Anne Kelleher - Silver's Edge

Images of Cadwyr, Kian and goblins roiled in her mind as she walked up the steps. She disliked Cadwyr—had always thought him overforward, and aggressive, but he had always seemed devoted to Donnor. After all, in the absence of a son, Cadwyr was Donnor’s heir. She paused in midstep, catching the wooden banister for balance, as a monstrous thought occurred to her. Cadwyr was Donnor’s heir. Cadwyr had been one of the loudest voices insisting on the rebellion—insisting Donnor lead the rebellion—but Donnor was an old man, well over sixty. If the old warrior did not survive to rule, who would be surprised? She went up the steps much more slowly, pondering. Kian had not meant to imply the possibility of treachery, or had he? At the top, she paused and looked both ways down the corridor. The heavy door of Donnor’s Council chamber was closed. On a whim, she pushed the door. It swung open without a sound to reveal a chamber empty but for the long table littered with maps in the fading afternoon gloom.

At the other end of the corridor, the door to the antechamber of Donnor’s bedroom was closed. Could she have been mistaken, she wondered? The two figures—nothing but a trick of the shadows and an imagination overwrought by Kian?

She bit her lip, uncertain, then straightened. Kian was right about one thing. Her claim to the throne of Brynhyvar was as good, if not better than Donnor’s alone. She strode purposefully to the door and knocked. She heard quick, heavy footfalls, and then Donnor himself opened the door. He looked very surprised to see her. “My lady Duchess?”

“I came to see if there was anything you required, my lord,” she said, using the only excuse she could think of.

He narrowed his eyes, and she noticed the deep pits smudged beneath them, the furrowed wrinkles in his grizzled brow. “No. No, my lady, nothing.”

She tried to see over his shoulder, into the room beyond. “Someone told me that my lord of Allovale has arrived?”

He started at the name and his face flushed an ugly red. “Cadwyr? No, of course not.”

He glanced down and she knew, in that moment, that he was lying, that Cadwyr had somehow come into the castle, unannounced and unnoticed, in a manner so unlike him, that coupled with Kian’s insinuations, made her immediately suspicious. What possible reason could there be for Donnor to lie to her about Cadwyr’s arrival? But she only backed away, and dipped a bob of a curtsy. “I see. I must’ve misheard. Forgive me, my lord, for the intrusion. If there’s nothing else you require—”

“Disturb me only if a messenger comes.” He shut the door firmly even as she backed away.

Why would Donnor lie? She wandered in the direction of the staircase. It was possible for someone to enter the hall from the back entrance, the one which led from the kitchen yard. But was it possible for anyone as well known as the Duke of Allovale to enter the castle without being recognized? I ride within the hour. Kian’s voice echoed in her mind. Kian would know if such a thing were possible, and certainly Kian should know what she’d seen just now, before he left. She raised her skirts and scampered down the staircase. At the bottom, she stopped the first guard she saw. “Go to Lord Kian at once,” she said, crisply, feeling oddly, wholly sure of herself. “Tell him I must speak with him before he leaves—I shall await him in my retiring room.”

She watched with satisfaction as the guard bowed and went to do her bidding. Perhaps this war was not just Donnor’s war after all.

“Slide the bolt,” Cadwyr said from the shadows, as Donnor turned away from the door. “What’d she want? I thought you said she never comes here.”

The insolence with which Cadwyr referred to Cecily made Donnor frown. Angry as the sight of Cecily and Kian together made him, it burned in his stomach to lie to her. He was already taken off guard that Cadwyr should suddenly appear, just as afternoon was fading into dusk, unannounced and accompanied by only one companion—a companion who was standing still and silent beside the empty hearth, his black hood pulled low over his face. Donnor folded his arms across his chest and pinned Cadwyr with his most piercing stare. “So what’s this about, Cadwyr? Why have you come sneaking into my house like a thief in the night?”

Cadwyr grinned, showing even white teeth in a face many thought handsome, and glanced at the other. His nostrils flared, and Donnor narrowed his eyes. The younger man’s face was flushed, the color high in his broad cheekbones. There was a furtive quality about the way he hunched on the stool, in the way he clasped his hands together on the unpolished surface of the table and spoke in a hoarse voice so low it was nearly a whisper. “I’ve brought someone I want you to meet, Uncle.” He glanced once more at his companion, then licked his lips. He turned back to Donnor, eyes dancing in his sweat-streaked face with some suppressed emotion Donnor could not read. He looked at the stranger, standing so motionless and quiet beside Cadwyr, his black cloak falling around his tall, lean frame as fluid as a shadow. “Who are you?” Donnor barked. “Show yourself, man.”

The stranger bowed. “As you wish, my lord of Gar.”

Cadwyr made a sound that might have been a chuckle as Donnor hissed in reaction to that unmistakable cadence. The stranger raised black-gloved hands and pushed the deep cowl off his face, and for the space of a heartbeat, Donnor stood mesmerized. Coal-black curls fell in lush waves to the sidhe’s shoulders, framing a fine-boned face the palest shade of gold, in which green eyes glittered like emeralds in the wavering flame. A scent, sweet as summer meadows and clear water, rose from the folds of his garments. Then the implications of the presence of a sidhe in his own bedchamber broke the spell and he stepped back, staring in disbelief. “Cadwyr—by all that’s holy and all that isn’t—what have you done?”

Cadwyr coughed. “Uncle…Donnor, Duke of Gar, may I present the Lord Finuviel, Prince of the Sidhe.”

Donnor gasped. The creature before him glowed like a candle in the low-ceilinged room, which suddenly seemed far too small for all three of them. “Great Mother,” he breathed. “I can’t believe you’ve done this.” Heedless of the sidhe, he gripped Cadwyr by the upper arm and half-lifted, half-dragged him into the inner chamber, where his bed and a few chests beneath the windows were the only furnishings. He slammed the door shut, then rounded on Cadwyr. “Whatever are you thinking? If this is known, every poor wretch down there who isn’t dying of his wounds will die of terror. What about Far Nearing? Have you forgotten what we’re in the midst of here? What madness is this?” He tried to keep his voice to a low hiss, for from the open courtyard far below, the voices of the guards floated up in disembodied snatches, signaling the changing of the watch. He ran a hand over his balding head, forcing himself to remain calm. “First that disaster of a battle and now this. What in the name of the Great Mother are you thinking?”

Cadwyr glanced at the door, then looked back at Donnor, a wolfish smile on his face, bright hair gleaming like the morning sun. He reached out and gripped Donnor’s forearm, his eyes excited in the uncertain light. “That battle was no disaster, for they suffered losses as heavy as we did, if not heavier. But that’s of no matter now, Uncle, for I bring us hope—no, even better. I bring us victory—victory assured and certain.”

“Victory?” The word felt like gravel in Donnor’s throat. There was a damp flush on Cadwyr’s face and his lips were full, swollen, as if he’d just swallowed wine. He looked drunk or worse, thought Donnor, like a boy in his first rut. Donnor narrowed his eyes and shook free of Cadwyr’s eager grip. “Control yourself, man. That sidhe has you all unsettled.” He drew a deep breath to calm his own beating heart. “Now tell me, if you can, why you’ve brought this creature under my roof when it could be the ruin of everything before it’s scarcely begun?”