by Sharon Shinn
They stepped into a party.
The kierten was cluttered with discarded plates and glasses; the air was filled with the appetizing scents of bread and cheese and sweets and wine. A burst of laughter greeted them from an interior room, and when they moved into the big chamber just through the kierten, they found knots of people standing around, talking, smiling, sipping from their glasses.
“It does not appear funereal,” Chandran observed.
Leah’s hand tightened on Mally’s. “Then—maybe—”
At that moment, a group of people surged in through a far door, moving in one untidy mass. Taro was at the center.
“Mally!” he roared, flinging his arms wide.
Mally broke free of Leah’s hold and dashed across the room. Taro swung her up over his head, laughing at her, shaking her so her arms and legs jittered and danced. “What have you been up to?” he demanded. “Throwing boulders at the enemies of Welce and saving men from death by poison? Who taught you how to do such tricks?”
“I just figured it out,” Mally said, beaming down at him. “It wasn’t very hard.”
Leah missed the rest of their exchange as people converged around the prime and his heir, calling out questions and expressing congratulations. We didn’t do a very good job of shielding her from the public, Leah thought. But I don’t suppose she’s quite as vulnerable as we thought, since Taro’s still alive.
She took a moment to savor that. Taro’s alive. Taro’s alive!
Chandran looked down at her. “That is the torz prime? The one you feared dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have been blessed with a series of miracles.”
Rhan was close enough to hear. “Prime magic,” he said. “I can’t imagine any other country in the southern seas has anything to equal it.”
“I have traveled some,” Chandran said, “and I am inclined to agree.”
“I’m going to find my father,” Rhan said, “and learn how things unfolded here.”
He disappeared into the crowd. Leah glanced at Chandran with a question in her eyes. “Do you want to make the rounds and meet people, or would you rather disappear quietly? This might be a little overwhelming.”
“What do they know about me?”
“Probably everything,” she said. “That you were prepared to sacrifice yourself for Mally and that Mally was able to save you. That you’re from Cozique, that you were married to a Karkan princess—all of it.”
“I have been away from royal courts too long,” he said with a faint smile. “I had forgotten how quickly news spreads when it is connected to the palace.”
“So had I,” she confessed. “But now that everyone knows Mally is the heir, I’m back in that world for good. It will take some getting used to. And you don’t have to try to get used to it today.”
He smiled and took her hand. “But it is a day for celebrating miracles,” he said. “We have been braced for grief and sorrow. Let us go forth instead and drench ourselves in joy.”
• • •
The next few hours were a bewildering blur of introductions, explanations, exclamations, and embraces as Leah and Chandran moved through the crowd and made their presence known. She had been right; everyone had learned Chandran’s name and history, and they eyed him with varying degrees of admiration and speculation. She was almost as much of a curiosity as he was, since she had not been well-known in society when she lived there five years ago. And now everyone knew her history as well—that she had been Rhan’s lover, that Mally was her daughter, that from now on she would be raising the decoy princess who had most dramatically been revealed to be heir to the torz prime.
Everyone wanted to hear her story. She barely finished telling it to one person before another one came up and demanded the same details. It wasn’t long before she and Chandran were separated, first by a few feet, then by half the width of the room. Leah gave up trying to make her way back to him and simply plunged into the next conversation with the next group of inquisitive strangers. It was a relief to occasionally come across the people she knew. Josetta and Rafe. Nelson and Beccan. Virrie. Zoe. She fell into their arms as if into brief, welcome moments of sanity, and laughed, and tried not to cry.
“I have a message from Annova,” Zoe said, once they’d progressed beyond tears and hugs and laughter. “She says she has been at the shop every day, at least for a few hours, to make sure nothing is amiss. And to feed your fish.”
“The reifarjin!” Leah exclaimed. “I haven’t even had a moment to worry about it. Thank her for me five thousand times.”
“She says he misses you.”
“How can she possibly tell?”
“She says she dangled her fingers in the water and he didn’t make any attempt to bite her. In fact, he just swam away. So she could tell he was pining.”
Leah laughed and spread her hands. “I never expected that fish to care if I was alive or dead.”
“Well, that’s the lesson, I suppose,” Zoe said. “We can never predict who will love us or where we’ll feel love in return.”
Leah was still mulling that over a few minutes later when she came across Taro—who was, for one astonishing moment, alone. He crushed her into the most ferocious hug of the afternoon and said, “You and I have a great deal to talk about once we get rid of all these people.”
“You love being at the center of all these people,” she scoffed. “If it was up to you, you’d never send them home.”
He laughed and released her. “I am enjoying myself,” he admitted.
“But you’re well now? Whole? You looked so fragile the last time I saw you.”
“Hearty and strong,” he assured her. “I’ll live another twenty years. We’ll have lots of time to train your little girl in everything she needs to know.”
“You knew,” she said. “About Mally.”
“I was fairly certain,” he said. “But not until the past few ninedays. I’m glad it didn’t occur to me back when she was playing decoy for Odelia! I don’t know how we would have balanced a prime with a princess.”
She laughed. “Now I almost wish you’d been forced to try.”
Someone came up behind Taro and drew him into conversation, so Leah did a slow pivot, looking for Chandran. She had just spotted him in conversation with Nelson and Kurtis when a footman approached and told her Darien wanted to meet with her in his study. She threaded through the press of people, pausing to lift a glass of fruited water from the buffet, and made her way to the room at the back of the house. Darien was seated behind the enormous desk, going over some papers, but he looked up when she stepped inside and dropped noisily into a chair.
“Finally!” she exclaimed. “Some blessed quiet!”
Darien smiled. “We can sit here in silence for a minute if you would like to collect yourself.”
She sipped from her water glass. “I keep telling myself to get used to it. This is what my life holds from now on.”
“I’m glad you realize that,” he said. “Though such events will not take place all day, every day. You will be able to manage an ordinary enough existence for much of the time.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Darien folded his hands before him and studied her across the desk. “But your life has changed,” he said seriously. “And we must at some point discuss its new boundaries.”
She eyed him. “I realize there is some irony here,” she said. “I came back to Welce so I could reclaim my daughter from Taro—but it turns out I have to share her with him after all so he can teach her what she needs to know. But that’s no hardship. We will split our days between the city and his estate.”
“Mally will need to spend time at the palace, too, because when she becomes prime, she will be part of court life. Fortunately, that environment is already familiar to her from all the time she was there pretendi
ng to be Odelia.”
“So far, I’m not seeing that many new boundaries,” Leah said.
Darien smiled. “You must ask yourself how you wish to fit your life around Mally’s,” he said. “Do you still want to be a shop owner? Would you like to find some other occupation? Would you prefer to be a woman of leisure? Where would you like to live? There are always apartments available at the palace for the primes and their families.” He gestured at the walls around them. “Or you could stay in this house as long as you choose—and as long as you do not mind the continuous influx of other guests who are connected to me in some fashion.”
She settled back in the chair and regarded him a moment. Darien always had motives behind motives; she couldn’t guess what he was really trying to maneuver her into doing. “Do you want me to continue running the shop?” she asked bluntly. “I might be more cooperative if you would just come out and tell me your preferences.”
“I was trying to be neutral and refrain from influencing your decision,” he said.
“Ha.”
He smiled again. “I like the shop. I like having someone I trust in a position to meet so many citizens and visitors. If you would be willing to continue to operate it, I would be happy to continue to back it.”
“Then that’s another parameter we don’t have to change,” she said. “So I guess the big one is where I’m going to set up my household.”
“And who you’re going to set it up with.”
Now she grew very still. She stared at him with narrowed eyes and said, “I hope you aren’t thinking of asking me to give up Chandran.”
“Of course I’m not.”
“Because I’m not going to. I’m keeping them both. Mally and Chandran. I could have lost both of them in the past nineday, and I didn’t lose either of them. And I don’t care what you threaten me with, I’m not living without either one of them.”
Darien looked mildly affronted. “People are always accusing me of being much more sinister than I really am.”
“I think that would be difficult,” she replied with some heat.
He waited a beat, then went on with his usual calm. “I like him. I spent some time with him in recent days, and I admire his intelligence as well as his honor. But he’s a foreign national of some standing, and if he is living openly in Welce, there are certain requirements of diplomacy regarding his safety and the quality of his housing.”
She was wholly bewildered. “What?”
“We have to treat him well,” Darien elucidated. “His father is a cousin to the queen of Cozique.”
Leah flopped back in her chair. “What?” she said more faintly.
“Ah. I thought Chandran had shared that part of his history with you.”
“No—he said—his father was a merchant. Who had trading treaties with merchant families in the Karkades. That’s why his father arranged his marriage—”
“Technically true,” Darien said. “His father was the Minister of Commerce for thirty years. And, of course, you already know Chandran’s wife was part of the royal family of the Karkades.”
Leah rubbed her forehead. “All right. This might be a different parameter.”
“I wouldn’t try to restrict his movements,” Darien said. “But I would want to take steps to make sure he’s safe.”
“You want to assign guards to him.”
“They would be discreet.”
“If I say no—if he says no—will there still be guards?”
Darien made a graceful gesture with both hands. “They would be even more discreet.”
She nodded. “All right. After the last few ninedays, I’m not sure I would mind knowing there was protection nearby. But I’ll talk to him and get back to you.”
Darien cocked his head. “So I am correct in assuming you plan to set up a household with him?”
She couldn’t help a smile. “Well, we haven’t had much chance to make plans, since it seemed unlikely we’d live to see them to fruition, but yes, that’s my assumption as well. Maybe you should give me a little time to put my personal affairs in order before you start trying to organize my life.”
He smiled in return. “But, Leah,” he said. “You’re the mother of the next torz prime and romantically involved with a high-ranking envoy from a powerful foreign nation. Your personal affairs impact the public good. You give up your privacy or you give up the ones you love. Those are your choices.”
She came to her feet, feeling contrary impulses to throw a tantrum or to break into laughter. She figured she’d be battling those twin desires for pretty much the rest of her life. “I’m not even bothering to answer that,” she said. “We’ll talk more later.”
“Yes,” he said as she stepped through the door, “I’m sure we will.”
• • •
She found Mally in the river room with Natalie, Celia, and a tumble of Ardelay cousins. “You. Bedtime. Now,” she said, once she pulled Mally from the crowd. “You’ve had a very long few days.”
Mally nodded, but instantly began negotiating. “I have to say good night to Taro first.”
“You’ll see him tomorrow morning.”
“And Chandran.”
“Him, too.”
“And Rhan.”
“He’ll be around a lot.”
“But not in the morning.”
Leah certainly hoped not. Then again, she was starting to enjoy having Rhan nearby. On this latest adventure, he had proved himself both loyal and loving when it came to his daughter. It wasn’t going to be as hard to share Mally as she’d feared. “All right. Five minutes. Then I’m taking you up to your room.”
Mally scampered off. Leah went in search of Chandran and found him conversing with Rafe and Josetta, apparently enjoying himself a good deal. “I need to talk to him alone for just a moment,” she said, and pulled him to a quiet corner just outside the kierten.
“I thought we wouldn’t have any more secrets between us,” she said. For the life of her, she couldn’t muster anger or even indignation; curiosity was about as intense as she could get. She was too happy that he was alive. “I thought you said you had told me everything.”
He looked surprised. “Have I not? What information do you think I am withholding?”
“The fact that you’re closely related to the queen of Cozique.”
Now he was astonished. “And how did you discover that?”
“Darien knew. I have to guess Princess Corene found out. I know she and Darien have been corresponding about all the excitement here. Including you. So why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head. “I have not been in touch with anyone from my family since I left the Karkades. I did not want them to have to decide whether or not to tolerate a murderer in their midst. I have assumed they think me—or wish me—dead.”
“Well, not anymore,” Leah said. “Darien plans to treat you like a foreign diplomat, so I imagine it won’t be long before your family knows you’re still alive. Maybe they’ll revile you, maybe they’ll embrace you, but one way or another, you’ll have to factor them into your life going forward.”
He took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. “Then I shall,” he said. “It seems a less onerous challenge than many of the ones that we have faced this nineday.”
Leah laughed. “Indeed it does! And I want to sit down with you and talk about all of them sometime in the very near future, but right now I have to put Mally to bed.”
He smiled and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “At least there is a future,” he said. “The last time we stood in this house, there was not.”
“I know,” she said, kissing him back before turning away. “I can’t wait to find out what will happen next.”
Five minutes later, she took Mally upstairs, cleaned her up, and tucked her into bed. Once the little girl was settled, Leah stretched out next
to her, facing her, both of their heads on a single pillow.
“Do you think you’ll be able to fall asleep?” Leah asked. “Or do you want me to stay here awhile?”
“I want you to stay,” Mally said. There was a burst of laughter from below, faint but audible, and Mally smiled. “I like having all the people in the house,” she said.
Leah kissed her forehead. “That’s because you’re torz. Torz folks love to be surrounded by as many people as possible.”
“Do you?”
Leah considered. “For a long time I didn’t. People were what made me unhappy, so I wanted to get as far away from them as I could. I wanted to be separate and alone. But now—everything’s changed. I feel connected to certain people with such intensity that I want to be around them all the time. And I don’t think that’s ever going to go away.”
“What people?” Mally asked.
“You, of course. Chandran. Taro and Virrie and Zoe and Celia and Josetta and Rafe and Annova and Yori and—lots of people.”
“Rhan?”
“I’m connected to him,” Leah acknowledged, “but not as much as you are.”
“He’s my father.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“I just knew.”
“I think he’ll be a pretty good father.”
“He said he would buy me a bracelet,” Mally said. “With all my blessings on it. Just like Zoe’s.”
“That’ll be pretty.”
“You could get a bracelet, too.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Because then you never forget,” Mally said earnestly. “You look at your bracelet, and you always know what your blessings are.”
Leah gathered the little body closer for one final hug. “Oh, Mally,” she whispered. “I will never, ever forget. My blessing is you.”
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