by Sharon Shinn
It was, as always, a colorful, chaotic scene. Especially in the warm weather seasons of Quinnahunti and Quinnatorz, the flats were crowded with itinerants and beggars, people with no better place to stay and people who simply preferred to live on the river. There were hundreds of small tents, narrow mats, and impromptu campsites laid out in random fashion along the river’s edge. Josetta supposed there might be a couple thousand people living there, and all of them appeared to be in motion: walking, cooking, fetching water, talking in small groups. The sparkling Marisi ambled past, slow enough to bathe in at this point in its journey. The early afternoon sun was hot enough to be uncomfortable, but the breeze off the water turned the air delightful.
“Let’s find a spot and eat,” Corene said, crouching down and vaulting easily from the overhang to the stone apron. Josetta and Foley were right behind her.
The river residents might have recognized them, or they might simply have decided not to tangle with Foley. At any rate, no one approached them as they picked their way through campsites until they found a relatively clear and level spot. Foley, it turned out, had remembered to bring blankets, so they sat in comfort as they consumed delicacies from the palace kitchen. There was plenty left over; Josetta started skimming the faces of the nearby campers, trying to pick one or two who might need extra food.
“So did the primes settle everything, then?” Foley asked, gathering up plates and linens and stuffing them back in the food basket. “Have they decided who will be the next heir?”
“No!” Corene exclaimed. “Kayle—of all people!—asked why they needed a king or queen at all, and now they’re talking about setting up a whole new government!”
Foley looked impressed but not particularly anxious. Josetta imagined that most of the people of Welce might feel the same way. As long as the country continued to function smoothly, did they care who ran it? Maybe not.
“Big changes,” he said. “But does that mean you two are no longer princesses?”
“I don’t know what it means,” Josetta said. “I just hope it means I don’t have to be queen. I’m so relieved I feel dizzy. I feel so light and happy I could float away.”
Corene gave her a quick sideways glance. Whereas Josetta had taken off her overtunic and stretched out on the blanket, reveling in the feel of the sun on her bare arms, Corene was still in a sitting position, her knees drawn up and her hands linked around her ankles. She did not look nearly as relaxed as Josetta felt.
“Really?” Corene said, her voice soft. “I’m disappointed.”
Joestta was astonished. “You wanted to be queen? You never said so.”
Corene shrugged and fixed her eyes on the river. “It was never going to be me. It was always going to be you. And then Odelia was born and it was going to be her, but at any rate, it was never me. I was always the troublesome one. You heard Elidon. I’m reckless—and I have Alys as a mother. No one would ever trust me on the throne.” She set her chin on the top of one knee. “But I always wanted it. From the time I was a little girl.”
“Well, I suppose if you’d gone to Soeche-Tas like they planned, you could have been queen there—or whatever they call the viceroy’s wife,” Josetta said.
Corene made a scoffing sound. “Ugh. He was horrible. And I was so afraid of him! No, I didn’t want to go to Soeche-Tas. I wanted to be queen in Chialto and have a suite as big as Elidon’s and decorate it in sweela colors. But I didn’t mind just being a princess because there was always the possibility I could be queen, even when I was really old. And now—” She turned her head, resting her cheek on her knee; her voice was muffled when she spoke again. “And now I’m just another ordinary girl.”
Josetta’s heart twisted; she didn’t know what to say, though she knew better than to offer outright sympathy. As she cast about for some kind of light reply, Foley unexpectedly spoke up.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not you have titles, I’ll never think of either one of you as ordinary,” he said. “Both of you will always be princesses to me.”
Corene laughed and Josetta smiled and the difficult moment passed. “Princesses who are late for their next engagement,” Josetta said, standing up and pulling Corene to her feet. “We’d better be getting back.”
• • •
They made it to the palace a scant hour before dinner and separated instantly so they could wash up and change clothes. Josetta hurried through her preparations so she could slip over to the men’s wing and look for Rafe. Who, it turned out, was sitting in the great hall of the palace, perched glumly on the bowl of the fountain, trying to figure out how to find her.
She didn’t quite have the nerve to kiss him in public, but she did squeeze his hand. “How’s your shoulder?” she asked, sitting down gingerly once she made sure the edge of the fountain wasn’t sprinkled with water.
“Pretty awful,” he said. “But if I don’t move too quickly, I can bear the pain.”
“I suppose that’s good,” she said doubtfully. “So tell me about your day.”
“I spent it with my brother and my grandmother, hearing about the marvels of Malinqua,” he said.
“Did that make you want to visit it?”
He was silent a moment. “Yes and no,” he said at last. “A part of me does want to go. Wants to get a glimpse of that—that alternate life, just to see what could have been mine. But part of me wants to dig my heels in and plant myself in Chialto. Get so entrenched that there’s no way to dig me up and move me anywhere else.”
“Which part of you is winning?”
Again he was silent, but she read misery on his face.
She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. Well-dressed, wealthy people were beginning to gather in the hall, waiting to be summoned to dinner, but no one was paying them much attention. “I’m sure your grandmother is very persuasive,” she said gently. “You should go. You need to see it, at least, before you decide to throw it away. Especially if the only reason you don’t want to go is me.”
“Not the only one,” he said. “But the biggest one. The thought of leaving you behind makes me feel sort of panicky. Makes me have a hard time breathing.”
“I’ll still be here if you decide to come back,” she said calmly, though the words scraped her throat on their way out.
“When I come back,” he corrected.
She didn’t bother to argue. Instead she asked, “How soon do you think you might set sail?”
“Filomara wants to meet Bors, and that’s a trip that will take a couple of days in each direction, not to mention however much time they spend on the farm. But I don’t imagine she’ll want to linger long once they’re back. I think she’d like to be gone before another full nineday is up.”
“Maybe you should go with them to see Bors,” she said, still speaking in that tranquil voice. It was an almost unbearable effort. She felt like she was drowning, suffocating, utterly adrift. This man had been part of her life for barely a quintile, and yet he had become indispensable to her. How could she encourage him to leave her, how could she smile and wave goodbye as he boarded one of those tall-masted ships bound for Malinqua? Once he set foot in that ancestral homeland, she was sure, it would lay an ancient enchantment on him; it would waken some dormant longing deep in his soul. Once he left, he would never come back. How could she kiss him and let him go?
His fingers tightened on her hand. “Maybe I should,” he said. “But I want to spend every minute I can with you.”
“Good,” she whispered. “Because I want to spend all those minutes with you, too.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Despite his determination to slow down time—to stop it, even—and to register each separate moment with such detailed clarity that it imprinted itself on his memory for all eternity, Rafe felt the next nineday slip away in a frenzied haze. He had managed to refuse Filomara’s strongly worded request that he accompany her and Stef
f to Bors’s farm, but he had acceded to her desire that he immediately begin studying the Malinquese language. So he spent part of every day with Filomara’s cousin, learning grammar and verbs and hearing about the incomparable beauties of Malinqua.
It did, indeed, sound like a gorgeous spot—and it was both alluring and sobering to think that one day he might be master of the entire realm. But anytime he felt a flare of excitement, it was overmatched by a spurt of dread. How could he leave Josetta behind? He had wanted to turn himself into someone who was worthy of a princess. Now, by any genealogical measure, he could be considered her equal—but the elevation could put her even more surely out of his reach.
Only if he stayed in Malinqua, of course. Which he wasn’t going to do. He could tell that Josetta believed that once he sailed away, he would never return, but he knew that wasn’t true. There was no treasure in any other kingdom in the world that could compare to what he had gathered right here.
• • •
Steff and Filomara returned from their journey to the countryside, both of them seeming oddly satisfied. Filomara had liked Bors, Rafe realized. Maybe she had appreciated his gruff honesty; maybe she was deeply grateful that he had rescued her daughter in Subriella’s darkest hour. Maybe it soothed her lacerated soul to hear him talk of Subriella’s last ten years, which had been lived in modest surroundings but had seemed mostly happy. Filomara didn’t seem to care much about happiness in general, but Rafe would have bet it eased some of her buried grief to know that Subriella had been granted a share of it.
As for Steff—well, that was easier to understand. He had received his father’s blessing as he embarked on his new life. And he had gotten to know his grandmother better, formed a clearer picture of the life that awaited him in Malinqua. Steff didn’t have any of Rafe’s reasons for staying behind. He was all eagerness, all enthusiasm.
“Can we set sail tomorrow?” he demanded the very night they returned.
But Darien and the primes had decided that the Malinquese delegation should have an escort back to the port city, and it took some time to organize who would go and where they would stay. Taro had said flatly he was returning home and he might not come back to Chialto till next Quinnatorz, but the rest of the primes and Darien accompanied the Malinquese contingent back to the port city. Kayle had reluctantly agreed to house everyone, “if you don’t stay very long.” But Josetta and Rafe made it clear they were staying in their own apartments, along with whatever guards were assigned to them, and Filomara declared she and Steff would take up residence on her ship.
“One night only,” she warned them, “and then I cast off for deep ocean. I am done with all this fretting and feting.”
Rafe thought, One more night with Josetta.
• • •
They arrived in the harbor town early in the afternoon of the hottest day of the season. Everyone, from Zoe to the driver of the royal elaymotive, appeared to be in a bad mood inspired by the heat. Rafe watched with envy as Steff, Filomara, and her soldiers escaped toward the ocean; the temperature had to be ten degrees lower on the water.
“Perfect weather to gather in a dining room filled with warm bodies,” Zoe observed as their caravan paused outside Rafe’s rented lodgings. “I can hardly wait for the meal tonight.”
“It will be much more pleasant than you expect,” Kayle assured her. “I have been perfecting an air circulation system that cools down the whole house. It’s the only thing that makes Quinnatorz bearable.”
“A cooling system?” she repeated. “Why haven’t you made that commercially available? Everyone would buy one.”
Kayle looked surprised. “It’s very expensive. Hardly anyone could afford it.”
“I could,” she said. “If it beggared me.”
“Well, all right, we can talk about it over dinner,” he said.
Their voices faded as they climbed back into the elaymotive. Rafe picked up his own baggage and Josetta’s, and they headed for the door.
“No special air circulation system in here,” he observed as they made their way through the stifling hallways and stairwells to his quarters. The curtains had been drawn before he left, so the darkened room was not quite as unbearable as the street outside. But the place was still stuffy to the point of oppressiveness.
“I know we can’t do it,” Josetta said, “but wouldn’t you love to head down to the docks and go swimming?”
“I would,” he agreed. “But I’m surprised to learn you know how.”
Smiling, she turned back to face him. “My sister is the coru prime,” she said. “She taught me.”
“Of course.”
“Though actually it’s a longer story than that.” He watched her debate whether or not to tell it, then she gave her head a slight shake. “Well, I don’t think swimming is really an option, but it’s too miserable to stay here. Is there anyplace you’d like to go on your last afternoon in Welce?”
His last afternoon in Welce. The very words made his breath catch. How could he possibly leave here tomorrow? How could he do it? “We could go to the training facility,” he said, keeping his voice casual to cover his turmoil.
She looked amused. “Really? That’s what you want to do?”
He nodded. “There are a couple of people there I’d like to say goodbye to. But that’s not the real reason.”
“Oh, do tell me.”
He grinned. “Kayle’s cooling system. He’s got one at the facility, too. It’ll be the best place in the city to wait out the day.”
• • •
It was almost a shock to step from the malicious heat of the city into the palpable chill of the facility. Josetta actually gasped, and Rafe felt goosebumps roughen his skin.
“I should have brought my overtunic,” Josetta said. “I might actually get cold.”
“I’m sure someone could scrounge up an old jacket for you.”
“Not yet,” she said. “For the moment I like it.”
A couple of his old trainers came over as soon as they recognized him. “So, the prince of Malinqua has come back for one last session,” said the one named Clay. He was a stick-thin bald man of indeterminate age, so focused and so odd that he had to be pure elay, but he was Rafe’s favorite of the entire crew. “We heard the news.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they have any aeromotives in Malinqua, and I’m going to miss flying,” Rafe said.
Clay gestured at the contraption currently suspended above the floor by pulleys and chains. “We’ve made some modifications on the LNR,” he said. “Even you wouldn’t crash it next time.”
“Very funny,” Rafe said. “Who’s going to take it up?”
“Arven, probably. Sometime within the nineday, we think. Would have been sooner but Kayle’s been busy with the foreign empress. But I understand she’s leaving tomorrow.”
Rafe fought down a surge of regret. So am I. “So maybe life will get back to normal. Tell me about the modifications.”
“Well, there’s a new fuel system—two tanks that feed at different rates so you’ve got a backup in case one of the lines gets fouled. And the whole pilot’s box is wider and clearer in case you have to eject and—oh, maybe you don’t know! We redesigned the flying bags to make them easier to use. Come on, I’ll show you. We’ve got one in the back room.”
Rafe glanced at Josetta. “Oh, I don’t know—”
She smiled and waved him away. “You go look. I’ll find some nice dark spot and sit quietly. This is the happiest I’ve been all day.”
He followed Clay back to a small, overfull office. The trainer pawed through what looked like a pile of discarded clothing and came up with a square, flat pack ornamented with straps and loops of fabric. “The new flying bag,” he said proudly.
Rafe took it gingerly, holding it by one dangling strap. “How does it work?”
“You put it over your shoulde
rs and buckle it in place. That way you’re already wearing it if your machine goes down—you don’t have to grab it. Here, put it on.”
Clay settled the pack over Rafe’s shoulders and belted it around his waist. His most recent wounds had almost completely healed, or else the bag was too light to cause him any discomfort at all. Clay said, “If you need to bail out, you pull this cord—here—and the chemicals combine. The bag inflates and you’re wrenched out of the pilot’s box.”
Rafe craned his neck, trying to see over his shoulder. “But how do you guide it? The old one had the yoke that you could turn from side to side—”
“Right, but it didn’t fit into the pilot’s box. So, see these two straps? One on each side? Pull one to go left, one to steer right.”
“All right. Good. How long do you stay in the air? What’s your range?”
“We’re not sure.”
Rafe grinned at him. “So it’s just a prototype?”
“It’s experimental,” Clay said a little defensively. “It hasn’t been tested in the field. But it should work the way I’ve described.”
A horrific metallic clangor suddenly issued from the main room, followed by a chorus of voices raised in dismay. “What’s wrong out there?” Rafe demanded.
Clay didn’t seem perturbed. “Probably someone was up in the training module and dropped a box of tools. Or maybe one of the chains snapped and a part fell off. It happens all the time.”
“All the time?” Rafe repeated. “How do you—”
There was another clattering sound of metal smashing against metal, and more voices rising in something like panic. “That doesn’t sound like something that just dropped,” Rafe said.
He had just reached for the door when he heard Josetta’s voice lifted urgently. “Rafe! Run! Run!”
“Josetta?” he cried, and charged out the door into the cavernous space of the facility.
Which was now a battleground. Between the pillars holding up the roof, the supports sustaining the practice capsule, and the boxes and barrels of equipment lining the floor, it was hard to get a clear view of the action, but Rafe could see soldiers and scientists engaged in deadly combat. The soldiers were winning, of course, beating back the mechanics with bludgeons and knives and the occasional shot from a noisy firearm, but the scientists were putting up an unexpectedly vigorous defense. They were swinging long poles and heavy chains against their opponents; they were flinging sharp-edged metal objects in deadly trajectories across the open floor. Rafe saw one of them snatch up a blowtorch and use its blue flame to set a few of his attackers on fire.