by Sharon Shinn
Wen considered how to frame her next questions. “What was she like, before she married Rayson Fortunalt?” she asked finally. “And why did she marry him?”
Jasper sighed and leaned back in his chair, steepling his hands. “She married him because he was the serramar, and any girl in the region would have accepted him if he’d proposed. Did you ever meet him?” When Wen shook her head, he continued, “He aged badly, but when he was a young man, he was attractive in a sort of bold and energetic way. He used to storm into the room, even if he was just coming to ask when dinner would be served. Some girls consider that sort of energy romantic. I suppose Serephette did. At any rate, she was happy enough to marry him, or so I thought at the beginning.”
“And what was she like?”
“Much more present than she is now, if you understand what I mean. She was never particularly warm, but she was always extremely intelligent—as a young woman, she could offer a spirited argument on any topic that happened to come up. If she’d married someone suited to her, I imagine she might have become quite remarkable. A scholar, perhaps, or a trader in exotic jewels. Someone who specialized in some obscure but fascinating field and threw her whole life into it. Instead, she married Rayson and basically withdrew from the world, bit by bit. What portion of herself she could not shield from Rayson was systematically humiliated or brutalized, or so I’ve often surmised. The face that she shows the world today is the face that was shaped by marriage to Rayson Fortunalt. If there is another side to Serephette anymore, she keeps it deeply hidden. I hope that, the longer he is dead, the more she finds herself willing to emerge from her self-imposed seclusion. But so far we haven’t seen much except the Serephette that Rayson left behind.”
“I think Rayson Fortunalt did some damage to Karryn as well,” Wen remarked.
“Unquestionably. He has left her unsure of herself, extremely self-conscious, and convinced no one will have a reason to love her—but I have always thought he could have done worse to her, and might have if he’d lived longer. I am glad he is dead. And not just because he tried to destroy the kingdom.”
Wen had been on the battlefield the day after Rayson was killed. They had thought his death would signal the end of the war—it hadn’t, but it had been an important step. She had joined with the others in celebrating the good news, but at the time she had viewed him less as a man, and more as an almost formless representation of evil. The more she knew of Karryn and the household Rayson had run, the more she was beginning to understand him as an individual.
None of that new knowledge made her sorry he was dead, either.
She pushed herself to her feet. “Well, he has left a mess behind him,” she said. “But maybe everything will heal over in time, as you say. At any rate, Serephette and Karryn cannot be worse off now that he is gone, even if they never get any better.”
After a few more words of conversation, she left him in the library, with his head already bent over a book. She was passing the great central stairwell when she came upon Karryn sitting on the steps, looking woebegone. The girl rose to her feet, standing on the third step, as Wen came to a halt. It was obvious Karryn had been waiting for her.
“Well?” Wen said. Her voice was stern, but not as cold as it should have been; Jasper’s comments about Karryn’s vulnerabilities had touched her heart.
Karryn laced her hands in front of her. “I just wanted to say—again—I’m so sorry, and I won’t ever be stupid again. I promise you.”
Wen nodded. “Apology accepted. But it is not for my sake that I wish you to behave with some caution. It is for your own. You are too valuable to take pointless risks.”
Karryn came down the last few steps. “I suppose I’m not used to thinking of myself as valuable,” she said. “Mostly I always just thought I was in everybody’s way.”
Which was as sad a remark as Karryn could have made. Wen said gravely, “Even if you never had a sense of your importance as serramarra, one day to be marlady, there is the value your mere existence has for the people who love you.”
Karryn gave a hollow laugh. “There aren’t too many of those people.”
“Your mother—your uncle—your friends,” Wen said, realizing the roster was shorter than it should have been. But who has dozens of people on the list of those who love them? Wen thought. I have parents and siblings who will mourn my passing, but none of my friends even know if I am still alive.
She closed her mind to the thought of those friends and forced herself to go on. “And someday, if you are a very good marlady, your vassal lords and all the people of Fortunalt will love you.” She offered a smile. “I don’t imagine it will take much effort on your part to do a better job than your father did, so it ought to be easy to win them over.”
Karryn smiled in return, though she looked just a touch anxious. “I’m not sure I know how to be a good marlady,” she said.
“You have time to figure it out,” Wen said. She nodded a farewell and turned toward the door. “Goodnight, Karryn.”
“Goodnight,” Karryn said. And then, when Wen was ten steps away, she called softly, “Willa?”
Wen made a half-turn back to face her. Karryn hadn’t moved a pace from the newel post. “Yes?”
“Would you really kill someone to protect me?”
Wen studied her a moment. Karryn tried to keep a casual expression on her face, but Wen suspected this, and not the apology, was the real reason Karryn had sat here waiting for her. I’m not used to thinking of myself as valuable, she had said. Karryn would never make her own safety a priority if she didn’t think she was worth defending.
“Yes,” Wen said. “If your life was at stake, I would take a life—or two, or three.”
“Because I’m the serramarra,” Karryn said, “one day to be marlady. Because it is your job to keep me safe.”
Wen looked at her even longer this time. “Because you’re my friend and I care about you,” she said at last. “Because you are a serramarra, you are exposed to more dangers than an ordinary woman. But I would fight for you if you were just a girl I had found in the streets. As I would fight for Ginny, or Bryce, or your uncle, or your mother. I would not let harm come to any of them. It is you I would defend, and not just your title.”
She had guessed correctly; Karryn’s smile was utterly radiant. “I am surprised you have not left a trail of corpses behind you, if that is how you feel about all your friends!” Karryn said.
You don’t want to ask me about the corpses, Wen thought. She gave a small smile and said, “I have fewer friends these days, so fewer causes to fight.”
“I think that must be by your own choice,” Karryn said.
“I suppose all of us live lives bound to some extent by choices we have made,” Wen replied.
Karryn took a deep breath. “Well, I’m glad you have chosen to take your place at Fortune,” she said. “I do feel very safe with you to guard me—and I promise to give you no more cause to worry about me.”
Wen nodded. “Then goodnight, serra. I will see you in the morning.”
Chapter 23
THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE WRAPPED IN A BUZZING LAYER of excitement as Karryn and Serephette began preparations for their ball. Tradesmen came to the door every hour, so naturally members of the guard had to be stationed inside the house to make sure none of the merchants offered any harm to the inhabitants. But much of the shopping had to be done on-site, so Karryn and Serephette often set out for the commercial districts of Forten City to visit florists, bakers, dressmakers, and jewelers. Each time, they were accompanied by a cadre of guards, and sometimes by Lindy or Demaray Coverroe—and more than once by Bryce.
This seemed so unlikely that Wen taxed Karryn with it after the second time Bryce had ridden along with them to the city boutiques. Karryn was laughing. “It’s my mother’s idea,” she said. “She loves to bargain, you know, and she absolutely hates to pay a single copper more than she has to. She likes to bring Bryce with her because he can tell her when a vendo
r has reached his lowest price. Whenever he saves her a significant amount of money, she gives some of it to Bryce. I think they’re both delighted with the arrangement.”
Wen was grinning. “I guess you just never know when magic’s going to come in handy.”
Nothing untoward happened on any of these excursions, or at the House, despite the increased activity. Karryn was so busy making plans for the ball that she had less time to spend at the Coverroe house, which Wen thought was no bad thing, but from time to time Lindy dropped by to check on Karryn. Two days before the ball, and four days after he had run afoul of Wen, Ryne Coravann returned to Fortune for a casual visit.
Wen happened to be the one closest to the house when he rode up on his ill-mannered stallion. She considered calling for Moss or Eggles to follow him inside and make sure he got into no mischief, but then she shrugged and ducked through the door. What did she care if her presence made him uncomfortable? Particularly if it also made him more circumspect?
Wen loitered outside the parlor where Ryne made polite conversation with Jasper and Serephette while they shared afternoon refreshments. Once the plates were cleared away, Ryne turned to Karryn and said, “The day is too beautiful to sit inside. Can we go for a ride?”
Karryn was clearly torn. “Oh—I would—but I can’t! The dressmaker is arriving in less than an hour to do my final fitting, and I must be here.”
“Couldn’t disappoint the seamstress,” Jasper said.
“At the price of this dress, you wouldn’t want to,” Serephette said dryly.
Ryne stood. “Then let’s just walk around outside until she comes.”
Karryn jumped to her feet. “Yes, let’s do that!”
Naturally, Wen trailed behind them at a discreet distance, far enough back that she couldn’t catch what they said. Fortune wasn’t nearly the size of the queen’s palace; there wasn’t that much ground to cover, nor were there as many gardens and nooks to get lost in. Wen wasn’t surprised when Ryne and Karryn ended up sitting in a small gazebo set on the eastern edge of the property, close enough to the surrounding hedge to fall under its shadow at certain times of the day.
Close enough to the hedge to try to break through it if Ryne decided to test Wen’s vigilance. No help for it; she had to be in a position to stop him if he tried to smuggle Karryn off of the estate. That meant she had to be in a position to overhear much of their conversation.
At first they talked about the ball and who might come. Then he related some recent adventure that seemed to involve a race, a bet, and a certain amount of alcohol. A clatter of carriage wheels on the other side of the hedge made her miss the segue, but when it was quiet enough for Wen to hear again, they were discussing their inheritances.
“Do you mind?” Karryn was asking.
At some point during their promenade, Ryne had broken off a switch from an ornamental shrub, and now he ran it back and forth along the stone slats of the gazebo. “Oh, I always knew Lauren would be the heir,” he said. “She’s the oldest, of course, and she’s always been so good. You just look at her and know that she’s thoughtful and responsible and kind.” Wen could see the smile he gave Karryn. “Which is one of the reasons I’ve always been so foolish and careless and wicked. I could never compete with Lauren, so I had to be different.”
“Do you dislike her?”
“No, I love her as much as everyone else does.”
“So will you stay in Coravann Keep or will you find someplace else to live? Eventually, I mean.”
He tapped at the slats again. “I don’t know. I might travel for a while. I’ve thought about going to the Lirrens someday.”
“The Lirrens! Why? Isn’t it full of strange, uncivilized people who are always fighting with each other?”
He grinned. “Well, you could say that the people of Gillengaria are always fighting with each other, too, and some of them are fairly strange, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You know what I mean. The people there are different.”
“That they are,” he agreed. “Suspicious of strangers and full of violence, as you said. But I’m curious about them. And I could live with one of the families in the Lahja clan, I think, since I could claim kinship.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother was from the Lirrens,” he said. “Apparently there’s some terribly romantic story about how my father met and wooed her, since Lirren girls aren’t allowed to marry outsiders. So I have uncles and cousins who’ve been coming to visit the Keep ever since I can remember. I’m sure they’d let me cross the mountains and visit with them in turn.”
“But what would you do there?” Karryn asked, clearly bewildered. “How would you pass the time?”
He laughed. “First I’d see if my cousin Torrin could teach me how to fight! He’s amazing with a sword—or a knife—or his bare hands.”
Wen felt a small shock of recognition when Ryne said Torrin’s name. She’d remembered Ryne’s Lirren blood, but she’d forgotten his specific family connections. Torrin had been among the Lirren men who joined the royal forces in the war. Senneth was somehow related to Torrin within the vast clan network that tied the Lirren families together. But Torrin had not come to fight for Senneth alone, or even for the king. He had come to support his sister Ellynor, who had married the Rider Justin. . . .
Yet another reason to dislike Ryne Coravann. Because he was cousin to the girl who had married the man who had broken Wen’s heart.
How could it be that even the most remote and random strangers Wen encountered in territory as far from Ghosenhall as she could run would still somehow remind her of the man she wished she no longer loved? She would have to sail for Sovenfeld, that was all. She would have to leave Gillengaria altogether if she wanted to be certain she would never again hear Justin’s name, or any name that reminded her of him.
Ryne was still speaking, and Wen gritted her teeth and continued to listen. “But sword fighting isn’t what I’d really want to learn. They have this strange magic over in the Lirrens. Some of them can turn themselves invisible.”
“That’s not possible,” Karryn protested.
“It’s true, though. I’ve seen Torrin do it. The Lirrenfolk claim it’s a power given to them by their goddess, and it allows them to slip through the darkness completely unobserved. I keep thinking that because I’m half-Lirren, I should be able to do it, too. Sometimes I practice.”
Karryn was still unconvinced. “How?”
“I sit very still and I think about the way the sun shines and the shadows fall. I imagine being part of the shadow. I imagine the sunlight glancing away from me. I just imagine myself not there. . . .”
His voice trailed off. A moment of silence was interrupted by Karryn’s urgent voice. “Ryne! Stop that! I don’t like that, come back right now!”
Her first word had jerked Wen’s full attention to the gazebo and—laughing gods and goddesses—she could see that he had almost mastered the trick. His body had a dark and formless shape; he practically disappeared into an unexpected weave of shadows. It wasn’t true invisibility—for she, too, had seen Torrin play that trick, and it was impressive as hell—but she didn’t think it would take Ryne long to figure out the rest of it. And wouldn’t the world be a risky place if Ryne Coravann could walk around completely undetectable, wreaking his endless mischief?
But laughter made him lose his concentration, and he was instantly his usual solid self. “I can think of all kinds of reasons I’d like to be able to completely disappear,” he said. “And none of them are respectable.”
“I’m not sure people like you should be allowed to have magic,” Karryn told him.
“But you can see why I’d want to go to the Lirrens,” he said. “So that’s something I might do in the future.”
If Karryn planned to answer him, she was instantly diverted by the arrival of a vehicle pulling up at the front gate. “Oh—there’s the dressmaker,” she said, jumping to her feet. “I have to go in now. Will I see you tomor
row at Lindy’s?”
