Echo in Onyx Read online

  His gaze returned to her. “Can it?” he said softly. “Are you sure there’s a name you’re ready to have anyone hear when it’s said aloud?”

  I saw Marguerite flinch before she gave me one quick, wild look. I knew we were thinking much the same thing. What does he know? Did Nico lie when he said he told Prince Cormac nothing? Did he keep silence with Cormac—but share his information with Jamison? Given how contemptuously Nico had spoken of Jamison, I found that difficult to believe. But then, I obviously had no idea what Nico was capable of.

  “Very well,” she said in a glacial voice. “I will walk on a few paces with you. My companions will wait for us here.”

  Here was one of the benches set up to overlook the water. “Excellent,” said Jamison, looping his horse’s reins around the top slat. “We will only need to go a short distance.”

  Marguerite took a moment to sweep the echoes with one compelling glance. “Stay here,” she said, gesturing at the bench. With great reluctance, the three of them perched on the very edge of the seat, all their bodies coiled in readiness to spring up if she changed her mind. Now she looked at me. “Keep them here,” she said. “We’ll be back in a moment.”

  As reluctant as the echoes, I sank to the bench as well. “My lady,” I began, but she shook her head.

  “Let’s go,” she said shortly to the royal bastard and took off at a quick walk. He caught up in two paces and attempted to take her arm, but she snatched it away. I saw him laugh.

  The echoes and I stared after them, our eyes fixed on their diminishing forms. It was bad enough when they moved so far away we could no longer catch fragments of their conversation, but within five minutes, they’d disappeared into one of those inconvenient stands of trees. All of us strained forward, waiting for them to reappear farther down the walking path. Another five minutes passed, and they were still out of sight. Ten minutes.

  The echoes moved restlessly on the bench, and I felt my own tension ratchet up. I imagined that they had stopped to argue and that the conversation had grown heated. Jamison had probably taunted Marguerite with the name of her lover—threatened to expose her—perhaps offered to stay silent if she paid him excessive sums of money. How would Marguerite respond? She was already convinced that the kingdom would descend to war if her marriage to Cormac did not go through. What might she promise to this disgraceful young man to keep him from sharing any revelations with the king?

  The echoes grew more agitated, making those strange mewling sounds that proved they were deeply distressed. Purpose even came to her feet and stood there a moment, trembling. “Sit down,” I said, tugging at her wrist. She allowed me to pull her back, though I could feel her yearning toward Marguerite with every ounce of energy in her body.

  I was still holding on to Purpose when Patience shot up from the bench, uttering a wordless cry. I was so astonished that I released Purpose, and then suddenly all three of them were on their feet and running down the path. I pelted after them, trying to catch at their arms and shoulders, calling, “No, no, no, turn back!” But they raced on even faster, skimming weightlessly over the ground like the shadows they were.

  They were blocking my vision just enough that I couldn’t see clearly into the stand of trees, but all at once I heard a cry of fear or anger. Marguerite! I redoubled my speed and pushed through the line of echoes—and came upon a scene that flooded me with icy terror.

  Marguerite was on the ground, struggling in Jamison’s grip as he tried to force himself between her legs. Her skirts were bunched up over her bosom, and he clutched both of her wrists in one hand, high over her head. His own trousers were unlaced and he was thrusting at her with ugly eagerness. She was fighting hard but it was clear he would overcome her in a moment.

  “My lady!” I shouted and flung myself forward, the echoes at my heels.

  Jamison snarled and rolled to his knees, releasing Marguerite and lashing out at the four of us as we surged closer. Purpose was the first to reach him and start punching at his face, but he caught her around the waist and flung her from him so forcefully she crashed full length to the ground. Then Patience and Prudence and I fell on him, striking at his head and shoulders with our bare hands. Prudence clawed at his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He swiped at us, grunting and groaning like an animal, beating us back with his elbows and his fists. Not until Patience howled in pain did I realize he’d pulled a knife and was slashing at our flailing limbs.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marguerite scrabble away, desperately trying to pull her clothing back in place. Patience was nursing a bleeding arm, but Prudence snuck up behind Jamison and kicked him ferociously in the back. Still on his knees, he howled and spun around, grabbed her around the thighs, and slammed her savagely to the ground, once, twice, a third time. I saw her mouth fall open, and her whole body grew ominously still.

  “Prudence!” Marguerite shrieked, and Jamison swung her way. She, too, was on her knees, crawling toward the echo, when Jamison backhanded her across the face.

  “Call them off!” he raged. “Call them off or I swear I’ll break the neck of every last one!”

  Unseen behind him, Purpose came running up, clutching a large rock she had found on the ground, and brought it crashing down on his head. He cried out and tried to spin around to swing at her, but he couldn’t keep his balance. As he teetered there, one hand upraised to block her attack, she hit him with the rock again and again and again. Even when he crumpled to the ground, twitching in pain and shock, she continued to rain blows on his head.

  “Stop! Purpose—stop! Great goddess, all of you stop!” Marguerite panted. “Brianna, help me! I’m not sure—I think—she isn’t breathing—”

  I hesitated a moment, standing over Jamison’s still form with my fists at the ready, but he looked too battered to offer us much harm in the immediate future. Taking a few steps over, I sank to the ground next to Marguerite, who was cradling Prudence in her arms. Purpose and Patience dropped down beside us, making thin, keening sounds as they reached out to pat Marguerite and Prudence with their thin, nervous hands.

  “Let me see her,” I said, gently taking the echo’s body from Marguerite’s hands. I checked for a pulse, but it was hardly necessary. She wasn’t breathing and her neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. It was clear that she was dead. “Marguerite—my lady. I’m so sorry. He killed her.”

  Marguerite loosed a heartbroken sob and doubled over so her face touched her legs, wrapping her arms around her head. Purpose and Patience wailed alongside her, crowding closer, their arms around her and each other in one tight knot of mourning. I smoothed back Prudence’s blond hair and wiped some of the dirt from her cheeks and laid her gently on the ground.

  Then I turned back to Marguerite and the remaining echoes and tucked my hands under their interwoven arms and urged them all to sit up. “Come on. It’s terrible, I know, but we have more terrible work ahead of us. We have to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  Marguerite forced herself upright, showing me a face blotched with grief and marked by rage. “He killed her!” she repeated. “Prudence! The shyest, most harmless creature in the kingdom! How could he do that?”

  “He’s an awful man,” I said. “But what do you do now? Do you tell Prince Cormac what happened? Do you tell the king? Will they believe you?”

  Marguerite wiped her sleeve across her runny nose, so I hastily found a handkerchief she could use instead. “Of course I’ll tell them! I’m sure my father wouldn’t want me to do anything that might set the king against me, but everyone needs to know what an awful man he is.”

  I watched her steadily. “But Jamison knows something, doesn’t he? Will he reveal it if you expose him?”

  “He doesn’t know as much as he thinks,” she said grimly. “He can’t harm me. Any more than he’s already harmed me.” She started crying again.

  I pushed Purpose aside so I could scoot closer and put my arms around Marguerite. “I’m so, so sorry,” I whispered into her
hair. “I shouldn’t have let him take you away from us. I should have followed no matter what he said. But it’s all right now. We got here in time. Didn’t we? Didn’t we? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered in a shaky voice. “He was going to—but then you all showed up—”

  “Purpose leading the charge,” I said. “As you would expect. It was the echoes who knew that something was wrong. I just followed them.”

  Marguerite took a deep breath, smoothed back her hair, and visibly willed herself to calm. “I didn’t know they could do that,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know they could fight for me.”

  “And fight so hard,” I added. I looked over my shoulder to make sure, but Jamison was still unconscious. “But what are we going to do with Prudence? I’m not sure we can bring her with us to Camarria.”

  “Perhaps there’s a cemetery nearby where they will let me lay her to rest.”

  “What happens to a person like you when one of her echoes dies?” I asked.

  She looked so sad that I was sorry I had asked, but she answered anyway. “It doesn’t happen very often. Echoes don’t get sick unless their originals get sick, so they only die if there’s an accident. I don’t know what it will be like. I suspect I’ll feel as if I’ve come down with a lung disease and I can’t breathe normally. Or as if I’m dreaming and I can’t make myself wake up.”

  I glanced at Purpose and Patience, who were kneeling beside us, almost motionless, like marionettes that had been set aside and weren’t going to move again until someone came along and pulled their strings. At the moment, they were neither mimicking Marguerite nor acting independently—unless this show of stunned grief was their expression of independent thought. At the moment, I could only tell them apart because Patience was the one whose arm was still bleeding. “What happens to them if you die?”

  She spread her fingers in a quick gesture of dispersal, like someone flinging water from her hands. “So do they. Instantly. Falling at my feet.”

  “I suppose that makes sense. Though it seems sad, somehow.”

  Marguerite nodded and lifted a hand to brush it lightly across first one echo’s head, then the other. “I know. On my darkest days, when I thought it might be easier to die, I couldn’t bear the thought that I would take them with me from this world.”

  Marguerite had been so unhappy she had thought about killing herself? When was this? “My lady,” I began.

  She shook her head and came to her feet, lifting her shoulders and giving the appearance of someone determined to pull herself together. Purpose and Patience rose beside her, and I more slowly stood up as well. “Now,” said Marguerite, “we have to decide what to do with him. Do we just leave him here and let him wake up to his own blood and broken bones? Or do we revive him so we can let him know what stories we will carry to his father the king?”

  “Revive him,” I said. “Maybe we can fetch water from the lake and throw it in his face.”

  Marguerite stepped closer to Jamison and stooped over to give him a close inspection. “I think he’s more badly hurt than I realized,” she said uncertainly. “He’s not moving at all.”

  Without consciously summoning the words, I began silently chanting a childhood prayer. Great goddess, lady of mercy. Lay your hand upon us; oh never say you will abandon us now …

  “Let me see,” I said, dropping back to my knees beside him. I put my hand to his cheek, to his neck just above his collarbone. His skin was warm and supple, but there was an odd quality to it, a stiffness. I couldn’t find a heartbeat, though I pressed my fingers to his jugular, slipped my hand down the front of his shirt to flatten it over his chest. When I leaned closer, my cheek against his mouth, I couldn’t feel a single exhalation of breath.

  “My lady,” I whispered, “he’s dead.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Marguerite clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle a cry, and spun away as if she couldn’t bear to look at his body. The echoes copied her exactly. By the time I was on my feet, Marguerite had started shaking. She bent over, bracing her hands on her knees, and started choking as if she would vomit on her shoes. The echoes shivered and coughed beside her.

  I rushed over to grab her and haul her upright. “Not now,” I said grimly. “Not now! You cannot break down. We have to think.”

  She stared at me, her eyes so wide and unfocused that I wasn’t sure she was even seeing my face. “Dead!” she cried. “I killed a man!”

  I couldn’t help glancing at Purpose. “Not you, exactly.”

  “The echoes are mine! They’re me! They couldn’t have killed him if I didn’t want him dead! I killed him, and I’ll be executed for murder!”

  “If we explain what happened—”

  She covered her cheeks with her hands and shook her head. “Maybe, if he were any other man!” she said wildly. “But he is the king’s son!”

  “My lady—”

  She pressed her hands harder against her cheekbones. “I can’t think. I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll go back to Oberton,” I began, but she shook her head even more violently.

  “I can’t go home! Sweet goddess, my father sent me off to marry the prince and instead I murdered Cormac’s brother! Oh, if the provinces weren’t at war before, they will surely be fighting now! The king will destroy Orenza! And it’s all my fault— I have to flee,” she said suddenly. “I have to run, but where? Where can I possibly hide?”

  Her desperation was swamping me with a reckless combination of fear and determination. “If no one knows he’s dead, no one can accuse you of murder,” I said. “We’ll hide the body.”

  “How? Where?”

  I pointed. “We’ll weigh him down and throw him in the lake. By the time they find him, if they ever do, his body will be so rotted no one will recognize him.” I knew this because a young man had died in such a manner not far from the Barking Dog when I was a little girl. We never learned who he was.

  “His clothes—”

  “We’ll strip him and donate all his belongings to one of the temples in Camarria.”

  “His horse—”

  “We’ll strip it, too, and set it free. Trust me, some small freeholder in the area will come across it in a day or two and take it for his own, asking no questions.”

  “Maybe. It might work. Maybe,” Marguerite said, looking slightly less dazed.

  “It will work. It has to. Let’s find some logs and rocks to tie to his body,” I said, turning away.

  “Oh, but Prudence!” Marguerite exclaimed.

  “We can think about her later.”

  She caught my arm. “I can’t ride into Camarria with only two echoes,” she said in an intense voice. “It will be odd. And when Jamison fails to arrive, that will be odd. Someone will start putting those two odd things together. If not the prince, then your friend Nico. They will figure out that Jamison passed through here at much the same time I did—it will not be hard to reconstruct our journeys.”

  She was right. The landlady herself could tell any inquisitor that Jamison had gone looking for Marguerite just minutes after she stepped out of the inn. You’d be surprised at how willing ordinary citizens are to gossip about their neighbors, Nico had told me weeks ago. People are always eager to tattle on their friends.

  Even more eager, no doubt, to tattle on strangers.

  “Then you’ll just have to have three echoes when you arrive in Camarria,” I said calmly.

  Her expression was hopeless. “How will I manage that?”

  I laid a hand across my heart. “I will have to masquerade as Prudence.”

  She stared at me a moment in silence. They all did, their identical faces wearing identical looks of disbelief.

  “You can’t possibly be serious,” she said at last.

  “I am. We’re the same height, almost the same build, so with a few alternations I can wear all of her clothes—”

  “Your hair is five shades darker and your eyes are a different color,
and your face looks nothing like my face—”

  “Some lemon juice and vinegar and I can lighten my hair—maybe even buy a wig once we’re in Camarria.”

  “But your face!”

  “The veils,” I said. “The three of us will wear veils all the time. It will be your affectation. No one will look too closely.”

  Now she pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I can’t think,” she said again.

  I pulled her hand away. “It will work. It has to. People will expect to see you with three echoes, so they’ll see you with three echoes.”

  “But—but—eating! And dancing! And just walking into a room—”

  I shrugged. “I’ll mimic you as best I can. We can make sure I’m always between the other two so that I can watch them and you.”

  Once again, she stared at me for a long moment in silence. “It’s so dangerous,” she said at last. “One mistake—one person realizing you’re not who you’re pretending to be—”

  “It’s already dangerous,” I interrupted.

  “Dangerous for me! Not for you! But if you play this game alongside me and we get caught—your life could be forfeit, too.”

  I motioned with both hands, and Patience and Purpose came a few steps closer. I put my arms around their shoulders, and they put their arms around Marguerite, and we all drew so close that our foreheads touched. “I’m not leaving you,” I said in a low voice. “I’m not betraying you. We will go to Camarria, and we will play this game, and no one will ever know.”

  Marguerite and the echoes all closed their eyes. I knew she didn’t believe me—I wasn’t sure I believed me, either—but I absolutely could not see another way. After a moment, she nodded.

  I pulled back and pressed my hands together, nerving myself for a hard job. “All right. Let’s get rid of the bodies.”

  I don’t want to describe the next hour, which was as gruesome and sad and unsettling as any I’ve ever spent. I’ll just say that we carried out my plan, horrific as it was. We took from Jamison’s body every piece of jewelry, every bit of clothing that might identify him. Then we stuffed rocks and branches down his underthings to add weight, and dragged him over the path and up the bridge. It took all four of us, each holding one of his limbs, to heave him over the railing and into the water. We stood there watching for ten fearful minutes, but he did not bob back to the surface. It seemed we had bought ourselves at least a little time.