Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  She did notice, as she walked, that her own question had changed. It had used to be: Should she testify or shouldn’t she? Now it was: Who should testify, Lovisa or the queen?

  That was a big change.

  * * *

  —

  Today, she found the boys crowded together on the Devrets’ library floor, playing City with someone familiar.

  “Katu,” Lovisa said, always warming with relief and joy when she saw her uncle. From his position on his stomach, Katu shot her a smile.

  “Lovisa!” the boys cried out. “Come play!”

  “There’s hardly room!” she said, laughing.

  “I’m going to steal your sister for a minute, boys,” Katu said, pushing himself up from the floor with creaks and groans. “Listen to me. You’d think I was sixty years old.”

  “You’ll get younger as you recover,” said Lovisa jokingly, hoping it was true. He did look and seem older, and it tugged at her heart.

  He led her into the corridor, then around the corner to a small sitting room close to the staff stairs. It was Lovisa and Katu’s unofficial meeting place at the Devret house, a room out of everyone else’s way, where they could sit together and catch up. The Devrets had noticed. The fire was always burning in here, whenever Katu came to visit.

  “Erita told me something that touches upon one of our unsolved mysteries,” Katu said.

  “Oh, no,” said Lovisa in dismay as she pulled a chair close to the fireplace. “Something he heard?” Erita kept randomly coming out with conversations he remembered having overheard between Benni and Ferla. It made Lovisa wonder what else was trapped inside these boys that they weren’t telling her yet, either deliberately, or because they’d forgotten.

  “Yes,” said Katu grimly. “Apparently he heard Ferla yelling at Benni for not waiting until the zilfium vote before he started experimenting.”

  “Before he started experimenting—with the explosive weapon?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “So, he was supposed to wait for the zilfium vote to start making the weapons. But he didn’t. And that—ah,” said Lovisa, understanding. “This explains a piece I hadn’t fathomed before. Namely, how my mother ever imagined they could develop a zilfium weapon without breaking any laws. But she believed they could have done so, once zilfium use was legalized in Winterkeep. And she was planning to throw her vote,” said Lovisa, remembering another piece she’d forgotten. “I heard her tell my father, ‘I was going to give you your zilfium vote.’ She was planning to go against her party with the tie-breaking vote to help the Industrialists legalize zilfium use.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Erita understand it?”

  “I don’t think so. But it’s hard to tell.”

  Erita was the boy who seemed to be coping best with all that was happening. Every time he mentioned some memory that piqued the interest of his sister or his uncle, he swelled with pride for being helpful. He didn’t seem concerned with what any of his memories meant.

  In contrast, Vikti, the oldest, seemed to shrink at Erita’s announcements. He was so quiet. Too quiet, with something shuttered behind his eyes that made Lovisa’s heart rise in her throat. She wished she could see in there, figure out what he needed.

  Viri, the youngest, asked questions constantly. Details he wanted clarified about the night of the fire, the night she’d found the queen in the attic, or the days she’d spent in the north before they’d joined her. It choked her with tears, over and over, when Viri kept coming to the conclusion that she’d been a hero. She hadn’t. She’d abandoned him. He kept asking, “Are you going to leave again, Lovisa?” And Vikti’s eyes would rise to her face, watching her carefully while she answered.

  “I can’t promise you I’m never going to go anywhere ever,” she would say, because she would not lie to them. “In our long lives, we’re all going to visit lots of places. But I’m not going to disappear again, and I’m always going to be where you can find me, all right? I promise.”

  Now, before the fire, Katu was watching her.

  “As much as I want a clearer idea of what my parents did,” Lovisa said, “I hope for his own sake that Erita doesn’t have too many more secrets to share.”

  Katu was silent for a moment, staring soberly into the fire. “I don’t think it would be quite right to say that I ever understood my sister,” he said. “But I saw her adolescence, and what my father subjected her to. I might be able to help you understand where some of her wrong ideas came from, Lovisa.”

  Lovisa considered that. She already knew a lot of those stories. “No, thank you,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “If I have children someday,” said Lovisa, “I won’t expect them to blame my parents for the wrongs I do to them. They get to blame me.”

  Katu studied her, a smile playing around his lips. “You’re a good kid, Lovisa,” he said. “Have you considered a career as a judge?”

  Lovisa snorted. “Parliament appoints judges. Have you noticed the kind of person who gets elected to Parliament?”

  “Become a judge,” he said, “then throw Parliament in prison.”

  Snorting again, Lovisa stood. “Come play City?”

  “Between you and me,” said Katu, “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  * * *

  —

  The boys couldn’t convince Katu to stay for dinner, because Katu had a date.

  “A date!” Viri squealed. “Who do you have a date with, Katu?”

  “A lovely woman who happens to be one of my doctors,” Katu said.

  “Can’t you bring her here for your date?” said Viri, a suggestion that sent Lovisa into a fit of coughing at the notion of Katu trying to romance someone over dinner at the Devrets’ house, in the company of three constantly interrupting little boys.

  So Katu went away, but Lovisa stayed. She was shy around Mari’s parents at dinner. She didn’t want their eyes or their questions; but then she always found herself watching them curiously, trying to listen in on their conversation with each other, because they actually enjoyed each other’s company. They never minded if the boys amused themselves with an increasingly loud conversation of their own.

  Mara, who was an Industry rep in Parliament, announced tonight that the zilfium vote, originally scheduled for December, was being pushed to late spring.

  “What?” said Lovisa. “Why?”

  “Now that a military use has been found for zilfium, we all need more time to research and debate,” Mara said. “It’s one thing to open Winterkeep to trains and faster boats. Explosive weapons is a whole other matter.”

  “But aren’t the weapons going to be destroyed?” said Lovisa, who knew the rumors. “Didn’t the blueprints burn in a fire at the queen’s hotel?”

  “Even so, what was invented once can be invented again,” said Mara.

  “Well then,” said Lovisa, “is it safe to ban a weapon in Winterkeep if the other nations in Torla are likely to be developing that weapon for themselves? And anyway, shouldn’t Queen Bitterblue be part of the conversation, since she has so much zilfium?”

  Mara considered her approvingly. “Have you chosen a party, Lovisa?”

  The old familiar impatience rose in Lovisa at this tiresome question. “Doesn’t that choice generally come down to where one’s self-interest falls?”

  Mara’s eyebrows rose. “At what cost?” she said. “Arni’s bank would flourish beyond our wildest dreams if war came to Torla. War is expensive. Nations and people go into massive debt. Debt creates loans, and loans make banks rich. You understand, Lovisa? But if the day comes when you see me voting yes on any measure that’s a step on the path to war, I hope you’ll take me to the doctor to have my head checked.”

  She turned to her husband, took his hand. “Promise you’ll have me removed from office,” she said to h
im.

  “I promise,” he said. Then he leaned forward and kissed her mouth, right in front of everyone.

  * * *

  —

  As dinner was ending, the son of the house came home.

  “Ah,” said Mari, entering the dining room, tall and cheerful, bending down to kiss first his father’s cheek, then his mother’s. “I wondered if you were here, Lovisa, when you didn’t show up at dinner in the dormitory.”

  “You found me,” said Lovisa.

  Then, after dinner, she waited until the boys had pulled Mari into some sort of long and complicated card game, then slipped out on her own.

  She needed to think, by herself. And Lovisa was still shy around Mari. Being at his house was a way of being near him without actually having to figure out how to be with him. Lovisa kept getting a sense that Mari wanted something she did not currently want. It would probably come to a conversation, sometime soon. Now, however, felt like the time for waiting. She was being careful.

  Anyway, Lovisa needed some fresh air, and the stars above; she needed a long walk, to settle some of her swirling thoughts about the queen’s offer. I could figure this out better if I were standing on a cliff above the sea, she thought, then snorted at herself, knowing Nev would like that she’d had that thought.

  As she neared the campus dorms, she saw Nori Orfa on the path ahead, talking to a girl Lovisa recognized as the sister of one of Mari’s friends.

  “Oh, hi, Nori,” she said airily as she reached him. “I’m writing a letter to your girlfriend. Any message you’d like me to pass on?”

  The poisonous look that crept into Nori’s face was extremely satisfying, because it was ugly. It made the girl with him hesitate, then take a small step back.

  Inside the dormitory, Nev’s door was open. Lovisa considered passing on by, but she couldn’t quite. Something drew her to Nev’s doorway, some understanding that even if she couldn’t talk to Nev about the queen’s secret offer specifically, talking to Nev about something else—anything—might still help. Nev had that effect.

  Nev was watering the plants in her window, from a tin watering can with a long, graceful spout. When she saw Lovisa, she shot her a tiny smile. “How are you?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “All right.”

  Nev was suffering these days from a small heartbreak. Not Nori; she seemed to be coping fine without Nori. But her fox, Little Guy. The fox had apparently decided not to bond with Nev, and wasn’t living with her anymore. It had something to do with Quona Varana, though Lovisa didn’t know the details. She only knew that neither human nor fox should be allowed to break Nev’s heart like that.

  Lovisa had offered to share Worthy with her. Laughing, Nev had told her she must have Worthy to herself. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m surrounded by animals in my life. You keep the one that’s yours. You need him.”

  It was the sort of protectiveness that warmed Lovisa with surprise, then always made her think sharply of her father. Benni had been her protector too, when she was younger. But this protectiveness from Nev, which showed up in a lot of different ways, was different. When people tried to approach Lovisa on campus, Nev’s shoulders could get very big and swaggery, her face very unwelcoming. It made some tight thing inside Lovisa, some sense of guilt or obligation, relax, in a way she’d never relaxed with her father. Lovisa hadn’t worked out the difference. It was one of the things she’d been thinking about recently.

  “You look tired,” said Nev now.

  “People keep asking me my political party,” said Lovisa, rolling her eyes.

  “Do you have to have a party?” said Nev. “Couldn’t you just have beliefs?”

  “That’s a nice idea,” said Lovisa, “but then who would vote for me?”

  “Running for something, are you?” said Nev, with a crooked grin.

  “Definitely not.”

  “Do you want to come in? Or just hover in the doorway?”

  Sometimes Lovisa got confused about whether Nev was flirting. Did she want Nev to be flirting? And then she would worry that she was hanging around Nev the way she feared Mari was hanging around her; and Mari was her oldest friend and Nev was Mari’s ex; so could there possibly be anyone more complicated for Lovisa to be having these confusions about?

  And then Nev would give her a sly grin and invite her in, and Lovisa would stop caring about Mari. Then get confused and worried again, then remember who she was. She was Lovisa Cavenda. Lovisa Cavenda was a person who would just ask Nev outright about it one day, plain and straightforward. And then she would deal with Nev’s answer, whatever it was. She had a feeling Nev would deal with it too.

  Lovisa entered and sat on the rumpled blankets of Nev’s bed, patting around for Little Guy before remembering that Little Guy was gone. Nev leaned in her window comfortably, with her arms crossed.

  “Who would you vote for?” Lovisa asked Nev.

  “Someone who gave silbercows a voice in government,” Nev said, without hesitation.

  “Really?”

  “Really. I think it’s a travesty that they’re unrepresented. Also, someone who protected my family and understood our needs in the north. Someone who cared for the land.”

  “That sounds more like a Scholar in name,” said Lovisa, “but not necessarily in practice.”

  “Maybe you should decide what you want to change in the world,” said Nev, “instead of which party to join.”

  “I think you’re being too idealistic.”

  “If you start waxing poetic about how it’s because I’m a northerner who talks to glaciers, I won’t make you any tea,” said Nev.

  Now Lovisa was grinning. “What kind of tea?”

  “What kind do you want?”

  “Something that’ll help me make an important decision.”

  “Hm,” said Nev. “How about I make you something harmless that won’t interfere?”

  “That sounds fine.”

  Nev set her little pot on her stove, then came to sit with Lovisa, cross-legged, while the water boiled.

  “What are you trying to decide?” she asked.

  Lovisa spent a moment finding a way to express it without revealing the queen’s offer. “I’ve been thinking about my father,” she said. “About how he used to protect me.”

  “How did he used to protect you?”

  Lovisa shrugged. “My mother would have these rages. I would run to my father, knock on his library door. He would sit me in his favorite chair, fuss over me. Order me some tea or something nice to eat. If my mother came looking for me, he would hold her off at the door, telling her he was handling it. It was nice. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always felt like my care of my little brothers is inadequate. I never held my mother off from them.”

  Nev sat up straight, something hard in her face. Lovisa shrank, certain Nev was angry at her for not protecting her brothers better.

  “Lovisa,” Nev said. “Do you understand that it was never your job to stop your mother from hurting your brothers? That was the job of your father.”

  This seemed wrong to Lovisa, for she was big. Her brothers were little. The big protected the little.

  “It was my job too,” she said.

  “With your father there?” said Nev. “As big as he was, the man that he was? I’ve seen him, Lovisa. He would leave you to defend your brothers?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Lovisa said. “My mother was his wife. He had obligations to her.”

  “After you would spend that time in your father’s library,” Nev said. “When you were little. What happened next?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well? Did your mother forgive you?”

  “No,” Lovisa said. “Of course not. We would come out for dinner. She would wait for my dinner to be served. Then, before I could eat it, she would take m
e away from the table and put me upstairs, in this room in the attic where she took us for punishments.”

  “And your father would sit at the table?” Nev said. “And watch you go?”

  “Yes,” Lovisa said, startled by the question. “But he wasn’t the one I’d crossed. It was my mother, you understand?”

  At the sudden, soft sorrow in Nev’s face, Lovisa went quiet, thinking. Then gradually, inconsolably, sad.

  “Oh,” Lovisa said. “I see.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Lovisa was sitting on a bench Nev had shown her after Lovisa had complained that there was no place to think in Ledra. The bench was at the Cliff Farm, overlooking the water.

  “I sit there sometimes and look for silbercows,” Nev had said.

  So now Lovisa sat there too, occasionally smelling a whiff of manure that reminded her of Nev’s home in the north. The light was falling, stars beginning to prick the violet sky. Lovisa had used to sit in the dorm foyer and watch people, pulling information into herself to consider later, to fit into the puzzle of who was doing what, and why. She still did that. But now she also sat here, looking out across the sea and sky. Like the dorm foyer, this cliff was a place on the edge of something.

  Lovisa had gone to Gorga Balava, her professor, after class on Monday, demanding an explanation from him about zilfium pollution.

  “Surely you’ve read the studies, Lovisa,” he’d said, squinting at her with a puzzled expression. On his arm, his silly fox was wearing a hat with two ear holes and a pom-pom, tied with a ribbon under her chin. “You should talk to a scientist, or a Scholar.”

  She’d gone to Gorga exactly because he was an Industry rep, not a Scholar. “I’m not asking you to explain what pollution is,” she said scornfully. “I’m asking you to explain why you don’t care about it.”

  “I do care about it.”

  “Just not enough to do something about it?”

  “What should I do, Lovisa? Let Winterkeep’s industries fall behind the advances of the rest of the world? So that no one will trade with us, no one will send students to our schools, or take our opinions and resources into account when larger decisions are being made?”