Lynn Flewelling - The Bone Doll's Twin

“I’ll be ten come the twentieth of Erasin.”

“And they don’t let you have any fun on your own? Why not?”

“I don’t know, I—”

“You know what?”

Tobin shook his head.

“Before I left home, after Iya bought me off my father, my sister told me she’d heard of you.”

Tobin’s heart turned to stone in his chest.

“She said that some folk at court say you’re demon cursed, or simple in the head, and that that’s why you live clear out here instead of in Ero or Atyion. You know what I think?”

This was it, then. Last night hadn’t meant a thing after all. It was going to be just the way he’d feared. Tobin kept his chin up and made himself look Ki in the eye. “No. What do you think?”

“I think the folks who say that have shit between their ears. And I think the folks raising you are the ones simple in the head if they won’t let you outside on your own—not meaning any disrespect to Duke Rhius, mind you.” Ki gave him a teasing grin that swept away every shadow and fear. “And I think it’s well worth a beating to get out on a day as fair as this is making up to be.”

“Do you, now?” asked Arkoniel, leaning against the door frame. Ki sat up, blushing guiltily, but the wizard laughed. “So do I, and I don’t think it has to come to beatings. I’ve been talking with Nari and Tharin. They agree that it’s time Prince Tobin began following proper boy’s pursuits. With you here to accompany him, I don’t think any reasonable request will be refused so long as you don’t stray too far.”

Tobin stared at the man. He knew he ought to be grateful for this sudden change in the household rules, but he resented it coming from the wizard. Who was Arkoniel to make such decisions, as if he was the master of the house?

“Before you go off on any adventures, though, my prince, Iya would like to speak with you,” Arkoniel told him. “She’s at the barracks. Ki, why don’t you go see what Cook has to eat? I’ll meet you in the hall, Tobin.”

Tobin glared angrily at the door as it closed behind the wizard, then began yanking on his clothes. “Who do they think they are, these wizards, coming here and ordering me about?”

“I don’t think he was doing that,” said Ki. “And don’t worry about Iya. She’s not so frightening as she seems.”

Tobin shoved on his shoes. “I’m not scared of her.”

Iya was enjoying her breakfast in a sunny corner of the barracks yard when Arkoniel arrived with Tobin.

Daylight bore out the brief impression she’d formed the night before. The child was thin and rather pale from too much time spent indoors, but otherwise unmistakably male in appearance. No spell known to the Orëska could have done more than create a glamour around the girl, too easily detected or broken. Lhel’s cruel stitching had held perfectly. The magics sewn in with that bit of flesh had held sinew and flesh in solid form, real as the female frame that lay hidden beneath it.

Sadly, Tobin hadn’t inherited his parents’ handsome looks except for his mother’s eyes and well-shaped mouth, and even these were spoiled at the moment by a sulky, guarded expression. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased to see her, but he made her a proper bow all the same. Too proper, really. As Arkoniel had observed, there was little that was childlike about this child.

“Good morning, Prince Tobin. And how are you liking your new companion?”

Tobin brightened a little at that. “I like him very much, Mistress Iya. Thank you for bringing him.”

“I must leave today, but I wanted to speak with you before I go to visit your father.”

“You’re going to see Father?” Yearning so plain it made her heart ache showed on the child’s face.

“Yes, my prince. May I take him a greeting from you?”

“Would you please ask him when he’s going to come home?”

“I plan to speak to him about that. Now come and sit beside me so I may know you better.”

For a moment she thought he would refuse, but manners won out. He settled on the stool she’d placed beside her chair, then looked curiously at her bandaged hand. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Your demon was very angry with me last night. It burned my hand.”

“Just as it made my horse throw me when I first arrived,” added Arkoniel.

“It shouldn’t have done that.” Tobin’s cheeks colored hotly as if he’d done these things himself.

“Arkoniel, I’d like to speak privately with the prince. Would you excuse us?”

“Of course.”

“It wasn’t your fault, my dear,” Iya began after Arkoniel had gone, wondering how to draw out this strange child. When Tobin said nothing, she took his thin, callused hand between her own and looked deeply into his eyes. “You’ve had too many sorrows and frights already in your young life. I won’t tell you that there are no more to come, but I hope things will be easier for you for a time.”

Still holding his hand, she asked him about simple things at first: his horse, his carvings, and his studies with Arkoniel and Tharin. She did not read his thoughts, simply let the impressions come to her through their clasped hands. Tobin answered each question she put to him, but volunteered nothing more.

“You’ve been very frightened, haven’t you?” she ventured at last. “Of your mother and the demon?”

Tobin shuffled his feet, drawing twin arcs in the dust with the toes of his shoes.

“Do you miss your mother?”

Tobin didn’t look up, but a jolt passed between them and she caught an image of Ariani as Tobin must have seen her that last terrible day, clear as if Iya was standing in the tower room with them. So it had been terror that had driven the princess up to that tower, rather than hatred of the child. But with this image came something else: a fleeting twinge of something else associated with the tower, something the child had pushed further from his mind than she’d imagined possible in one so young. She saw him glance up at it.

“Why are you so frightened of it now?” she asked.

Tobin pulled back and clasped his hands in his lap, not looking at her. “I—I’m not.”

“You mustn’t lie to me, Tobin. You are mortally afraid of it.”

Tobin sat mute as a turtle, but a torrent of emotion was building up behind those stubborn blue eyes. “Mama’s ghost is there,” he said at last, and again he looked strangely ashamed. “She’s still angry.”

“I’m sorry she was so unhappy. Is there something more you’d like to tell me about her? You can, you know. I must seem like a stranger to you, but I have served your family for many years. I’ve known your father all of his life, and his mother and grandfather before him. I was a good friend to them. I want to be your friend, as well, and serve you as best I can. So does Arkoniel. Did he tell you that?”

“Nari did,” Tobin mumbled.

“It was his idea to come here and be your teacher, and to bring Ki here, too. He was worried that you were lonely without any friends of your own age. He also told me that you don’t seem to like him.”

This earned her only a sidelong glance and more silence.

“Did the demon tell you not to like him?”

“It’s not a demon. It’s a ghost,” Tobin said softly. “And it doesn’t like you, either. That’s why it hurt you last night.”

“I see.” She decided to gamble, knowing she had little to lose in the way of trust. “Did Lhel say that the ghost doesn’t like me?”

Tobin shook his head, then caught himself and looked up at her with startled eyes. Here was one secret revealed.

“Don’t be scared, Tobin. I know she’s here. So does Arkoniel. Did she speak to you about us?” “No.”

“How did you meet her?”

Tobin squirmed on the stool. “In the woods, after Mama died.”