Elizabeth Moon - Oath of Fealty

She unwrapped the goblet; when she touched it, she felt the now-familiar tingle. “This looked like a small urn when I first saw it; it was full of blood that then vanished in a mist.”

“Holy Gird’s protection be on us,” High Marshal Seklis muttered.

“The inscription on the rim of the cup changed from a script I could not read to one I could,” Dorrin said. She handed it to the prince, who took it gingerly and peered at the script.

“ I can’t read this,” he said.

Dorrin quoted it for him. “Do you feel anything as you hold it?”

“Other than astonishment, no,” he said, handing it back. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Dorrin said. She unwrapped the box.

High Marshal Seklis peered at the designs. “That pattern—it reminds me of a drawing the Marshal-General sent, of something found in Kolobia.”

“Paksenarrion said the same,” Dorrin said. She ran her finger along the pattern on the box, and once more it unfolded to reveal the treasure within. “Paks and I think this is royal regalia from somewhere, but where, neither of us knows. Paks thinks the necklace found in a robbers’ den near Brewersbridge was in the same set—see this empty space?”

The prince looked eager and interested; Duke Mahieran reached toward the box, perhaps to touch the lining, and the box snapped closed so fast it bumped his finger.

“What was that! Did you think I was going to steal it?”

Dorrin shook her head. “It never did that before—though this is only the second time I’ve had it open. The other time, Paks was there. I don’t know, my lord—”

“You claim it did that by itself?”

“As it opened. Try tracing the pattern on the top, with your heart-hand finger, and then touching that blue stone in the center.” Dorrin stood back, giving him room.

Scowling, he traced the pattern as she directed; the box opened very slowly, but when he tried to touch the lining it snapped shut once more. “It doesn’t like me,” he said.

“Have you taken anything out of it?” High Marshal Seklis asked.

“No. I’ve touched the inside, though, and it never closed on me like that.” Once more Dorrin opened the box and stroked the blue velvet lining. The box did not move, until she touched the two ends, when it folded again.

“And the third thing?” Seklis asked.

“Ah. That’s two mysteries in one,” Dorrin said. She unfolded the cloth and spread it flat. “Paksenarrion says this design resembles one found on a cloth in Luap’s Stronghold, laid on a stone bench in a room otherwise empty.” She paused. They were all staring. “And then there’s the crown.”

As she spoke, the crown rose in the air and moved toward her. You are mine; I am yours . The voice in her head was so clear she thought the others must have heard it.

“How are you doing that?” All three were gripping their Girdish medallions as if for protection.

“I’m not,” Dorrin said. “ It is. It is very old, and obviously magical—” Put me on . “—and you should also know that it speaks to me.”

“Speaks to you?”

Dorrin took the crown in her hands; light flashed from the jewels. She set it gently back in the center of the cloth and covered it. “Yes. I do not know when it came into our family, but I know it has lived surrounded by blood magery for a very long time and perhaps it—whatever it is—is confused at being at last free.”

“In the archives,” Duke Mahieran said, “the oldest records we have speak of the rituals attending the coronation of the old kings, the kings before we came over the mountains. What just happened—” He nodded at the three objects. “What just happened,” he repeated, “would fit those old rituals, or the stories told about them.”

“I brought these things to give you,” Dorrin said, turning to the prince. “You are the rightful heir of this kingdom; you will be our king; you should have them.”

“Not if they’re going to nip his fingers off,” Duke Mahieran said.

Seklis came closer. “Let me see that cloth again … if you can keep the crown from leaping to someone’s head.”

“ Her head,” Duke Mahieran said. “That seems to be its chosen head. And the stones, you notice, are sapphire and diamond … Verrakai colors. Not ours.”

Dorrin unfolded the cloth again, and lifted the crown in her hands. It sang along her arms, commanding, pleading, for her to put it on. She did not, but waited while Seklis peered at the cloth.

“Sunlord,” Seklis said at last. “I think that’s the Sunlord’s symbol. Very old, that would make it. And it’s all embroidery, the entire surface. The cloth under it is white.”

“What does it mean?” Mahieran asked.

“Many questions to which we have no answers,” Seklis said. “But the only one that concerns me now is your purpose, Duke Verrakai, in bringing this here, now. That crown wants your head, unless I’m mistaken.”

“It has said so, but I am not royal-born, and the prince is. I thought here, perhaps, it would speak to him.”

“No,” Seklis said. “I think not. The old Tsaian crown was said to be of rubies, broken up during the sack of the palace in Gird’s day. This is not Tsaia’s crown.” He turned to Mahieran. “Would you know what realm in the south once had a ruling family with these colors?”

“No,” Duke Mahieran said, rubbing his nose. “And I advise against risking the prince’s life by trying that crown on him, if it does not choose.”

“You brought it as a gift?” Seklis asked.

“Yes,” Dorrin said. “As well, if I were found to be hiding a crown in a closet, you might think I meant to use it at some time, perhaps to claim the throne the prince is about to take in full power … especially since you already know the Verrakai retained some magery, and that I, too, have it.” She looked from face to face. “Indeed, from what was said earlier, it seems you have heard rumors of a crown, have you not?”

“Indeed we have,” the prince said. “I—the Council—discounted what Verrakaien said at their trial, and those trials were held in secret, but later rumors began in the city that the Verrakaien not only believed they were descended from kings, but had the proof of it, and a crown hidden that their magery could wake to great power.” He tipped his head toward the table. “Like that one.”

“We could not trace the rumor to its source,” Duke Mahieran said. “The market wardens heard it first, and assumed it came from some southern caravaner. Then a Girdsman told her Marshal, and the Marshal brought it to another, whose grange was just then buzzing with it. Marshals told High Marshals; in days it was all over the city. The Verrakaien would return, return with proof at last that they should rule Tsaia and have power to enforce their will.”

“A Verrakai started that rumor,” Dorrin said. “Have you found any that had changed bodies, as I wrote you?”

“Does the person whose body is taken know it?” the prince asked. “On the night of the attack, Haron Verrakai appeared like Duke Marrakai—fooled many of us—for a time, but Duke Marrakai does not remember being taken.”

Dorrin shook her head. “No, that is a different thing, a glamour cast to confuse the eyes.”

“Can you do it?” the prince asked.

“I’ve never tried,” Dorrin said. “I do not know how.” She felt around inside her magery, but nothing happened that she could feel. Yet those facing her fell back a step. “What?”

“You—you look like Kieri Phelan,” the prince said. “As like as his twin.”

“I don’t know what I did and I don’t know how to undo it,” Dorrin said. When she looked at her hand, it looked like hers, but with a faint outline of another overlaid on it. She concentrated and suddenly that outline disappeared. “Am I … back?”