Her mother got to her first, throwing her arms around Starbride and doling out both love and recriminations, as if nothing had happened in the time they’d been apart. They didn’t stare at her pyramids, but she knew the questions would come soon enough.
When her father swallowed her in a hug, her world seemed to buckle as it had when Einrich had embraced her. Much as he claimed to care, though, Einrich wasn’t her father, hadn’t been the one to hold her when she was hurt, to sing to her when she was sick. She recalled spending hours on her father’s lap while he plied his trade, lithe brown fingers bending silver or gold, working with tiny stones held in tweezers.
“Papa,” she sobbed into his shoulder.
“It’s all right, my lucky Star.”
Starbride’s mother harrumphed. “It is most certainly not all right. This place is a shambles. I’ve had to give no end of advice about how to set it straight.”
Starbride laughed through her tears. “I’m sure you minded that a great deal.”
“We’ll have none of your lip, thank you.”
Starbride pulled back to look at them both. Her mother had changed into one of the frothy dresses the Farradains favored. Her hair had been artfully arranged on top of her head, no doubt by Rainhopeful, who hovered just behind her. Her father wore flowing Allusian trousers, though her mother had forced him into an embroidered Farradain coat. It seemed a little loose, as if she’d borrowed it from someone, or maybe he’d just lost weight. His round face seemed gaunter than she remembered, and both of them had more gray mixed with their black hair.
Her father’s servant, Lakeloyal, stood beside Rainhopeful, and Starbride nodded to both of them. Their nod back was hesitant, tinged with sorrow, and she knew why. Not for Katya, but for Dawnmother. All Allusians servants would be giving her that look now.
“I’m so sorry, Star.” Her father cupped her cheeks, and she read in his eyes the grief she should have felt. She wanted to throw herself into his arms again, but Yanchasa’s spectral hand hovered on her shoulder, and she knew they weren’t alone. Other dignitaries, courtiers, and nobles lingered in the halls beyond, waiting to see what she would do.
Starbride fed her feelings into the adsna and let it carry them away. Her mother stepped in front of her father, breaking their contact. Her fingers passed over Starbride’s forehead. “Tell us, daughter.”
The words were too close to something Yanchasa might say. “I don’t have time.”
“Don’t have time?” her mother said.
Her father wound his arm through hers. “Later, Star? Let us help you.”
She smiled, so grateful she hugged him again. “Later, Papa.”
“But where are you off to?” her mother asked.
Starbride wanted to say, “Anywhere but here.” Instead she said, “Wherever they need me,” and continued out the front doors. As she passed down the steps, the flow of people entering and leaving the palace gave her a wide berth, as if tales of her deeds had already spread. She didn’t mind. It hastened her journey.
Before she could enter the city, she spied someone else waiting and watching the palace from the shadows of a counting house. As Starbride approached, the watcher stepped into the light.
Castelle had lost her hat somewhere along the way. At least she’d changed out of the blood-soaked rags she’d been wearing the last time Starbride had seen her. She still seemed pale, and Starbride bet she’d either argued her way out of bed or slipped away unnoticed.
“I didn’t know I’d kept so many people waiting today,” Starbride said.
“I’m told I have you to thank for saving me.” Her voice was still distorted. The swelling on her face had gone down, but the flesh was still bruised, and the angry line of stitches holding her cheek together said she would have a scar running the length of her face. Starbride smiled, glad she’d let Castelle keep the wound. Maybe it would remind her never to break anyone’s heart again.
“Is there something you wanted?” Starbride asked.
Castelle closed her eyes, and Starbride saw the glimmer of tears in her lashes.
“If you’re looking for someone to grieve with,” Starbride said, “you’ll have to look elsewhere. I’m busy.”
“I wish I could be busy.”
“And why can’t you?”
She shrugged. Maybe that’s what their entire conversation would come down to.
“You can come with me,” Starbride said. “There’s a lot of wreckage and such to clean up, a lot of people to sort out.”
After another shrug, she trailed in Starbride’s wake.
Yanchasa showed her the trick of how to move the adsna through stone using utility magic. The Farradains had never discovered it because they never let the adsna flow. They always had to be in control. The Allusians had the knack, based on what Katya had told her, but they wouldn’t let themselves recognize the scale on which it could be useful. Starbride mended buildings and hustled huge chunks of debris out of the street. People around her marveled while Castelle directed traffic, and several remnants cleared the streets of smaller detritus.
Even with all the work, Castelle didn’t lose her downtrodden look. “Is this what we’re supposed to do now? Stay busy?”
“Are you only now realizing you loved Redtrue?”
“I did. I know it. I loved her, and Katya…” Castelle stared at Starbride with haunted eyes. “I was jealous of you. No matter what had happened in the past, I thought she’d never be able to resist me. I thought you were lucky, now I just…Starbride, I’m so sorry.”
“Save your pity for someone who needs it.”
Castelle sank down in the dust, leaning against a storefront. She looked like someone had beaten her, body and spirit.
Starbride sighed. “I can take it away if you want.”
Castelle blinked at her with witless cow eyes.
“Your memories. I can take Redtrue and whomever.” She couldn’t say that she could erase Katya, not so easily. “I can fill in the gaps with whatever you like or nothing at all. It’ll be as if you lost your memory, as if you’d never even come to court.”
“You can do that?”
Starbride nodded and watched the emotions play across Castelle’s face.
“Would you do it, if you were me?” Castelle asked. “Don’t you want to grieve?”
Was this the plan for the indeterminate future? Everyone wanting her to sit in a corner and cry with them? The dead wouldn’t want that.
“No,” Starbride said. “Decide, please. I have things to do.” She crossed her arms. One more minute and then she’d walk away.
Chapter Twenty-one
Katya
Katya, Redtrue, and Dawnmother limped through the larger tunnels leading toward the palace. Katya gritted her teeth at their slow passage, at still being out of the sun and air. They passed smears of blood and dead corpse Fiends. The tunnels were littered with debris, especially the one Katya thought they’d fallen from. She saw the bowl-shaped divot in the dirt and frowned. Someone had thrown a disintegration pyramid, and she had no idea who might have been caught in the blast.
“Come on,” she prompted them, and they leaned on one another as they sought the way out.
When they reached the laundry still unmolested or greeted, Katya didn’t know what to think. They’d seen no sign that anyone had been digging for them, but the tunnels weren’t crawling with enemies either.
They wound through the basement and climbed the stairs, and as Katya reached the top, she heard a shriek. She turned toward the noise and drew her knife but saw only the back of a fleeing woman in livery and a bundle of sheets left behind.
“Well, unless Roland has hypnotized people into doing the laundry, that’s a good sign,” Dawnmother said.
The return of servants to the palace could only mean one thing. “She’s won. Starbride did it.” She beamed at the others until even Redtrue gave her a small smile.
The reasons why no one searched for them could wait. They found the fastest
way up and into the halls. Katya headed for the greatest collection of voices and found a large room near the entrance of the palace practically bursting with people. A few of them screamed when they saw her, and she pulled up short.
Countess Nadia rushed forth from the pack. “Highness! We heard you’d been killed!”
“By whom?”
“The usurper, of course.” She looked back and forth between them. “You look as if you’ve crawled out of your graves.”
Dirty, sweaty, bloody, she bet they looked exactly the part. “Where is Starbride?”
Nadia hesitated, and Katya resisted the urge to grab her lapels. “She is not dead,” Katya said, putting force behind the words to make them real.
“No, no, I’m sorry. She’s not dead.”
“But she thinks you are.” Brightstriving emerged from the crowd like a ship before the waves. She bowed, and her husband followed her. “Where have you been?”
Katya almost laughed at the archness in her tone, but she was too tired. “Do you know where Starbride is now?” Her heart ached at the thought of Starbride thinking her dead. Guessing at Starbride’s fate while they’d been apart had been bad enough, but to know of her demise? It had to have been the disintegration pyramid. They’d fallen just as it went off. The whole kingdom probably thought she was dead, her father included.
“Starbride went into the city,” Brightstriving said, “to help people.”
Nadia gave her a sideways glance, though Katya couldn’t imagine why. “And my family?”
“Your father went to look for your, well, I would say body, but we thought you’d been consumed by a pyramid, Highness,” Nadia said. “I am so sorry to hear of the queen’s death.”
Ah, grief. It had given way to worry for a moment. “Thank you.”
“I don’t suppose anyone kept track of Baroness Castelle?” Redtrue asked.
When everyone shook their heads, Redtrue rolled her eyes as if to lament the fact that her problems were less significant than those around her.
“Countess,” Katya said, “please tell my father I’m alive. I must find Starbride, and I know Dawnmother is as anxious as I am.”
Dawnmother nodded, gratitude in her eyes.
Katya turned to Redtrue. “If I know Castelle and tragedy, she’ll find the nearest bar.” She gestured toward the doors. “Can you manage?”
Redtrue eyed the floor as if she might not have the will to put one foot in front of the other, but she nodded. Dawnmother offered a shoulder to lean on. Katya walked under her own power and tried to dust her clothes off, but it was no use. She would have changed into diamonds and silks if it would have helped her find Starbride, but she knew she’d be loved just as she was.
“Highness,” Nadia said as she walked with them, “perhaps we could send someone looking in your stead?”
And leave her alone to pace and worry? “No, thank you, Countess. I’ll find her.”
“Perhaps someone could aid you? Fetch you some water, at least.”
“If you want to send your own searchers, Countess, be my guest. As for the water, I’m afraid I can’t wait.” It would be nice, and so would a chair, but she felt as if Starbride’s spirit pulled her along, and she couldn’t resist or she’d break apart.
Nadia stepped in front of her, and Katya staggered. Yes, this was court, where everyone wanted to talk everything to death. “What is it, Countess?”
“Starbride is not quite as you knew her.”
“What are you talking about?”
Brightstriving caught Nadia’s arm. “Grief, that’s all. Once Star sees you, she will be herself again.”
Katya made for the doors again, even more determined. If Starbride had defeated Roland, no doubt she had to use some grief-filled rage to do so. But like Brightstriving said, all would be right once they saw one another again.
They headed toward the closest tavern, asking along the way if anyone had seen Starbride or Castelle. To Katya’s surprise, everyone seemed to remember Starbride, at least. Still, there was no reason to worry. There weren’t many Allusians in town, and Starbride was famous as the leader of the rebellion. Some of the townspeople still had her colors pinned to their sleeves.
As more people grimaced when they heard Starbride’s name, unease tightened Katya’s shoulders. The crowd parted, and Katya pulled up short, her body going cold. A gray-skinned corpse Fiend was digging through the rubble of an abandoned house. It shifted stone and wood into little piles with the same mindless exuberance she remembered from when its kind had tried to murder her.
Passersby gave the corpse a wide berth but seemed neither terrified nor blissfully hypnotized. Katya’s hand twitched toward her knife, but the dead thing didn’t seem inclined to hurt anyone. This had to have something to do with Starbride, with her being not quite as Katya knew her. The cold wind gusted, whipping right through her tattered coat.
“Castelle!” Redtrue cried.
Katya turned at the happy cry. Redtrue hobbled down the street toward where Castelle sat against a tumbledown building. Castelle blinked a few times, frowning as if she didn’t know them.
As Redtrue came closer, she rubbed her eyes. “Red? Is that you?” She pushed up against the building, but when Redtrue reached her, they collapsed in a crying heap, arms entangled, both of them babbling.
“But where is Star?” Dawnmother asked.
Katya scanned the crowd but didn’t see her. She moved to Redtrue and Castelle, sorry to interrupt their happiness, but she needed answers.
“You’re all alive!” Castelle shouted. She grinned so hard, her slashed cheek began to seep around its stitches.
“Watch your—” Katya started, but Castelle sprang up and wrapped her arms around Katya, threatening to send them both to the ground.
Katya grunted, and Castelle staggered, unable to keep her feet. Katya put an arm out to steady her and looked hard at her pale face. “Are you wounded or drunk?”
“Can’t I be both?”
Katya barked a laugh.
“How did the three of you escape from that disintegration pyramid?”
“We were never caught by it,” Redtrue said as Castelle helped her up. “I shall tell you about it after we find a healer. There should be several in the Allusian camp.”
Castelle embraced her more gently. “There are healers in Marienne.”
“There are many things in Marienne,” Redtrue said, eyeing the corpse Fiend.
“Have you seen Starbride?” Katya asked, the one question she wanted answered more than, “What is that thing doing cleaning up the street?”
Castelle’s face held that same hesitation, that tiny bit of fear.
“What is wrong with everyone?” Katya asked.
“She did something with the pyramid, the one underground,” Castelle said. “I’m not a pyradisté, so I don’t know exactly what. She saved my life.”
“And that frightens you?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Just tell me where you saw her last.”
“After she gave that thing instructions, she took the side street.”
“Gave it instructions,” Katya echoed. Well, she could stand there and gawk, or she could get moving.
By the time Katya and Dawnmother had walked down the side street, Starbride was gone, and they were pointed in a different direction, back toward the palace.
“We should write this down,” Katya said after a growl. “It’ll make a wonderful farce.”
“I should have stayed in the palace,” Dawnmother said. “I could have gotten everything ready for her.”
“I wouldn’t rob you of the chance to find her,” Katya said.
“If she had come home first, I would have sent all the servants out to scour the city and bring you back.”
“Much appreciated.” She put a hand on Dawnmother’s arm as she spied another corpse Fiend, this one lifting a sagging porch with a wooden brace.
“Left!” a voice called. Katya’s head whipped toward the soun
d.
Starbride still wore her black leather outfit, the one that hugged her curves, and even with her hair untidy, a few laces open at the neck, and dust sprinkling her from head to toe, she looked glorious, her profile standing out starkly against the pale building behind her. She had one fist on her hip, and the other waved in the corpse Fiend’s direction.
“Star!” Dawnmother called. She ran forward.
Starbride turned, and Katya’s breath caught. Starbride’s beauty always affected her, but this was more: the tiny triangle glowing in her forehead, a similar glow above her heart. It was the oddest jewelry Katya had ever seen, but it didn’t stop her from hurrying forward.
Dawnmother hit Starbride in a shambling run, but instead of both of them going down in a heap of limbs, Dawnmother bounced back as if Starbride were a marble column. Starbride had to fling an arm out to grab her.
“Dawn?” Even as Dawnmother threw an arm around her shoulders, Starbride looked past her. “Katya?” Her mouth wobbled and turned down before hardening and then turning down again.
Katya could understand. She felt so much, and she’d only had to fight Roland once that day. And she’d never had to face the fact that the love of her life was dead. Katya put her arms around Starbride and Dawnmother both. As Starbride’s embrace settled around her, Katya was struck by her strength as well as the fact that she felt colder than the winter wind.
Chapter Twenty-two
Starbride
Dawnmother was alive. Katya was alive. Starbride’s brain repeated those words until they penetrated the adsna. They were filthy, stinking of dirt and sweat. They trembled in her arms. If she wanted, she could pluck them both up and carry them down the street.
“Is this real?” she whispered.
“It seems so, daughter,” Yanchasa said, though Starbride could barely hear him over the chanting in her mind. Dawnmother was alive. Katya was alive.
They were weeping, and she felt a tickle along her own cheeks. Why was she weeping? Because, a voice inside her screamed, Dawnmother and Katya were alive!
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