by Sharon Shinn
“That is not a statement with which I can argue.”
Seka Mardis almost moaned with pleasure when Leah offered her the caramel candies. “I didn’t dare to hope your supplier would be so good!” she exclaimed, hugging the container to her chest. Leah found herself wondering if anyone else, even the prince, would get a chance to sample those delights. “Who advises you on your purchases? It must be someone who spent a great deal of time in my country.”
“The trader himself was from the Karkades,” Leah said. “I merely asked for his suggestions.”
“If I am in your city much longer, I might want this trader’s name for myself so I can deal with him directly,” said the prince.
Leah showed a face of hurt, exaggerated so that he knew she was joking. “Depriving me of the pleasure of your company?”
He smiled. “I would not want to deprive you of any pleasure at all,” he said, and his low, musical voice made her skin crawl.
But she managed to giggle. “Now these next items,” she said. “They’re not really for you. I don’t know if you’ll want them. But you mentioned that you had children and I thought they might enjoy puzzles.”
She handed over a series of wooden balls in various sizes. Each one was made of interlocking pieces of wood that snapped together so smoothly they created one seamless whole. But disassemble them and you would find it almost impossible to put them back together. At least, Leah hadn’t been able to do it. Rafe had, but he admitted that it had taken him more hours than a rational man would waste on such a project. Josetta and Annova had refused to even try.
“I’m going to put them out on the hunti tables, because they’re wood,” Leah said. “But if you wanted a couple—”
The prince was examining them with every sign of fascination, sliding out one of the pieces just enough to see how the puzzle worked, not enough to make the whole object come apart in his hands. “Very cunning,” he approved. “My oldest daughter and my son will be intrigued.”
“But not Elsita,” Seka said with a laugh.
The prince shook his head. “No, she is not the type to sit down and bend her mind to a difficult problem.” He mimed throwing the ball against the floor. “She is more likely to smash it in a tantrum and run away.”
Hard to know what kind of platitude to offer in response to that. “And yet I’m sure you love her very much,” Leah ventured.
“Indeed,” he said with a sigh. He placed the sphere on the table. “Do you have children, Leah?”
She found it impossible to offer a flat negative to his question, even in a situation as delicate as this. It would be like denying Mally’s existence, and she had done that for far too long. “Oh, I’ve been a wanderer for so many years that I didn’t think it was a good idea for me to try to raise a child,” she said. “But now that I am more settled—who knows? I think I would like to be a mother.”
Seka’s face wore a slight frown, as if she were chasing an errant memory. “But there was a little girl here when I was at the shop before,” she said. “Wasn’t there? With dark hair and a solemn expression. Not yours?”
Even harder to lie this time. “She’s the ward of the torz prime,” Leah managed. “I believe he and his wife have raised her from infancy.”
“Someone asked her name and she said . . . Odelia, that was it,” Seka ended on a triumphant note.
“I thought Odelia was the name of the youngest princess,” the prince said. “Is that who was visiting you?”
How had they gotten on this topic? How could they get back to safer ones like gifts and commerce? Leah covered her face and groaned in frustration. “Oh, she always says that!” she exclaimed. “Someone told her once that she looked like Vernon’s daughter, and she was so taken with the idea that she started pretending she was the princess. But she’s really just an ordinary girl named Mally. I’ll have to tell Taro and Virrie that she’s making up stories again.”
“Well, I might have told people I was a princess if I thought they would believe me,” Seka Mardis confessed. “Unfortunately, I look nothing like royalty.”
“I would be too afraid that I would get caught in the deception!” Leah said. “I don’t think, in general, it’s a good idea to impersonate the crown.”
The prince laughed a little too loudly. “No,” he said. “In my experience, princes and princesses are not eager to allow anyone else to be as special as they are.”
“Speaking of special,” Leah said, leaning over the trunk and hoping to change the subject. “I have something else I think you’ll like. The trader told me—”
Annova interrupted her. “Someone’s at the door.”
Now they all heard it—a knock, a rattle, a woman’s voice calling, “Leah?” through the thick glass. The Karkan guards jumped to attention, but they offered no threat, just waited to see what would happen next. Yori had drifted over toward the door, too, appearing to be merely curious. But Leah saw her hands hovering near her hidden knives.
“Oh, dear. It’s probably somebody who saw the lights on inside and doesn’t realize we’re closed for business,” Leah said apologetically. “Annova, could you send them away and tell them when we open in the morning?”
“Of course,” Annova said, heading across the shop.
Seka Mardis tittered. “We were having so much fun that, for a moment, I forgot there might be other people in the world.”
I doubt you ever forget there are other people who must be placated, outwitted, or overcome, Leah thought. She merely smiled. “It has been very enjoyable,” she agreed.
Seka was watching Annova at the door. “It looks like she’s having trouble convincing your visitor to leave,” she said.
Now Annova turned to face the group at the back of the shop. Her face showed uneasiness, and she spread her hands helplessly. “Leah—it’s Zoe Lalindar,” she said. “And she’s brought the sweela prime.”
Nelson? Leah thought. What’s he doing here? It was easy to summon a look of bafflement for the benefit of the Karkans. “Prince—perhaps you have been here long enough to understand—the primes . . . That is, in Welce, the primes wield almost as much influence as the regent—”
The prince waved a magnanimous hand. “Yes, of course you must allow them entry. You must allow them to shop in privacy. Or—” He shrugged. “I have no objection to letting them join us for casual discussion. I have met them both and am happy to further my acquaintance.”
Leah rose to her feet. “Thank you. That is so generous.”
Her eyes glittering as much as the gems in her hair, Seka grinned up at Leah and tucked one of the tins under her chair. “You can even show them some of our treats,” she said, “but they cannot have the tchiltsly.”
Leah laughed. “Trust me, they won’t want it.”
She hurried to the doorway, where Zoe and Nelson were just now taking off their overcoats and shaking away the chill of the night air. “Leah! I had no idea you were keeping evening hours!” Zoe greeted her. “But when I saw the lights on inside, I made Nelson stop—” She caught sight of the visitors and paused mid-sentence, her expression becoming rueful. “Oh, but I see I’ve interrupted something! I’m so sorry! We can just leave—”
Leah caught her arm. “Do stay,” she urged. “It’s the prince of the Karkades, and he just said he would enjoy the opportunity to see you in a more informal setting.”
“I’d like that, too,” Nelson said frankly. “It’s too difficult to get to know someone when there are a hundred people in the room.”
Leah thought she could interpret that: It’s harder for me to read people, especially foreigners, if there’s too much bustle and interference. Though she imagined even Nelson would have a hard time sifting through the mind of the Karkan prince.
“I’ll get another chair,” Annova said, heading for the stairwell.
Leah shepherded the new arrivals to the back of the shop, where s
he introduced Seka to the primes, and the Welchins pressed the palms of the Karkans, and everyone claimed to feel pleasure at the chance encounter. Annova returned with a fifth chair and they all took their seats.
“How enterprising of Leah to host private parties for special guests,” Zoe said. “I shall have to arrange something for my own particular friends.”
“I imported merchandise especially for the prince and his advisors,” Leah said. “I’m not sure you’d like any of it.”
“Surely keitzee must be a universal favorite,” the prince said.
“It’s candy with a kick,” Leah informed the primes. “It makes you feel as if you’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. But better than that.”
“You must have sampled it,” Nelson observed.
Leah made her smile demure. “I had to understand its effects if I wanted to be able to sell it.”
“I’m willing to try it,” Zoe declared. She leaned forward confidingly. “Alcohol tends not to have much effect on me,” she said. “Something to do with being the coru prime. But it will be interesting to see if a concoction from another country overcomes the baffles in my blood.”
Leah had no idea if this was true or if Zoe was just making it up on the spot. Nelson, by contrast, was laughing. “Well, every sweela man will tell you alcohol has too much effect on him,” he said. “But I love it just the same. I’ll be happy to sample your doctored candy.”
Since someone had to keep their wits about them, Leah passed on the opportunity, but promised herself a keitzee treat once this nerve-racking evening was over. Leah wasn’t surprised to see both Seka and the prince take two candies at once, since they seemed likely to have built up a tolerance for the stuff, but Zoe and Nelson started more cautiously with one apiece.
“Oh yes, this is quite tasty,” Zoe said, speaking around the keitzee. “And it almost feels like it’s—humming in my mouth.”
“‘Humming’! That is exactly the way I describe it!” Seka told her.
“How soon before it takes effect?” Zoe wanted to know.
“Almost instantly, in my experience,” Leah said. “You can’t feel it?”
Zoe shrugged. “Maybe a tiny bit.”
Nelson waggled his head from side to side. “I can. That’s a fun sensation.”
Zoe sighed and manufactured a pout. “The life of the coru prime. Full of so many disappointments.”
Nelson hooted with laughter, but the prince hitched his chair closer. “We hear so much about the primes and their powers,” he said. “But I confess I do not fully understand what you can and cannot do.”
Zoe waved a hand at Nelson, who had sprawled back in his chair as if relaxing under the effects of alcohol. Leah couldn’t tell whether or not he was acting. “As the sweela prime, Nelson has an affinity with fire. He could take one of these candles here and coax it into a conflagration. Or he could make the flame die down to nothing.”
Leah had seen him do both of those things that night in Malinqua when one of the city’s celebrated towers had gone up in a spectacular blaze. To be fair, Corene had set the place on fire to begin with. Although, to be even more fair, she’d done it to save herself from soldiers who were trying to kill her.
“But there’s more,” Zoe went on. “We believe that the element of fire corresponds with the physical attribute of the brain. Nelson says he can’t read minds, but he has an uncanny way of knowing whether or not someone is lying—he can assess the true essence of another person better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Even if that person comes from a different country?” Seka asked. Leah wondered if she was unnerved by the idea. Or—being Seka—intrigued.
Nelson gave her one of his broad, happy smiles. “Some people,” he said. “You I can scan with some accuracy, I think. You’re ambitious and driven—you’re not easily frightened—and you don’t have too many moral boundaries. But you’re loyal. That shines out of you like sunlight.”
Seka loosed a small sound that tried to be a laugh and sounded more like a gasp. “Well, I don’t suppose I’d quarrel with any of that,” she said. “It feels very odd, though, to have a stranger say such things to me.”
“What about the prince?” Leah asked.
Nelson’s smile grew a little sardonic. “He is impenetrable to me,” he said. “Nothing but darkness.”
Not so impenetrable, Leah thought, guessing that Nelson was fully aware of the irony. You have described him with perfect precision.
But Nelson’s words pleased the prince. “A man likes to believe he can maintain his secrets,” he said, “especially a man treating with foreign representatives.”
Especially a man who has secrets, Leah thought.
Seka gestured toward Zoe. “And you? The coru prime works with water, does she not?”
“Water and blood,” Zoe said, nodding. “I can tame rivers or bring the rain or draw groundwater up to a dry well.”
“That’s useful,” the prince said.
“But I have found my work with blood to be even more beneficial in some situations,” she said.
The prince leaned forward. They were finally on a topic of deep interest to him. “In what way?” he asked. “How can you manipulate blood?”
“I could, if I wanted, bring a bruise to your body,” Zoe said, “merely by calling the blood to the surface of your skin.”
The prince immediately held out his arm. “Do it. I would like to see.”
“Majesty. I cannot, even in such a small way, harm you.”
He nodded at his advisor. “Then do it to Seka.”
“Only if she is willing.”
Without hesitation, Seka extended her hand, palm up, and pushed back her close-fitting sleeve. “I’m not easily frightened, remember?” she said, flashing a smile at Nelson.
Zoe touched her fingertip gently to Seka’s wrist, right where one of the blue veins pulsed against the skin. They all bent closer to watch, in the flickering candlelight, as a purple stain spilled out slowly from the place where Zoe’s finger rested against her flesh. When the bruise was about twice as big as a quint-gold, Zoe lifted her hand and the stain stopped spreading.
Seka did not look at all discomposed. She lifted her arm to get a closer look at the mark, turning her hand this way and that as if checking for the extent of pain. The prince was sitting up straighter in his chair and there was no other word for it: He appeared enthralled.
“That is remarkable,” he said. “Is there a limit on how much damage you can do?”
“I don’t know,” Zoe drawled, “since I’ve always stopped myself before I went too far. But I’m fairly certain I could sit here and cause all of her blood to mutiny in her veins. I wouldn’t even have to touch her, and I could pull every drop out of her body.”
The prince gave a considering look to Seka, who finally appeared somewhat nervous. It was clear he would love to see such a demonstration. Zoe added, “I’m not going to do it, of course.”
“Of course,” the prince echoed.
“But I have skills that are even more useful,” Zoe went on. “I can touch someone—even a stranger from another country—and learn his heritage. I could take hold of your hand, and hers, and determine if you were related, merely by the composition of your blood.”
The prince was fascinated by this revelation as well. “We are not related, Seka and I,” he said, “but one of the guards is a distant cousin of hers.” His sentence ended on an interrogative note.
Zoe smiled. “You would like me to prove my abilities?”
“It would be very interesting to see.”
“Then call them over.”
The guards were summoned and, one by one, they allowed Zoe to wrap her fingers around their wrists. “This one,” Zoe said as soon as she laid hands on the second man. She took the hand of the third man, then nodded over at the first guard. “And the
se two are related in some fashion, though I am not convinced they’re brothers.”
“Half brothers,” the third guard said.
“Remarkable!” the prince said. “Most impressive.” He made a gesture and the three Karkan soldiers quickly retreated to their posts at the front of the shop.
“I cannot tell you the number of times that skill has come in handy,” Zoe said. “I could probably detail for you every indiscretion committed among the Five Families in the past thirty years.”
The prince extended his arm, palm up, fingers spread, almost the pose of a supplicant. “I wonder what you would read in my blood,” he said.
“If you are not related to anyone else in the room, not much, I think. But I would be happy to take your hand and see what information I can uncover.”
“Please do.”
Zoe placed his hand between both of hers, applying a little pressure as if she wanted to sink through the calloused barrier of flesh. Leah held her breath and watched closely; she had a sense that this was where the trouble was about to start. Zoe wore a look of intense concentration, which changed quickly to one of surprise, then curiosity, then something darker. Disbelief. Anger. Disgust. She released him abruptly, flinging her fingers wide as if to flick away drops of tainted water, then began rubbing her palms against her trousers.
“Well,” she said in a hard voice. “I was not expecting that.”
The prince looked bewildered. “Expecting what? What did you read in my body?”
Zoe came abruptly to her feet. Nelson scrambled up next to her, looking somewhat unsteady, and the rest of them more slowly stood up. “I don’t want to ruin your lovely evening with harsh words,” she said in a grim voice. “Leah, I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Perhaps we can talk in the morning.”
“But— What’s wrong? What have I done?” Leah asked. It wasn’t difficult to make her voice sound shaky and uncertain.
“Nothing you have done,” Zoe said, turning to go.
The prince held up a hand. “Please. Something in the pattern of my blood disturbed you. I think I deserve to know what it was.”