Councilor’s eyes had been crawling all over her body from the moment she began to develop womanly attributes, Dani didn’t doubt the truth of her mother’s accusations for an instant. “So that old bastard tried to rape her and she went to the throne room to complain to my father?” she asked.
“Well, essentially, yes, my sweet,” Yana said reluctantly.
“And did my father believe her? Or did he brush her off as a hysterical female who didn’t know what she was talking about?” Dani asked bitterly.
“I don’t know if he believed her or not,” Yana said. “For the Councilor came up and started denying her claims and saying she was lying. It was then, as I heard it from those in the throne room who saw the whole thing, that your mother pulled out the sud-stab.”
“She did?” Dani fingered the weapon in her pocket. She could imagine her mother—who had looked much like Dani herself—drawing the weapon and rounding on the lecherous old bastard. “What happened then?” she asked.
“Ahhh…” Yana mourned softly. “My poor sweet pet…that was when everything went wrong. For you see, the Monarch, may he live forever, came down from his golden throne to try and stop his favorite wife from her wild actions. People who were in the throne room say that Councilor Tornk shoved her and there was a scuffle and then…”
“Then what?” Dani asked breathlessly.
“Why the sud-stab found your Royal father’s flesh somehow.” Yana’s voice was a cracked whisper of horror. “And you know an attempt on the Monarch’s life carries an immediate death sentence.”
“But if it was an accident—”
“Her blade drew the Royal blood,” Yana said flatly. “There can be no excuse for that—only death.”
“But…but all this can’t be true,” Dani whispered. But suddenly she thought of the long scar—more of a scratch—on her father’s arm which was visible when he wore his sleeveless summer robes. It showed up very white against his indigo skin—she remembered wondering how he had gotten it.
“It is true, my Princess,” Yana said sadly. “And as her blade had drawn your father’s blood, he had no choice but to declare her an assassin and condemn her to death.”
“My…my father?” Dani’s voice was a ragged, hurt whisper. “My father killed my mother?”
“Oh my sweet, I didn’t want you to ever know,” Yana whispered. “She was my favorite and you were so like her and I knew how you would grieve without her…”
“How?” Dani made herself speak coldly, not giving in to the emotion she felt. “How, Yana? How did he kill her?”
“My sweet, you don’t really want to know.”
“I do!” Dani insisted. “I do, Yana—I must know. Tell me now!”
“Ah me, ah me…” The old woman sounded as though she might be crying now. “That very night, at Councilor Tornk’s insistence—since he also had been threatened and wronged by your mother—they took her out beyond the palace gates to the rock pit…”
“They stoned her?” Dani knew of few worse deaths. Such a punishment was usually reserved for adulterous females who cheated on their husbands.
“They did,” Yana whispered. “All that night I held you and rocked you, singing in your ears lest you hear it.”
Thinking back, Dani did recall such a night, not long before she had been told the sad (and now apparently untrue) details of her mother’s sudden death. But after that, Yana had seemed to prefer Lavi and there had been no more singing and rocking ever again.
Maybe she couldn’t bear to be near me because I reminded her of my mother, Dani thought, her stomach still clenched tight as a fist. Maybe she didn’t want to endure that pain again when I did something as foolish and rebellious as my mother did. Something like what I did just now, today.
But she hadn’t been acting foolishly, damn it and neither had her mother! Both of them had gone to address a wrong that had been committed. If only her father would listen to Dani instead of dismissing her as a rebellious female, he would realize that his favorite Councilor was planning to cheat him and ruin the lives of both his daughters at once!
But why would he believe me over Councilor Tornk? Dani asked herself dully. After all, he believed Tornk over my mother when she said he tried to rape her. My mother was killed when she tried to tell the truth. Yana is right—I’m lucky my sentence isn’t death by stoning.
Though to be honest, she thought she might prefer death to being married to the disgusting Tornk, who she now had even more reason to hate.
“Tell me this, Yana,” she said slowly. “Did my father ever really love my mother?”
“I know he did, my dear,” Yana whispered brokenly. “I remember how he grieved after she was killed. But even your father cannot break the law of our land. Females are inferior and must be put to death if they do wrong.”
“Wrong as defined by males, you mean,” Dani said bitterly. And really, she told herself, it didn’t matter if her father had loved her mother or not. He had still taken the word of Councilor Tornk over the word of his beloved wife. He had still had her put to death for what was surely an accident.
Dani saw now that her previous idea about getting her father alone and explaining more thoroughly about Warro and the way he mistreated and killed his wives was a useless one. Her father would never listen to her—in public or in private. Listening to Dani and acting on her words would mean believing a female over a male and he would never do that—never.
“I’m trapped,” she muttered to herself. “There’s no way I can save Lavi or even myself. Oh, if only I could find a way to make Councilor Tornk not want me!”
“But I’m afraid he does want you, my pet,” Yana said and Dani realized her old nurse had heard her desperate, muttered words. “I’m sorry to say that he’s already bragging he will be the one to change the color of your eyes. It is a great thing, you know, to be the one to give a Princess her true eye color.”
The color of my eyes…he wants to change the color of my eyes…
Suddenly Dani had an idea. Not a great one—it might even get her killed— stoned like her mother. But it was better than sitting around, waiting for her father to get tired of letting Yana cajole her…better than waiting until he decided to have the guards break down her door.
“Yana,” she said. “You have given me much to think about.”
“Then…you’ll come out?” the old woman quavered. “You’ll act like a proper Princess and beg Councilor Tornk’s pardon for your words and actions and sign the Articles of Engagement?”
Never! Dani thought fiercely. But aloud she only said, “I will think on it. But now I am tired. I would spend the night in contemplation and tell you my feelings tomorrow.”
“I do not know if your Royal father wishes to wait so long.” Yana sounded doubtful. “I think he wanted you to come out and apologize and join the banquet in honor of Chieftain Warro’s engagement to Lavi tonight.”
“I have only just now learned the truth of my mother’s death,” Dani pointed out. “I must have time, Yana. Make him understand. I am so tired—I need time to myself to get over what you have told me.”
As if she could ever get over it.
“Very well, my sweet—I’ll try,” Yana said uncertainly. “I know it is much to take in. But please, my pet—learn from the sad tale of your mother. Come out and be a proper princess. You and I and Lavi will all go together to live on the Southern continent and won’t that be lovely?”
Dani couldn’t imagine anything worse than the life her old nurse was describing—death really would be preferable. But she couldn’t let Yana know that.
“I will think on it,” she repeated. “But now I am tired, Yana. I must go to bed.”
“Very well, my sweet. I will try to make your Royal father, may he live forever, understand,” Yana said. “You rest. Perhaps in the morning things will be different.”
“I know they will,” Dani said confidently. Things certainly were going to be different, she promised herself as she listened to her old nurse shuffling away. She was going to be certain they were different.
Specifically, the color of her eyes.