Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) Read online

  She knew she ought to go over and ask for work to do; she was sure they’d assign it if she asked. The girls treated Cathay like the soldiers. Lisette helped organize the mules’ packs, and Kiar was, all right, she was reading again but at least she was busy. But Tiana couldn’t seem to summon the energy. She found it easier to just to poke the fire and wonder where she’d gone wrong in acquiring the green light.

  Maybe they ought to leave and come back later. But the red light slept within the green, whatever that meant, and the golden light was diffuse and far away. No, Tiana could tell this was where the Firstborn wanted her to be.

  Lisette came and sat down beside her, offering her a candied fruit bar. “I found this in the pack and saved it for you.”

  Tiana watched one of the stable girls go by. “Give it to her. She’s working. I’m just wasting time.”

  Lisette gave her a curious look, then stood again and delivered the treat. The stable girl—the quiet one—glanced at Tiana, ducked her head and went on about her errand. Tiana wondered if she’d eat it herself, or give it to the horses.

  **She’ll split it with her partner, and they’ll each sneak some to their favorite horse,** Jinriki informed her. **Humans who work with animals have such ordered minds. It’s almost as restful as the earth fiend.**

  Tiana stole a glance at Minex, also sitting beside the fire on the other side of Jinriki. She played with a small stick, turning it over and over in her hands. Sometimes she burped, and giggled softly. Or she muttered to herself in a babyish voice. Occasionally she touched Jinriki’s handle, which nobody other than Tiana did safely.

  Tiana thought, **I don’t know how you can find her restful. She’s barely restrained chaos.**

  **So are you,** he pointed out, and it stung because it was true.

  “I can’t wait here anymore,” she announced when Lisette rejoined her. “We should but I can’t. I’m going to lose my head about something sooner or later and I’d rather it be part of a plan.”

  Lisette said, “Rene, that’s one of the Guardsmen, he has some experience in forests like this. He says he thinks there’s a fair number of people living in the shelter of the wood.”

  “I suppose there are ways to tell these things,” said Tiana, while wondering what ‘forests like this’ meant. Haunted holy forests? Forests with big trees? “Maybe we can lure them out?”

  Cautiously, Lisette asked, “What do you have in mind? I think we should try to stay friendly for now.”

  Minex began humming to herself. It was pleasant, which annoyed rather than pleased Tiana. “I’m trying, Lisette. That’s why we’re sitting here rather than on the road. But we could build a bigger fire? And maybe...” She gnawed on her lip, thinking. When the Regency wanted people to connect, it held the cookie receptions, and other gatherings. “Maybe we could have some sort of party? Or at least find something fun for everybody to do? Even Kiar comes out for the cookie receptions when she’s home.”

  Lisette’s smile washed away the concern on her face. “That’s a lovely idea.” She glanced at Minex. “You’re right. We have plenty of supplies and if we all enjoy ourselves, I think the inhabitants of the forest will be curious. We’ll need music, too.”

  “And stories,” suggested Minex. “I can make music.” She turned her stick sideways and it became a pipe the length of her arm. She gave Tiana a fanged grin, brushed her fingers across Jinriki’s blade, then brought the pipe to her mouth and blew a trill that danced down Tiana’s spine to her feet.

  She looked around and saw Cathay’s dark head in the next clearing over. He turned and met her gaze as the earth fiend blew another trill. Tiana smiled. “We can dance. Everybody loves dancing.”

  Almost as soon Lisette announced Tiana’s plan, the quiet afternoon became a flurry of activity. Slater built up the fire. It wasn’t quite a bonfire but it wasn’t a discreet little cook fire, either. Other men cut back what brush remained in the clearing, expanding the edges back to the tree trunks. Lisette directed Kiar and Tiana and the guard Rene in turning foraged material into more little treats. They had no skill at cookery, but Lisette at least had taste, and it turned out mushrooms with cheese melted onto them were really delicious. And Berrin raided the small casks they carried and his own previously-secret stash to put together a weak punch.

  “It won’t make anybody more than tipsy before they have to—” he caught himself and changed track, “Well, it’s more for the flavor than anything else. To add to the atmosphere.” He offered Tiana a cup.

  She tried some. It tasted like watery fruit juice with some spices added, but it made her smile all the same. “It’s wonderful.”

  Minex sat beside the fire while they prepared, softly playing strange music. It brought an otherworldly air to the whole plan and for the first time since Minex had stolen Jinriki, Tiana felt kindly toward the earth fiend. She wanted Fel Dion to feel like another world, to feel magical and sacred. Instead she’d found... a big, unfriendly forest. Bugs and bumpy ground and strange sounds at night and boredom. But Minex’s music made the act of melting cheese and cleaning a clearing feel like part of a ritual. Soon something would happen.

  Fai and his people would come. She knew they would. Everybody would enjoy themselves and the Light of Atalya would manifest. Or—she was trying to control her usual optimism—Fai would introduce her to this Voice and she’d find out what she had to do next.

  Cathay put his hand on her shoulder and she jumped; she hadn’t realized he was close. The loss of the phantasmagory changed so much; she’d never even realized before how the ripples of the space told her when her relatives were near. Every time Cathay touched her now, at first she thought it was a stranger. It was odd and exciting.

  He smiled at her. “Where’s your chaperone?”

  Tiana spotted Jinriki resting across Minex’s knees, sheathed. She hesitated. She didn’t like Minex stealing Jinriki, but she didn’t like Jinriki harassing Cathay, either. If Minex’s company soothed Jinriki enough that Cathay could ask such a question, that was good, right?

  She wasn’t sure.

  Minex’s song shifted from something sweet and slow to a spritely dancing tune and Tiana realized how dark the clearing had become. The sun might still be setting beyond the canopy but it was deep twilight beneath. Her fingers twitched, and Cathay took her hand.

  **You wish to dance?** inquired Jinriki, in a distant, flat voice. **Very well. I will watch the perimeter.** She felt him withdraw from her, like once again he’d been taken far away.

  Minex’s song skipped and stopped as she trailed her fingers lightly down the blade. Then the earth fiend looked directly at Tiana, smiled and winked encouragingly. “Dance, yes! Everybody will dance, and the Great Prince will make sure no nasty darklings sneak up on you at your revels. You!” she said to Cathay. “Take the Princess and dance with her!”

  She started playing again, and Cathay pulled Tiana to the other side of the fire and into the dance forming there. It was just Lisette and Slater, and Berrin and Kiar at first. Then the two stable girls joined them, and four soldiers formed a bachelor’s square, and it started to feel like a proper party.

  Dancing with Cathay was fun. Tiana hadn’t truly enjoyed herself since Tomas had died, and she hadn’t danced with Cathay since he started methodically working his way through the beds of all the other girls she knew. She’d been a little girl like Gisen the last time he danced with her. It was a different kind of pleasure now. Her breath caught in her throat as he caught her around the waist and they spun together, and her heart hammered in her chest as it had when he’d warmed her in the fiend’s prison.

  She’d been running from him ever since he first regarded her with that light in his eyes. Now she wondered why. Even if it couldn’t last forever—even if whatever drove him wouldn’t let it last forever—opening up enough to enjoy herself was wonderful.

  The third tune came to a drifting end, and Tiana awoke from the haze of the dance when Lisette appeared beside her. She touched Tiana�
�s arm lightly, but it was Cathay she spoke to. “You owe me a dance, my friend.”

  Cathay looked at her and smiled, though something sad touched his eyes. “All right. Just one, though. I’ve waited too long to see Tiana smiling like this.” He kissed Tiana’s fingers, before releasing her to take Lisette’s hand.

  Lisette considered Tiana, then said, “Berrin, come dance with Tiana.” The big Guardsman loomed out of the shadows like he’d been waiting for the call.

  “Would you honor me, Your Highness?”

  “Happily,” Tiana said and took his hand. But she was delayed in stepping back into the dance, because so many more people were dancing now. There were at least a dozen more dancers, young people in rags and sticks and mud. They danced with each other with an abandon that made the guards’ bachelor square seem positively staid.

  Two of them split off from the main group and pulled two of the guards and the stable girls into a square formation Tiana recognized. The forest girl turned and met Tiana’s eye in a clear invitation. She tugged Berrin’s hand, and the two of them joined the square. She thought the forest girl was the one who’d been in the tree with Fai the day before. Maybe after the dance she could steal a moment to find Fai, too. They could take a break from the dancing and she’d convince him to help her.

  The music started again and she had no time to plan. She knew the dance; it was called the petal dance for the way the dancers folded together and out again. But it wasn’t a dance commonly performed at the Regency Court, which encouraged couples-dances. The forest girl knew it perfectly, and her partner was almost as deft. Berrin knew a bit, and so did the loud stable girl. There were just enough skilled dancers to tip the square into ‘enjoyable’ rather than ‘painful’. But Tiana had to concentrate.

  When they made their final turns and bowed to each other, the music once again faded into the crackling of the fire. Tiana realized her square was at the center of a larger circle. Both the guards and forest children laughed and cheered for the petal dancers. Without any real problems, as if the Regency Court planned it, people drank and laughed and enjoyed themselves.

  She turned to exchange a smile with the girl who initiated the petal dance, but she was gone already. Tiana’s half-formed smile faded, then renewed itself when Cathay stepped out of the circle and reached for her hand again. But she said, “Wait a moment. I want to talk to some of my guests.”

  He nodded and kept her hand in his. “I could use a break. Minex plays like a fiend.” He looked disconcerted as his own words caught up with him.

  “Well, she is one,” Tiana couldn’t help pointing out anyhow. “Where’s Lisette?” She spotted her Regent near the edge of the clearing and towed Cathay over to her. “Lisette, have you found Fai yet?”

  Lisette was peering at the edge of the forest. She jumped when Tiana spoke. “What? Oh, I saw him near the fire.” She gestured back toward Minex.

  “What are you looking at?” Tiana asked, looking into the darkness. It might as well have been a stage curtain for all she saw.

  “I thought I saw somebody. Not one of the forest people. A big man, in armor?”

  “Berrin?” Tiana suggested, although Berrin had removed most of his armor for the dancing.

  Lisette shook her head. “Maybe it was just a curl of smoke or something.”

  Tiana tugged her hand away from Cathay and spread her fingers. “Jinriki’s watching for enemies, but I’m curious.” She sent out emanation ribbons and swept them through the near forest. Everything she encountered felt pretty tree-like, but she closed her eyes to better concentrate on what the emanations were telling her.

  She felt so pleasantly floaty, as if Berrin’s punch had actually had some kick to it. The green light surrounded her, still diffuse and uncatchable, but almost tangible. It was a spicy freshness, a wildness: joy and passion and the moment. It was desire without sacrifice, pure abandon. It combined with Minex’s song to flow through her. Her emanations changed, became like the wind, and her awareness traveled with the breeze.

  It danced past the man Lisette had seen: a bearded man in a leather hauberk with some metal plates, with a sword and a small axe at his hip. He leaned against a tree, watching the light of the clearing with a casually interested air. Despite his weapons, he didn’t seem threatening, and Tiana the breeze swirled on.

  As the wind, she danced through the forest children, looking for Fai. She found Kiar lurking near the food tent, and a cluster of guards around the punch. The horses were well-fed but restless, the exuberance of the party influencing even them.

  Navigating the pull of the air currents near the fire challenged her control. But she focused and made her way to Minex and Jinriki. As she passed over them, Jinriki’s voice tickled the back of her mind, a distant whisper not aimed at her.

  **I don’t like it. If she lets him in, she won’t attend to me.**

  **Shh, Great Prince. She will attend better if she has formed a pair. And you will not be so confused by her. You will both focus better.**

  **Yes. You’ve said. It’s not working.**

  **No, no! It is! You see, she enjoys herself and that rejuvenates her. You must protect her, yes?**

  Then the Tiana-wind drifted past the curious conversation. She blew over Fai, who crouched down beside the earth fiend, watching her.

  Tiana closed her distant fingers and collapsed the emanation. With no more transition than turning a page, she looked out of her own eyes again. Lisette held her arm lightly, as she did when Tiana was in the phantasmagory.

  Frowning, Tiana said, “I wonder if that was an eidolon experience...? It was strange. Where’s Kiar? Wait, no, I need to talk to Fai. He’s over there.”

  Cathay took her hand again. “I’ll come with you. And after, we can dance again.” He looked at Tiana with enough warmth that heat rushed to her cheeks and her skin felt tight.

  “All right,” she managed.

  Cathay’s fingers tightened on her hand and his smile flickered. Noise rose from the second clearing: raised voices. Tiana barely paid any attention, turning to pull Cathay over to the main fire.

  Fai was still there. He sat so he could watch both the earth fiend and the dancers, but he didn’t notice her approaching.

  “Hello,” she called to him, and he looked toward her. Then somebody stumbled between the two of them and fell on the ground. One of the forest people. Tiana realized he’d been pushed.

  Looking around wildly, she desperately hoped it wasn’t one of her own people doing the pushing. No. It was another of the guests, looking belligerent. “She’s exactly what—” he began to shout at the fallen youth.

  Tiana didn’t stay to listen. A window of opportunity was closing. She plunged past the argument toward Fai.

  He stood as she approached and asked urgently, “Where’s my sister?”

  “Did you talk to your leader—the Voice?” Tiana demanded right back. “Wait. Who’s your sister?”

  Fai narrowed his eyes, as if she’d said something stupid, then glanced around. “I’ll talk to you later. I have to find my sister first. There’s—That fight—” he shook his head and started walking off.

  Tiana reached for his arm and her sense of the green light instantly faded away. It so shocked her that she gasped and recoiled, and just like that, the green light returned.

  Fai vanished into the crowd beyond. There was less dancing and more roiling now. Somehow people were getting drunk on that weak punch.

  Minex finished her song and said earnestly, “You two, go explore the shadows again? Perhaps just the two of you?”

  “If she wants to, maybe,” said Cathay. “What happened a moment ago, stormy?”

  Tiana shook her head. She didn’t understand it and she didn’t want to think about it. She’d have to chase Fai down again, after he found his damned sister—was that the girl from the petal dance? Probably.

  Another surge of noise swelled from the second campfire, and Minex glanced over there. “Not what I was playing for.” Her finger
s danced over Jinriki. “Out of practice. And the Great Prince is a big torch to juggle, oh yes. You will not go? I will make it nice.”

  Tiana looked at Minex, astonished. Then the noise at the second campfire became a woman screaming.

  **It is only a human argument,** growled Jinriki.

  “That’s not good either!” Tiana pulled away from Cathay again and ran toward the noise. As she did, the entire party changed. The atmosphere of conviviality utterly vanished. Laugher died around her as she dodged through the crowd. People turned toward the screaming.

  It wasn’t anguished or pained screaming. It was angry. One of the stable girls shouted at one of the young men from the forest.

  A wave of rage pulsed through Tiana and she knew enough now to recognize it as coming from Jinriki, not herself. She still itched to have his hilt in her hand, though.

  “What? What is it?”

  One of the guards near her pushed somebody else. The joy of the dance was transforming into something much uglier, so quickly it felt like a nightmare.

  **We performed an experiment. It failed.** Jinriki’s voice was flat and awful.

  Slater waded into the middle of the argument, calm, steady Slater, apparently unmoved by the shifting mood of the gathering. He separated the two fighters, breaking their line of sight.

  Minex started playing again. It was soft, barely audible at first, and it wasn’t a dance tune. At first it was only a few familiar notes. Then Lisette started singing the nonsense cradle song called the Dreamsong and Minex’s song became an accompaniment.

  Lisette had always sung that song to Tiana. When she woke at night as a child with nightmares about her mother, and her dead uncles and aunts. When she couldn’t sleep after an exciting day. She’d always associated it with warmth and safety and rest, and now all those memories hit her like a brick between the eyes.

  Jinriki’s rage ebbed, and the fights breaking out around her died stillborn. A guard rubbed his eyes and looked around, then wandered off. Three of the forest children walked dazedly into the shadows.