Dream of Embers Book 1 Read online

And the next day it started. Swarztial kept himself innocent by having lackeys hound Shala. There was no short supply of those that followed the Chancellor's ways and they came to her in petty guises, petitioning to her for matters that went unattended during her father's illness. Shala listened to them, often in the throne room, but all she could see was Swarztial's efforts to overwhelm her.

  At least out of chambers and council meetings captain Merohan made it his mission to follow in her wake and ward off the most aggravating petitioners, who could not even wait their turn to be judged fairly under the oculus. Beggars all of them, Swarztial has incited the most wretched to believe that I'm much more giving than my father, or much more naive than him for that matter. Even the Captain, though, could not bar royalty. A steady stream of other Houses, large and small, were already flocking to Attoras for visitation and Shala had a weary time keeping pleasantries with them. They seemed to beg most of all.

  Shala found it easier to skip the lunch she didn't eat anyway and serve out the rest of her day in the infirmary, escaping her dreary company. No one could fault her for attending her duties as a healer, and no one followed her there, except of course Kaell the cook, who worriedly stalked her after realizing she had not eaten the meal he had set out for her. ‘You can't keep coming here Kaell, you will become deathly sick!’ she warned him. By the time Shala turned in for the night she was spent.

  It was early autumn at the time, and before the start of each day deBella fastened Shadow to the Princess's collar. It was a cloak woven for her, the dark material so smooth one could pinch the fabric and then drag the entire thing through the width of a ring. The fur that lined around the neck and hood were of a silver fox, the silver strands edged with black, upright and spiky. Since she had first donned the cloak two years ago deBella had come to name the garment Shadow, for it flowed out and followed the Princess in the winter.

  ‘Put on your Shadow,’ she’d say on the coldest of days. When Shala sat down to read or study she would throw and wrap the cloth around her shoulders, and keep out a cold that would creep on her whilst lost in the pages of a book.

  With her at all times Shala also carried the ceremonial urn of House Evrelyn, of fire-hardened clay, polished, and depicted on it the praying hands wrapped in chains and the candle that the hands held in the blackest ink. It was an insignia admitting that there was no carrying the light without being bound in duty.

  Despite its appearance it never was, and never would be, a thing of death.

  Inside the urn itself was kept the Seluin waters, taken from the pool as it came down the mountain, a practical counterpart to the amphora kept in the enclave. The lid on the urn was tiny, sliding open just to her touch and her touch alone, and the width just wide enough for her to slide inside a petite hand.

  Hence came the healing hands of the king, the blessed waters of the mountain giving power others could not. The urn had small little arms like loops, to which were attached brittle copper chains so that she could slip the thing over her left shoulder and carry it on her right hip, usually hidden behind her cloak, Shadow. The chains were linked by tough yet supple buckskin, where it would rest over her shoulder.

  deBella insisted on carrying the urn for her at times, which Shala did not mind. It became a heavy thing by noon, and she refused to leave it behind anywhere. She wanted the strength of the mountain close to her. But that alone only tempted her toward the ritual.

  ‘deBella, I feel the need to wade into the waters,’ said Shala to the handmaiden, breaking a long silence between the two of them.

  ‘Are you certain dear? The cold can kill you, and your mind is fragile now.’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Shala softly, ‘I feel shadows stalking me, let us at least see if they can follow me into frigid water.’

  ‘These are things of the mind, child, Swarztial has that effect on all of us.’

  ‘Then it is my mind that must be tested. Father said the Wolves are only loyal to those who are tested by the mountain.’

  ‘Now your reasons turn to folly child! There are none who call themselves Wolves anymore, not even as a boast. What do you hope to gain? That ghosts might rise and miraculously unburden you from crisis?’

  ‘Assurance handmaiden! That is what I need. Let the cold claim me then if I am unfit, let the mountain decide me dead if my rule will be weak, but if I walk through those waters and come out alive I will sit in that throne stubborn as stone and Swarztial will find it hopeless to try and wrest me from it!’

  ‘Very well then Princess, I will come for you tomorrow. It has been long since you've last embraced the cold, prepare yourself well.’ She did not see deBella again till the ritual.

  A harsh wind came down the mountain that night, hurtling through the passes. It reminded Shala of who once walked the mountain. Every so often she would hear a wolf of the wild howl, and she wondered whether it meant the old order would still have some strength even today. The wind worried her, as in these parts it could strip what little warmth the day could muster. She did not sleep soundly until the wind abated at midnight.

  The next morning she fastened the cloak by herself and there were thoughts of having breakfast by the dining room hearth when deBella interrupted such ideas. She did warn me, thought Shala sullenly.

  At the pool she laid aside the cloak and her garments, releasing the brooch and slipping out of her dress. Now she would don the cold willingly. Already the chill of the day kissed her exposure, her skin pulling taut, her hands feeling stony to each other where she twined her fingers.

  In the enclave she had no shame. It was secluded and safe, only her handmaiden could watch. deBella waited at the other side of the pool, patient as the Princess stepped slowly forward, dipping her toe into the icy touch of the water. Never losing her grace she almost glided into the pool, her mind and heart overwhelmed with single-minded purpose, the cold her cloak of clarity and strength.

  Whispers of the mountain came to her, the ones that came to persons straying into dreams of the keep high in Dunnoom, and when her mind was rid of all else, they said with the grim voice of the Wolves: “We are but ghosts.”