Rayne shrugged helplessly. How did any of them know? Could she blame her sister for finding comfort in the embrace of the only man who was allowed near her? Merek had wanted Rayne, and that had been enough for her. He made her feel like she belonged, and that was what she’d always wanted. Edlyn felt safe with Danyll, protected by his greedy sort of magic, and it satisfied her need for a human connection. But a part of her felt a twinge of remorse, knowing that it would be the only idea of love that Edlyn would ever know.
Finally, on the third day, when Rayne had lost as many chess games as she could stomach, it snowed. From her window, she watched the southern lords scurry for shelter, acting as if they would melt at the touch of a snowflake. Today was not a day for chess, but a different kind of strategizing. She shrugged into her cloak and hurried to the gardens, emerging into an eerie silence. The sorrow tree was in the very back, where it tried to hide from notice but did a poor job, with its speckled red leaves and bleeding branches that brushed the ground.
Rayne moved toward it, weaving through bushes thick with sweet-smelling flowers coated in a fine white powder, beneath boughs of trees with thin trunks tied in knots around one another, their branches stretching over walkways. It was all so beautiful, but she only had eyes for the ancient tree and its promise of poison.
The branches bent heavy beneath the weight of the leaves, and she had to brush them aside, stepping into their canopy to hide from the snow. The white trunk was as wide around as several men, and where the bark was cracked, red sap pooled like blood. She felt instantly unsettled as the branches settled back into place behind her, hiding her in their circle. No wonder her ancestors had believed these trees to be closely associated with their gods; it felt like a million eyes were watching her. She reached up to pinch a leaf just as a voice broke the eerie silence.
“I haven't been able to cut it down.”
Rayne turned, searching for the speaker, and finally found him on the other side of the trunk. Her father wore a simple leather jerkin with a black cloak pinned at the shoulder by a crow-shaped broach, their family's sigil. The iron crown sat on his head in its usual spot. She dropped into a curtsy.
“Father,” she said by way of greeting. She had seen him only in passing since her arrival, and she excused his absence to herself—he was busy assembling an empire, after all. But a part of her heart leaped at finding him here, at finally, finally having his attention.
Her father's eyes flicked to her and then wandered up the tree's trunk, pausing on the branches overhead and the white sky beyond. “Your mother made me leave Dusk,” he said. “Did you know that? She hasn't spoken to me in years. When I first came here, I stood right here, in this very spot, and asked the old gods for help. Silly, isn't it? But I made a bargain with the savage gods, and here you are.”
“A bargain?” Rayne asked. Throughout her entire childhood, her father had never—not once—faltered in his beliefs. Enos was the one true god and he rewarded conquest. The more people a person controlled and the more land he held and the wider he spread Enos’s influence, the more honored he was in the next life. One person, one lost girl, wouldn't have mattered to Enos, not when her father controlled thousands. But she could see how maybe Interis, the goddess of fate, or Gjaldos, the god of redemption, might find it a worthy cause. It was nearly impossible to imagine him kneeling before this tree, needing to believe in something bigger than himself.
“That is between the old gods and me,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back and turning to Rayne.
“Does it perhaps have something to do with Edlyn and her confinement?” Rayne asked. She hadn’t yet thought about how to administer the poison and get away with her life. If she could convince him to loosen his hold on her sister, to bring her out into public, maybe she would stand a chance at shifting the blame off of her and onto a mysterious, unknown assassin.
“I did what I had to in order to keep her safe.”
Yes, Rayne thought. Imprisoned her, promised her to a power-hungry wielder prince. But at least she was safe. “I worry for her,” Rayne admitted aloud.
“And I worry about my people,” her father said. His voice had changed, grown distant. He was pulling away. She’d had him for a few moments, but now he was becoming the king again. “A Crowheart queen must sit on Hail’s throne; anyone else, and the empire will fall before it is even established. That queen is Edlyn.”
“Edlyn is that queen,” Rayne agreed, “but they will not follow her if they do not see her. It's time to let her go. She cannot hide forever.” Just like Rayne had been forced out of hiding, it was time for Edlyn to take risks, to expose herself and become vulnerable. And Rayne would take advantage of it.
Seeing her father's discomfort at the idea, she reached out and took his hands. They were cold and rough and too big, as they had always been. They were hands that had tucked her in extra-tight on cold, snowy nights; hands that had brushed her hair when the tangles had become too much even for the maids; hands that had brandished the whip that had split Madlin's back, torn her open from top to bottom. Rayne resisted the urge to drop his hands and shove him away. This was what she had to remember. That he had to pay. He had to suffer. He said it himself. He needed a Crowheart queen. She would take Edlyn from him, and when she was gone, Rayne would be his only choice. The Knights would rule Hail and fix the damage her father had done.
“Let her join us for dinner tomorrow night,” Rayne beseeched him.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated, grasping her hands and lifting the knuckles to his lips. He ducked his head; she noticed the spot near the back where he was balding. He was her father. He was the king, the emperor, the man, and the murderer. He was all of these things, and she didn't know if she could forgive him for still not being what she needed most of all.
✽ ✽ ✽
The light flurries developed into a snowstorm that continued into the night. The palace seemed to sleep through it all, the courtiers and servants and pageboys going into hibernation. Even so, it was after dinner when her father had retired to his solar before Rayne dared to return to the gardens. She wrapped her handful of red-speckled leaves in a handkerchief and stuffed it into her pocket before returning to the quiet inner corridors that would return her to her rooms.
She kept to the path that bypassed the kitchens, hoping to swipe a loaf of sweetbread, and was just coming around a corner when someone slammed into her, knocking her backward with a grunt. There was a clattering noise as the other person stumbled and dropped a small bundle they had been carrying, spilling its contents across the bare stone floor.
“Hey, watch it!” said her assailant.
Rayne pushed herself to her knees. “I'm sorry, let me help.” She crawled forward and her hands wrapped around one of the items and froze.
It was a slaver’s band. Her eyes fell on the pieces that were strewn about them. They were all slaver’s bands—gold and iron and silver, and all of them clipped down the middle.
“What's this?” she asked.
The other person snatched it out of her hands. Its cold weight was gone before Rayne could think twice. “Nothing of your concern.” It was a girl's voice. Rayne looked up, her eyes tracing the form in the darkness. She was familiar—a young, brown-skinned girl. The sleeves of her red blouse were cut in the Hail fashion to show her status, and her arms were lined with bracelets, but one stood out among the others. The silver slaver’s band was thicker and tighter than the other bangles, the skin around it chafed. As the girl scrambled to stuff the bands back into the small bag, the hood on her head slipped back and revealed a mass of golden curls.
“You're the girl from the market,” Rayne said.
The girl paused and looked up, obviously about to make a retort, but then recognition seemed to dawn on her face and her sneer twisted into shock. “You're the lost princess.”
Rayne reached to the side and recovered an iron band, holding it out to the girl. “Found, now.”
The two stood. The girl was lean
er than Rayne, but her arms were heavily muscled and her face glistened with sweat. She did not dip into a curtsy or avert her eyes, as most slaves did when she passed them in the halls. “What are you doing with all those bands?” Rayne asked.
“They're mine,” the girl said, too much bite in her voice for it to be an innocent response. “I paid for them.”
“My apologies if you think I implied otherwise. What's your name?”
“Seloue,” the girl replied, tipping her chin up ever higher. She did not stumble over her words or look small beside the palace walls. She made herself taller under Rayne's scrutiny.
When Innis had invaded Hail after the Malstrom Massacre, military resistance had been minimal. Without a monarch, the army had been confused and disjointed. Many of the nobles had also succumbed quickly to Crowheart rule, afraid of losing their positions of comfort in this life. But the people—the merchants, the maids, the fieldhands, and farmers—had not been so easy to dominate. The resistance had burned slow and steady, smoldering just beneath the surface, for years.
For her father, slavery had been the answer. Dusk did not have lush farmlands or access to ports and oceans, and so they traded primarily in people. When the Malstrom family abolished slavery in Hail after the War of the Five Families, it had not been a problem for them—the Far Lands to the southwest and the Western Wilds to the northwest needed workers for their fields and people to row their boats, and so the trade had continued unimpeded. So when death and threats did not work on the resistance in Hail after the Crowheart takeover, the leaders were sold into slavery. Men were shipped abroad, ripped from their families. Women were sold to whore houses, their children taken into nobles' homes to do menial labor. Bands of gold and iron were welded onto formerly-free arms with abandon until the resistance quieted.
Rayne would guess that Seloue’s family had been one of the merchant families, one of the ones divided by slavery. But Rayne didn't ask. Instead, she looked at this girl and she saw Madlin. Not that they were all that similar. Madlin had been quiet, a rule follower. But she had been proud. Proud of who she was and where she had come from, even at her young age. And it was refreshing to Rayne to have someone look her in the eye again.
Seloue was watching her like a deer might watch a hunter—nose twitching, ready to bolt. Rayne reached up and clutched her cloak around her shoulders, dreading the return to her room, the quiet solitude where she would have nothing to think about but the leaves in her pocket and what the next day would hold. “Can I walk you home?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rayne
“I hate snow,” Seloue declared as they picked their way through the deserted streets.
“How can you hate snow?” Rayne asked, aghast at the thought. “Look how it makes everything so much softer.” They were whispering even though they were alone, but that was what snow did. Sounds were amplified while all the rough edges were rounded off. Light from the lamps that lined the street dulled in comparison to the white snow clouds that hung heavily over the city. It was eerie and still except for the two girls trudging through the white powder.
“I'm frozen through.”
“Well, perhaps if you wore more appropriate clothes, it wouldn't be so bad.” While Rayne was wrapped in furs and woolen skirts, Seloue wore her threadbare blouse with the open sleeves and cotton skirts that clung to her legs. At least she was wearing brown boots, even if they did look a little thin.
“I don't exactly have access to finery,” Seloue said. Rayne winced at her error, but there was no spite in Seloue’s voice. It was just a matter of fact. Since leaving the castle grounds, the girl had started to open up. Where she had looked at Rayne with wary contempt at first, it had given way to curiosity, if not kindness. Rayne didn't want to ruin it by being inconsiderate. “Besides, I've never had much need for furs and wool. This is the farthest north I've lived in a long time.” Seloue side-stepped a dirty puddle. “I was born in Lueland on the Ashsky border. All I really remember about it is the heat.”
“When did you come to Orabel?”
“Two years ago, when I was fifteen,” Seloue answered. They were nearly at the market square now, but both girls had slowed so that they were barely moving. In spite of the chill that nipped at her cheeks, Rayne was in no rush to get to their destination.
“With the jeweler?”
“He bought me at an auction in Flagend.”
“Flagend? In Dusk?”
“The very same.” A wind picked up and Seloue shivered, the bands in the bag she carried clinking with the movement. Rayne shrugged out of her cloak and passed it to her, draping it over her slender shoulders.
“They've shipped you all over, then.”
Seloue shrugged, glancing sideways at Rayne, who pretended not to notice. “If you could live anywhere, where would it be?”
“Anywhere?”
“Anywhere. You've been in Dusk and Shade and Hail, right? Where would you live, if you were free to choose?”
“I don't know that I would choose any of them,” Rayne answered truthfully. Dusk was too painful, swamped with memories. Shade was too dangerous, a place where someone was judged based on their usefulness. And Hail was too sad and volatile, a country on the brink. Then she remembered Merek's map book, the page that folded out to show the world beyond Casuin. Her ancestor had come from the Fields across the Impassable Strait; maybe there was something for her there. But she didn't dare to say it.
Seloue looked thoughtful, her lips pursed and eyes narrowed. “I think I would go to Shade.”
“Why Shade?” Rayne asked.
Seloue hoisted the bag as evidence. “I'm good with metals. I could open my own shop in one of their mountain towns.”
“What about the Knights?” Rayne didn't look at Seloue as she asked, not wanting to give anything away.
“It doesn’t really matter. The only way I would ever be free to go anywhere is if the Knights of Shade win.”
Rayne inhaled sharply in surprise and Seloue's head jerked to her, her eyes wide at her own words. She hadn't meant to, but it had been involuntary. Seloue was like a wild animal who might dart away at any moment, and she didn't want to scare her. But she had the sudden urge to tell the girl everything, an urge she had to stamp down immediately. Rayne’s position was already unstable as it was.
“I didn't— no— I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Rayne said. Her words were harsh but her tone was gentle. “You should not speak so, especially not to me.”
“I forgot for a moment,” Seloue said, looking away again. “You're different. You make it easy to forget.”
“I will forget you ever said it if you'll tell me why you have those bands.” It was a question that had been irking Rayne since she first saw them scattered over the stone floor. Why would a slave—a slave who dreamed of a day the Knights won, no less—have a bag full of cut slaver’s bands?
The jewelry shop’s red door was visible now, but both girls had stopped walking, standing in the middle of the street. Light spilled out from a window, and the sound of laughter rang sharply from within one of the buildings. Rayne imagined warming her fingers on a mug of cider and was about to invite Seloue to get one when the girl spoke again.
“When the auctioneer at Flagend advertised me as being good with my hands, I feared the worst. But the jeweler who bought me was really just a lazy old man who wanted someone young and talented to work his kiln so he could sleep and drink without a care in the world. He has always been kind to me, but I will always hate him. Because of this.” She thrust her skinny brown arm out at Rayne and she knew she was meant to look at the slaver’s band there, at the way it bit into her skin and clanked against the other bangles.
“I was fifteen but still wore the child's rope,” Seloue continued. “He marched me straight to the smithy. I cried and screamed and begged and I hate myself for it because it didn't make a bit of difference.” Seloue shook her head, her eyes on her feet where snow and mud mingled to c
reate a slush that washed up over the toe of her boots. “You will never know what it's like to see a smithy pull a red-hot rod of silver from an oven and realize that it is meant for you. It was still hot when he slid it over my hand and welded it closed. It took weeks for my arm to heal. But my heart”—Seloue tapped her chest—“is still broken.”
“And these?” Rayne asked, pointing to the bag.
“These are bands cut from the arms of dead or traded slaves. I use them in my work. I repurpose them to try to make something beautiful out of something that was once ugly. I imagine— no, nevermind, it's stupid.” She shook her head and took a few steps forward. Rayne reached out and grabbed her shoulder.
“No, what?”
“I imagine that the slave finds peace that way. A peace that I—they—will never find in Casuin, not as long as...” She trailed off, not finishing the thought.
Not as long as the Crowhearts are in power. Not as long as there is slavery. She wasn’t the only one whose life had been changed because of her father’s selfishness. There were hundreds—thousands—of people who had been hurt by him.
“That's not stupid,” Rayne said quietly. Maybe finding beauty was something that got easier once she knew where to look for it. Like a square of light on an undisturbed patch of snow. Like a red door in a white city. Like a beautiful girl with a band around her arm but freedom in her heart and power in her words.
She left Seloue in front of the jeweler's shop with a promise to return. It felt empty, after everything that Seloue had shared with her, but what could Rayne say? It was on her way back, as she slipped inside the palace undetected, keeping to the shadows, that she knew what she should have said.
I will help you find your peace. I will fight for you. And this time, I will win.
✽ ✽ ✽
Rayne lay on her side, knees tucked up and hands folded beneath her head. On the small table beside her bed, the bundle of leaves taunted her. Even though she would have to be up early to steep the leaves before the kitchens were too busy, she fought the sleep tugging at her eyelids. She shifted her snow-frozen toes beneath the blanket so they were closer to the hot water bottle. Her maid had made quite the fuss over her after her return.
When Rains Fall Page 18
