Jeweled Fire

by Sharon Shinn

  She wouldn’t ask, of course. But she felt a strong surge of affection for all of them, just because they were there—seeking, like she was; trying, just like she was. Fighting to stay human and do something with their lives that mattered.

  She sat a moment with her head bowed and her hands folded, slightly apart from the others, then she looked up and summoned a broad smile.

  “So? Shall we draw each other’s blessings?” she invited, and they beamed back at her in gladness and relief.

  She didn’t even pay attention to who pulled what coin for whom, even when the young girl clapped her hands and the older woman exclaimed, “Oh, my!” She just handed over the bits of stamped metal when it was her turn to choose and cupped her palm when it was time for her to receive. She civilly declined an offer to head out into the rain and find a place that might still be serving food, and she waited till the three of them had left before she examined the blessings that had crossed her palm.

  Hope. Serenity. Change.

  She flipped through them a second time, a third. What an unexpected set of blessings. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt either hopeful or serene, but change had dogged her for the past five years. For the past six years, really, since her final few quintiles in Welce had been turbulent in the extreme. But she would dearly love to have both of those unexpected blessings visited upon her, unlikely though it seemed. She would take these as reflections of her hidden desires and a reminder that, if she lived long enough, she might one day win her way back to peace.

  She dropped the coins one by one in the barrel and headed back out into the rain.

  SIX

  The bad weather kept them inside for three days.

  Corene didn’t mind too much, since she was still exploring the enormous palace. She thought she might stay within its walls for a quintile and never visit all its music rooms, libraries, studies, and dining areas—there was even a greenhouse so humid and warm that she thought it would be her favorite spot on cold Quinnelay afternoons. Now, of course, the weather was hot and naturally humid, but she liked the conservatory anyway.

  But everybody else seemed edgy and morose at being cooped up indoors. By everybody Corene meant the small group of people who quickly came to constitute her particular circle: Steff, Melissande, Jiramondi, and Liramelli. Corene was not the kind of person to make friends easily, but she liked this group; she found it enjoyable to pass the time in their company.

  “I do not care if it is raining. I do not care if my shoes are ruined and my clothes are simply plastered to my body,” Melissande declared on the third day as they sat in one of the smaller parlors and played a listless game of penta. It was a Welchin card game Corene and Steff had taught the others, and they were all bad at it. No one could win enough hands in a row to amass a fortune of any significance. “I must get outside—I must see the world! I must breathe air that has not been breathed a thousand times by someone else.”

  “It’s supposed to be nicer tomorrow,” Liramelli offered in her serious way. “We can get out then.”

  “Can we go someplace where I can buy clothes?” Corene demanded. “The empress has kindly provided me with a few Malinquese jackets and trousers, but I am so tired of the few outfits I brought from Welce.”

  “I hope you plan to buy more Welchin clothing,” Melissande said. “I like all those decorations on your tunics. I like your distinctive look. We foreign beauties must constantly remind our hosts that we are different and unique.”

  Jiramondi bowed in her direction. “Trust me, no one forgets that you are unique.”

  “Are there Welchin shops here?” Corene asked.

  “At the Great Market,” Liramelli said. “They’re expensive, though.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Corene couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to think about money. Her mother had married a wealthy man and her father controlled the Welchin coffers, so her every need generally was cared for. She hadn’t had much money on hand when she decided to slip away to Malinqua, and it hadn’t occurred to her that this would be problematic. But while she could reasonably expect the empress to feed and house her—and perhaps even clothe her—she couldn’t expect Filomara to indulge her whims and fancies. Especially when Filomara was not, herself, either whimsical or fanciful.

  “Well, maybe I won’t buy much,” Corene said at last. “But I’ll look.”

  “So we shall shop tomorrow. Rain or no rain,” Melissande said. “Most excellent.”

  Steff shuffled the cards again. “Until then—more penta?”

  Melissande stretched her arms on the table and laid her head on top of them. “I cannot bear it,” she said mournfully. “Not another round of cards. Not another book. Not another conversation about the rain. It is all so dreadfully boring.”

  Liramelli actually looked concerned at this; she patted Melissande’s arm. “Come with me to the smaller music room and I’ll play for you,” she suggested.

  Melissande tilted her head up just enough to look at the other girl. “But happy songs only, yes? Nothing dreary? No ballads of brave heroes falling to their deaths?”

  Liramelli laughed, but she had, indeed, played just such a song the day before. “I must know one or two happy songs,” she said uncertainly.

  Melissande groaned and turned facedown again, but Steff came to his feet and tugged on her shoulder. “Come on. I’ll go with you. We’ll lock her in the music room if she doesn’t play something lively.”

  The prospect of violence cheered Melissande right up, and she flowed to her feet, Liramelli beside her. “Come with us?” Melissande said to the others.

  “Corene should stay and do her lessons in Malinquese,” Jiramondi said, mock stern, and Corene nodded glumly and remained in her chair.

  The other three tripped off together, talking easily. Corene watched them go and sighed.

  “You’ll hurt my feelings,” Jiramondi said.

  “It’s just that I hate doing what I’m not good at, and I’m not good at languages.”

  “But if you only do what you’re good at, you never learn new things.”

  “Who needs new things?”

  Jiramondi eyed her, his handsome face creased in a smile. “Oh, I think you’re more adventurous than that,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t be here to begin with. You strike me as the kind of girl who throws herself into fresh experiences.”

  Corene leaned her chin on her hand and thought about that. “Well, when you grow up in a royal palace, you aren’t allowed to have that many fresh experiences,” she said. “Someone’s always watching to make sure you behave. And someone else is always watching to make sure you’re safe. Life can be very dull.”

  “And yet you do not seem dull.”

  “Odd things have happened to me now and then,” she admitted. “When I was eleven, one of the king’s wives planned to make me marry the viceroy of Soeche-Tas, who was an old man and quite disgusting. But my father’s wife rescued me and sent me off with some merchant traders so no one could find me. That was the most fun I ever had. We traveled around Welce and visited small towns and camped out at night when we couldn’t find an inn. There were days I wanted to give up being a princess and just spend my life as an itinerant peddler.”

  Jiramondi was supposed to be teaching her grammar, but this story caught his attention. He leaned back and regarded her with interest. “An eleven-year-old princess—and some merchants—alone on the back roads of Welce?” he said incredulously. “And this wasn’t a scandal that rocked the entire country?”

  She grinned. “There were a few other scandals going on at the same time. Anyway, my sister Josetta was with me. And Foley, of course.”

  “Foley? Ah, the taciturn guard who follows you around the palace. He has been with you all this time? I’m impressed.”

  “Actually, he’d been assigned to Josetta. For something like five years
, anytime you saw her, you’d see him, too. So of course he went on the trip with us.”

  “And where was the guard assigned to you?”

  Corene made a face and hunched her shoulder. There must have been someone that day whose sole task had been to keep her safe. Her mother was careless, of course, and might not have requested a guard, and Darien hadn’t been sure just then that Corene was his daughter, so he wouldn’t have thought to demand one—but even so, she was a princess of the realm and every princess deserved royal protection. Right? So surely someone had been watching over her; he just hadn’t been able to react when the situation deteriorated. He hadn’t been able to keep Corene in his sights as the water rose and Zoe grabbed her, grabbed Josetta, and plunged them all into the raging river. They were swept away and he simply couldn’t follow.

  But Foley had followed them. When the water disgorged the three of them, coughing and shaking with cold, Foley had been only moments behind them. So why hadn’t anyone come after Corene?

  She tried to push the thought away. Foley had watched over both of them during those next ninedays of travel, guarding Corene as closely as he had guarded Josetta. It was the first time in her life Corene remembered ever feeling entirely safe. There should have been a guard for her, no question, but Foley had been enough. He was always enough.

  “We outwitted the rest of the soldiers,” she said lightly. “We were better off without them.”

  “So did this untrammeled trek across the Welchin wilds inspire in you a desire to go off on other adventures?”

  Corene laughed. “I wouldn’t say that. Until I ran away to come to Malinqua, I was always very well-behaved.” She reconsidered that. “Well, no, not exactly. But I didn’t do drastic things.”

  “Maybe you’ll find that drastic appeals to you, and you’ll want to try something else.”

  “Maybe,” she said pessimistically. “Let’s see how well this visit turns out first.”

  “No doubt it will turn out better if you learn to speak the language,” Jiramondi said, deftly turning the subject.

  Corene sighed and agreed. She had been improving under Jiramondi’s daily instructions, but she still had a long way to go.

  They hadn’t been conjugating verbs for more than an hour before Lorian approached in his usual stealthy fashion. Corene had probably encountered him a dozen times in the past three days, and each time it was as if he materialized from nowhere. It was beginning to give her a serious dislike of him.

  “Princess,” he said. “A shipment has arrived for you.”

  She was more than happy to push aside her books. “What do you mean?”

  “Trunks from Welce. A courier just brought them to the palace.”

  She felt her face light up. Her father hadn’t sent Welchin troops to bring her back, but he hadn’t forgotten her entirely. He had let a few days pass while his temper cooled, then sat down to write her a letter while someone else in the house organized clothing and other necessities. She jumped to her feet. She could hardly wait to see what had arrived.

  “The items have already been delivered to your rooms,” Lorian said. “They have not been opened, of course. The courier delivered this expressly to my hands.” He handed her a keyring.

  Well—they probably had been opened, but Corene assumed the contents had been searched very, very carefully. Whoever had assembled them on the Welchin end had surely anticipated that, and had packed accordingly.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the keys, then smiling down at Jiramondi. “Class is over for the day.”

  “I find I am not surprised.”

  She hurried to her suite to find Emilita there before her, staring hopefully down at three heavy chests. Two were enormous, and one was small enough that Corene could probably carry it herself.

  “Princess?” Emilita asked in very slow Malinquese, to make sure Corene understood. “Do you think there might be clothes inside?”

  “I hope so,” Corene said, and they both knelt down.

  She unlocked the big ones first and threw back the lids, and she and Emilita both crooned over the contents. Oh, clothes indeed—tunics and trousers in a dozen colors and multiple weights, some heavily beaded and embroidered, others severe and plain. There were also shoes, scarves, hair clips, and a box of her favorite cosmetics. Corene held a dark burgundy scarf against her face and smiled.

  “Princess? Shall I begin to hang these up?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  While Emilita began happily arranging the new acquisitions, Corene carried the smallest trunk over to the bed. It was heavier than she’d expected, and when she opened it, she saw why. It was filled almost to the brim with bags of coins—most of them golds and quint-golds, with a few quint-silvers thrown in. She sucked in her breath. Zoe—and possibly Josetta—had obviously picked out the clothing, but the money had probably come straight from Darien’s hand. She didn’t read the largesse as approbation of her actions, however. She was visiting at a foreign court and he didn’t want her to embarrass him; thus, he would fund her accordingly.

  It certainly made the prospect of tomorrow’s shopping expedition much more enjoyable.

  It was a moment before she noticed the thick cream envelopes tucked against the back of the chest. One bore her name written in Zoe’s handwriting, one in Josetta’s.

  Nothing from her father, then. Nothing from her mother, either, but that had been even less likely.

  She opened Zoe’s first. It was brief and scrawled in Zoe’s intemperate, almost illegible handwriting.

  You ran away like a coru girl! I’d be angry with you, but I’ve run away myself. Please please please take care of yourself, since I’m not there to drown anyone who mistreats you. Send us news whenever you can.

  Love you always—

  Zoe

  The letter sounded so exactly like Zoe that Corene felt a wave of homesickness strong enough to drown in. She scowled against the threatening tears and opened Josette’s note as a distraction.

  I can’t believe you left without giving me a chance to say goodbye! I miss you so much! I can’t wait till you come back and tell me about all your adventures.

  I’m sure Malinqua will be wonderful, but different from Welce, and I don’t want you to miss us too much. So I’m sending you a bag of blessings—yes, a full set! If you don’t see them at first, it’s because I’m sure Darien stuck them at the bottom of the trunk. Put them in a bowl in your room, so you can draw one every day.

  Then I thought it might be a good idea for me to pull blessings that would govern your whole trip to Malinqua—just to give you some context, you know. Actually, Rafe and Zoe and I each pulled blessings for you. They’re in the little bag inside the bigger bag. And then we picked some for Foley, but I didn’t bother sending them along. You already know what they are: loyalty, loyalty, and loyalty. I don’t know why I even bother. I’m glad he went with you on the trip.

  Love you. Stay safe.

  Josetta

  Corene was smiling by the time she reached the end of the letter. She was still a little homesick, but she felt buoyed by affection, too. Josetta could always be counted on to rebuild your confidence. Corene pawed impatiently through the pouches of gold till she found the small velvet sack at the bottom of the chest. Red, of course, and closed with a gold drawstring. A gift for a sweela girl.

  She opened the bag and poured the coins onto the bed in a bright metallic splash. They were miniatures, the size of her little fingernail, and brassy bright—they looked like a set someone might buy for the nursery. Corene loved them instantly, and laughed as she picked them up by the handful and let them drip through her fingers, cool and full of promise.

  Stuck in the bottom of the velvet sack was a smaller bag, this one made of white linen and tied shut with a yellow ribbon. A gift from an elay sister. Inside were three slim rings, like the ones Corene used to wear�
�one gold, one silver, one bronze—and perfectly sized for her fingers. Trust Josetta to get the smallest detail right.

  Trust Josetta also to remember that Corene wasn’t as conversant with all the symbols as she should have been; she had thoughtfully included a folded piece of paper that depicted each of the glyphs and explained what each one represented. Corene scanned it quickly, expecting to find her new blessings to be in the sweela category, as most of her blessings were. But not these three.

  Vision. Courage. Luck.

  What a very odd combination. Corene slipped the three bands on her fingers and studied the symbols again, wondering what they might signify. She couldn’t help thinking about her conversation with Foley a few nights ago, when they debated what murderous schemes might be under way at the Palminera court. Perhaps she would need vision to see who was plotting what, courage to confront an adversary—and luck to survive the encounter.

  Well, that was exciting. Disconcerting, but exciting.

  She gathered up the tiny blessings and dribbled them back into the red bag before bouncing off the bed and giving Emilita a big smile.

  “See anything you like among my new outfits?” she said, not sure she had used the right word for outfits. “What do you think I should wear to dinner?”

  • • •

  Sunshine, glorious sunshine, danced over the city on the following day, and Corene and her companions set out almost as soon as they’d finished breakfast. Of course, it wasn’t just the five of them—all the candidates for the throne had expressed a desire to visit the market, and such a congregation of ranking royalty required an extensive guard. Corene thought there might be two soldiers for every titled man or woman in their party, as well as Foley, Melissande’s maid, and Garameno’s personal attendant. Then there were drivers for the two large, open carriages and horses for all the soldiers, and pretty soon they were the size of a changeday parade.