~ 5 ~
The next morning dawned bright and clear, fortunately. I was gritty-eyed enough from lack of sleep that I wouldn’t have wanted to face talking Ami out of traveling through a blizzard. I’d played with the kittens awhile, then coaxed them into playing I Eat You, a game the shapeshifter kids in Annfwn loved to play. That had them trying several different forms, which—along with a well-timed sugar crash—wore them out enough to fall asleep sometime before dawn.
At least they’d be easy to load up, as they were still fast asleep. The Tala nurses reappeared at daybreak and bundled up the kids, laughing merrily when I grumped at them for their defection the night before. Tala are notoriously difficult to intimidate. We might as well have cats as nurses.
Ami, looking as fresh and gorgeous as the sunrise in a white gown decorated with gold stars, chatted happily with the duchess, saying her farewells, while I conferred with Graves on our route. The duchess had loaned Ami several white and gold open sleighs in lieu of our carriages, which would not only enable us to travel much faster over the freshly fallen snow, but also to cut across the countryside and make directly for Windroven, rather than sticking to the more roundabout roads. When the twins awoke, they should at least be entertained enough by the novelty of the transportation to stay out of trouble.
What we’d find when we reached Windroven was another story.
“But, Your Highness, it can’t be safe,” the duchess was saying to Ami, who smiled indulgently. “The stories I’ve been hearing… And some of them from my own people, who I trust implicitly. Stay here for the Feast of Moranu. There’s plenty of room and I’m delighted to have you.”
“If only because it will make you the most envied hostess in the Thirteen,” Ami teased with a brilliant smile.
Lady Veronica toyed with one of her earrings, assuming a demure expression. “Well, a girl can’t avoid such consequences.” Then she sobered. “But I’m very serious, Your Highness. Stay here. Don’t go to Windroven. Not with the volcano making those noises and a succession of Mornai storms predicted.” She spotted me and beckoned me over peremptorily. “Ash, tell her. Her Highness will listen to you.”
Ami gazed at me expectantly, blue eyes clear as the sky framed by the sunrise of her hair, full mouth curved in regal serenity. She’d recovered all her poise—and had once again erected a wall of impermeable ice between us. I bowed to her formally, largely to acknowledge the distance she’d reestablished. Better this way.
“I have advised Her Highness as much, Your Grace, but she is determined.”
“I am,” Ami inserted, smiling at the duchess to soften the declaration. “Hugh’s people have told me that volcano has rumbled off and on for generations. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be alive to keep us warm through the winter.”
“Well, and indeed that’s true, Your Highness, but never like this. And with the magic returned to the world, well, you know what they say.” She glanced about and leaned in. “The dragon,” she whispered loudly.
“I’ve dealt with more cantankerous creatures than dragons,” Ami informed her airily, sliding a hard-eyed look at me, so I wouldn’t mistake her meaning. “They’re easy to chase off, despite their growling. Cowards at heart.”
The duchess, far too refined to reveal if she understood the undercurrents, simply waved her hand as yet another sleigh pulling up, drawn by more horses from her stables. “If I cannot dissuade Your Highness, I can at least send along decorations and supplies. Glorianna only knows what a musty mess Windroven is. Sadly, the moonflowers can’t withstand the cold, so I’m sending silk ones—and directions for sewing more so your maids can do that, in case they don’t know how. You must at least have the traditional treats and wines for the Feast.” She frowned at the sleigh as if it had failed her in some terrible fashion. “Oh, I hate to think of our queen having such a tatty Feast of Moranu. Give me another hour and I’ll—”
“Thank you, Veronica, for everything.” Ami embraced the duchess, cutting her off, then strolled toward the sleighs, calling out a question to Graves. Her skirts and trailing cloak left a wide swath of cleared snow behind her, punctuated by the steps of her little boots.
I stared at the trail, my attention caught. Or perhaps it was the lack of sleep catching up with me, because I shook my head to clear it of the trance when the duchess put her hand on my arm.
“It’s not easy,” she murmured to me, “to love a woman of higher station.”
“Your Grace, I—”
“You know exactly what I mean.” She raised her brows, stern as any teacher. “Nor is it easy for a woman of station to love a man of lower rank. I should know. It’s a delicate balance. Especially with a man who is a true leader.” Squeezing my upper arm, she made an appreciative moue, eyes sparkling with mischief. “We like our men strong and manly, as much as the next woman, or more. Dominant in the bedroom,” she murmured meaningfully, and I seriously hoped she hadn’t made me blush. “I know how it is. I’m not so old that I don’t enjoy much the same.” She nodded knowingly, her gaze straying to a large man in her personal guard, Dasnarian by his bulk and coloring. The duchess put gloved fingers under my chin, turning me to face her again. “Never think it’s easy for her, to balance that.”
I searched for an appropriate reply and came up empty. The honest truth about Ami was something I’d never betray by speaking aloud. I knew better than perhaps anyone all the opposing forces Ami juggled behind her frivolous exterior. I understood very well how much she struggled to be strong and confident, to compensate for the holes inside left by a mother who perished shortly after giving birth to her, sisters who left her behind, and a husband who died far too young. People looked at her and saw Queen Amelia of Avonlidgh, avatar of Glorianna, and the most beautiful woman alive.
Ami said I didn’t see her, but I did. I knew her heart better than my own. Which meant I understood full well how difficult our love affair made everything for her.
She’d called herself selfish, but that flaw belonged to me. I’d only added to her troubles, wanting to eke out more time with her, when I would have helped her most by absenting myself from the complications of her life.
Ami needed to move on, to consolidate her position as queen, to find her way as a mother, to think about who her king should be. Maybe even some time just to be herself, not to worry about who she danced with or how to balance her loves with her responsibilities. She deserved a man who could be a real husband to her, who could help her rule.
One that her nobles like the Duchess of Lianore wouldn’t have to resort to subterfuges of false titles to accommodate.
I bowed deeply to the duchess, thanking her for her advice—and for her concern.
“We love our queen,” she told me with the fervency of absolute honesty. “Take care of her for us. Promise me, Lord Sousbois.”
I promised I would, not caring for the bitter taste of the lie.
The rest of the journey to Windroven went extraordinarily quickly—so much so that I’d have believed Ami’s claim that Glorianna smoothed our way. One of many phenomena that made me think she might truly be Glorianna’s avatar. Both the woman and the goddess liked to arrange things to suit themselves.
And both seemed to relish their hold on me. Most Tala, even part-bloods, look to Moranu, the goddess of trickery and mutability. But from my earliest days, even before I took my vow to the White Monks, formally consecrating myself to Glorianna, I’d felt the hand of the goddess of morning. My mother had been devout in Glorianna’s worship, as most good country girls were, and I’d put down my own devotion to the goddess as early childhood indoctrination.
With the path my life had followed since… It might be better to say that Glorianna had wrapped one fist around my heart and the other around my cock—merrily leading me by both.
As if she heard the irreverent thought, Ami turned to look at me then, her eyes so blue they pierced me even from a distance. She crooked a finger at me, a slight smile on her face, enjoying playing with me. Because I, of course, hastened immediately to her side.
“We’re here just in time,” she said, gesturing at the mountain climbing against the darkening sky. “Another storm is coming in off the ocean.”
I squinted at the clouds wreathing the turrets of the castle and highest crags of the sleeping volcano. Though I didn’t need to. I’d been watching the storm approach since it first darkened the horizon, like a rippling banner showing where Windroven lay. Some long-ago Avonlidgh royal had decided the quiescent volcanic mountain made the perfect foundation for a fortress. Castle Windroven had been built into and of the stone, so that its towers took the place of the long-gone peak of the mountain. In many places the architecture had been designed so deftly that the walls were indistinguishable from the base of igneous rock.
As a fortress, it worked beautifully. With a sheer drop to the sea at its back, the old volcano enjoyed an unparalleled vista of rich and flat farmland on all other sides. Windroven could not be approached undetected. The steep-sided peak itself defied scaling, leaving the winding road the sole access to the castle. On other occasions, the people of Avonlidgh would be lining that road to shower their queen, prince, and princess with rose petals and adulation. But most of the nearby denizens had fled for the winter, letting their farmlands sleep under the deep snows—and getting as far from the threatening volcano as possible.
Wiser than we.
“Those aren’t only storm clouds,” I told Ami, and pointed at the obscured turrets. “See there? That’s smoke. There’s a column of it rising up behind the castle. Look around you at the snow. It’s gray with ash. The volcano is active.”
“Rumbling only,” she replied. “I’m not concerned. Glorianna will watch over us.”
“Your Highness—”
“Speaking of fretting,” Ami cut me off, “isn’t this your opportunity to leave? No sense making the trip to the top only to go back down again.” She gestured to the road that curved to meet up with us again. “In another hour’s ride you could be at the inn at the crossroads. I’d hate for you to be traveling still when the snow hits.”
I’d stiffened, stricken with the imminence of parting, a stinging retort ready on my tongue until that last. Ami meant it. Despite her hurt and anger, she didn’t want me at risk. Her eyes told the tale, even as she firmed her trembling lips and looked away to stare at the belching mountain. Perfectly apt that the home she’d so readily adopted was both spectacular and treacherous.
“I’m safe at home, Ash,” she said. “I won’t keep you from your life’s path any longer. It would mean a great deal to me, if—” She swallowed hard against something. More tears, maybe. But when she met my gaze, her eyes weren’t damp, but hard and bright as Lianore’s diamonds. “I’d like to know that you’re safe, too. I know I might never hear from you again, so let me imagine that. You, warm and fed—and just at the inn down the road. Where I can pretend to myself that I could go. Take an hour’s ride, and lurk in the shadows, and just…reassure myself.”
“Ami,” I said, my voice more broken than usual. Words as always escaped me.
“A silly fantasy. I know you won’t stay there or anything.”
“And you could never lurk in the shadows,” I managed with a half-smile.
She laughed, a little watery, a lot brittle. The sound made me want to hold her, and I must have moved like I might dismount, because she held up a hand. “I feel like we’ve said goodbye so many times already. Would you do me this favor and just go. Now. Like you’re off to scout ahead.”
I glanced at the other sleigh, where the twins still slept with their nurses. They’d be up all night again, but I’d miss it. And I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to them. Though that was likely just as well. It would only confuse and upset them.
Ami followed my line of sight, then met my gaze again. “Please.”
A more articulate man would have thought of parting words. Something meaningful, for her and for me, to remember in the days ahead.
But I only nodded, bowing from the waist, and turned my horse’s head toward the road leading away from Windroven.