Sorceress Read online

  Lily regarded the just-finished cup. “Not at the moment, no.”

  “I’ll have some sent up later.” In the doorway, with a quirk of one dark eyebrow, he added, “I meant I admire you.”

  Lily nearly dropped the teacup on her toes. The Bastard laughed, and shut the door.

  Alone, she stared at that door for a while. Heard the echo of those words, settling into the walls and floor and quiet room. She did not entirely believe them—William was, after all, known for manipulation, plots and schemes, drawing power to himself in the darker corners of his brother’s youthful sunshine—but she did not not believe them, either.

  She had a magician’s instincts, and intuitions. She had seen William’s love and desperation. Someone who cared so much might be willing to use emotions as a tool for motivation, but that did not mean the emotions weren’t real, underneath.

  She did not know what that might mean, if they were.

  * * * *

  Her world narrowed in those hours to the central ceaseless threads of a tapestry: the bitter-bright scent of herbs and magic in the air; William’s panther presence, coming and going; the ever-present awareness of her own child’s breath sleeping or waking.

  And the dying king on the bed. Lily did everything she knew how to do.

  By the end of that first day she also knew that it wasn’t enough.

  She held yet another unsuccessful attempt at a healing tea, uselessly. What little Henry consumed had no apparent effect, and she felt ready to cry. Her head ached and her hands ached, hopeless and exhausted and wrung out. The kingdom leaned on her shoulders, and her shoulders weren’t strong enough.

  William took the almost-full cup from her, hands warm against hers, and set it on the nightstand. He looked down at Henry and then up at Lily’s face; he turned and left the room.

  Lily looked at Henry, who did not stir; she whispered, “I’ll be back,” and went to find his half-brother.

  Who was not hard to find: only out in the hall, surrounded by aging hook-nosed oil portraits with ostentatiously bejeweled frames. He’d leaned back against the closest wall, shields down and broken for an instant: not a scheming potential usurper or the beating heart of viperous Court politics, but a man watching his younger brother slide away.

  Lily came to lean against the wall beside him. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course not,” he said, and slowly pulled his expression into some sort of order, but the habitual facade of control hid nothing. He looked at her curiously. “You’re slipping.”

  “I’m—” Lily put a hand up to her hair, felt coarse brown strands instead of the illusory golden silk she’d come into the palace wearing. “Oh. Thank you.”

  He waved a hand. “No need. How much of that is real, by the way?”

  She owed him some honesty, some vulnerability, in turn. “None.” Besides, he’d already seen her pathetic cottage, her disastrous life; she had nothing left to hide.

  One corner of his mouth tipped up, that expression she was coming to recognize. “You’d fit in well here. We all wear masks.”

  “They say you want the throne.” The words came out before she could stop them.

  “Oh, I do. I always have. And I would be better at it than Henry, he’s far too trusting. He thinks the best of everyone.”

  “And you think the worst.”

  “I’m practical. Henry would give away the entire Treasury if someone looked at him with sad eyes and said it’d make them feel better. He knows it, and I know it, and the entire Court knows it. I’d be a stronger king.” He said this matter-of-factly, without arrogance.

  “Would you,” Lily said, careful.

  “But I don’t want it like this. Not at the cost of his life.” He eyed her, amused. “I wondered how long it would take you to suspect me, by the way. Most of the Court think I’ve poisoned him.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Lily said, instinctive but knowing she was right.

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “I’ve heard such dreadful stories about you.” She crossed arms, matching his pose. The wall held them both up, for the moment. “Don’t disappoint me and say they’re not true.”

  “I won’t say I don’t enjoy some of it,” Will said, “but mostly it’s so that everyone tells me everything. Anyone who wants me on their side, anyone who wants—well, me, and sometimes more than anyone at once—and anyone who’s afraid of me. I never saw you at Court.”

  “I’ve never properly been. Lorre despised the frivolity and corruption of Court in general, even before your father threw him out, but somehow your name always came up as the height of both. Frivolity and corruption.” And it’s a performance, she thought. An act. So that you can protect your brother. Not that you don’t enjoy it. Sometimes with many people, at once, apparently.

  She could not place the emotion she felt at that.

  “Ah, Lorre.” Will waved a hand. “He used to try to convince my father to have me killed, when we were boys.”

  The horrified laugh snuck out through her exhaustion. “He didn’t really.”

  “He did. He said I would grow up treacherous, tainted by the perfidy of Court life and all attendant iniquity, and be a danger to the legitimacy of the kingdom. Mind you, I was about ten years old at the time.”

  “I take it your father didn’t listen.”

  William offered her that half-grin again, with the kind of humor worn by men who’d lived with pain so long it could only be made light of. “He said it might be true but he’d be damned if he’d spill the blood of his own firstborn son.” The lightness dimmed a little, shadowed with memory. “Henry used to come find me after those conversations—he was, oh, five or six—and I’d be sitting on a staircase or in the library or out in the stables, just shaking with anger, wanting to hit something, and he’d throw his arms around me and tell me he’d never let them take me away.” He closed his eyes for a minute. “I said I’d always be there for him.”

  Lily did not say he’ll be all right, because she could not promise that. He would not believe it, and she couldn’t give him those words.

  But she could take his hand, under the disapproving scowls of ancient royalty. His hand was larger than hers, and long-fingered, and warm, the way he’d always felt warm, with every glancing touch.

  Will looked at their hands. His expression changed: astonished, bewildered, not pulling away from the gesture.

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Lily said, not knowing what else to say, what else to do. And from the look William gave her, she thought he appreciated that truth.

  She squeezed his fingers, once, and let go; she straightened her shoulders and went back inside.

  After a minute, he followed, though only to say that he’d bring up her supper tray in person, to ensure that even a powerful sorceress ate ham and blackberry sauce and baked apples. He looked at her curiously before leaving; he curled fingers in, briefly, as if wondering about the touch of a hand.

  * * * *

  The evening wore into night, and the night into morning again. The weather, like the king’s condition, did not change; rain lashed the windows, reducing the world to a smoky grey blur, shapeless and indistinct. Grieving already, Lily thought. The kingdom knew, and wept.

  Henry slept, but it was not a quiet sleep; he moved and whispered and whimpered, at times speaking incoherent words. Not me, he said once, and too hard, plaintive and fretful. Once or twice he said his half-brother’s name.

  Lily stayed beside him, breathing charms and chants in a voice tired from use, trying to get him to drink, trying to soothe his rest. William had vanished again, and for once so had the near-constant knot of hovering courtiers that stood outside the door like jackals, wondering if the king would die.

  Perhaps, she thought tiredly, they had finally given up. Perhaps they sensed something she did not, the way an animal herd might, in the wild.

  Cups of tea kept appearing like clockwork every hour. Peppermint and chamomile, orange-blossom and silverleaf, others
she did not even recognize. At first she was amused, and then she was annoyed—those imported flavors likely cost more than her cottage—and then she was only grateful. The warmth was real. The flavors offered bits of refuge. Shelter, momentarily, from the storm.

  Will’s hand had been warm, and not unwilling, in hers. That’d felt like shelter as well. If she could believe it. If she could believe in shelter, in rescue, in a future that wasn’t centered around a dying king here and a leaking dreary cottage back home and a slate-slab thundering sky.

  In the next room Merry stirred, waking, hungry and complaining. Lily stood, cramped muscles protesting, and went to get her.

  The baby relaxed once she’d been fed; someone, almost certainly William, had arranged for porridge and cream and applesauce to be brought up. Lily’d had no time to go hunting for the kitchens.

  Holding Merry, she drifted to the window: rocking the baby, gazing into the silvery mist and trying hard not to think. For a moment, for only a moment, she let herself know only the feel of her child in her arms, and the downy brush of baby’s hair against her skin, like kitten’s fur.

  Behind them, the young king moaned softly in his sleep. He was dying in truth; Lily knew that much. Had known it since that first day.

  She wondered what would happen to the realm. To the monarchy. William, she guessed, would inherit. Above and beyond the ruthlessness, he was still a son of the old king. That’d satisfy the traditionalists, as far as that might be possible.

  She wondered what would happen to herself, to the woman who’d failed to save the young king’s life. There’d have to be blame.

  The rain purred in mocking concurrence.

  Merry gave a sudden excited chirp, and wriggled in her mother’s hold.

  Lily tightened her grip, but the baby wasn’t falling or trying to get down; she was peering intently forward at something in the window. Lily peered out too, trying to decipher what her daughter might’ve seen among the shifting mist.

  And then she saw it, only for a moment.

  And with an almost audible rush of comprehension, everything became clear.

  The scales were the same iridescent grey as the mists, and it moved through the rain like an eel in water, slippery and silent. Lily had seen one before, in one of Lorre’s books, long ago, one firelit and sleepy evening under his tutelage, memorizing the properties of magical beasts. She could even hear his voice, rich and confident as always. Could hear the words: The eyes of the dragon are its deadliest weapon. It will show you truth, it will show you lies, it will show you yourself, the self you most fear, until you long for death. That’s how dragons kill, Lily-love—they want only willing prey. Remember not to look in their eyes.

  The eyes, she thought. Henry had said it, but she hadn’t remembered.

  A dragon, here. No wonder the king was dying.

  She followed the slip-slide of scales through the window, through the mist, lost them, found them again near the moat. She knew what to look for, but the rain was devious. It tricked her eyes, confusing her with patterns.

  The dragon turned its head then, and two wide blue eyes met hers directly, magnetic and shocking even across the distance.

  Lily gasped, caught her breath, stepped backwards. She stumbled on the hem of her skirt and almost fell; Merry loudly voiced her displeasure at this clumsiness.

  Lily looked back at the window, and saw only mist.

  She put Merry back in the crib first, very carefully, and then ran for the door.

  She nearly ran into William, returning from wherever he’d gone this time. He radiated anger; his mouth was set, and his eyes were fiercer than she remembered, amber sparking and bitter. But he looked at her expression and the anger became fear. “Henry—?”

  “I know what happened.” Interrupting, and a terrible breach of etiquette, but neither of them cared. “He knew, and he tried to tell us. Me. But I didn’t understand.”

  He started to speak; she hurried on, before he could grow too hopeful. “The eyes, he said. The dragon’s eyes.”

  “A dragon’s—I thought they were extinct.” Astonished, yes; but not disbelieving. Hopefully he’d continue to believe, because the rest would not be even that easy to hear.

  “They aren’t, only rare. But this one.…” She tripped over words, over knowledge. The syllables burned like fire. Like a dragon’s heart. “This one is more than an ordinary dragon. Or less. It was human once.”

  No sound but the rain met that statement. William’s eyes were impatient, waiting for more; he knew there was something unsaid.

  She drew a breath. Let it out. “It’s Lorre.”

  “Lorre—are you sure?” Not an argument—he did believe her, then—but a confirmation. Some of the anger from earlier resurfaced, not precisely directed at her but at a world in which this could be true. “How? And why? And how do you know?”

  “I saw it. Through the window. I thought I recognized—it’s not a spell I know. But he would. And I saw its eyes. His eyes.” She did not have more to give him. But she knew.

  “Lorre,” William said, tone indecipherable: not emotionless, but raked through with too many emotions, old and new. He took a breath, let it out. “Well. What can we do?”

  “Not we,” Lily said. Hating the answer, hating the knowledge of what she had to say, what she would have to do. If she could.

  She said, to the richly carpeted floor, “I can find him and I can talk to him. Learn what he wants. What he’s doing. I can do that.”

  William was silent for a minute. The unspoken words filled the air nonetheless: he trained you, he hates my family, he’s more powerful than you are, what if something goes wrong, what about Merry, you’re our best magician but are you certain this is best? But he said none of them.

  He did say, “I’ll be there with you. When you confront him.”

  “Will.” Lily borrowed the short-name, the familiar name, she’d heard his brother use, without thinking: she needed him to hear. “Will, no. I think—you aren’t a magician—I think anyone else would end up like Henry. And Lorre won’t hurt me.”

  She knew the last words might have been a mistake, then. The barricade came up: in the awareness of what she and Lorre had been to each other, in the weight of Will’s sudden silence.

  But it was true. Lorre would probably not hurt her. She hadn’t meant anything more than that.

  “You’re right,” Will said, and she snapped her gaze up to his face; he went on, “It’s the practical option. Letting you try.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’d rather you not go alone. I want to be there. I’ll stay out of your way. At your back. It’s my brother’s life.” The sword-blade in that sentence swung hard and time-honed and inarguable.

  And Lily could not argue, not with that. She said, “Yes.”

  “And yours.”

  “My—”

  “Your life. I can’t—you don’t know what he might do. You said he won’t hurt you. But he turned himself into a dragon.” And who knows how dragons think, muttered that tone. Or magicians. Especially that one. “And even when he was human he was a bastard. And I should know. And I don’t want him to hurt you.”

  “And you think you being there could prevent it? If he wanted to.”

  “No.” Will crossed both arms, suddenly becoming a ghost of the young man he’d once been, before the deliberately constructed rumors and perilous persona: the boy who’d defended his kindhearted impractical younger brother through the years, who wore stubborn loyalty like armor, who would ride through tempests to a sorceress’s cottage and beg for aid for someone he loved. “I’m hardly naïve. I could buy you time. He’s a dragon. And I have a sword. I’m better with that than Henry is, too.”

  “Swords won’t work. And you can’t protect me from Lorre.”

  “I know that,” he said, and the raw emotion in that voice went straight to Lily’s heart and remained there, tangled in the memory of gifts of tea and hand-holding in a bejeweled palace corridor. />
  “As long as you know that,” she said, and then, “You like being good at everything, don’t you?” The question formed a bridge, a lifeline, a bit of normality.

  “I do.” He gave her that ironic eyebrow-tilt again. “And so do you, Grand Sorceress.”

  “I’m not,” Lily said. “And it’s only because someone had to. With Lorre gone—we know where he’s been, now, I suppose—I was the next best option, and I had to answer the door, I had to look like someone who could help them, the people…”

  “Yes,” Will said. “That’s what I meant. You like being good at what you do because it means you can help people. I, on the other hand, don’t like people, and I can’t stand losing. Speaking of, should we be going?”

  “Yes. And,” she added, ducking back into the room, finding shoes, “you’re wrong.”

  He followed. “I am?”

  Lily paused, left boot in hand. “You like people. Your brother. Babies.”

  “Some people,” Will said. “Sometimes.” His eyes were softer, watching her: complicated, astonished, woven with layers of emotion like time in the amber pools: curiosity, surprise, quick piercing anger at Lorre, calculation and competence, an odd resigned sense of trust. “None of Henry’s ministers. I’d almost rather be eaten by a dragon—which is also Lorre, which makes that idea more disturbing—before having that discussion again.”

  Lily tugged on the other boot. “They don’t want you dead…?” He had said earlier that some of the Court suspected he’d planned his brother’s murder. Given their lack of acting on this suspicion, she wondered abruptly whether they supported a shift in power.

  “No.” Will’s laugh came out hollow. “Not at all. Disloyal at heart, at least five out of nine of them, the ones who came to see me. The ones who’re happy to switch allegiances as soon as it’s to their advantage. Henry should have them all banished. They want to make me king.”

  * * * *

  Will’s announcement still shivered in the air as the three of them—king’s brother, sorceress, and child—left the castle. The sun stayed hidden, so they went in search of the dragon alone; Lily snuck glances at Will, and worried.