the time his tutor had asked him to bring a parcel to the family that lived past the Ujer River. On the way back, Ifra was reluctant to return home, so he wandered down another path that led up into the hills. He intended only to go to the summit and see what the land beyond looked like, but the path led not to the summit, but to a burial cave filled with ancient bones. Some were arranged as if nestled into sleep, others were in disarray, bones left at strange angles, skulls set off by themselves, yellowed paper and broken fragments of wood and bone tools and bowls strewn around. There were remnants of a fire, and from the scattered objects, he guessed that at some point over the ages, someone had looted the burial cave. The walls were covered in faded paintings of unfamiliar figures with staring black eyes, and he felt as if they were the faces of the dead, demanding to know who had disturbed their bones.
Ifra had turned around and started running for all he was worth. Death was a part of life on the farm, but not like that-not heavy and ancient death.
Now a forest, in a throne room, with the air of a tomb.
And yet somewhere, amidst the whispering darkness, like a faint light in the distance, Ifra thought he sensed a small pocket of warmth.
He followed it to the throne itself, a solid mass of stone on a dais formed from equally solid stones. The heat seemed to grow almost nonexistent when he drew near, but it was close. He crouched. Beneath him. It was beneath the dais. The heat of life.
Erris? It had to be Erris.
Buried alive, under the throne? At least, hopefully alive.
Ifra pushed and pried at the stones with his fingers, but they were too solid to move.
Even though Ifra couldn’t speak, the trees whispered back. They whispered without words, and yet, somehow he felt like he caught a wisp of meaning. He stepped off the dais behind the throne, onto the flagstone, and he felt a slight sense of hollowness when his foot touched down. He wouldn’t have even noticed had he not been looking for it. He got on his hands and knees. Behind the throne, under the stones supporting it, was a hole, just the size for a snake to slither beneath.
Ifra stepped off the flagstone and dug his fingers around the edge. It was two feet wide, solid and heavy, but with effort he was able to move it aside, revealing a narrow passage. He could hear the echo of the space within. He summoned a little flame to the tips of his fingers. Summoned flame didn’t like to sit still; he had to keep twitching his fingers to keep it alive, but in the flickering light he could see a cramped, dim little chamber beneath the throne. The entrance was barely wide enough to fit Ifra’s shoulders. He stripped off his shirt to avoid getting suspicious dirt on it, and squeezed feet first into a space not quite tall enough to stand upright in.
A narrow hall extended on either side of him, off into darkness, sometimes sloping down to avoid the massive roots of trees poking through ceiling and walls. Even from here, he could see niches where skeletons rested in eternal repose, clad in tattered, ancient garments. Was Luka buried down here? Ifra wasn’t about to follow the paths and look for him. He didn’t want to spend another moment in this place. But what caught his attention were the rather substantial-looking feet visible in a hollow just beneath where the seat of the throne would be, almost eye level with Ifra.
Ifra could sense life in those feet, which were clad in embroidered shoes with red heels. Hesitantly, he touched the stocking-clad ankle, and his fingers met cool, soft, living flesh.
He jerked back. His hand was dusty and dirty.
Ifra put out his fire to free his hands. His breath came choppy as he grabbed the ankles and pulled-dragging out calves, sliding his hands up to knees, now supporting Erris’s legs with his right arm and sliding him out, his utterly limp body uncomfortably intimate in the utter darkness as Ifra rested him on the ground and crouched beside him. He flicked the fire in his hands alive again.
Erris was pale as a corpse but still gently breathing, clad in gaily embroidered frock coat and breeches of a cut no one wore anymore, and seemed shockingly young to be trapped in such a hideous way. He was covered with dirt. Ifra brushed it away from his face and then gave his shoulder a little shake. Even though Ifra couldn’t speak, he whistled softly, trying to reach Erris through some sense or another.
Nothing Ifra did provoked even a change of breath or a twitch of the eyelids. When Ifra lifted Erris’s hands and let them go, they flopped like a doll.
Even if Ifra did wake Erris, what could he do with him with a guard standing at the sole exit?
The catacombs reminded Ifra of the ruins of the jinn, where he himself had rested, waiting to be woken by his next master. He took a deep breath. He hated to leave Erris here, but Ifra couldn’t stay with him forever. The guard might grow suspicious.
Ifra crawled back up, replaced the flagstone and his shirt, and left the room on shaking knees.
The guard saw him, and pitched his voice low. “Did you see something in there?”
Ifra glanced back at the door, warily and curiously, hoping the guard would elaborate.
“My friend Gwydain… he saw a ghost once. The ghost of the queen.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She was calling for Prince Erris. During the war, you know, he disappeared, and his body was never found.”
Ifra nodded, but he knew now-that wasn’t true.
TELMIRRA
Ifra could not stop thinking of Erris, trapped in the eerie Hall of Oak and Ash, nearly every moment. He wandered every inch of the palace and its grounds, searching for any underground entrances or secret passages where he might smuggle Erris out, and found nothing. He couldn’t ask any questions. He still hardly saw Violet, except briefly or distantly-passing in the hall, exchanging fleetingly desperate looks, or at the dinner table, next to Belin, picking at her food. He couldn’t even visit her at night; four ladies-in-waiting slept in an outer chamber, with her bedroom beyond, and he didn’t dare try and sneak past them.
For that matter, he saw little of Belin. Every day when Belin met with his council, he asked Ifra to stand guard, but he forbade him from standing near the door, so Ifra’s only sense of what was going on came from snatches of conversation he heard in the halls or at dinner. Ifra remembered how Luka had promised him the life of a hero when he returned from that awful mission to destroy Erris and kidnap Violet.
Instead, he was mute and isolated. His only interaction was that with the servants who changed his linens or brought him breakfast, or the passing glances of the court-intrigued, nervous ladies, frowning men. His silence seemed to make him more ominous, more suspicious.
One day, after Belin’s meeting with the council, he approached Ifra, looking cross. “Follow me, please. I need to speak with you.”
Belin led the way to a sitting room, a more sumptuous space than the room with the wood carvings-the walls were painted a luxurious creamy color, with a massive imported rug on the floor. Flowers obviously aided by magic grew from fussy painted china containers. Ifra’s own lamp sat atop the mantel.
“Please sit, jinn.”
This time, when Ifra sat, Belin took the chair across from him.
“A week from now, I am having a ball for Princess Violet. I have invited every lord from every corner of my kingdom. My purpose in this is to give the people what they so desperately want-a Tanharrow on the throne. She isn’t the impressive figure I hoped for, but she
Belin drummed his fingers on the table, frowning. “He feels we should also send a stern message to the people to quell any potential rebellion. We have a man in prison, one of our own, who led an uprising against the tax collectors and killed two men some months ago. We think he’s one of the leaders of a rebel group called the Green Hoods. Tamin wants to hold a public execution.”
Ifra couldn’t help the shudder that ran through him, and then the way every muscle in his body seemed to calcify.
