Cinda Chima - The Crimson Crown

Han cleared his throat, keeping his body loose and relaxed. “Have anybody in mind?”

“Me, if I were a man,” Abelard said sarcastically. “Marriage is just a political exercise, after all. The key is to get married, conceive an heir, and then do as you please.” She considered Han’s question for a moment. “I’d prefer she marry someone harmless,” she said. “The sooner the better. I thought the Tomlin prince was a possibility, but that’s not looking good. Doesn’t General Klemath have a couple of idiot sons?”

There always came a point when Han couldn’t stand to be with Dean Abelard a moment longer. And this was it. He looked up, shading his eyes and judging the angle of the sun. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I’ll be missed. Is there anything …?”

“Did you ever find that girl you were looking for?” Abelard asked abruptly. “The one who disappeared from Oden’s Ford? You thought the Bayars might have had a hand in it.”

Just when you think Abelard isn’t paying attention, it turns out she is, Han thought.

Just remember, once you say something, it can’t be unsaid.

“No,” he said. “I think she’s gone for good.”

Han Alister stood in Mystwerk Tower in the dreamworld of Aediion, dressed in blueblood togs. “Come talk to me, Crow,” he called, tapping his foot. “I’m here on my own this time, and I need your help.”

Desperation had brought Han back here. He’d scarcely slept for two days—ever since his meeting with Abelard. If nothing changed, he stood to lose everything.

He waited. The great bells loomed overhead, voiceless.

“If it makes a difference, you’ve convinced me you’re Alger Waterlow.”

No response.

“I’ve been named to the Wizard Council,” Han said. “We’re meeting next week. Without your help, I’m unlikely to survive my first meeting.”

That must have struck a nerve. The air began to ripple. Crow appeared before Han, wearing his usual scowl, his conjured blueblood clothes tattered by magical turmoil.

“Thank you for coming,” Han said, and he meant it.

“Why should I trust you?” Crow folded his arms. “After you show up with a Bayar tricked out as a copperhead.”

“Hayden Fire Dancer is my best friend. And he’s as much an enemy of the Bayars as you are.”

“Hah! When the money’s on the table, he’ll turn on you. He carries tainted blood. Just like the Gray Wolf line.”

Han took a deep breath. It was time to show his hand, for better or worse. “Well, I carry your blood, like it or not, and I’ve been paying for it all my life.”

“You?” Crow looked Han up and down. “Related to me ? Impossible.”

“Is it?” Han held Crow’s gaze, lifting his chin in defiance.

“I never had children,” Crow said. “My bloodline died with me, to everyone’s immense relief. Oh, I could have fathered a byblow child here or there, but there’s no way you would—”

“You conceived two children with Hanalea,” Han said. “Twins.”

“You’re mistaken. We weren’t married that long before she betrayed me to the Bayars. I suppose she married Kinley Bayar after.” His face twisted in revulsion. “So the Gray Wolf/Bayar line can wither and die as far as I’m concerned.”

“Lucius Fr—Lucas Fraser says different. He said Hanalea was already with child when you were taken. She had twins, Alister and Alyssa. Kinley Bayar was killed in the Breaking, and Hanalea married Lucas. The paternity of the twins was a deep, dark secret. Everyone assumed Lucas was the father, but Lucas and Hanalea never had children of their own.”

“Lucas?” Crow tilted his head, disgust fading to confusion and then anger. “Hanalea married Lucas? Impossible. They would never—”

“The clan elders say the same, and they’d have no reason to lie about it.”

“Wouldn’t they?” Crow sneered. “Lying is like breathing to them. And to you too, it seems.” His image shifted, expanding upward until he towered over Han, a pillar of flame and blistering heat. “Get out!” he roared, like the Redeemer on the Day of Judgment. “I’d rather be alone for another thousand years than listen to this!”

Han staggered backward, throwing up his arms to protect his face. His brain might tell him Crow couldn’t hurt him in Aediion, but his instincts said different.

He cast about for something, anything, that would prove his point. A memory came back to him, an image from childhood of a statue in Southbridge Temple, one of the few that had survived from the time of the Breaking. Quickly, he sculpted it in the air. It was Hanalea in trader garb, wielding a sword, a little boy on one hip, a small girl clinging to her skirts. The sculpture was weathered in places, the marble chipped and stained, but it still glowed with an incandescent beauty.

Momentarily, Crow flared up even brighter, so that Han had to shield his eyes, then dwindled to the size of a man. He stared at Han’s conjure-piece, extended a hand as if to touch it. “Hana?” he whispered. “And—and—”

Even after a thousand years, the resemblance between the girl child and Crow was remarkable. The boy more closely mirrored his mother.

“They call it Hanalea Saving the Children ,” Han said. “It stands in Southbridge Temple in Fellsmarch. It must’ve been hidden away, else it would have been smashed to bits years ago.”

“Hana. And our children.” Tears streamed down Crow’s face. “The likeness … the likeness is … uncanny.” He stood, arms outstretched like an acolyte before an altar of hope, his eyes focused inward, as if he were reviewing events from a different angle. “Lucas. With Hanalea,” he whispered. “Why would he do that? Why would she do that?”

“I know it’s hard to believe that Lucas is still around, after a thousand years,” Han said.

“That was my doing.” Crow pressed his hands against his forehead as though he could push his memories into a different order. “Lucas feared dying, especially at the end, when we knew we had lost. He said if I helped him cheat death, he’d tell the truth about what had happened. I tried to talk him out of it. It was a charm I’d never attempted before. Apparently, it worked.”

“Apparently,” Han said.

“All right,” Crow said, blotting his eyes. “Assuming this isn’t some kind of cruel joke—what happened to them? The twins, I mean.”

“Alyssa founded the new line of queens. But Alister was gifted. He was sent away.”

“The Bayars didn’t kill him?” Crow touched the little boy’s head, stroked the marble curls.

“The Bayars never knew about him. The Demonai wanted to kill him, but Hanalea intervened.” Han gestured toward the statue. “As you can see.”

Crow’s expression mingled dawning hope and skepticism. “So, the Gray Wolf line—the queens—carry my blood, too?”

Han nodded. “Just a trace, after a thousand years. But the Bayars never married in again.”

Crow paced back and forth, going all shimmery, the way he did when he was agitated. Then he paused, swinging around to face Han. “What about Alister’s line? Where do you come in?”

“They say I’m your only gifted descendant. It’s not something I’d go out of my way to claim if it wasn’t true. It’s bought me a whole lot of trouble. Everything that’s happened to me, good or bad, is the result of mistakes you made a thousand years ago.”

Now Crow studied Han with an almost proprietary air, his brilliant blue eyes narrowed in appraisal. “There is a resemblance, now that you mention it. Lucas was the one who told you about this? He knows who you are?”