Kingfisher(49)

“We actually met him,” Gareth told her, looking amazed. “Prince Roarke and Bayley and I, when we got lost on Cape Mistbegotten, coming home from the north. The sorceress who cooked our lunch was Pierce’s mother. Now he is going off questing with his newfound father and brother.”

“And you?” Perdita asked grimly, fascinated as well but refusing to be distracted. “Are you going off, too?”

He gave her a rueful look that was overshadowed by a vision. She recognized that distancing between them, the feeling that part of him had already left her. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You just got back from the north!”

“I know.”

“That time it was for a falcon—”

“The winter merlin.”

“This time—for what? Exactly?”

“Nobody seems to know, exactly. It’s hard to explain.”

She took a cold swallow of beer and eyed him dourly. “Try.”

He did, earnestly but not very coherently, through another beer, and most of what was left of the night. They parted company in the morning, he to pack, she to Calluna’s sanctum, where she had the first shift of the day keeping watch, among the pools and fountains and flickering candles, over the ancient peace of the goddess. She opened the chamber door to change into her robe and found herself face-to-face with Leith Duresse.

She froze on the threshold; he blushed; the queen said quickly, “Close the door.”

Perdita did so, a bit crossly, guessing that he had been telling the queen much the same thing she had listened to for half the night. “Good morning, Sir Leith. In a few minutes, it will be my duty as Calluna’s guardian to tell you to leave this holy place, where no one dedicated to the god Severen is permitted to cast a shadow or loose a breath in the goddess’s sanctum. I hear you are going off on this quest as well?”

“Only reluctantly, Princess,” he said, and added with wry honesty, “I’m too old to go looking for such mystical powers. I would have to relive my life.”

She nodded, hearing as well what he didn’t say. “The king wants you to go.”

She looked beyond him at the queen, who was adrift beside the window, her hair disheveled, her expression unsettled.

Genevra said, “I asked Leith to come here before he left, to give us details about the Assembly. It seems to have been confusing, well-intentioned, and entirely mystifying.”

“Father didn’t tell you?”

“It probably didn’t cross Arden’s mind that we might want to know.” She looked quickly at Leith, as though, far away, she had heard a footstep turn their way. “You should go.”

“I will see you before we leave.”

“Yes.”

“Take the tower stairs,” Perdita advised. “Aunt Morrig hovers near the inner stairway to check on the acolytes. Just don’t breathe,” she reminded him dryly, as he slipped out across the goddess’s tranquil antechamber. Perdita closed the door behind him, met the queen’s eyes long enough to recognize her own expression in them, mingling love, exasperation, and the aftermath of a very short night.

The queen opened the wardrobe, handed Perdita the long turquoise guardian’s robe, with its collar and cuffs of mossy green. “So Gareth is going as well,” she said.

“Yes,” the princess sighed, drawing the robe over her clothes. She kicked off her shoes; the queen handed her sandals. Perdita sat down to put them on, and added tightly, “From his description of whatever it is he’s searching for, he’s very likely to find it, perfect, gentle knight stuffed full of rectitude as he is. There will be no room left for me.”

“Don’t worry,” the queen said, a rare, cold glint in her eyes. “Nothing involving Severen ever had much to do with perfection.”

Perdita finished tying her sandals, sat for a moment gazing at them. Memory pursued memory; she retraced them, shod in Calluna’s sandals, and remembered what had gotten misplaced in the past chaotic days.

She looked up, found the queen watching her. “What is it?” Genevra asked. “What do you see?”

She had long ago stopped being surprised at her mother’s unexpected leaps of perception. “I had a vision,” she answered thinly. “In Calluna’s cave when I searched it. Under the last images in the stones at the very end of the passage: the goddess’s face on one side, and her hands, across the river, letting water spill out of them. I saw Daimon’s face, reflected in the river, looking up at her.”

The queen drew breath sharply, loosed an imprecation in the general direction of the river god. “My fault,” she said harshly. “I told Arden it was long past time to explain to Daimon who his mother was. Apparently—”

“Do you—”

“I don’t. I never wanted to know. She died; I never had to live my life wondering who, among those I might meet every day, was Arden’s lover and Daimon’s mother. Now I want to know.”

“That’s not all,” Perdita said slowly. “Daimon seems to be in love. And very short-tempered about it, as well as secretive.”

“Is she married?”

“He said no. He also said—” She hesitated, frowning. “Something that made me realize he knows more about his mother’s family—and cares more—than seems likely. We used to tell each other everything. Now he barely talks to me. As if there are things he doesn’t want me to know. Or anyone. He leaves the palace through back ways. He seems troubled.”