by Sharon Shinn
Though the torz prime, who understood the ways of the flesh more than most people did, tended not to be judgmental about such things.
“By all accounts, they were very happy for their first few years together,” Leah said. “They traveled all over, putting on theatrical productions.”
“They even traveled to Soeche-Tas and there was some talk of sailing to Cozique, though they never did,” Virrie said. “I saw them perform several times. They were quite good.”
“Then I was born—”
“Let me guess. Suddenly your father was not so keen on his young wife once there was a baby in the picture,” Zoe said, wiping a smear of milk off of Celia’s face. Mally continued to feed Celia bits of bread, first dipping them in honey.
“You would have expected that,” Virrie agreed, “but, in fact, he was quite delighted with Leah. Fussed over her and played with her and bought her expensive and wildly inappropriate gifts. When he remembered she was alive.”
“Ah,” said Zoe. “The kind of person who feels like a baby is a little doll to be played with when one feels like it, and put away when one doesn’t.”
Darien said humorously, “Though you have to admit, it would be much easier to raise a baby if that were true.”
“Babies need a lot of attention,” Mally said. “Or else they cry.”
The adults all laughed. “That they do,” Virrie said.
“But I like them anyway,” Mally said.
Zoe leaned over and kissed her dark hair. Leah was so jealous her stomach hurt. “I like them, too,” Zoe whispered.
“At any rate, he was very fond of Leah and devoted to Rinda and everything might have been just fine, except that Rinda died when Leah was eight,” Virrie said.
“Oh, that’s so hard,” Zoe said. “My mother died when I was young, too.” She shook her head. “You get past it, but you never get over it. It’s always there.”
And what is the grief like when your mother abandons you the day you’re born? Leah thought. When you never have a mother to lose? She watched Mally give Celia another piece of honey-soaked bread and smile when the little girl stuck it in her hair instead of her mouth.
“Celia!” Zoe exclaimed, snatching it out of the blond curls. “You’re supposed to eat that! Not decorate yourself with it.”
“My father tried to raise me on his own but he— Sometimes he didn’t always remember that I— There were always other people from the troupe around, but it was a somewhat precarious existence,” Leah said.
“So Taro and I took her in,” Virrie said. “And raised her like any good daughter of the Five Families, just like one of our own children. Brought her to court, when Taro could be convinced to leave the estate, and introduced her to all the eligible men in the city.” Clearly remembering how that ultimately went wrong, Virrie sighed.
“What about your father?” Zoe asked.
“I saw him from time to time. He was still very . . .” She searched for a word. “Improvident. I felt guilty because I thought I should miss him more than I did, but every time I was with him, all I could think was how grateful I was that I was living with Taro and Virrie instead of him.” She shrugged slightly. “He died before I turned twenty.”
“Well, I must say, your own father makes mine seem a little better,” Zoe remarked. “Someday we’ll have to sit down and swap stories.” She sipped from her water as she appeared to think something over. Finally she said, “I’m trying to figure out the time line. You must have left the city shortly after I arrived. Or shortly before.”
Taro was frowning. “I can’t remember the exact timing, either.”
“I was in Chialto when Zoe arrived, but I was already—” Pregnant. “In difficulties. I left right after the regatta, in fact.”
“Oh, the regatta!” everyone exclaimed almost in unison.
“That was an exciting day,” Virrie said.
Princess Josetta had been crewing one of the boats, and it had almost gone rushing down the waterfall, carrying her to certain death. But Zoe had stopped the Marisi in its banks. It had been her first public act as coru prime.
“How is Princess Josetta?” Leah asked. They had discussed her own sad life long enough. Time to turn the topic to other people. “I sailed back from Malinqua with Nelson Ardelay, and he told me a good bit of her story. She seems to have turned into a remarkable young woman.”
“She has,” Zoe said. She and the princess were half sisters, since her father had slept with Queen Seterre in the hopes of providing Vernon with his first heir. It was all so complicated; Leah could hardly keep straight who was related to whom. “She’s running a homeless shelter in the southside slums, in love with an aeromotive pilot. So very elay.”
The rest of them shook their heads. All the elements were important, of course, and respectable, but anyone who wasn’t elay had a hard time understanding anyone who was. “I do wonder sometimes how elay people make it through the day,” Virrie said.
Leah managed to look casually in Mally’s direction. “I hope you’re not elay.”
“I’m torz,” Mally said.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Darien said.
Zoe shook out a bracelet hanging with charms. “These are my blessings. Beauty, love, and power. What are yours?”
“Intelligence, loyalty, and patience,” Mally said, enunciating them clearly as if she had practiced them many times.
I didn’t even know that, Leah thought, feeling a swift stab of self-loathing. I didn’t even know my daughter’s blessings. One sweela for her father, one torz for her mother, and one hunti for herself. All of them, from what little Leah had observed, true.
“Those are all most excellent,” Zoe approved.
“What are Celia’s blessings?” Mally wanted to know.
“Charm, determination, and grace,” Zoe said. “So far we’ve seen plenty of evidence of the first two, but none of the last one!”
Virrie tilted her head to one side. “What’s her affiliation? Have you been able to tell?”
“Not yet,” Zoe said. “I think she’ll turn out to be coru, like me, or sweela, like my father.” She glanced at her husband. “Naturally, Darien says she’ll be hunti, but he says it with less conviction all the time.”
“Of course, the whole city is hoping she won’t be coru,” Taro said. “They’d rather she was next in line to take the throne than to become coru prime.”
“I don’t see why she couldn’t do both,” Zoe said, but it was clear she was just trying to be provocative. Everyone scoffed at the notion with a wave of the hand or a shake of the head. The primes were instrumental in choosing and certifying the next ruler—and shielding the king or queen from their own remarkable magic. For instance, the hunti prime could snap a man’s bones in his body, but once a monarch was chosen, the prime gave up all power over that individual. Or something. Leah found it all a little murky.
“We just need to produce many more children so that we have multitudes to choose from for either position,” Darien said.
“Well, I don’t know about multitudes,” Zoe demurred. “But I would like to have several more.” She wiped Celia’s mouth and added, “Although I don’t feel like I need to be in any great hurry to identify my heir. As far as I can tell, Nelson is the only one who’s done so.”
In fact, he had named his elder son as the next prime long before Leah left Chialto. She had always wondered if that was one of the reasons Rhan was so wild.
“I do think Kurtis is a most excellent choice,” said Virrie. “He’s so much more sober and thoughtful than most of the Ardelays. It will be odd to have a sweela prime who’s not always getting into trouble.”
Darien was frowning at Zoe. “Until you said it, I didn’t realize it was true,” he said. “None of the other primes have identified their heirs.” He gestured at Zoe. “Obviously, you haven’t made much progress on pr
oducing candidates yet, but the rest of them should have been thinking about this for years now.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Taro said mildly. “I just haven’t come to any conclusions yet.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Virrie said. “It’s a very spiritual thing, or so Taro has always led me to believe. The elements themselves have to speak up to claim their next representative. You can’t just look over your sons and daughters and say, ‘I choose you.’ Fire and water and earth have to choose you, too.”
Zoe was laughing. “Well, apparently the elements had picked me, but nobody told me before my father and I left Chialto. So I didn’t find out until the day I didn’t drown in the Marisi when I should have. I was underwater for, I don’t know, fifteen minutes, and never had to draw breath. That’s when I knew something strange was happening in my life.” She sipped her water and added, “And my life had already been pretty strange.”
“So is the new prime always a direct descendant of the old one?” Leah asked.
“No,” Zoe and Taro said at the same time.
“No,” Zoe repeated. “Darien’s father was the hunti prime, and when he died, the power didn’t go to any of his children, but to his sister, Mirti.”
“And Mirti doesn’t have children of her own,” Darien added. “So if that was a requirement, we would be in desperate straits right now.”
“But the power usually follows lineage,” Taro amplified. “Zoe’s heir might be her cousin’s daughter. Mirti’s heir might be—well, might be one of Darien’s children. But neither one is likely to be some random stranger currently living in obscurity somewhere in Welce.”
“So if Nelson hadn’t already chosen Kurtis, the sweela prime could be anyone with Ardelay blood,” Leah said. Thinking, It could even be Mally. She’s Nelson’s granddaughter. She’s abandoned by her parents and she spends the first five years of her life pretending she’s somebody else, but maybe all those hurts would fade away if she got to be sweela prime. But that wasn’t how the world worked, she supposed.
“That’s right,” Darien said. “Even Zoe, who is Nelson’s niece.”
“Even better, Josetta!” Zoe exclaimed, laughing. “She’s just as much an Ardelay as I am. Oh, she would hate that!”
Leah’s eyes widened. “I would think it would be an honor to be prime.”
“Also a responsibility,” Darien said. “And Josetta much prefers to lead her own life without having to fulfill the expectations other people have of her.”
Yes, the princess sounded elay to the core. “I hope I’ll get to meet her soon,” Leah said politely.
“I hope so, too,” Darien said. “Though she can be very elusive. I have convinced her to take up residence in the house where Zoe and I lived before we moved to the palace. However, she probably doesn’t spend even half of her time there. I hate to have the place stand empty.”
“It’s a lovely house,” Zoe said with a sigh. “I miss it.” As if she had suddenly been struck with a good idea, she straightened in her chair, jostling Celia, who protested. “Hush. Virrie—it just occurred to me—you’re planning to stay in the city for a while, aren’t you? Maybe you and Mally could move into Darien’s house, too.”
Mally had been playing a game with Celia, covering her own eyes with her hands, then flipping back her fingers to peer at the little girl, who screamed with laughter. But she looked up at that. “We’re staying in the city? Aunt Virrie and me?”
“I thought we might do that for a few ninedays,” Virrie said, elaborately casual. “You could see Celia all the time. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Probably,” Mally said cautiously.
“And you’d love my house, I know you would,” Zoe said to Mally. “There’s a room—Darien had it built just for me, because I’m coru. It has a river that runs around the inside, with bridges and fish and everything.”
Mally looked fascinated. “Inside a house?”
“Yes! That’s why it’s the best house ever!” Zoe said.
“It is a beautiful place,” Virrie said. “We’d love to stay if you’re sure there’s room for us.”
“There would be room for everyone at this table,” Darien said. He nodded at Leah. “You, too, if you’re looking for lodgings.”
Virrie turned her serene face in Leah’s direction. “Now, that’s an interesting idea,” she said.
Leah felt enveloped in panic. It was too much, it was too soon, she didn’t want to frighten Mally away with eager, obsessive affection. She didn’t want to break her own heart every minute of every day. “Well—maybe—I’d have to think about it,” she said, stumbling over the words.
“Where are you staying now?” Taro asked.
“In a room near the Plaza of Women. Small but comfortable.”
Taro snorted, clearly indicating that he didn’t think any small rented room was good enough for his niece. Leah couldn’t help teasing him by adding, “Much nicer than some of the places I stayed in Malinqua.”
“Well, you’re not in Malinqua now,” he growled.
“Think it over,” Darien said, and something in his voice made her believe he would find a way to get her transferred to his residence even if it meant burning down the building where she currently lived. “I feel you’d be more at ease in my house.”
“We’ll see,” Leah said.
“Yes,” Darien said, “I suppose we will.”
FIVE
By the end of the meal, Leah was exhausted from reining in her constantly changing emotions. Elation, remorse, fear, hope, worry, and too many others to identify. She did manage to say a creditably cool goodbye to Mally as Virrie and Taro shepherded the little girl to the door. But the minute they left, she collapsed back into her chair and waited for her heart to stop pounding. She was sure she would never breathe normally again.
Darien had left right behind the others and Zoe had disappeared with Celia, but Zoe was back in the room before Leah was fully recovered. “I thought that went well, didn’t you?” Zoe asked, reclaiming her own chair.
“I don’t know,” Leah said honestly. “I’m too shattered to be able to think clearly.”
Zoe surveyed her a moment, seeming to search for the right question to ask. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said at last, “but I’ve been wondering. Why exactly you—” She hesitated.
“Why I abandoned my daughter?” Leah said bitterly. “Why I looked at her exactly once, then handed her off to Virrie, and ran away as fast as I possibly could?”
“I wasn’t going to phrase it like that.”
Leah spread her hands, not sure she could explain. “I didn’t think I could do it—didn’t think I could raise a child. I had had such an odd upbringing myself that I didn’t know how you were supposed to take care of a baby. And I was so unhappy and miserable and angry and hurt and—well. I could hardly take care of myself, let alone someone else. I just wanted to get away from Welce. Away from everybody.”
“Away from Rhan.”
Leah felt her mouth twist. “So you know that, too. I suppose Darien told you.”
Zoe shrugged. “I’m the coru prime. The first time I took the girl in my arms, I knew who her father was.”
“Yes. I wanted to get away from Rhan. I had been so in love with him. I had thought I had finally found my place in the world. And then he—then he—when he found out I was pregnant—” She shook her head. “He told me he wasn’t prepared to marry me. He wasn’t prepared to be a father to my baby. He wouldn’t be part of our lives. He said that.”
“I adore Rhan,” Zoe said. “He’s my cousin, you know. But he might be the most irresponsible person I’ve ever met.”
“I used to think that,” Leah said. “And then I realized I was no better.”
“Maybe you weren’t, five years ago,” Zoe said. “But I bet you are now.”
“I hope
so,” Leah said. “I plan to be.”
“So will you move into the city house so you can be near Mally? It’s a very comfortable place.”
“Not just yet. I need to think about it.”
“Darien can be very persuasive.”
“I’ve gotten a little better at resisting the blandishments of men.”
That made Zoe laugh. “Well, I think it would be a good arrangement for you, but since I always like to see people defy Darien, I won’t bring any pressure to bear! Now, are you free for the rest of the afternoon? I could take you to meet Jaker and Barlow.”
On the one hand, Leah wasn’t sure she had enough energy left over to manage another event. On the other hand, she needed a distraction. She came to her feet. “Excellent,” she said. “Let’s go.”
• • •
Of course Leah liked Jaker and Barlow. She was beginning to suspect that she would like anyone the coru prime counted as a friend, because Zoe had a taste for unconventional people.
Barlow was expansive and talkative, a little self-important but quick to laugh at himself. Leah had the thought that it might be easy to get mad at him but hard to stay mad. Jaker was quieter, more thoughtful, more serious, though he had a constant twinkle in his blue eyes that made it clear he appreciated life’s incessant ironies. Zoe and Leah met them in a small, cramped apartment overflowing with oddments—small sculptures made of unidentifiable stone, plants with twisted stems and purple leaves, wall art showing no landscape to be found in Welce. They served a hot beverage that tasted like cinnamon and pepper, pouring it into tiny cups the color of translucent jade.
“This is like living inside a storybook of fantastic tales,” Leah said, glancing around.
Jaker laughed. “Yes. That’s our life. Full of wild fantasy.”
Barlow grinned. “When the wheel doesn’t come off the elaymotive ten miles from the nearest town, and the man who promised to sell you his entire cargo actually shows up when and where he promised, and when you’re not fighting flood or snow or sleet—yes, it’s the fantasy life.”
