The Kingmaker Page 2

  There I halted, panting.

  Not far away stood the tower of stone with the huge boulder rocking as gently as a cradle atop it.

  Overhead a full moon swam like a swan amid scudding clouds. The sea wind blew strong, lifting my gown’s wide sleeves as if I might take flight. Below, the breakers roared, gleaming silver-green in the moonbeams.

  I snatched from my arm the ring of that same sheen, the color of the moonlit sea. I lifted that circle of mystery metal in both hands, presenting it to the goddess in the sky. Surrounding her, it shone like her dark and hollow sister.

  It called to me.

  My horror had passed, seeming of no account. More than ever, I yearned to cherish my treasure and be powerful. Destiny had given this ring to me to make me a queen.

  “Wren?”

  A man’s voice, behind me. Turning, lowering my arms, I knew who it was.

  “Father.”

  He strode forward to stand beside me, a kingly figure shining golden even in the silver moonlight. Quite gently he asked, “What is that you held up to the sky?”

  I gripped the ring with both hands. Instead of answering my father’s question, I said harshly, “Korbye should not be king.”

  “Why so?”

  “He lied. He cares only for himself.”

  “Granted, he is a greedy young boar hog now, but do you not think he will change as he grows older?”

  “Think you so?”

  If he had said yes, he would have spoken untruth, and he did not dare. He did not know any longer what I would do, whether I might call him liar to his face. He knew only that something had vastly changed, and he guessed why.

  He said, “Give me that thing you are holding.”

  “No.” I stepped away from him so that he could not seize the ring.

  Never in my life had I defied him so.

  Always in his kiss on my face I had felt approval for my obedience.

  Which did not necessarily mean that he loved me.

  Or that he would not kill me if I threatened his power.

  He scowled fit to darken the moonlight. With perilous softness he addressed me. “Wren—”

  “Vranwen,” I ordered, clutching the ring, feeling its chill metal awake and puissant in my grasp. “I am Vranwen Alarra.”

  I think he tried to stride toward me but could not move. He gasped as if something strangled him. Three times he drew choking breath before he whispered in a ragged voice, “Vranwen Alarra, guard that ring well if you wish to keep your life.”

  “Seize it!” shouted another voice. Korbye’s. He lunged from where he had been hiding, listening, in the shadow of the stonetower.

  And because I had not known he was there, because I had not turned the force of my will upon him, he could have done as he said. Before I could face him he leapt toward me—

  Then without making a sound as it left its perch, as silently as an owl in flight, the giant boulder stooped from atop the tower of rock.

  Fell.

  Thudded down upon him.

  Flattened him within an eyeblink. Took him. No part of him to be seen ever again.

  For all mortal purposes, Korbye was no more.

  Father stood as if he himself had turned into a tower of stone. And I heard a sound like the harsh cry of a sea hawk. Maybe from him. Maybe also from me.

  I know not how long we stood like wood before Father whispered, “Daughter, did you wish this?”

  “No.”

  “Did you—power of that ring—”

  “It acted of its own will.” And in that moment I knew what it might make of me.

  An avatar of the moon goddess, yes. One of whose forms was that of a black sow who devoured her own newborn babies.

  Trembling, I flung the ring away. Off the cliff. Into the roaring, all-grasping breakers of the sea.

  There I knew it would be safe. The sea needed no more power than it already possessed. Indifferent, it would drop the ring somewhere and forget it.

  I turned, once more only a stubby dun-skinned girl named Wren.

  Standing at the cliff’s edge, I said to my father, “Kill me if you will.”

  He faced me for a long moment before he said softly, “Daughter, I could never do you harm.”

  I breathed out.

  “But there is a fate on you that may kill you yet,” he said, his voice as taut as a war drum’s stretched dry pigskin. “What is it, my daughter? You wish to rule after I am gone?”

  I shook my head. “Should I attempt it, some clan chief will slay me and take the throne.” Just as someone might well have slain me for the sake of the ring.

  “What then? What is this destiny that mantles you?”

  I closed my eyes and let my mind search the night for the invisible sooth. And I found it.

  Indeed, I thought as I opened my eyes, I should have known it before.

  Slowly, gazing upon my father’s sober face, I told him, “I am to be your kingmaker.”

  On the moonlit heather a shadow moved. I looked up. Low over my head an owl flew. Just an ordinary brown owl, most likely. I barely glimpsed it before it disappeared.

  At the same time something invisible winged between my father and me, some understanding beyond words but not beyond awe.

  And fear. Great fear.

  But I loved my father. I whispered, “Somewhere, growing pure like a golden rose in some hidden place, there is a true chosen one who should rule after you. I will quest for him. And I will find him for you.”

  And also for myself, for he would be my prince, my true love, and I would wed him even though I knew that thereby death awaited me. As clearly as if I saw it in a mirror of polished silver, I knew that on the day they placed the golden torc of the High King on his neck, I would die.

  In childbirth.

  Of his daughter who would someday be High Queen.

  Yet this was what I knew I must do. I told my father, “I will find him even if it means the oaken staff and the crown of mistletoe.”

  But Gwal Wredkyte did not after all completely understand, for he protested, “Some sacrifice, you mean, Wren? But already you have sacrificed—”

  I took his arm, clinging to the warmth of his love, yet turning him away from the cliff’s edge, guiding him past the boulder hunkering nearby like a mountainous dark sow wallowing in the night. “Bah. Nonsense,” I told him. “I have sacrificed nothing. That thing I threw away was best worthy to adorn the gruntle of a pig.”