Mevon shrugged.
“That’s it?” Zorvanya said, rising from Poya’s side. “You’ll leave just like that? Without even a proper send-off?”
“What did you have in mind?” Mevon asked.
“More games, I’ll bet,” Draevenus said, resisting the urge to spit. “To be honest, they’re getting rather tiresome.”
Zorvanya clenched her fists but turned her head away and took a long breath before responding. “No more games then. Ever. But please, won’t you at least stay a few days, to rest and restock? This quest you’re on—whose importance so obviously outweighs all other considerations—promises to bring far more hardship and suffering before it’s done. Something tells me you’ll be glad of these last few moments of peace.”
Impatience warred with civility, and Draevenus found it was he who could now not meet her gaze. He twirled a knife through his fingers, unsure how to respond.
“We’ll stay,” Mevon said, rescuing him. “Thank you.”
Zorvanya grinned. “It’s settled then. I promise you won’t come to regret it.”
“No one knows what the future holds,” Draevenus said, gritting his teeth. “Not even the gods.”
“So as it turned out,” Jasside said, “Yandumar had made a name for himself as a mercenary while waiting around for Gilshamed to show up. Caught the attention of King Reimos and worked out a deal to put down a revolt of miners in the Weskaran Wastes. He ended the whole ordeal in only a few months with a surprisingly small amount of bloodshed and became fast friends with our ruler to the west.”
Angla smirked as she popped grapes into her mouth. The woman lounged beside her on a picnic blanket spread out on a flat patch of grass just south of the main mierothi settlement. “He was quite a formidable man, as I remember. Only met him once, but that encounter was enough to tell me he’s far better to have as ally than adversary.”
Jasside reached to the basket between them, plucking a plump strawberry. “Isn’t it better to have no foes at all?” She plopped the whole thing into her mouth and bit down. Tart, sweet juices gushed down her throat, eliciting a moan from her. She hadn’t eaten fresh fruit the whole time she’d been away.
“Pah!” Angla said. “We’re measured as much by our friends as by our foes. Pay attention to those who hate you the most, what they believe, how they treat those in their power. If cruelty runs through all they do, you’re better off having them as enemies.”
Jasside bowed her head, grateful for the sharing of wisdom. Still, such words seemed strange coming from a mierothi, knowing all that her grandmother’s people had done over the centuries.
Some of her musing must have shown on her face, for Angla said, “I’m not a hypocrite, you know.”
Jasside blanched. “I didn’t . . . I never said . . .”
“No, but you’re thinking it.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s hard not to . . . given your history.”
“And who wrote that history? Certainly not me, nor the others locked up alongside me. If we had, it would have read much differently. There was a reason, after all, that we ended up as we did.”
Jasside didn’t have to ponder long before figuring it out. “You didn’t agree with Rekaj’s methods.”
“His methods? I didn’t even agree with his face!”
Jasside broke down laughing, warmth soon replacing the tension inside her. Angla joined in. The sound of their merriment lasted until it was interrupted by clashing steel behind them. They both turned.
“Oh, bother those men,” Angla said. “At it again, and still using sharpened blades no doubt. It’s only a matter of time before one of them loses a limb.”
Jasside peered over the grassy hill behind them. The heads of Harridan Chant and Feralt came into view, swords swinging into sight every few beats. Chant backed up, parrying a slash, then ducked under a wild swing that left the daeloth off-balance. The old Elite followed with a punch to Feralt’s side that made him cringe and crouch back into a defensive stance. The daeloth gasped for breath, smiling all the while.
Without armor, Feralt seemed younger, happier. Almost as if the weight of it bore all the gruesome necessities the job had once entailed. Things Jasside hoped would never be required again.
“So tell me,” Angla said, cutting herself a slice of cheese, “how has it been putting your own advice into practice?”
“It’s been an . . . interesting experience.”
“Rough times bedding the boy?”
Jasside blushed, hugging her knees to her chest. “We haven’t done that. And besides, isn’t it usually the men who do the bedding?”
“Usually. But this is my granddaughter we’re talking about. I know you well enough by now to see that, whether you’re willing or not, no man will ever be able to dominate you.”
Jasside glanced at Feralt, who was attacking Harridan once more. She thought about what they shared. Laughter and company, pleasant smiles, an occasional touch on the arm. It wasn’t much, really, but it seemed to be exactly what she needed at the moment. She hadn’t given much thought to what he wanted. And though he’d made known his desire for things to progress physically between them, she didn’t wish it, so it didn’t happen.
Right as always, Grandmother. I am dominating him. And I’ve done it without even thinking. Is this a symptom of the power I wield? Or is this just who I’ve become after suffering from one too many broken hearts?
She turned away, realizing in that moment that nothing serious could ever come of her relationship with Feralt. She knew she would never feel safe being vulnerable around him, letting him take control. Even the thought drove spikes of ice up her spine.
There was only one man who made her feel at peace with simply being herself. One man around whom she wouldn’t mind letting go of control.
Jasside jerked as a hand touched her knee. Angla, reaching out and patting her gently. “It’s okay, Jasside,” the mierothi said. “There are worse things to be than a woman who knows what she wants.”
Jasside let out a peal of laughter, and even she could hear the bitterness strung throughout that solitary note.
It seems all I want is death. Fitting, then, that I should be so good at delivering it.
Such musings only served to spark her own outrage, an emotion directed at no one but herself. Vashodia had been distant all the way back from Weskara. Her own efforts to get closer to her mistress, perhaps even to begin prying open that arctic heart, had proven futile. There was no danger driving them at the time. No need. In such instances, Vashodia seemed to separate herself entirely from reality. Jasside knew that idleness didn’t suit either of them.
We need something to do.
Jasside leaned back on one elbow. She reached for more fruit, grabbing a pear this time, and peered down over the fields being harvested by daeloth half a league below them. It was good work she’d done there. The settlement had a wide variety of crops to choose from and a short enough cycle that no one was ever in danger of going hungry. With trade slow in starting, and the hunting parties forced to range farther and farther each day—and still not finding enough meat to fill every stomach—what they now grew more than made up the difference.
Still, she sighed. The work was mostly complete. She didn’t fancy waiting around for some small problem to arise that would keep her occupied for a time. That Vashodia had stuck around as long as she had surprised her. She couldn’t imagine the two of them playing administrators the rest of their days.
Her gaze wandered as she bit into the pear, absently wiping away a stream of juice that dribbled down her chin. The vast plains of Weskara dominated the view westward, and to the east, the deserts of Fashesh. North, past their fields, grew a forest thick with evergreens sloping upwards to a mountain range that covered the horizon as far as she could see. Sceptre lay beyond. A nation, she’d heard, as enigmatic as the mierothi t
hemselves.
Movement at the edge of the forest caught her eye. She squinted at the tiny figures in the distance. Unable to discern their identity, she energized and formed a tunnel of darkness between them, narrowing the space so that they appeared to her eyes no more than a hundred paces away.
“Who is that?” Angla asked.
“One of our hunting parties,” Jasside replied, having taken stock of their woodland cloaks and longbows. Then, she noticed something else. “I think they may be in trouble.”
“Why is th—”
Jasside never heard the rest. She’d stood and shadow-dashed across the league between them in a heartbeat.
The six daeloth stopped as she appeared in front of them. Four stood, carrying a pair of unconscious forms on makeshift litters. They set their burdens down with no effort to hide their exhaustion.
“What happened?” she asked.
For five beats, no one answered. Finally, one of them, a female daeloth well past the days of youth, managed to get her panting under control. “Ran into some trouble,” she said.
“What kind?”
“We don’t rightly know. Had to go all the way up to the passes of these here mountains so as not to overhunt this area. Some folks up there must have had the same idea. Only, we’re pretty sure they came from the other side.”
“You fought them?”
“It wasn’t so much a fight as it was a mad scramble under a hail of hissing arrows. These two”—the daeloth gestured to the pair on the litters—“got hit pretty bad. We healed ’em, but they were too weak to march on their own. Our rations fell low. We were counting on the meat we found to hold us up on the way back.”
“I’m sorry. It must have been difficult. But why didn’t you commune to get aid?”
One of the men on the ground lifted his head at this. “Didn’t . . . want to be . . . seen as . . . weak.”
A new voice spoke from behind Jasside, startling her. “A little too late for that, I’m afraid.”
Jasside turned, unsurprised to find Vashodia standing not three paces away. “We need to get them help.”
“Hmm? Oh, of course, of course, it’s already on the way. You and I have more important matters to attend to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, someone has made an aggressive incursion on our most sovereign border. Is that not worth investigating?”
Jasside smiled, shaking her head. “I’ll round up the crew.”
There was no doubt in her mind that, somehow, Vashodia had been expecting this all along.
Arivana’s reflection wavered in and out of focus in the mirror as Flumere ran the brush through her hair. The strokes came in a measured, languid rhythm, tugging at her scalp, causing a pleasant sensation when few others filled her life. The sun rose over the sliver of ocean just visible between the towers of House Baudone and House Pashams, cutting through her balcony to light the bedchamber on fire. Pinks and reds and sparkly things adorned every surface, brightening under the assault. This was the room she’d grown up in. She had never before considered moving into the chamber where her mother and father used to sleep.
Perhaps it’s time I stopped acting like such a little girl and instead started acting like a queen.
She sighed, unable to envision what that was even supposed to look like. Putting aside childish things would be easy, at least. The child inside her had been dying a little each day. It wouldn’t take much to put it down for good. But as for what she would put it its place, she came up empty. It seemed she had finally run out of role models.
Flumere finished and set the jeweled brush down on the surface before the vanity. “There, my queen,” the handmaiden said. “All ready for any occasion. Do you think you’ll be going out today?”
“If I should find sufficient reason? Perhaps.”
“Very good, then. I’ll call for your breakfast.”
Arivana smiled a bit as Flumere stepped to the wall and raked her hand across the chimes. She was glad of the woman’s demeanor. Never questioning, never shaming with word or gesture, her handmaiden always did her duty with businesslike efficiency. Like a soldier. She could almost imagine the woman on a battlefield somewhere, shouting commands to her troops with prim precision, fully expecting them to be obeyed simply because she had given them.
Then again, Arivana had never seen a real battle. She’d only heard about them in stories. Most of the times she’d been around soldiers had been on her rare visits to the barracks, where they’d dress their finest and parade around. None of that was real, she knew. Just the shiny surface of things. Just dazzle and distraction. Her brief brush with bloodshed in the gardens made her realize that all she’d been told of war was a lie.
And I am sick of being lied to.
Arivana’s nose filled with scents that made her stomach rumble in anticipation a moment before Flumere pried open the dumbwaiter door. The woman spun around with the tray in her hands, then set it gently on a table. Arivana stood and stepped over to one of the two high-backed chairs around it.
Without a word, they both dove into the food. Boiled duck eggs half-shelled in tiny silver bowls, fried alligator tail wrapped in bacon and stuffed inside pastries, sliced mangoes drizzled with honey and mint, a carafe of guava juice—they devoured it all in less than five marks, not caring about the grease and crumbs that got everywhere.
Arivana sat back, patting her belly. It felt good to be full though her dance instructor would likely berate her for putting on so much weight in the past month. If she ever went back to the lessons, that is. She wasn’t yet sure if she could look any member of Claris’s house in the eye.
“Why did she do it?” she said, then covered her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
Flumere cocked her head as she wiped her hands clean with a towel. “Well,” she said, “there’s the official answer—”
“Yes, yes. She was opposed to the war. It makes a sort of sense, I suppose. But why wouldn’t she come to me and plead her case? We were so close to each other. She had to know I would have listened.”
“Did she, your majesty?”
“I . . . I thought so.” What a strange question to ask.
“Something obviously made her think she could no longer confide in you. What happened to change her mind?”
Arivana moaned. “I don’t know!”
“I see,” Flumere said, crossing her legs. “Why don’t you start with what you do know?”
Arivana leaned back, rubbing her temples. “That’s just the problem, though. It feels like I’m being kept in the dark. Tior probably thinks he’s doing me a favor, what with my being his delicate little flower and all, but I can’t stand staying ignorant any longer. I need some answers.”
“What’s stopping you from finding them?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, as if I didn’t already appear as pathetic as can be. Coming to beg for scraps of information will only make it worse.”
“Who said anything about begging?”
“What?”
“I don’t see why you have to go through your advisors at all. Better to just find out what you want to know yourself.”
Arivana threw up her hands. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”
Flumere stayed silent a long moment, staring out the balcony. The sun’s rays fell low enough now to dance across her handsome face, forcing her to squint. She drummed her fingers across her knee for an entire mark.
At last, she nodded to herself, saying, “If you’d like, my queen, I might have an idea where to start.”
Arivana felt her heart stammer at the words. “Truly?”
“Yes, your majesty. Being your handmaiden, I have a surprising amount of access in this tower, among the affairs of both the high and low. I can ask the questions you can’t.”
“What q
uestions?”
Flumere lowered her eyes. “Oh, I’m not so clever as that. You’ll have to come up with what to ask. I can only make sure it reaches the right ears.”
“Hmm.” She leaned forward, resting her chin in her palm. “So you’d be, like, my own personal spy?”
Flumere jerked slightly at the last word. Taking a breath, she said, “Yes, my queen. Something like that.”
Arivana had to wonder at the reaction. She had no idea of the woman’s past and didn’t want to pry. Perhaps she’d done similar work before she became her handmaiden? If so, she’d let the woman tell her in her own time.
I think I finally have a friend. I don’t want to ruin it with intrusive questions.
She reached out and grasped Flumere’s hand, squeezing gently. The woman returned the gesture. They shared a smile.
“I think,” Arivana said, “that I would like that very much.”
“I am pleased to serve, your majesty.”
“Good. Are you ready for your first task?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Then the first order of business: As long as we are in private, I insist that you begin calling me Arivana.”
Sensation returned to Tassariel with agonizing slowness, as the void of her dreams faded to mist. Disturbing impressions of things unseen, amorphous shapes stalking shadows, had been haunting her for what seemed time unending. She was glad for the respite.
But that cold spike in her back was still there.
She snapped her eyes open and jolted upright, flexing the muscles that would unfurl her wings on demand. But nothing happened. Just a stirring of the ice in her spine. A pale dread filled her as she began breathing faster and faster, wishing, praying for this one truth to be undone. The nightmares seemed preferable to this reality.
A hand came down on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Tass?” Eluhar said.
She twisted, peering up into his eyes. Eyes full of concern and compassion, sympathy and relief. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t think so,” she said.
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