by Vela Roth
She must see and hear and feel what was before her, not what had been. She must not permit this…this force inside her, whatever it was…to rise and burst out as her tears had that night.
Lio spoke again, reminding her. This was not that negotiation or that tent, although she was still that girl. The ones who brought terms before the king now were not those who had destroyed her world. These were Hesperines, the only ones who had tried to put it back together.
She was listening not to a traitorous free lord’s messenger, but to Lio. The same voice that talked and laughed with her in the secret darkness was now speaking with eloquence and maturity, delivering the words his people had delegated to him, surely a great honor.
“Once again His Majesty shows bold and decisive leadership in his commitment to a true restoration of the Equinox Summit, according to the terms that have withstood the test of time. We appreciate the significance of His Majesty’s decision, and we look forward to pledging our own commitment to the traditions of Tenebra and Orthros, when we swear the Equinox Oath with everyone of Lucis Basileus’s blood.”
Cassia bit down on the inside of her lip to keep from making a sound.
She understood the king. Lucis had no reason to want her at the Summit. Except to oblige his guests.
It was the Hesperines who desired her presence. Suddenly, inexplicably, though they had taken no notice of her absence all this time. Someone had convinced them they should want her here.
It was Lio. He was the one who had broken the fragile rhythm of her days beyond repair.
The emotion within her that was trying to emerge—she recognized it. She never let it in. It was far too dangerous. But it had come. Anger.
Anger
Lio felt the slam of the hatch as a vibration in the ground beneath his bare feet. The thud echoed through the woods.
Cassia was a powerful flame, and he felt like nothing more than a moth. If he drifted too close to that raging fire, her anger would consume him.
He altered his course and ran for the hatch. She marched toward him, Knight loping at her heels, her anger lashing out before her.
Anger was better than fear. Wasn’t it?
She was only halfway to the fountain when he caught up with her and fell into step beside her. She halted in her tracks and rounded on him. He stilled.
“What were you thinking?” she seethed.
Her anger whipped again, ensnaring him and yanking him closer. There was fear underneath. No. Panic.
“Cassia, when you arrived at the Summit tonight, I sensed you were angry. I did not realize—”
“No, you didn’t realize at all.” Her words came in a breathless rush, her tone a warning on the edge of an outburst.
Purely on instinct, Lio lifted his hands and reached out to her to reassure her.
She backed away.
He froze with his hands in midair. Of course. This was Cassia. His touch was not worth the risk, except through a handkerchief. She had no use for his touch. Especially in this moment.
He turned his mistake into a placating gesture. Far too much like one might make when facing an armed opponent.
“You told the other Hesperines about me,” she accused.
“No. I promised you I wouldn’t. Politics were all I had to speak of to convince my people the king must not deny you your seat at the Summit. Tonight was the first time we broached the subject with Lucis, and we were all surprised when he acted on his decision immediately. I had no chance to tell you—”
“It’s your fault he summoned me to the table!”
Your fault. The words lanced Lio, even as her sense of betrayal took hold of him. For an instant all he could think of was her pain, and his own regret rubbed salt in the wound. “I thought you might be…”
What? Pleased? That he had dragged her before the one man in the world she least wished to see?
The man with whom she had volunteered to spend the season in order to achieve her own ends.
“…that you might find the opportunity useful,” Lio finished.
“Useful?” she spat.
Lio pulled back from her fury, attuning himself to his Gift again, anchoring himself in his own skin. He had misjudged. Catastrophically.
She took a step forward, advancing on him. “One does not attempt anything ‘useful’ with the king watching. I spend every waking moment laboring not to draw his attention. Every move I make to accomplish anything ‘useful’ must be considered and reconsidered and considered again so he does not suspect I am interested in—or capable of—achieving anything ‘useful.’ If he thinks for one moment I know more than he has mandated that I should, or I lift a finger to accomplish anything in his domain, then it will already be too late for me.”
The words and the anger and the desperation roared out of her. Lio could have thought of something to say. But he didn’t.
Had anyone ever heard her say such things, much less listened to her?
He stood still and silent under the onslaught.
“How could you think I want a place at his table? How dare you presume to arrange it?” Her voice broke as the depths of her terror had broken the surface already.
Lio had tapped into her worst fears. An instant of regret overtook him again that he had done this to her. But then came certainty.
If one never lanced a wound, it festered. If one never stared fears in the face, they only grew more powerful.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of!” Cassia cried. “You don’t know what he’s done. I do. I am the only one who does, and because of that, I must never give him reason to think I am a danger to him. I know better—far better than you and your foolish, idealistic embassy—how to pick my battles with him.”
She shut her eyes, and Lio could feel her fighting to regain composure. She had lost control. That frightened her as much as the king did.
“No,” she amended. “I know not to pick fights at all. I go nowhere near the field.” She looked Lio in the eye now. “I am the king’s pawn. But I will not be yours.”
“You are no one’s pawn.”
Her anger hit him like a slap in the face. If she had been anyone else, she might have cursed him and actually reached out to strike him with a hand. But Cassia did not call upon the gods, and Cassia did not strike out at anyone.
“What would you call me, then?” she demanded. “Your wreath of victory? How proud you must feel to have exerted real influence upon the course of the Summit for the first time. You convinced your people to take your view, and you even moved Lucis Basileus himself on his throne. Congratulations, Initiate Ambassador Deukalion. Your first triumph as a diplomat—you succeeded in putting Lady Cassia where you want her.”
“Under the Goddess’s Eyes, Cassia, I swear you are not some kind of notch on my spear! Hespera’s Mercy. I am not a Tenebran lord who thinks himself entitled to power over others’ lives. I am a Hesperine—a heretic. The truth is, I am no more welcome before the king and Council than you are. The Summit is a rare chance for me to influence them, and I thought to use it to aid you in achieving influence as well. I will not deny I felt a sense of triumph. But only because I thought I had truly helped someone. Helped you.”
“You wanted to help me, and this is what you did? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking it is a shame upon this house that you are forced to make do with scraps of influence, when those who wield the power are unworthy of it. You deserve a seat at that table more than anyone there. If no one in this godsforsaken palace will give you what is rightfully yours, then I shall hold them accountable.”
No flicker of surprise or comprehension in her eyes. Just her mask, a new one tonight, wrought of indignation. “That is not how things work in Tenebra.”
“I know, and it isn’t right.”
“Self-righteous Hesperines! Always claiming to know right and wrong! To have a solution for everything! How dare you?”
He swallowed, stifling the urge to rub a hand through his hair. “
A good question. One you have every right to ask. I presumed a great deal, didn’t I?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He saw it now, and he could not confront it without feeling shame.
He had forced her hand. Just like everyone else who surrounded her. Especially the king.
That was what Lio had done. He had made Cassia feel powerless. How could he do that to her?
How had he managed to descend to that level in his attempt to give her more power? For all his good intentions, he had put her in a place she had no desire to be—and at the king’s behest. Lio had influenced his people, they had influenced the king, and like a puppet master, Lucis had pulled his daughter to the table on the end of her strings.
No one had asked Cassia.
“Forgive me.” Lio bowed his head. “I had no intention of putting you in this position. I should have consulted you first.”
“You should never have considered it.”
“If I had come to you and offered to secure you a seat at the Summit—”
“I would have told you I do not want it.”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course not!” She raised her voice again. “How could you ever think I would?”
“I think if you weren’t afraid, you would.”
“How dare you,” she said again, “presume to know what I want. How dare you come here and upset everything I’ve worked for!”
“It would indeed be wrong of me to say I know better than you what you want or what’s best for you. I speak only of what you have decided you want, your own desires you have expressed to me.”
“I’ve never said anything of the sort to you!”
“You’ve been telling me, showing me night after night what you want. Not to be in danger. Not to endure suffering. The information you need to protect yourself and stay one step ahead of those who would cause you harm. The opportunity to use that information to your advantage. And beyond that?” A sad laugh escaped him. “To have Knight by your side. To get to work in the garden instead of having to do any weaving. Such modest wants. Far too modest for someone like you.”
“Oh, I see! I fall short of Hesperines’ lofty standards of desire and Will. My wants are insufficient!”
“There can be nothing wrong with your wants. They are, by definition, yours to decide. Only think how they might grow if you did not have to stunt them. Your life is insufficient for you. You deserve more.”
Her riposte was long in coming this time. But as the silence stretched on, Lio felt the cool air on his skin and a lightness in his chest. Her anger, easing. Giving way to something else too complicated and fraught to name.
“I want to keep breathing, Lio. I’m a girl child and a bastard. Either reason alone would be enough. The king could have left me to the wolves the hour I was born, and even now he could consign me to the headsman at his pleasure. Every day I peer into my own grave, and the only reason I am not buried yet is that I do not try to right wrongs. I do not give a thought to what I deserve. I think about what I need and what I can manage, and that is all I have any call to think about.”
“You’re wasted on necessity and managing.”
“You do not understand the way of things here.”
“No, I do. I understand that you’re intelligent and determined and braver than any man who charges out onto a bloody battlefield with a sword. You shouldn’t be locked away in some neglected wing of the palace or even the walls of a temple garden. Forgive me for thinking to put some tools in your hand that would help you dig your way out.”
She stared at him. Her face was blank. But Lio sensed a war in her spirit. A foolish sense of hope, satisfaction, victory overtook him.
Without a word, she turned on her heel and walked away.
He let her go. He didn’t know what would come of it, if she would ever agree with what he had said. But he did know that what he’d said had reached her.
26
Days Until
SPRING EQUINOX
Dirty Hands
The afternoon was waning, and the Prisma still had not called Cassia away from the garden. Perhaps she would manage to escape back to the palace without the mage asking her to do anything else about the rimelace. Cassia’s luck had held. It seemed word had not yet reached the cloistered halls of the temple about the scandal at the palace, that the king’s bastard now blemished the noble Summit.
Cassia lifted her hoe from the soil at the end of the row and leaned on it. Another bed turned over. Soon it would be time to move onto the next. She straightened, stifling a yawn. It was always that Hesperine’s fault she did not sleep. Now she would only see him at the Summit, but it was his fault that she would have to attend each night, and that she would lie awake in her chambers afterward, battling her own weakness. It would surely win, and the cramps in her stomach would drive away sleep.
As she headed for the nearest well, Knight got to his feet and followed. She drew a bucket up and cleansed first her spade, then her hands. Knight watched her expectantly, knowing clean hands meant petting would resume.
She was about to start scrubbing the dirt from under her fingernails when another pair of hands entered her vision. Elegant ivory fingers took hold of the other bucket on the opposite side of the well. Cassia glanced up to find Irene had joined her. She gave the mage a nod as civil as she gave to anyone.
Irene’s beautiful, rosy lips curled into a smile that did not reach her eyes. “You must feel very privileged.”
Cassia’s instincts warned her that her luck was about to run out. Irene was not to be outdone by her brother, Free Lord Tyran, although their family had raised him to sit upon the Council and bartered her to the temple in her childhood as a badge of their devotion to the gods. Cassia knew she would always be Irene’s favorite target, for she lacked what Irene was most proud of—elevated, legitimate birth—and possessed what Irene wanted more than anything. A life at court.
Cassia followed her customary policy of giving Irene as little as possible to use against her and simply raised her eyebrows in an interested expression.
“A seat at the Summit,” the mage fawned. “What a truly unusual condescension from His Majesty.”
“Yes.”
Irene rounded the well, still smiling as if this were a harmless chat over the buckets. Closing in for the thrust, Cassia guessed. Knight maneuvered himself into the space between her and the mage. Irene shifted on her feet with an eye on her sky-blue robe to ensure it was not touching the dog. But she did not back away.
“I confess to being surprised at you, Cassia. You have always shown yourself to be aware of your place, as befits us all to be. Perhaps you have misunderstood the Prisma’s generous kindness to you. Has your little garden plot gone to your head and emboldened you to reach out of the dirt for a seat at the table?”
“I sit where the king bids me.”
Irene’s smile widened, but her eyes narrowed. Just a squint in the sun to anyone looking. But Cassia, under the full impact of her gaze, saw it for the warning it was.
“As a handmaiden of Kyria, I am called to assist my fellow women in remaining on the path of virtue. When I notice a female about to stumble, it is my duty to warn her of the pitfall waiting to trap those who are susceptible to corruption.”
Cassia showed Irene the face she wore before the Summit.
“It may by exhilarating to sup on rich fare,” said the mage, “but only those born to it can dine with grace. Those who were not will always appear gluttonous. Woman was born to lay the table, not sit at it. And some women were born only to grow the food that shall be laid.” Irene’s gaze fell to the dark lines under Cassia’s fingernails. “An ambitious gardener will only soil the linens.”
“I assure you,” Cassia replied in her mildest tone, “I scrubbed my fingernails quite clean before answering the king’s summons to the table last night.”
Irene gave a shrug that said hew your own crypt. “Some dirt is too ingrained for the eye to see.”
&n
bsp; Cassia gazed back at her steadily. “I could not agree with such wisdom more.”
Irene’s gaze sharpened to blade-point. “Some of us see it, no matter how deep it is hidden. Some of us can spot presumption…unseemly pretentions…while others are duped into seeing only virtue.”
A dozen different parries occurred to Cassia, and for an instant she indulged an uncharacteristic desire and imagined saying them. If she engaged, she could outduel Irene so effectively she would leave the mage bleeding.
Where had this unfamiliar thirst for battle come from?
There was no call to strike back against Irene. There was no reason for these same accusations to rankle Cassia. Bastard. Tarnished. Unwomanly. Presumptuous. No wedding vows had constrained her mother. Therefore the daughter too must be uncontrolled, uncontrollable. Always violating the proper bounds the gods had placed on her, lusting for men, riches or power. Cassia had heard it all before. She spent every day laboring to be acceptable, and they still believed her capable of every transgression.
Irene was just more of the same. A woman who regarded other women as a threat to her. A daughter trying to make what she could of the life her father had ordained for her.
In fact, Irene was a great deal like Cassia herself. The only difference was that Cassia only worried about real dangers. Irene’s jealousy drove her to see threats where there were none.
“Certainly,” Cassia said, “we should all strive for a greater level of insight. With the goddess’s help, we ought to all pray to become better judges of character.”
Irene’s lips pressed together. “Oh, yes, Cassia. Pray. And hope that when you fall, the gods hear and are merciful enough to catch you.” She took her bucket in hand and turned her back on Cassia to walk away.
Cassia gazed down at her hands, which were clean of everything except those little smudges under her nails. Knight nudged her, reminding her she should be petting him. She gave his ears a thorough rub. Satisfied the threat was gone and they were on schedule, he wagged his tail.