TWO
Two months and more had passed since Heartfire. Osane, the high Priestess of Ehki, the god of the sun, lit the candles on the altar, saying a prayer for each one. Prayers for the land and the people, and prayers for the prince who stood to inherit the powers of a dying bloodline. She was feeling a bit frustrated with said prince just then. Zorion meant well, but she didn’t agree with his priorities.
When he’d brought home a painted lantern, she’d thought things had changed, but he refused to speak to anyone about what had transpired or with whom. He was worried about the danger that might be faced by any bride he might take, but Osane was more worried about the danger he was in. If the line died out, the greatest gift of the gods would be lost forever.
Just as the flame caught on the last candle, the sound of soft footfalls echoed against the stone. Osane turned and smiled at the young woman who had entered the sanctuary. She was from one of the nearby villages, the potter’s daughter. Her parents were devout followers of the old ways, even more so after the death of their older child, and she had seen this girl many times before.
It took a moment for the name to come her. “Alaia, what brings you before the gods this day?” On closer inspection, the priestess could see that her eyes were red from crying. “Dear child, what is wrong?”
“I…” she sniffed and took a deep breath, “I was with someone on Heartfire, and he said he couldn’t stay, and I understood. But he gave me this ring, and I’m not even sure that I need assistance, but I don’t know what to do,” she said, her words all running together.
Osane pursed her lips. “The man you were with on Heartfire gave you a ring, in case you needed help, do I understand that right?” The girl nodded, opening her hand. Osane recognized the ring immediately, and a smile came to her lips. Zorion hadn’t abandoned his lover easily, it seemed. “What sort of help do you need?”
Alaia swallowed and spoke again more slowly, but her voice still trembled. “I suppose what I really need is advice. I think… I am with child. It’s not as if I can’t care for a child, but…” she sighed. “This isn’t how imagined this would happen. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.”
The priestess smiled even more brightly and put her arm around the young woman. “Do not fear, Alaia. This is an unusual situation, but I believe you are up to the challenge.”
*******************************
Zorion sat at his desk, twirling a charcoal pencil over and over in his fingers. His twenty-first birthday was in two weeks. It should have been the day he took over the throne from his cousin, who was technically his regent, but he had no illusions about that. Already, Imanol was making excuses to delay, while secretly rallying support of the nobles to declare the prince unfit to rule. It would undoubtedly come to a fight, one that had been brewing for nearly seven years now.
The important thing about his birthday was that he would finally be able to awaken the true power of his bloodline, the only part of Zorion’s inheritance Imanol had not taken. The king knew just enough about this ancient magic to covet it but not enough to know that it was beyond him.
The power of dragons had been granted by the gods and was passed through the blood. Imanol’s father would have been the one, but when he had come of age, the gods had rejected him. The power had not come forth and passed, instead, to his younger sister, Zorion’s own mother. Zorion was sure… fairly sure… the gods would not reject him when the time came.
He had done everything he could to be worthy, aiding the people and honoring the gods. Once he had mastered the gift that waited in his blood, he would finally be able to reclaim his kingdom. And after that…
His eyes strayed to the paper lantern that hung in the corner of his bed, mostly concealed by the curtains. Heartfire was only a month after his birthday. Realistically, there was little chance he’d be able to defeat his cousin in such a short time.
But he’d never forgotten that night, and he wondered, would Alaia put out her lantern again? If he returned, would she even have him? Perhaps she’d moved on… It hurt to think about. He knew it was unfair to expect anything. It had only been one night, one wonderful night, and a girl like that, beautiful and kind, surely someone would ask for her hand, blessed by the gods or not.
There was a knock at the door, and Zorion looked up, but the door opened before he could even open his mouth. “Itzal. You’re back earlier than I expected.” His friend, who was coincidentally also his spymaster, grinned in a way that could only mean he had discovered some particularly satisfying, or at least terribly funny, information.
“I have some news I thought you’d want to hear right away,” he said, tossing his cloak on the hook behind the door. “The Lord of Briarwine is hosting a hunt. Rumor is he’s got a bastard of a boar rampaging over his lands, and he’s vowed that whoever kills it will have his daughter’s hand.”
“Really? And I suppose his daughter is the most beautiful maiden who ever drew breath,” Zorion said, fetching a rare and expensive item from the secret drawer inside his desk. It appeared to be a simple chunk of raw crystal, of the kind that ladies liked to use for paperweights, but when he pressed the concealed button on the base, he felt magic flow over him, encasing him in a bubble from which no sound could escape.
Itzal sat on the other side of the desk, eyes glittering as he waited for the sound muffling to take effect. Zorion had been carefully crafting the outward image of a spoiled wastrel for six years. They couldn’t afford to ruin it now, when they were so close. Imanol had no heir, despite no lack of trying, so he was happy to keep the prince and princess around because he did not perceive them as a threat, something Zorion hoped he would live to regret, briefly.
He gave the signal when it was safe to speak. Itzal shrugged. “Eh, she’s average really, though his lands are nothing to sneeze at. However, that's not what I really raced here to tell you.”
“I figured as much,” Zorion said, picking up his pencil again. “Spit it out.”
“I went to the temple to pay my respects to Osane, and she told me the most interesting story. She presided over a naming ceremony the other day, of triplets, can you imagine? And their mother, poor girl, was a lovely young lady, the potter’s daughter, but she was raising the children alone.
It seems they were conceived on Heartfire, but the man never sent a marriage offer.” Itzal made a scandalized face, and Zorion tried to maintain an expression of innocent interest, but his heart was already pounding. “She won't say a word about his identity. Rumors are flying, that he's married already, or maybe he's some kind of demon. Now, what do you think about that?”
Zorion felt the blood drain from his face. “I don't suppose you caught her name?” he said faintly. Maybe it wasn't her. This could all be just a terrible coincidence. He wasn't even paying attention to Itzal’s amazed expression.
“Alaia, I think it was.” Zorion heard a sharp crack. The pencil in his hand had broken in half somehow. He stood up with a jerk.
“I have to go,” he said, his thoughts already racing as he crossed the room and picked up his cloak.
“So, it's true,” Itzal said, his eyebrows raised. “I thought that priestess was yanking my chain. What are you going to do?”
Zorion wasn't entirely sure, though he had a strong need to do something. He made himself take a deep breath, and when he sighed it out, his mind was a little cleaner. “I need to speak to Osane first.”
The high temple was not in the capital, but a day-long ride away, half of it up a winding mountain trail. This had proved fortuitous in sparing the priestesses from Imanol’s wrath, but it gave Zorion entirely too much time to fret.
His parents had given him a thorough education before they died. He’d had the best tutors in arithmetic, logic, philosophy, geography, politics, and strategy, but his father had been particularly insistent that he know the history and customs of the more rural parts of their kingdom.
The people in the city tended look down on these simple folk; they hadn't been thrilled when the Queen had gone and married one. Zorion’s father had told him that the villages were the backbone of the kingdom, and he had taken it seriously. That was why the news of Alaia’s children was so alarming.
Bad enough that he had children he hadn’t known about. He felt like the worst sort of cad, and furthermore, if Imanol found about it, Alaia and their children would be in terrible danger. But the fact that there were three children, bearers of the dragon blood, was more concerning.
Zorion was sure he’d read something about it, a myth or a prophecy. He didn’t consider himself a superstitious man, but even if he didn’t believe in it, others would. There was power in that belief, and risk too. That was why he needed to speak to the priestess; she knew what was as stake better than most and would be able to advise him. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He had a feeling she wouldn’t look too highly on his behavior at Heartfire, no matter how well-intentioned his reasons.
***********************
Alaia came awake slowly, for once feeling almost well-rested. She stretched and yawned, and heard, from some distance away, a plaintive little wail. A jolt of fear made her jump from the bed. Her children were not in their cradles. She threw a shawl around her shoulders, heart racing, and rushed into the kitchen, only to find her mother and Alaia’s Esti, sitting in the kitchen with the babies in their laps.
Esti’s own daughter, Haizea, was on the floor playing with some roughly carved wooden blocks. Alaia leaned against the table with a sigh of relief. “Mother, you gave me such a fright. You should have woken me.”
“You needed the rest,” her mother replied with an easy smile. Smiles had come much more easily to Euria since the birth of her grandchildren. It wasn’t until now that Alaia realized how much her parents had still been grieving for her brother, Danel, though it had been five years.
“They haven't been any trouble, though I suspect they’re getting hungry. But after you feed them, you ought to go down to the bath house. Even a mother needs time to herself, and you've been looking worn to a thread.”
She was tired, Alaia realized, as she sat in the steam-filled air later that morning. The pregnancy had been difficult, especially the larger she got. It had been hard to do anything, to walk, to sculpt, even to sleep, and she had longed for the day when her body would be her own again.
When the triplets were finally born, she had felt such an enormous rush of love and relief at having them safe in her arms, their tiny fluttering hearts and their little hands curling around her fingers, but the hardest part was yet to come.
Thanks to the well-meaning warnings of every woman in the village, she’d been prepared for the exhaustion that comes with being a new parent, but no one had been able to warn her how difficult it would be have three newborns at once. They never seemed to sleep at the same time, and someone was always hungry or in need of changing.
These quiet moments in the bath were nearly the only times she’d had to herself since they were born. Not that she regretted having them; Izar, Naia, and Zuzen were the lights of her life, but she did wonder, sometimes, if things would have been different, easier, if Zorion had been from the village.
Her parents were doing all they could to help, but it wasn't quite the same as having a husband to share the burden. Many times, she had almost asked Osane to find him, to tell him about his children. The priestess knew who he was, that was the unspoken truth between them, but a combination of fear and stubbornness had made Alaia keep silent.
She wondered where he was, if he was all right. He'd implied he was in some sort of danger. She shook her head, there was no point thinking about it now, was there? He wasn't here, and she would have to make do.
She didn't see the carriage until she was halfway down the road from the bathhouse, lost as she was in her own thoughts. It was nothing like the wagon the farmers used to bring their produce to the market, though it was the closest thing she'd ever seen in person.
She didn't know what it could mean, parked in front of her family’s cottage, but it frightened her, so she walked faster. The largest thought in her mind was worry for the safety of the triplets. They were just babies, defenseless and innocent.
No one stopped her as she strode up the walk, though she thought there were sharp eyes peering at her from inside the carriage, and she pushed open the door to the house with more force than was necessary. Her father, standing just inside the kitchen with one of the children in his arms, jumped as the door smacked against the wall. “Alaia. You're back. We have some visitors.”
“What's going on?” she asked, and her mother beckoned her with the hand that was not cradling a newborn. Her eyes were wide with something that was akin to fear, but not quite.
“Prince Zorion is here. He… he says he's the father of the children,” Euria said, with a kind of helplessness in her tone. Alaia remembered that night, when she'd thought his name was familiar. All of the pieces fell into place, thunderous as a pronouncement of doom in her mind. He was that prince, the son of the king who’d been murdered.
He'd been just a boy, then, but he had survived the coup, somehow. Afterwards the new king had warred with a neighboring land where her brother had gone to die, but nothing else changed in the villages, except that taxes went up every year. That prince, who some spoke of in hopeful whispers but who seemed as far away to Alaia as any character from a storybook.
She shook her head, stunned, even as she stepped further into the room. He rose to his feet, dressed in clothes even more fine than the ones from before, wearing a tunic of green velvet with a silver coronet nestled in his wavy hair.
It was him, the man whose face she would never forget, that she had dreamed about, but now that it was real, her emotions were unruly. Her first impulse was to slap him, but that wasn’t something one did to visiting royalty, no matter how angry one was. And she knew even then that it wasn’t entirely fair.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, the only thing she felt she could put words to. He winced at the tone of her voice as if she had actually struck him.
“I heard… about the children,” he said, and there were equal parts hope and fear in his eyes. “I came to ask for your hand in marriage.”
“Now?!” she said, her teeth on edge. “After nearly a year with no word, after I carried and birthed your children alone, now you want to marry me?”
“I thought it was for the best,” he said, looking down with his hands clasped in front of him. “If I had known…” Alaia was already working on a good retort, but one of the children, Naia, the youngest and most sensitive, started to cry. Alaia turned and took the baby into her arms, shushing and cooing.
“Let me talk to her for a moment,” said a familiar voice. Alaia had been so busy staring at Zorion, she hadn't even noticed Osane sitting in the corner.
“I'm so sorry,” Alaia said, bowing her head. It probably wasn't good form to lose your temper in front of the high priestess.
“Nonsense, young lady. Sometimes foolish young men need yelling at, but now that you’ve vented your feelings, I think we all need a moment to cool down. There are a few matters I should explain to you in the meantime.” She gave a meaningful look to Zorion.
“I'll just… go outside,” he said, and Alaia's father gripped his shoulder.
“Why don't we go out to the shop? I’ve got a bottle of mead I've been saving for a special occasion.” The two men walked out the door, and Osane guided Alaia to sit down on one of the chairs in the main room. Naia was already asleep in her arms, and her mother held the other two, a rare moment when they were all quiet, as if they knew the importance of the conversation.
“So,” Osane said, sitting down across from her in their old wooden rocking chair, “Now you know the truth. I am sorry that I didn’t tell you before.”
“You always knew who he was,” Alaia said, sighing. She had suspected, but the fact that he was a prince made it somehow worse.
“I suspected something important had transpired when I heard he brought home a Heartfire lantern. He keeps it still, you know,” she said with a secretive smile. “When you showed me the ring, I knew it was his, of course. I could have told you. I could also have told him you were pregnant, but I did not.”
“He could have checked on me himself. I don't understand why everything has to be so secretive,” Alaia said, still scowling.
“He could have,” Osane conceded, “but he normally gets all of his information about the villages through me. It is safer for him, and for you all, that the king not notice his interest. Ever since his father died, he has pretended, quite successfully, to have no intention of reclaiming his throne. So, Imanol, not seeing him as a threat, has not had him killed, but has allowed him to live in the capital, with access to resources, information, and allies he would otherwise be denied.”
It made sense, Alaia supposed. Until now, she hadn't paid much attention to the political situation, but even she was aware that the king had a reputation for ruthlessness toward his opponents. The fact that he had murdered his way to the throne was the worst kept secret in the kingdom.
“Zorion did say it would be dangerous to be associated with him,” she admitted. “But what's changed? It seems to me that the king would feel more threatened if he knew about the children.” Even saying it felt like a cold finger running down her spine.
It was not Osane that answered, but her own mother. “But you remember the story, Alaia. It used to be one of your favorites when you were little: the one about the dragon and his three children who drive away evil with their special power.” It was something every village mother and father told their children. Alaia frowned, not understanding her meaning.
“It isn't just a bedtime story,” Osane said. “A prophecy was made, long ago. At a time when the land and people are in terrible danger, three children of the dragon-blood would be born, and they would wield a power great enough to drive away any evil.”
Alaia looked down at the child in her arms, at the two other infants her mother held. “You think my children are the ones,” she said, shivering.
“Zorion is of the dragon blood, though he has not yet awakened that power,” Osane said. Alaia had no idea what that meant, but sensed it wasn't the time to ask. She remembered the ring, now hanging on a fine chain inside her shirt. “Even if your children are not the ones, there are those who will believe they are.
If Imanol was to find out, he would certainly try to capture you, to use the children for his own purposes, or possibly just kill them to remove the threat they pose. Before, there might have been safety in secrecy, though Zorion would have wanted to know his children regardless.
Now, the best hope is for him to take you under his protection, publicly, and claim the children as his own before Imanol even knows they exist. Your children will give the people hope, and that in itself will be protection for them too.”
Alaia looked to her mother. “Is this what you and Father believe as well, that we will be safer with Zorion?”
“Your father and I would do anything for you and the children, of course. But what defense could we truly be, if the king set his sights on you? We have been lucky so far in that he pays little attention to the villages.”
Her eyes were far off, perhaps remembering the son she had lost. Many of the young men in the villages had gone to war and never returned. She shook herself, and continued. “The prince can protect you, and more than that, I believe he does care for you and was only thinking about your safety. Perhaps you should give him another chance.”
The truth was that Alaia wanted to give him another chance, with all of her being. It was only her pride that held her back. She sighed out a breath. “I will go with him, then, to keep the children safe. But I will not marry him just because. He will have to earn it.”