Blood-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book I ]

10

The summer faded to autumn, and autumn gave way to winter.

Mhera spent her days focusing on Gella's instructions for once in her young life. Her needlework improved. She learned to dance. She was even permitted to take some riding lessons, but nothing soothed the emptiness insider of her. Something vital had been torn out of her. Although she devoted the time she had spent capering with her cousin to her domestic studies, she was not interested in anything. She tried her best to pray. In leaning on the Goddess, she found at least a measure of comfort, but she could find no true solace.

Worst of all was that she continued to see things that weren't there. It gave her no peace. Any time Mhera sat before her looking-glass, her mind elsewhere, she risked glimpsing unbidden images in its surface. The same was likely to happen if she sat too long in the bath so that the water grew calm and still around her.

Whenever Mhera sensed this happening, whenever she started to see something, she would close her eyes and look away.

She was too afraid to truly look, too afraid to see what these new visions might reveal. The last one had come true.

The leaves on the snowblossom trees in the gardens first turned fiery red, which was the summer's bloody sign of farewell, and then dropped from the branches. It was proof that the world was moving on on around Mhera's aching heart.

Cold, bitter midwinter was when they received the news.

Mhera was walking with Gella down to the courtyard to take the air. She was wearing a warm dress and shawl, for snow lay in sparkling blankets over the roofs of Karelin. Just as they turned toward the flight of stairs leading down from the residential quarters, Mhera saw her grim-faced cousin Koren marching down the hall.

Gella and her ward shrank back from the prince to give him room, and Gella hailed him nervously: "Your Highness?"

"There's been a messenger," Koren said shortly, and Mhera knew what it meant. There was only one thing it could mean.

That was the day Mhera's childhood ended. Seeing the mixed-blood baby buried in the garden like a dead animal had introduced her to death and darkness; losing Esaria had brought the pain of mortality closer to home. But both of those events were abstract in her young mind. Even the death of her aunt meant more to her in terms of the grief of those around her than that within herself; she had loved the woman, but it was not a deep and aching love.

Now, though: now death was truly real to her. Death, and sorrow, and hate.

Gella and Mhera could not hope to be permitted into the council chamber with Koren. They knew Korvan would be waiting within, and soon the messenger would be brought to him to deliver whatever news he might bear. Diverted from their plans to go walking, Gella shepherded Mhera to her room to wait. There, the young lady stood on her balcony, still wrapped in her warmest shawl and staring down into the gardens at the naked rosebushes while they waited.

It was at least an hour before the news made its way to them, borne by Prince Kaori.

Mhera listened quietly as her cousin explained, Gella standing at her side. The doors to her balcony were still open, permitting the frigid breeze from without.

"I want to see him," Mhera said, looking blindly through Kaori. A numbness was creeping into the empty place within her. Her hands shook, but she could not even feel them. Her chamber was freezing, but it felt crowded and stifling with Gella and Kaori there.

"You cannot, child." Madam Gella affected a compassionate smile, but on her unkind face it looked like a grimace even though her eyes gleamed with tears. "It isn't meet that you should, and as Prince Kaori has said, His Grace forbids it."

"I want to," Mhera repeated. Her voice was high-pitched, a child's needful whine. She started to walk toward the door. "I want to see him. You must allow me. Uncle doesn't understand—you cannot keep me from him! Tell me where he is—"

"My lady." Gella gently placed her hand on Mhera's shoulder, arresting her progress. She looked desperately at Kaori, seeking help. "Your Highness, perhaps ...?"

The prince was pale, his mouth slack. He looked somnambulant and drained of life, with deep shadows beneath his glassy eyes. For a moment, looking at his face, Mhera did not feel alone in her sorrow. They had all expected Koreti to turn up one day at the breakfast table, smiling, ready with rebellious tales of his adventures abroad. Perhaps frightened and eager to make amends, perhaps headstrong and unrepentant, but in any case, alive.

"Cousin, trust me," said Prince Kaori. "I love you well, and I wish to spare you the pain of this. You do not want to see him. I wish I had not seen him. Trust me, Mhera, please."

He moved forward until he stood right before Mhera. Crouching down, he took her hands in his, opening his mouth to say more, more words that would mean nothing but pain. Mhera tore her hands away and covered her eyes.

She screamed.