In Dreaming Bound

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  “Ah, Hel, I’m sorry. I keep saying the wrong thing.” He shook his head and rubbed at the corner of his eyes. “Either stay or go, Deborah. I can’t deal with in-between.”

  No, Dahar never could. She grabbed her satchel and walked out the door. She stopped in the hallway, drawing a careful breath to calm herself. The quarterguards wouldn’t appreciate her unquiet emotions. She’d broken out in a cold sweat and felt uncomfortably warm.

  The Valarens are not my responsibility. She had been telling herself for twenty years or more, trying to stay out of their family quarrels and consistently being hauled back in. It wasn’t like she was one of them.

  Her younger sister—half-sister, she reminded herself, thank Father Winter—Talia Lucas had been a vial of poison in human form, ruining the lives of the people Deborah cared about. Talia had done everything possible to tear apart Dahar and his children, and yet somehow Deborah was supposed to fix that.

  She took a deep breath, held it, then let it slowly flee her lungs. The Valarens were her responsibility in that she was the children’s aunt, and Shironne’s sponsor. She was going to help Sera if she could. After another moment, Deborah made her way down to Sera’s temporary quarters.

  As she expected, Sera lay sprawled across her new bed, sobbing. Deborah sat on the edge of the bed and drew the girl’s head into her lap. Sera wasn’t a pretty girl. She likely might be handsome one day, but she looked too much like her father with his nose and coloring and wildly curly hair, and had clearly inherited his temperament. Fortunately, she hadn’t inherited his overlarge ears.

  Sera sniffed noisily and wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “You’ll have to learn not to do that, dear,” Deborah told her teasingly. “It’s more attractive if you neither sniff nor sob.”

  Sera chuckled wetly. “You can always make me feel better.”

  Deborah laid a hand on her hair. “I can try.”

  “Is it true,” she asked softly, “about Mother?”

  So she was upset over her mother still. “Regarding what, dear?”

  “That Kai’s not . . . that he’s . . .”

  “I’m afraid so, dear.”

  “But Kai looks just like Father,” Sera protested. “Why would anyone think he’s not Father’s son?”

  “It’s likely that his father was your father’s half-brother, Stephen. He and Dahar resembled each other quite strongly.”

  Sera sat up, brows drawn together. “Half-brother? I didn’t know Father had a half-brother.”

  “He died before Kai was born, so you wouldn’t have heard of him. We don’t often have reason to discuss him.”

  “Did you know him?”

  Deborah shook her head, as always amazed by the difference between Sera and Rachel. Rachel would never have had to ask that question. “Yes, dear. I was married to him.”

  Sera gasped. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Deborah allowed.

  She gazed at Deborah as if she’d never seen her before. “I just assumed since you didn’t have any children you weren’t ever married.”

  Rachel wouldn’t have said that either. “I did have a daughter. Her name was Miriam,” Deborah told her patiently. “She died before you were born, too.”

  “Oh.” Sera suddenly seemed to realize what a painful subject she’d brought up. “I’m sorry.”

  Deborah patted her hand. Hearing Sera apologize for anything was a rarity, a sign that the girl must have learned something in the past three years. “I don’t mind, dear. We’re family.”

  Sera’s brow furrowed. “You think that your husband and my mother—that Kai is their son?”

  “Yes. It seems likely.” It was more than likely, but since Stephen’s name wasn’t on Talia’s contract, the paternity was legally Dahar’s.

  “Why?”

  “Because Kai was born only eight months after your mother met your father.”

  “Oh, that would mean that she and he were . . .”

  “Lovers,” Deborah supplied.

  “Uh, yes. Before she married Father, then.”

  “That proves you know how to subtract, Sera,” Deborah said, teasing again.

  Sera cocked her head, giving her a narrow-eyed look. “Why would . . . why would Father say that Kai was his son in the first place, then? Everyone would have known, right?”

  “Your mother went away to one of the estates and Kai was born there, so not as many people were aware of it as you might suspect.” Deborah took her niece’s hand in her own. “Remember, you see your mother very differently than your brother and sister do. Than I do, or your father does. We all knew her in different ways than you did. Those interactions in the past . . . color our perception of her.”

  Sera nodded. “I understand.”

  “You were eight when you mother died. Kai was fourteen and Rachel thirteen. That’s a big difference for children. She fawned on Kai for a long time, and then suddenly rejected him when he was ten. It crushed him. He had tried so hard to be what she wanted. He worked himself sick to become First of his yeargroup, to do everything she expected of her perfect son, but in the end, she just turned her back on him.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Talia had discarded any ally she was done with and did her best to destroy anyone who stood in her way. As Deborah had seen it, the only true emotion Talia had ever felt was hatred toward her older sister. Her children deserved better than that. “I don’t know.”

  Sera wiped her nose. “Everyone hates her.”

  “This is hard for you, Sera, because you’ve come back and walked into the middle of your family’s problems without even knowing what they are. Try to be patient. Your father needs you. Kai needs you.”

  “To be Father’s secretary in his place?”

  “Yes,” Deborah said firmly, “although I believe the proper title is aide.”

  Sera sighed gustily. “I suppose I’ll have to. Why do I have to work with him?”

  Him wasn’t Kai; that was Mikael. “Because you are being asked to do so. If your uncle is to consider you seriously as a candidate for his heir, you must have the ability to work with people you don’t like. Think of this as . . . early training, dear.”

  Sera frowned, her arms crossing over her chest. “Who’s he going to marry then?”

  Deborah sat back. How could Sera still be sulking over that? It was so hard to see her as her true age, almost nineteen years old, and her petulance played a large part of that. “The elders do not wish it known at this time.”

  Sera’s mouth twisted in frustration. “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “No, dear. You’ll survive without that knowledge.” Deborah rose, putting some distance between herself and her now-annoyed niece. “Now go to sleep and stop perturbing the quarterguards.”

  Sera flung herself back down on the bed and covered her head with a pillow. Deborah took advantage of the momentary quiet and fled to the relative safety of the hallway.

  * * *

  “It’s been a great deal more complicated than I expected,” her mother said softly. Her fingers touched Shironne’s hair, then she lifted one of Shironne’s hands in her own, tilting it in the way that hinted she was deciding whether Shironne’s nails needed trimming. “If it weren’t for Dahar staying with me, I think I might have given up by now.”

  Shironne didn’t know what legal paperwork for Anvarrid adoption was like, but atop the difficulty of dealing with Perrin’s fraught reactions, Melanna’s apparently gleeful defection to the Family, and not having anyone to talk with about those things, her mother was struggling to maintain her normal air of serenity. While Lady Amdiria and Dahar and Deborah were all being supportive, that wasn’t the same as family.

  Perrin snorted from the other couch, the sound she made when she’d fallen asleep.

  “I know it wasn’t what you wanted, Mama, but . . .”

  “But it means you’ll be protected,” her mother said, “and that makes it wo
rth doing.”

  The paperwork, she meant. “I thought that . . . um, that you were planning to wait until your mourning was over and then marry the colonel.”

  A stab of vindictive pleasure ran through Shironne’s sense of her mother’s reaction, immediately followed by guilt that was firmly tamped down. It was a matter of custom, Shironne realized.

  “The mourning period for Anvarrid women is only forty days,” Mama said softly. “Would you be shocked if I didn’t wait a full year?”

  Forty days? Her father had been dead over three months now. “Are you still wearing mourning?”

  Her mother sighed. “Yes. I’ve told Dahar that until the adoption is finalized, I’d prefer to observe the custom. They’ll introduce me at some court function after that, where I’ll be expected to tie myself up into an Anvarrid jacket and skirts.” Vexation accompanied those last words.

  Formal Anvarrid garb was legendary both for the amount of embroidery on it and the tight lacing of the jackets, often so close-fitting that the Anvarrid could barely move their arms. “Why are they called petticoats when we wear them and skirts when the Anvarrid do?”

  Her mother laughed. “Well, when I’m Anvarrid, you will be too, and then maybe we’ll simply know.”

  At least that lightened her mood a bit. “You would be able to marry the colonel already,” Shironne said, “and since your uncles won’t have any claim on you, you could right away.”

  “But . . . I haven’t seen him since that night,” her mother admitted. “I have no idea what he wants of me.”

  That wasn’t true. The colonel had been very clear what he wanted. “You’re just not sure when.”

  Her mother was wrapped in discomfort now. Uncertainty. “Yes. I wish I could talk to him.”

  For four years her mother had been very circumspect when it came to the colonel, mostly out of fear of scandal, both for her own and her daughters’ sake, but also for the colonel’s. She worried that marriage to her might look precipitous—Shironne could sense all that in her mother’s mind, almost made into words. “Can’t you just ask him to come see you?”

  Mortification flushed though her mother at those words. “He’s not my servant.”

  Shironne held in her urge to laugh but had no doubt her mother could feel it anyway. “I said ask, mother, not order.”

  “I . . . I need more time,” her mother said. “I know that’s ridiculous, but I need to know . . .”

  Shironne listened to the whirl in her mother’s mind, anguish and confusion and pain warring with hope. “Melanna will be fine,” she said. “You know she’s happy, and if I ever have any doubt about that, I would let you know, Mama. If you married Colonel Cerradine, she would be fine staying here.”

  “And I would be the mother who abandoned two of her daughters to the Family to raise,” she returned softly.

  “I am an adult, Mama,” she pointed out, “no matter what color they make me wear. So don’t worry over me. And all Melanna has ever wanted is to learn to fight, so she would be much better here than sulking in the colonel’s house all day. Because if you took her away, that’s all she would do—sulk.”

  Her mother laughed, mostly because they both knew that was true.

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  WHILE MOST OF Firstday had been spent upstairs in the palace with her Family, Shironne had come down at dinnertime to rejoin the sixteens for a relaxed evening drinking tea and eating more of the day-old flatbread and fruit. The time was meant for them to be together, since they likely would for most of the rest of their lives.

  Mostly, the members of her yeargroup—and Shironne was beginning to think of them as her yeargroup—talked about their plans for the upcoming week. They gossiped a bit as well, the most often-hit targets being Maria—who had chosen to spend her evening in the Fortress’ library on One Down, not so much studying as being away from the rest of them—and Eli.

  Tabita whispered that Eli, who was also absent, had likely snuck off to secretly meet with his girlfriend Rebekka, one of the seventeens. This was all delivered in whispers so that no one would overhear Tabita’s words, but it made Shironne wonder if those clandestine meetings might be the reason Eli was reluctant to report his foster sister’s misbehavior.

  So much for him being perfect.

  “Do the elders not forbid that?” she whispered back in hopes their sponsors wouldn’t overhear. Their elderly sponsors sat at a table in one corner of the commons working on quilts, Tabita told her, although Shironne couldn’t sense them there. They were simply available to chat and chose not to make their presence known otherwise—present, yet not involved, another way to encourage the autonomy of the sixteens, it seemed. Norah, however, was determined to learn the quilting pattern that Clara used, so she’d gone off to sit with them.

  “They do,” Tabita said softly, “but they also know they can’t stop it completely.”

  “How is that different from what Maria has done?”

  Tabita sighed. “It isn’t, but if she’s pregnant, that changes the equation. It’s proof, among other things. And that would be bringing a child into the yeargroup, and that’s a big responsibility for us to take on so young.”

  Shironne pressed her lips together, working through what she thought Tabita meant, borrowing from Mikael’s head to do so. Larossan girls were expected to remain virgins until marriage, and if a girl was caught with a man, it would be assumed that she was impure, and thus unmarriageable. While there might be some deniability if the girl disavowed any involvement, if she became pregnant, it would be very difficult to deny. Since marriage was one of the ways Larossan families made alliances, that could be harmful to the entire family’s fortunes.

  However, the Lucas Family apparently looked at the whole thing differently. Once they became seventeens, they were adults and began serving three years of mandatory sentry duty. It was a time when they were expected to decide which specialization within the Family they wished to follow: military, carer, or support. The introduction of children into a yeargroup was concerning because it meant the entire yeargroup had to work their schedules around caring for a child. Therefore, they generally avoided having children until they were older.

  That was a foreign thought for her, so she spent some time wondering exactly how those children were avoided, which, after peeking into what Mikael knew of such things, gave her quite a lot to consider. She’d known Mikael wasn’t an innocent, so it wasn’t a surprise that he knew some of the things that he did. Instead, it was more surprising that he considered it his responsibility not to impregnate a woman. That would take some examination later.

  Tabita pinched her side. “Don’t do that.”

  Shironne forced herself back to the present. “I don’t really understand who’s responsible for a baby.” She felt her face flush. “Legally, I mean. I do understand . . . the other part.”

  Tabita sighed. “It should be the mother and father, who live in the same yeargroup, but sometimes other arrangements are made. If the father is unknown, sometimes the responsibility is divided among the entire yeargroup, or specific people take on guardianship.”

  That seemed efficient. Shironne needed to mull that over later, trying to figure out how all of that affected Eli’s possible affair versus Maria’s. “Can you explain all this to me later?”

  Tabita leaned closer. “There’s going to be a drill tomorrow, in the afternoon. We can talk after that.”

  “A drill?” Mikael’s understanding of the word carried equal levels of annoyance and approval. He liked the idea of drills yet hated participating in them.

  “Yes. They do it about twice a year,” Tabita said. “It’s confusing. We join hands and make our way through the halls to the refuge.”

  There was some sort of hint in that, an idea not spoken aloud.

  Join hands. Shironne understood exactly what Tabita proposed then. “You think I could get near her?”

  “Well, it’ll be dark.”

  Shironne reviewed
the concept of the drill again from Mikael’s point of view, sharing his memories of utter blackness and frightened chatter. “The lights go out?”

  “Yes. The key is not to panic. People get hurt when there’s panic, so we’re always reminded that the ambient has to stay calm. Head for the refuge, no matter where you are when it starts. I mean, you should be with us, but . . .”

  “Just in case I’m called away.”

  “Right,” Tabita said.

  “Did you say there’s a drill tomorrow?” Hedda asked, worry swelling.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” Tabita whispered back urgently.

  “But you told her,” one of the others protested—Hanna.

  “She’s blind, so I get to make an exception. Just pretend you don’t know.”

  One of them made a vexed sound but subsided.

  Tabita didn’t mention the drill or Maria or Eli again, but Shironne lay in her narrow bed that night, thinking that the world of this yeargroup was far more complicated than she’d ever expected.

  * * *

  Mikael had never enjoyed the occasional covert work called for in his job—usually just gathering information from actual spies within households, not spying himself. He wasn’t fond of sneaking about. But he had—given Anna’s advice to work with the man—sent a note back to the mysterious Gasanen via Synen offering to cooperate. He’d swiftly received a summons to meet the man privately at the tavern during the evening of Firstday, when everyone sensible was with their families. Not that Mikael had any family to speak of here, but he often ate dinner with Deborah on Firstday. However, she was dealing with the Royal House today instead, and that missed meal gave him something to resent as he walked through the chill streets down into the city.

  Most sensible Larossan households also gathered on the evening of Firstday, a solemn way to begin their week. They’d picked up the habit from the Families long ago, and by the time the Anvarrid arrived the custom was too ingrained to change. So the streets were quieter than usual at this hour, the temples silent out of respect, although the ever-present chimes and pennants still made their racket.