Spectyr

* * *

They reached their destination in the sullen cold of the evening. Raed had long ago given up trying to outlast Zofiya and had dropped back to sleep in the swaying carriage. If life on the run had taught him anything, it was that you were always best to take rest where you could.

So when the carriage rumbled to a stop, he jerked awake and reached automatically for his sword. The sheath was empty at his side, and his hands remained tied firmly with the weirstones.

Zofiya, on the opposite seat, smiled at him almost coyly, then, leaning forward, she yanked on the cord that bound him. For a second Raed contemplated putting up a fight but then decided his energy was best preserved. If the Grand Duchess got her thrills leading him around like a tame animal, then he would let her grow accustomed to that illusion.

“I hope we haven’t kept everyone waiting,” he muttered as he stepped out of the carriage.

Zofiya’s laugh was low and delighted. “They would wait for you, Raed Syndar Rossin, because you are the guest of honor.”

It was not exactly a cheery comment, so Raed decided to ignore it.

They were still out in the sand—hardly surprising, since they had been traveling with the setting sun on their left, which meant only more desert. The heat had long dissipated; instead, a freezing cold wind was blowing off the dunes. Raed shivered and looked about him. A long row of flaming torches led somewhere in the dark, though he could make out a hump of some kind on the horizon—it blocked out the stars. It could be just another sand dune, but some deeper awareness, something from the Rossin, most likely, said it was not.

“I do hope this isn’t another ‘we need royal blood’ ritual.” He sighed in mock boredom. “Because I already went through one of those recently.”

“The Murashev in Vermillion?” Zofiya’s voice was tny in the vast desert. “That was a geist—this is for our Bright One.”

“It’s not royal blood they want, Brother”—a second female voice came out of the dark—“else they could have had some of mine.”

For a long beat of his heart Raed remained frozen, certain that somehow his mother’s spectyr had found her way here. It was her voice, light and sweet but still full of the command of a royal lady. Tears leapt to his eyes in an instant as the last image he had of her flashed before him—her beautiful face twisted in agony, just before the Rossin took her life.

The Young Pretender spun around. A form, tall and shapely, stood by the closest torch. It was hooded, but as he watched, delicate hands pushed aside the cowl. Curls of bright gold hair tumbled down her back but were held away from her face by a string of gleaming pearls, and Raed took a step away in shock. His sister was the living image of their mother.

“Fraine?”

His sister stood by the torch and made not a move toward him. It had been nearly ten years since he had seen her, but her face held not one ounce of joy. Nor was she bound; however, as he looked closer, there was something missing in her eyes—they were as blank as a blyweed user.

Raed shot a glance back at Zofiya, who merely smiled. “Fraine”—Raed ventured cautiously forward, his eyes darting into the darkness—“what have they done to you?”

“That isn’t the right question you know, Brother. You should be asking what I have done to you.” Her voice was strangely flat.

Raed felt his spine run with ice water as a terrible sensation of unreality crept over him. This couldn’t be Fraine! It had to be some cruel illusion of his beloved sister. He couldn’t have traveled all this way to find this.

“Fraine?”

“Do stop using my name!” she hissed, finally moving forward. Dimly, Raed realized that his sister was as tall as he. “Don’t tell me you honestly thought I had been kidnapped?”

Everything was still. Even the wind off the dunes had died down. Raed’s mouth was dry. He did not know what to say.

“But Tang said . . . ” He was grasping at anything—any facts.

“I am not as blinded by old loyalties as I once was.” Tangyre Greene walked into the light to stand next to Fraine.

This was like some sort of grotesque stage play. Raed had always prided himself on his quick wits, and yet, though everything was making a kind of cruel sense, he still couldn’t bear to accept it. He shook his head. “What would make my family do this to me?” It was whispered under his breath, but the two women heard him well enough.

Tangyre glanced at her Princess but saw that for the moment she had the floor. At least Captain Greene had enough loyalty to look guilty. “It’s not about you, my Prince—but about what you have failed to do.”

Raed managed to find some dull anger. He glared at her. “And what is that?”

“Protect your family.” Her jaw clenched. “You have been happy to leave your father and sister to rot on that stinking island.”

“I had no choice.” He turned to Fraine, pushing aside the shade of their mother that hung between them. “You have to know that.”

The corner of her lips twitched. Her repthaen it came, was finally full of some kind of emotion—it was just a pity that it was real anger. “I’m still young, Raed—and that place is filled with the old and broken. You just left me there.”

That was when the Pretender knew and understood why his sister had turned on her own kin. He knew, because he was responsible. He knew, because he had chosen to leave the Dominion and take the chance, since they were close, to reunite with his family. They rarely visited the mainland, but a loyal lord, who lived on a remote peninsular, invited them to celebrate the harvest with him. The risks were very low—at least from their enemies.

Back then the Rossin Curse had been merely a quaint legend—something that they chuckled about over family dinners. It was sheer chance that he had spent his youth from the age of ten aboard a ship, learning to lead and to fight and surrounded by the open water that geists could not traverse.

When the Rossin took him, right during just such a meal, there had been no more laughter. Raed remembered the tearing sensation deep in his flesh, hearing the baying of the Beast and the screams of those around him. He even recalled the feeling of the bullet’s strike as the more quick-witted of his father’s guards tried to stop him. The worst memory, however, was of the jaws of the Rossin closing around his mother, the scent of her fear and the taste of her blood.

Raed clenched his teeth, ravaged again by those sensations, as if they had occurred only yesterday. He had awoken aching, screaming and covered in the lifeblood of the one who bore him. His father had been destroyed, but out of some kind of guilt of his own had sent his only son out onto the world’s oceans. They had all learned that day the true sting of myth.

And now here was Fraine, looking at him with the same rage but untempered by any remorse. Raed could have spoken in his defense, said something about the Curse or the Beast or how he had no choice. Instead he remained silent, his jaw locked around any reply.

“You robbed me of my mother,” Fraine said, as Tangyre squeezed her shoulder. “And then you abandoned me. I wanted a life, but instead I was trapped with Father.”

At five there would be only flashes of memory for his sister, but he suddenly could see through her eyes: an island full of the elderly and damaged. Zofiya was silent, swaying slightly, and barely taking any notice of the little family drama being played out.

“You were safe there,” he finally croaked out. “And we thought it was better you were safe than—”

“What I had there was not worth saving.” Her hand went to her sword hilt, and abruptly Raed realized she was dressed for war. So mesmerized had he been that he had not noticed her Imperial dress. The dress of purple and dark blue of their family, including the Rising Star Crest of the Rossin heir.

“This is insanity, Fraine! Why are you wearing that?” Raed lurched forward, only to have his feet knocked out from under him by Zofiya.

But it was Tang who replied, “As heir to the Rossin name, Fraine will have excellent marriage prospects. Especially once the Empress stands on the throne. She will cancel the price on her head.”

The thing behind Zofiya’s eyes shifted, and Raed felt himself plunge deeper into madness. “Empress?”