by M. A. Ray
Two things, Stas never dared to draw. He didn’t draw the ideas that occurred to him late at night, lying on the shelf in his cell with Boris just across the way. He was certain that if he got them out on paper he could make them better. He might, someday, when he was a little older, but he knew he’d never draw the life-lights. He was dying to show Brother Jerzy what he saw, what he really saw when he looked at a person, but Stas knew in his bones it was the worst idea in history, even worse than his idea of a machine to fly through the sky, which would never work, not in a thousand years.
But—all the same, Stas could content himself. He drew and drew, and every so often he looked up at Brother Jerzy, painting frontispieces and drop capitals at his big desk. No matter how curious he was about the painting, no matter how many things he wanted to draw and couldn’t, he was content; because every so often he looked next to the window, which now, in summer, stood wide open to the breeze and sunshine, and saw a drawing of an apple pinned just to one side.
Butterflies
Knightsvalley
“And furthermore,” Vandis said, in a voice a lot calmer than the one he’d used to chew out Dingus last night, “you will not run around without telling one of us where you will be and with whom. I don’t care how annoying this is. If you don’t want Dingus to know, you will tell me. If you don’t want either of us to know, you will not do it.”
“Yes, Vandis,” Kessa said, carefully not rolling her eyes. It was as though she’d been misbehaving, which she most definitely had not. She might want to, but she hadn’t. It was just so hard to be around Dingus when her skin itched for contact and he was stewing with his own skull for a pot, the way he’d been every time she saw him lately. Even before they got here, he’d been like that; ever since that spring, he’d walked around with LEAVE ME ALONE written on his forehead in fiery letters. Whenever she tried to hug him, he did everything but push her down to get away.
“Well. Good talk, then.” Vandis nodded, satisfied.
Good lecture, you mean, she thought, suppressing a sigh, when he turned around. He wouldn’t hug her as much as she wanted hugging, either. Without Elise and Becky, she probably would’ve gone crazy.
“Ready, Dingus?”
Dingus leapt up from the log where he’d been sitting since before Kessa had even come awake. He looked about to puke: all grayish-green and pasty. He gazed at Vandis wild-eyed and wrung his outsize, capable hands. He wore his best clean clothes, and would’ve looked nice if he hadn’t been so nervous—and if his hair didn’t stick up all crazy, damp from the bath he must’ve taken but mussed by twitchy fingers.
“You want me to fix your hair?” she asked. “It’s all—” She waved her hands around her head.
“Uh,” Dingus said. “Yeah.”
Kessa got her comb and wet it a little in one of the buckets. She stood behind him—he’d gotten a little taller than she was, but not by much—and reached up to run it through his shaggy hair. He flinched away from her, the tiniest, teeniest bit, but he let her do it. She wished he’d trust her more. “You’ll do fine,” she said, just the same. “You got so much stuff crammed in your head, there’s no way you’ll flunk.”
“I can’t remember any of it,” he said hoarsely.
“Where does the Jarl of Jarls live?”
“Tholfarholl in Rodansk, founded in Common Year 655 by Tholfar, eighth of his name, who banished the trolls from the island.”
“See?” She spun him around and smiled. She’d kiss him right now, right in front of Vandis, if she thought it’d make him feel any better. “You know this stuff.”
“I’m gonna choke.” He turned toward Vandis. “What happens if I choke?”
Vandis lifted one shoulder. “You’ll try again next year. You’re not going to choke.”
“Ugh.” Dingus swallowed, staring off into the distance, eyes wide with horror at the thought of having to try again next year. “What happens if I puke?”
“You won’t be the first or the last. We clean it up and you keep going,” Vandis said cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder. “Here, Kessa, before I forget.” He dug in his purse and slapped two silver royals into her hand: so much money she had no idea how she’d spend it all.
“Wow, Vandis! Really?”
“It’s the Moot.”
She smiled hugely and bent down to kiss him on the cheek, which always made him blush a little and rub at the spot. Today he’d shaved, and it was smooth rather than bristly. “You’re the best.”
“Ahem, well. Let’s get this show on the road.”
They started off for the fairground. Kessa could hardly keep from skipping. Knightsvalley was so magic. It seemed to be an enchanted forest, and it burst at the seams with neat people to talk to.
“Eager much?” Vandis asked, and when she looked for him, she saw he walked way behind. Dingus trailed even farther.
She flushed and stopped to wait. When Vandis caught up, she said, “Sorry.”
“That’s okay. It’s a pretty exciting time of year.”
“Is it ever!”
Dingus issued a horrible, nauseated groan. Vandis smiled a little where Dingus couldn’t see.
“So what’ll you do today?” he asked Kessa. “Going to enter the beauty contest?”
“Ew, no.” She made a face. “I want to put my name in for the arm-wrestling.”
“Huh.” Vandis looked thoughtfully at her arms. “Not a bad idea.”
Kessa flexed, pleased with the muscles that popped out. She’d been working on them, doing pushups, chinning herself on stout tree limbs, and lifting a weight Dingus had helped her make: a heavy stone in a hide bag, tied off with twine so she could lift it different ways.
They walked around the lake to the fairground and up the little slope to the Assembly Hall. A crowd of older Squires and their Masters milled around outside it, all waiting to go in and start the Trials. Some of the Squires looked as sick as Dingus; some of them had a taut, exhausted look. Arkady stood near the middle of the clump with his arms folded, a half-smile of total confidence on his face—in spite of the fat black eye Dingus had given him. Even with the eye he really was fit.
“Stay out of trouble,” Vandis told her. Again.
“Have fun,” she said to both of them. Dingus squared his shoulders, stuck his hands in his pockets, and gazed determinedly off into nothing.
“We will,” Vandis assured her, and walked into the crowd, which parted around him.
“Good luck,” she added, just to Dingus.
“Thanks,” he grunted, nodding once. Then he went off to join his friends in the square. They both had their hands in their pockets too, except Wallace was holding hands with that girl, Francine. All their eyes had big dark bags underneath, like Dingus’s, and they were all sort of pale. There was another guy with them—the fittest guy Kessa had ever seen, with hair the color of the chocolate she’d gotten at that one booth and a big silver earring, a dragon, in one ear. He looked as if he hadn’t slept great, either, but when Dingus came up he gave Kessa’s friend an achingly handsome smile.
Kessa walked to the fair, sending a rock tumbling down the rise in front of her. It wasn’t that she felt left out; she wasn’t even sure she wanted to do the Trials at all. She was all for the Lady, oh definitely, being free and equal to everybody, getting to choose what she wanted to do with her life … she just didn’t think she wanted to be a Knight. She wasn’t the same as Vandis and Dingus. They always wanted to be outside, and it seemed the wetter, the muddier, the chillier it was, the happier they were. Kessa was always gladdest to stay at an inn.
She glanced behind her up the rise at the plain, round building tucked in its nest of pines. The Masters were filing in, leaving a herd of Squires behind. She couldn’t make out anyone’s face, but she could see Dingus’s blaze of hair. He wasn’t the only redhead, but he was the tallest of all the Squires. She enjoyed looking at him, even from a distance, and even though he wasn’t handsome, he was the best guy she knew.
She turned back toward the bright tents and booths of the fair, heading for the tent where they had sign-up sheets for the contests that would start day after tomorrow, on Longday itself, but she wasn’t in any particular hurry; she went slow, meandering around the fair. She didn’t feel like hanging around with her friends, and when she saw them she went, quietly, the other way.
Right before dinnertime she bought cider and sipped it while she watched the blacksmith repair a broken sword. He had some new blades set out on a blanket and she crouched to look them over, wishing Vandis had given her enough to buy a new sword. A hand-and-a-half, that was what she really wanted, maybe even this one here, a tall, shiny beauty with a nice plain cross-hilt. She ran her finger along the ridge at the back of the blade.
It would’ve hurt Vandis’s feelings to hear her say so, but she didn’t want to be a ranger. She didn’t favor tracking or hunting—when he made her skin something she almost always threw up in her mouth a little. Killing a small, helpless rabbit had no appeal for Kessa. She wanted to test herself against something that could fight back. What did rabbits prove? But if she could fight, nobody could ever make her do something she didn’t want to do again. If she won the purse for the arm-wrestling, she decided, she’d buy this sword. Sneaking a look right and left first, she slipped her hand under the hilt and curled her fingers around it. It fit nicely in her hand. She was about to lift it a hair above the blanket to see if it had anything close to the right balance for her when somebody tapped her on the shoulder. She snatched her hand away from the sword and awkwardly craned her head around.
“Hey, Kessa,” Arkady said, smiling gorgeously down at her in spite of the black eye.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “Arkady, right?” Like I could forget.
“Yeah,” he said. “So what’s going on? I just got out of the Quiz.”
Kessa bit her lip. It was nice to get attention from someone good-looking, but maybe she shouldn’t play around. She didn’t want to get pushed into anything like she had before. Besides, Dingus would be super-pissed. On the other hand, she’d tried to tell him if he didn’t want her he had no business telling her who she could hang around. It wasn’t her fault he’d interrupted her. “I was just about to go put my name in for the arm-wrestling contest.”
Arkady’s teeth flashed. “I’m putting my money on you.”
Kessa straightened up. “You should only do that if you think I’m going to win,” she said, but couldn’t help smiling back.
“Oh, you’ll win the Squires division, no question.”
That might or might not have been true, but it pleased her to hear it. “Do you want to get some dinner?”
“Are you sure you’re not afraid to be seen with me?”
“Why would I be?” She started away down the track that had the smith, the clothiers, and the tanners, and toward the area where all the food booths and eating tents had been set up.
Arkady followed with a low laugh. “Your brother.”
“Dingus isn’t my brother.”
Arkady raised his eyebrows. “He thinks he is.”
“What Dingus thinks and what’s going on are about this far apart,” she said bitterly, putting her hands out with a yard in between.
“Is that how the wind blows?”
Kessa didn’t answer or look at him. She really hadn’t meant to tell him that.
“He’s a moron,” Arkady said, so close to her ear his dark-blond mustache tickled. “If he can have you in front of him every day and not notice how beautiful you are…” Flushing hot, she moved away, and he showed her his palms. “Hey, sorry. I’m just telling you what I think.”
“He’s really not. He’s just, you know…”
“Oblivious?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Let me just stop and put my name in, okay? Then we can go eat.”
Arkady extended his arm for her to take—hers, she had the satisfaction to note, were thicker than his. If he did something she didn’t want him to, he would draw back a stump, just like Vandis said, but she wasn’t completely sure she wouldn’t like him doing something, either. She enjoyed the hum he put in the pit of her stomach and the fluttery sparkle in her head as they went to put her name in.
“So are you from Wealaia?”
Kessa made a face, and he laughed.
“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. Besides, it’s not all bad. You got a really pretty accent out of it.”
She blushed and almost tripped over her own feet. He had an accent, too, flat and sharp, the sound of jaybirds calling. “I like yours, too. Where are you from?”
“Muscoda,” he said. “My older brother’s Voivod Markov. Not that it matters anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Used to be a voivod was a warlord. Now?” He shrugged. “Administrators. Kasimir pulled the teeth right out of us. Anyway, Ryan stayed at Markov Castle and picked me up. I’m here, and I think it’s pretty decent, so…” He smiled at her again. “So how’d you get to be Vandis’s Squire?”
“Oh, look, here we are,” Kessa said hastily, glad to see the sign-up tent. He didn’t let her go in by herself, even though she would’ve preferred to, and stood right up behind her while she carefully wrote her name on the sheet for arm-wrestling. Dingus and Vandis had gotten her to doing that, at least, so she wasn’t embarrassed in front of Arkady by having to make an X.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s get that dinner. I’ll buy you some Muscodite food, it’s really good.”
She agreed and he took her arm, smiling that warm smile under his mustache. She couldn’t agree that Muscodite food was really good: he got them a whole trout inside some kind of jiggly jelly that also tasted of fish, and Kessa poked at hers, disliking it. She preferred the fish Dingus made, stuffed with garlic mustard and rampion roots and roasted on a stick over the campfire. The mashed taters were good, but then, they were the same as the ones they had in Wealaia.
At first, he prodded her about how she got to the Knights, and the whole time, she kept turning his questions aside. She didn’t want to talk about Everett. All right, she’d spilled it to Dingus pretty quick that first day, but until him, she’d never really had a friend. Besides, she’d rather enjoy the company she had now than tell him all about her stupid, sordid past. At least it wasn’t hard to get Arkady to talk about himself. With a little encouragement, he did it all through the rest of dinner.
When they finished, he said, “Why don’t I walk you back to your camp?”
“Well, I should wait for Vandis.” Or Dingus, she did not say. She hadn’t really thought to go back yet, and besides, she wanted to meet up with Becky and Elise.
“We can just walk around for a while, then,” he said, and she did want to go find her friends, but when he laid his hand over hers and stroked the back of it with his fingertips that way … “I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
He smiled, and she felt as though her insides were melting, and she said, “Okay.”
They didn’t go anywhere in particular, just walked around and talked about nothing. He didn’t remind her of Everett at all; he listened to the stuff she had to say, even though she felt positive it couldn’t possibly interest him, and he kept smiling at her, and eventually his arm slid down hers and he took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. They were at the edge of the fairground, near the cleared space between the tents and the forest. The sun warmed her back, and her hand and his hand sweated together.
“I know a spot near here, in the forest,” he said, pointing off to the right, where the trees cast cool gray shade over the cut grass just beyond the tents. “There are these bushes—I don’t know what they’re called, they’re some kind of roses—but the butterflies love them. If you rustle a bush, a whole cloud of butterflies comes out.”
“Oh,” she said, pleased with the idea. It would make Knightsvalley seem even more like an enchanted forest. “Could you show it to me?”
“Sure. Do you want to go now?”
“I’d really like to
see it.”
He gave her the broadest smile yet. “It’s this way.” With a tug on her hand, he drew her through the cleared space behind the tents and booths to that cool gray shade, and then into the woods. Dropped needles padded their feet as they walked over the stony ground and slipped off the rocks as they made their way slightly down, into one of the lower parts of the valley. It wasn’t as low as the lake, though, and when they encountered a chuckling stream he led her away from it, until they finally came to a little glade that held a few clumps of bushes with glossy, dark-green leaves and blown roses with creamy petals and sunny centers. Hundreds of butterflies rested on the flowers, closing and parting their scalloped black-and-yellow wings and flashing the rows of blue spots they had near the bottom on the inside.
She turned her face up to the sunlight for a moment, breathing out clean mountain air, and then turned to Arkady. “Wow. It’s so pretty here!”
“Watch!” Arkady went to one of the rosebushes and gave it a kick. The limbs rustled, and a black mass of butterflies exploded from the bush, so many that the sun only peeked through in tiny flashes. He kicked another bush, and another; butterflies choked the air, fluttering against her hands and face. It hardly lasted long enough for her to open her arms to let more of them brush her skin.
“Can I kiss you?”
She blinked and turned her face toward him. “Is that why you brought me here?”
“Not exactly. Mostly, I thought you’d enjoy it, but you’re even more beautiful surrounded by butterflies. Does that make you uncomfortable?”
“Not really,” she said, not really telling the truth. Her stomach fluttered. “Go ahead.”
Arkady beamed and stepped closer. He put his hands lightly on her waist and laid his lips on hers. It was—it was—oh, wow, it was really nice, not the way Everett had slobbered all over her. He was warm and his mustache tickled, and her heart started to pound. Once the first flush died away a little, she managed to kiss back, and then it was just amazing. She felt his lips curve into a smile. His arms slid around her and she let him draw her in and slip his tongue in her mouth. His thing was hard. She felt that, too, pressing against her where leg met torso, and for a while everything got lost: her head spun, heat pulsed at the bottom of her stomach, and her skin came alive with tingling up and down her sides, everywhere he brushed his fingers. He didn’t get all grabby on her breasts, even if he was touching them.
