by Sharon Shinn
Zoe raised her eyebrows. “See what happens now when you draw one for each of us.”
“Nobody look until we all have one,” Corene ordered.
“I won’t look, either,” Rafe said, and ostentatiously covered his eyes with his left hand while his right hand sorted through the barrel. Once he’d distributed a coin to each of them, he waved his hands like a conjurer at a Quinnahunti fair.
“Reveal your blessings!” he commanded.
“Courage,” Corene said. “My favorite.”
“Power,” Zoe said.
Josetta turned hers so everyone could see the glyph. “Joy.”
Zoe leaned back on the bench so her spine rested on the wall, and regarded Rafe with narrowed attention. “This is very odd,” she said, her voice unwontedly serious. “It’s as if you don’t exist in the common dimensions of Welce. It’s as if you’re—you’re—a mimic or an echo. Something reflected or something seen through a curtain. Duplicating our motions and our mannerisms but not truly understanding why.”
Corene frowned. “That’s mean.”
Zoe shook her head. “I don’t intend it that way. I find that I like Rafe Adova. I just don’t understand precisely how he fits in.”
Josetta was silent, watching Rafe as he assimilated Zoe’s words. Let him decide how much of his background to tell her; she hadn’t gone into much detail when Zoe had questioned her the other day. He was quiet a moment, thinking it over, and then he nodded.
“I think I am something of a cipher,” he said at last. “My mother never told me much about her own family, and she died before I knew I should be curious. All I knew about my father was that he left her when I was a baby—or she left him—after he did this to me,” he added, sweeping back his hair to expose his right ear.
Corene and Zoe leaned forward to examine the precisely cut triangular pattern, defiantly decorated with the five gold earrings. “It’s weird but I sort of like it,” Corene said. “Does it hurt?”
He smiled at her. “Not now. I imagine I screamed my head off when it was done to me.”
“Did she say why your father did that?” Zoe asked.
“So she’d never get me mixed up with anybody else’s children. Also, I guess, so no one could steal me and then try to prove I wasn’t her son.”
Zoe was frowning. “So, really, you have no idea who your people are, your mother’s or your father’s.”
“I asked my stepfather about it the other day, and he admitted he’d never asked my mother many questions. He seemed to think it was likely that my father was foreign—and possible that my mother was.” He shrugged. “But Kayle seemed convinced they both were.”
“Really? You were discussing your bloodlines with Kayle Dochenza?”
Rafe grinned faintly. “He said he couldn’t hear me breathing.”
“Ah.” Zoe nodded; it seemed to make perfect sense to her. She scooted a little closer to Rafe on the curved bench. “If you like—if you’re willing—I’d try to decode your blood for you,” she offered.
Rafe drew back infinitesimally. “You’d—how would you do that?”
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Corene said. “She won’t hurt you.”
“No, but, I mean—does she need me to bleed into something?”
Zoe was grinning. “No, no, I only have to touch you. Josetta may have mentioned that I can generally tell how people are related—well, it’s hard to explain. I’m the coru prime. A woman of water and blood.”
“So you just want to take my hand?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
He glanced at Josetta. “Only if you want,” she said softly. “But that’s how she learned she and I had the same father. That’s how she learned Corene is Darien’s daughter. By touching us. If I were you, I’d want to know. I’m glad I found out.”
He nodded, took a deep breath, and placed his hand in Zoe’s outstretched one. Josetta watched as Zoe closed her fingers over Rafe’s and concentrated. She had seen Zoe do this a dozen times and had always been amazed at how quickly Zoe could find the genetic match in the blood.
If Zoe knew the person’s family, of course. If Rafe’s mother was a runaway from some provincial Welchin family, the chances were slim that Zoe had encountered any of her relatives. And if she had actually emigrated here from another country, well, Zoe would be able to tell him nothing.
But the look on Zoe’s face was one of recognition—followed quickly by a puzzled frown. “How very strange,” she said softly, dropping Rafe’s hand.
Now they were all staring at her. “Well?” Josetta said impatiently. “Did you learn anything?”
But Zoe’s full attention was on Rafe. “I met one of your family members just the other day,” she said, her voice strained. “Not a brother, I think—a cousin, perhaps.”
Rafe’s face lit up with curiosity and excitement. “Really? You could tell that? Who is it? Can I meet him?”
“I don’t think you want to meet him,” Zoe said. “He was the crown prince Ghyaneth of Berringey.”
• • •
For a moment there was utter silence in the little temple. “The crown prince,” Rafe repeated. “Of Berringey. Are you sure?”
Zoe nodded. “Completely. I shook hands with enough of the Berringese contingent to be able to tell that no one else in the prince’s train was related to him. There’s a definite signature in the blood, and you’ve got it.”
“But that’s—I can’t take that in,” Rafe said. “I’m related to a prince?”
“You don’t want to be related to this one,” Zoe said.
Rafe looked at Josetta in a mute appeal for enlightenment. She said slowly, “Ghyaneth told me that in Berringey, once the crown prince or princess has survived to adulthood, it’s customary for all the other heirs to kill themselves. Or, if they’re not so cooperative, for someone else to kill them. So there are no rivals for the throne.”
Now Rafe’s eyes widened. “Wait. So. I’m related to this prince, but if he knew I was alive, he’d want me dead?”
“Exactly,” Zoe said. “In fact, I’d guess that’s why your mother ran away. Once she realized her son was due for murder in about twenty years, she took off with you in her arms.”
“That probably explains the cuts on your ear, too,” Josetta added.
Rafe lifted a hand to finger the edges, and Zoe nodded. “Right. Probably all the direct heirs are marked in such a fashion. So, even if they try to disappear, someone will recognize them, and do the crown a favor by killing them.”
Josetta was frowning. “But was Ghyaneth’ s ear cut the same way? I think I would have noticed if it was.”
Zoe shook her head. “You couldn’t see his ears. He was always wearing one of those turbans, remember?”
“One of those stupid turbans,” Corene corrected.
“But I’d guess his ear has been sliced in the same way,” Zoe added. “All the Berringese heirs no doubt have similar markings.”
Rafe shook his head as if to clear it. “I can’t really absorb this,” he admitted. “All this time—I mean, I’m nothing, I’m nobody, I’m a bastard who’s taken up a career as a gambler—but I’m the heir to a throne? It’s like one of those stories you tell yourself when you’re a kid and you’re thinking about running away from home because nobody appreciates you. I’m having trouble believing it’s real.”
“Well, I doubt you’re a bastard,” Zoe said. “I suppose the kings of Berringey take lovers now and then, but I bet they’re awfully certain not to sire any troublesome children outside the marriage bed.”
Josetta was frowning. “I’m trying to remember what Ghyaneth told me. His father was childless until very late in life, so his grandmother didn’t murder her other two children as soon as she might have otherwise. So there was Ghyaneth’s father and his younger siblings—a man and a woman. One of them had Ghyanet
h’s cousin, and one of them had you.”
“I’m guessing it was the woman who was your mother,” Zoe said softly. “As soon as they decorated your ear, she realized you’d been marked for death, just like she had. The minute she had a chance, she fled.”
“I don’t think so,” Josetta answered. “Ghyaneth talked about his cousin—how ambitious she is, how she’s constantly scheming to destroy him so she can be queen instead. She married a man who’s equally ambitious and they have children together—and they did this knowing that all of them will die once Ghyaneth ascends the throne and produces heirs. Anyone who was bred in that atmosphere wouldn’t run away. Or if she did, she’d run someplace where she could gather resources in her own bid for the throne. But this girl just ran.”
“That makes sense,” Zoe agreed. “So your father was the younger prince, and your mother was some nice aristocratic girl who was married off by a ruthless lord who gambled that a child of his line might one day wear the crown.”
Josetta smiled at Rafe, who was still looking dazed. “So you see? Gambling is in your blood.”
“Somehow, I don’t think I’ve ever played for stakes so high.”
Corene, who had been largely silent, suddenly demanded, “But do they know Rafe is alive? Are they looking for him?”
The other three exchanged startled glances. “They must know—they must be looking,” Zoe said. “Unless she found a way to fake their deaths—which maybe she did—”
“They’ll never stop searching,” Josetta said grimly.
“But they don’t know he’s here in Welce,” Corene said.
Rafe touched his ear again. “They do now,” he answered. “Those men who jumped me in the alley—they saw the markings. They knew who I was.”
“And they have undoubtedly sent word to Berringey by this time,” Zoe said.
Josetta frowned. “I don’t think Ghyaneth knew yet, though,” she said. “He didn’t act like he knew, and he’s the sort of man who would be very righteous and angry. You know, ‘You depraved peasants of Welce have shielded a pretender to my throne, and I’ll have everyone in the whole country hanged.’ But he didn’t say anything like that.”
“Then maybe Rafe got lucky,” Zoe said. “Maybe these weren’t royal spies combing the foreign shores for missing heirs. Maybe they were just Berringese mercenaries who happened to come across Rafe in a bar—and they knew how much his dead body would be worth.”
“So either they’ll try again to kill him—or they’ll take whatever reward is offered for information about where he might be living now,” Josetta said. “But why didn’t they tell Ghyaneth while he was in Chialto?”
Zoe shrugged. “Didn’t know he was coming? Sailed for Berringey instead?”
Josetta nodded. “At any rate, we have to assume that Ghyaneth will discover the truth sooner or later.” She looked at Rafe. “And come looking for you.”
He took a deep breath. He wasn’t even trying to appear nonchalant, though Josetta did think he was making an effort to seem calm. “And here I thought I was risking my life by flying aeromotives,” he joked.
“Probably a more enjoyable way to die,” Zoe said.
Josetta appealed to Zoe. “So what do we do? How do we keep him safe?”
“We can’t just let him be murdered,” Corene added. “I mean—he’s essentially a prince of a foreign nation!”
“Well, we wouldn’t want him to be murdered even if he was just a nobody from the streets,” Zoe said. She was smiling. This sort of chaos appealed to her coru soul. “But, of course, in the eyes of the world, he’s suddenly a much more valuable man.”
“He needs a lot of guards,” Corene said. “Or maybe he should live at the palace! He’d be safe there.”
“Sure, right, and then my cousin Ghyaneth would never figure out who I was,” Rafe said scornfully. Then he came to a full stop. “My cousin Ghyaneth . . . I still can’t believe it.”
“Believe me, I understand what you’re going through,” Zoe said. “For years, my father and I lived in a tiny house on the edge of nowhere. I knew that my family had been wealthy before my father was banished—but I didn’t know I was the coru prime. I didn’t know I’d be expected to come to Chialto and take my place at court. And once I did, there were a lot of days I just wanted to run back to the village.” She laughed. “There are still days like that, actually. But the world shifts, when you suddenly realize you have power. Your responsibilities shift. You might not like it, but you have to assess your life with a wholly different set of measurements.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what I should do next.”
“Come talk to Darien. He’ll know.”
“I don’t think the regent was very impressed by me when we met.”
Zoe laughed. “Oh, believe me. He’ll be impressed now.”
• • •
Zoe wanted Rafe to return with them immediately so they could lay the burden of his identity on Darien’s broad shoulders, but Rafe declined. “I need to think this through on my own,” he said.
“All right, but I’m going to tell him,” she said cheerfully. “And then he’ll do whatever he decides to do, whether or not that’s what you want. Darien can be somewhat high-handed.”
“I’m not used to letting someone else make my choices for me,” he said.
“No,” Zoe agreed. “But you’ll find that Darien works around your choices if he thinks it’s important enough. He’s hard to circumvent.”
Rafe held up a hand. “Please. I’m dealing with enough challenges at the moment. I can’t think about dealing with the regent, too.”
Zoe laughed. “Well, I think things have just gotten very exciting! No wonder you’ve been showered with extraordinary blessings. You clearly are an extraordinary man.”
Finally, finally, Zoe and Corene left, but Josetta still had no time to draw Rafe aside for a private conversation. It was practically the dinner hour, so all hands were needed in the kitchen. Even Josetta’s. Even Rafe’s.
“Do you think Callie will let me carry platters and wash dishes once she learns I’m a prince?” Rafe asked when Callie was out of earshot.
“Well, I’m a princess, and she makes me scrub the floors, so I don’t see why not,” Josetta responded. “But we can’t tell her yet. The more people who know, the more dangerous your life becomes.”
“It still seems impossible. That anyone could care if I lived or died.”
They were chopping vegetables and throwing them into a big pot, a job that seemed endless. Josetta gave Rafe a stern look. “Your brother cares if you live or die. Your stepfather does. I care.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Josetta laid her knife aside, rested her hands on the cutting board, and leaned forward to underscore her words. “You’re not a better person just because you have royal blood in your veins. The royalty of Soeche-Tas are evil, and I haven’t formed the highest opinion of the court at Berringey, either. It’s not what you inherit that makes you a worthy person. It’s what you do.”
She watched him think that over, still dicing onions and tomatoes as if it wasn’t possible for his hands to stay idle. “That might be an absolute truth, but it’s not a perceived one,” he said. “We live in a society where heritage matters. Where what you are—down to your elemental blessings—defines how you are viewed.” He glanced at her. “Even if I can’t claim my birthright—and from the sounds of it, I don’t want to! Even so, having it elevates me. Makes me into someone else.”
“Do you want to be someone else?” she asked softly.
Now, briefly, she saw his hands pause in their ceaseless motion. His eyes lifted to hers again. “I want to be good enough to deserve you,” he answered.
She felt her breath tangle in her throat. “I don’t require a prince,” she said. “Particularly one under a death sentence.”
“What are you looking for, then?”
They studied each other a long moment in silence. Josetta had never seen Rafe’s face so serious; she imagined her own looked much the same. “Someone with joy,” she said at last. “Someone with kindness. Someone with purpose. Someone whose existence brings goodness into the world.”
“I’ve never been that person,” he said.
“You’ve never had purpose, I think,” she answered. “But I’ve seen all the rest of those traits in you from the beginning.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but Callie bustled into the kitchen. “Twenty people here for dinner already and it’s not even firstday!” she exclaimed. “We’re going to need a second kettle of soup. And more bread!”
The look on Rafe’s face made Josetta laugh out loud. “Better get busy,” she advised, grabbing an onion. “These vegetables won’t chop themselves.”
SEVENTEEN
It was scarcely noon the next day, and Josetta had just finished scrubbing the baths, when Darien arrived. Callie, who came running to fetch Josetta, seemed even more flustered by his appearance than by Zoe’s.
“He doesn’t look very happy,” she said.
“Poor Darien. He often doesn’t.”
Darien was standing in the main room, his feet apart and his hands linked behind his back—the pose of a man braced to withstand a maelstrom, she had always thought. On his face was his usual expression of purposeful calm.
“I understand you’re harboring fugitives,” he greeted her.
She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “I apologize for being dressed in rags, but I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“I hope it doesn’t sound rude when I say I didn’t come here to speak to you. Where is Rafe Adova?”
“He doesn’t live here, Darien. He has his own quarters southside, but I think he went back to the port this morning to continue training.”
That caught Darien off guard. “Training?”
“Zoe didn’t tell you? He’s signed on with Kayle to learn to fly aeromotives.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Darien briefly speechless. “No. She didn’t mention that part.”
