by JA Andrews
His nod was curt but his face didn’t show any irritation, so she continued.
“Could you hit a squirrel in the eye at twenty paces?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
He fixed her with a flat look.
“All right.” She pondered her next question. “Have you ever knifed yourself?”
That earned her the edge of a smile. “Yes.”
“On purpose?”
The smile grew. “Yes.”
“There must be a good story behind that.”
He said nothing more and they rode in silence until they’d left the buildings of Queenstown behind. At a nod from Roan, Pest galloped ahead, disappearing over the next hill.
They rode along the main western road for a few hours before turning onto a smaller track that ran southwest toward the Elder Grove. Goven led the way, humming a tune that sounded like a marching cadence. Dalton silently brought up the rear with a steely face, and Pest ranged out ahead. Roan rode next to Sini, sitting straight in his saddle, his gaze sweeping the area regularly. The guards’ vigilance felt awkwardly intense, but Will kept up an unbroken stream of tales and the day disappeared quickly.
Sini toyed with the ring on her finger, catching the sun in the garnet. How close would she need to be to start a flame? She pulled a dry blade of grass out of her horse’s mane and held it a handbreadth from her ringed finger. She pushed some vitalle into the ring and she saw the coppery glow around it, even in the bright sunlight. She tried to push the energy toward the grass, but the farthest she could get it to go was just past her fingertip. Slowly she brought the grass closer until, at barely a finger’s width away, the end of it caught fire.
Sini shook it, putting out the flame. She tried several more times, but couldn’t create a flame any farther away than that.
By the time the sun touched the tops of the Scale Mountains, the Lumen Greenwood was a dark blur along the bottom of the rocky range. A chilly breeze blew out of the north. Sini pulled her hands into the sleeves of her cloak and let her horse follow along with the others.
Sini found herself watching the forest, an eagerness growing in her. By midday tomorrow they should be among the trees of the elven forest.
“What’s the Greenwood like?” Roan asked. He’d pulled a cloak out of his bag and it wrapped around his shoulders. It was, unsurprisingly, solid grey.
She rubbed her fingers together, remembering the energy that flowed through the trees there. “Amazing. It’s more alive than other places. Walking out of it and back into the normal world was like going from a sunny day to gloom.”
She stopped talking. She couldn’t come up with words to explain what it was like.
Roan didn’t ask anything more. She considered him for a moment. As when they’d gone to the Lees, he was more at ease here than he had been at court. While his posture was still far too straight, his hands held the reins loosely. It occurred to her that he hadn’t been the future lord consort for long. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who felt out of place at court.
They crested a hill where Pest waited for them and found a cluster of buildings in the next valley cushioned in a damp, swampy smell.
Will examined the town. “Must be…Something-more.”
Alaric cocked his head to the side. “An earthy name. Earthmore?”
“Loammore,” Sini said. At Roan’s questioning look she continued, “The smell is from the bog that stretches to the south. Most of the country’s peat is dredged out of that.”
“See?” Will said to Alaric. “She’s as good as you are at knowing things no one else bothers to remember. You’re going to lose your position as the smart Keeper.”
Alaric turned to her. “All right then, why is this preferred to the peat from Marshwell?”
Sini grimaced. Gerone had assigned her that horrible book on vegetation. “Something about metal deposits.” She closed her eyes. There was the issue with the smithing guild and the expensive farm tools… Her eyes flashed open. “The iron deposits have an impurity that reduces rusting.”
Will laughed. “From his expression, you’re right.”
“At last,” Alaric said, starting down the hill, “another Keeper worth talking to.”
“What duchy are we in?” Roan scanned the horizon as he followed. “Doesn’t Lord Taramat have an estate near here?”
“Tamarat’s holding is hours north of here,” Alaric answered. “Hours we’d have to backtrack tomorrow.”
Roan’s gaze dropped back to the little town ahead of them.
“Surely the future lord consort can stay in a common inn for a night,” Sini said.
He shot her an annoyed glance that held the slightest edge of uncertainty.
“This isn’t the first common inn you’ve stayed in, is it?” she asked
Roan shifted. “The trip between Greentree and Queenstown takes two days, but my cousin is the Lord of Whitemire, so we always stay with him along the way.”
“And you’ve never traveled anywhere but Greentree or Queenstown?”
“I traveled all over during my years with the city guard, but we always stayed in camps. I’m quite comfortable in camps.”
“And in unrelenting grey.”
He smoothed his shirt across his chest. “Grey is a respectable color.”
“I’m not a fan of it.”
His gaze took in her red cloak and the bit of blue shirtsleeve he could see. “I can see that.”
“How long ago were you with the guard?”
“Until midsummer.” He turned to look ahead again. “I had made captain of the fifth company the day before Madeleine was named heir apparent. Our betrothal was solidified by the next morning, and my time in the guard came to an abrupt halt.” He had kept his voice unconcerned, but he sat more stiffly in his saddle.
“That must have been shocking.”
He made a non-committal noise.
“We’re supposed to be working toward friendship, I believe,” Sini said. “It doesn’t seem like a bad thing to admit that your life was disrupted this summer. No one joins the guard and works hard enough to be promoted to captain unless he plans to make a career of it.”
Roan glanced at her. “Joining the guard was my choice. My father wasn’t thrilled about the idea. He thought I should stay in Greentree and prepare to take over when he grows too old.” His thumb rubbed along the reins. “Seeing as he’s in perfect health and it will be decades before he’ll have the chance to command death to leave him be, I convinced him that five years in the guard would be valuable experience.”
“How many years were you in it?”
“Not quite three. Then a handful of the royal line died. My father took advantage of the situation before most people had figured out who the new heir even was. My betrothal to Madeleine was finalized before I reached home.”
“That’s…a lot to adjust to.”
Roan didn’t answer.
“Do you dress so close to the uniform still because it’s comfortable? Or to annoy your father?”
He laughed and stretched his fingers, resuming his earlier loose grip on the reins. “Maybe this is what a lord consort wears. The country hasn’t had one in one hundred twenty-three years, so no one knows for sure.”
“Well,” Sini said with a smile, “in something that unpresuming, at least no one will mistake you for the king.”
Chapter Fifteen
The town of Loammore was no bigger up close than it had looked from the hills. Sini could have counted the buildings that huddled together on two hands. When Will asked a farmer whether there was an inn, he was directed to the “large building on the town square.”
Sini rode next to Will into the little hamlet and took in the irregularly-shaped clearing in the center of the town. “It seems misleading to call this a square.”
Will fit a little hood over Talen’s head and nodded toward the inn that was barely larger than small house. “As misleading as calling that large.”
After barel
y fitting all the horses in the small stable, Roan set the Baron brothers to guard the front and back doors. Pest disappeared into the growing darkness.
The common room held only two smallish tables. The floor was worn and dusty, the windows dingy. The smell of weak stew replaced the boggy smell from outside. At the sound of the door opening, an older stout man with a splattered apron came out of the kitchen. His eyes widened at the sight of the large group. Will introduced himself as a Keeper, and when the man took in Alaric’s black robe as well, he greeted them with stunned silence. The group waited a moment near the door, but the man seemed at a loss.
“It’s a relief to find a warm fire.” Will stepped up to the fireplace along the wall. “It has been a long day of riding. Some warmed wine wouldn’t go amiss.”
The innkeeper stammered something obliging and disappeared into the back of the inn. The back door creaked open and slammed shut in the wind. Sini stepped over to the kitchen door. The small room was empty.
Will set Talon on the back of a chair in the corner, and helped Alaric pull the two tables closer to the fire.
“He’s gone to tell people there are Keepers here,” Will explained. “There are so few tables we’d better arrange them before it gets crowded.”
Roan stood awkwardly by the door and Sini pushed a crooked chair in his direction. “Your seat, Lord Consort.”
The door opened and a handful of people hurried in. Voices called from outside and Roan tucked his chair into the corner. Sini joined him. Alaric and Will positioned themselves at the other table across the fire and Alaric pulled a book and some paper from his bag.
“This doesn’t look like we’re getting ready to eat,” Roan pointed out. He sat stiffly in his chair, his eyes scanning the room as though watching for something dangerous.
“We’ll eat before they do,” Sini nodded at Will and Alaric. “They’ll be stuck there for hours. No one should talk to us over here.” She glanced at Roan. “Especially if you keep looking extra-lordly like that.”
“I’m not looking lordly,” he said to her under his breath. “This is my ‘I’m trapped in a corner and just want my dinner’ face.”
“It’s shocking how much it looks like your ‘I disagree with your map work’ face.”
He laughed and relaxed a little.
It took a few minutes for some spiced apple cider and bread to appear. Most of the population of Loammore crammed into the small inn over the next few hours. Children ducked around the adults or perched on the thin wooden stairs that led up to a second floor.
Sini sat back and drank the cider while Will stood and introduced himself and Alaric to the room.
He asked for story requests, and after settling on an obscure legend about a sword maiden and a gang of bog gnomes, the room quieted, and he began. His words rolled across the room with the same sort of wonder they always did. Sini sat back in her chair, waiting for the moment when the story came to life. It took several minutes for the listeners to settle before it happened, but when it did his breath coalesced into a blue-green mist that spread throughout the room. No one but her seemed to notice the mist, but every hint of distraction disappeared into the wonder of the story.
Sini let herself join in. When Will drew the tale to a close, Roan sat back in his chair, looking stunned.
“Never heard Will tell a story before?” Sini asked him.
Roan kept his eyes on Will as he shook his head.
“It’s like that every time,” Sini said. “He tells about his time on the Sweep, and even though I was there for half of it, I’m still enthralled.”
The crowd broke up into smaller groups tucked into whatever space they could find in the small inn. The innkeeper bustled about, his first timidity forgotten.
Alaric laid out paper and quills, and Will stepped up to Sini’s chair. “Why don’t you help Alaric?”
“I’d rather not—” she began.
“Anyone would rather read your handwriting than mine,” Will said, “and these people will be thrilled to meet you.”
“I have no idea what to do,” she objected.
“All they need is someone to listen and write down words for them. Give yourself a chance, Sin. I think you might enjoy it.”
She gave him a reluctant nod and stood.
“Wait,” he said quietly, “you haven’t been introduced.”
“You don’t need to—” she began.
But Will raised his voice. “Loammore has a great honor tonight.” His voice rang out through the room and it quieted. Dozens of faces turned toward them curiously. Sini tried to step back, but Will set his hand on her back and she stopped. “It has been seventy years since the last female Keeper died.” The faces in the room grew more curious, and Sini felt their attention turn toward her. “It’s been over a hundred since she traveled Queensland.
“But now we have one again.”
A murmur rippled across the room. And Sini leaned back a little against Will’s hand. The redness of her cloak and the absolute lack of anything Keeperish about her felt awkward.
But no one seemed to mind. The faces all watched her eagerly.
“People of Loammore, I would like to introduce Keeper Sini,” Will continued. “You may not have heard of her before, but I wager her life will be one of legends.”
Sini’s face reddened and she opened her mouth to object, but the room erupted in cheers. Will, grinning at her, motioned to the seat next to Alaric with a flourish. She dropped into it, stiffly.
Alaric leaned toward her. “Sorry, I should have done that for you. We could have accomplished it with a little less…flamboyance.” He handed her some paper and a quill.
The crowd pushed forward. The first man to approach wanted Alaric to write out his genealogy. The people hung back slightly from Sini at first, until a young woman stepped up. Her face was thin, and Sini realized she must not be much older than herself. The woman clutched a baby to her chest and gave Sini a nervous smile.
“How old is your baby?” Sini asked, looking for some way to put the woman at ease.
“She was born two moons ago.” The woman showed the little bundle to Sini. The baby was sleeping, her face scrunched into a look of irritation at all the movement.
“She’s beautiful.”
The woman gave a quick smile. “Her name is Savia. Named after th’ Keeper Chesavia. Could you write ‘er name down? I don’t know my letters, but I’d like to have it written out.”
“Of course,” Sini said, smoothing out her paper. “Chesavia is one of my favorite Keepers. What is your name?”
“Pelonnia.”
“And the girl’s father?”
Pelonnia shook her head. “No one Savia needs t’ know ‘bout.”
Sini nodded and turned toward the paper. “What is your daughter like?” It had always struck Sini as sweet the way parents attributed so much to their infants. Lukas had always laughed at her for the question, but it seemed that anyone who studied another person as closely as new parents studied their babies was sure to learn things.
“She’s smart,” Pelonnia started quietly. “And persistent.” She looked down at the little face, and her own wan face was suffused with something rich. “And stronger than me.” There was nothing but pride in the words.
Sini wrote out a page. Pelonnia looked uncertainly at all the words.
“The first word is your daughter’s name. It says:
Savia
beloved daughter of Pelonnia,
born in the summer of the twelfth year of the reign of Queen Saren.
A girl of cleverness, fierceness, and strength
like her namesake Chesavia, renown Keeper of old.
Below it, Sini drew out a simple rune. “This rune means brave and good, and this curl on the end says it speaks of a girl.” She blew on the ink until it dried, then set it on the table before Pelonnia.
The woman ran her fingers over her daughter’s name. “Thank you,” she whispered, picking up the paper. She bobbed a quick
curtsey and backed away from the table. Sini caught a quick, approving nod from Alaric.
An elderly woman stepped up, her back bowed so much that she stood barely taller than Sini seated in the chair.
“Good evening, grandmother,” Sini greeted her.
The woman shuffled up close to the table. “My husband, Turr, died last month.” Her voice was thin and wavering. “His tombstone is blank, and I’d like some words t’ put t’ it.”
“Of course.” Sini took out a clean piece of paper. “What would you like it to say?”
The old woman looked down at the blank paper for a long moment. “Dunno. None of the graves here say anything.”
“How long had you been married?”
“Forty-five years.” At Sini’s expression the old woman smiled. “Probably sounds like a long time to live with someone to a woman as young as you.”
Sini nodded. “Twelve years is the longest I’ve lived with anyone, and most of that I was too little to remember. Why don’t you tell me a little about your husband?”
The old woman told of the years they’d been married, of his hard work in the peat bogs, of the three babies they’d had and lost. Her story was simple and halting, but the years that it covered, the life that it held brought tears to Sini’s eyes.
“What was your favorite thing about him?”
“His smile,” she said without hesitation, giving a toothy one of her own. “It was the first thing I fell in love with when we were young. Later in life he used it less, but when he did, it was like sunshine in the spring.”
Sini reached out and gave the old woman’s hand a squeeze.
“Life is shorter than ya think, lass,” the old woman said. “Don’t let those you love slip away if you can help it. They’ll be beyond your reach soon enough.”
Sini wrote on the paper then read it out loud.