“Please,” I say again. “Olina said that we should ask for you if we ever needed help. She said that we could trust you.”
Roos clenches her jaw as she looks from me to Olina.
“A waste of good herbs,” she repeats, but she turns to the barkeep with her instructions for hot water and her supply. We watch as she creates a steaming mixture and helps Olina sit up in her bed to force the tea into her mouth. Most of it dribbles from her chin. I thank Roos, but she says she has done nothing worth thanks. She leaves me and Georg in the room with Olina. We watch as her breathing worsens, and Olina is dead within the hour.
Roos cries as a white cloth is placed over Olina’s body and she’s carried from the room. I’m surprised. The woman had been hardened when asked to save her.
“I knew that she wouldn’t survive,” she tells me. “There was no point in wasting the herbs. That isn’t a sign of my feelings toward her. Olina was my friend.”
They had been on the island of Niklasson Helle together, young girls who’d sworn to one another that one day they would escape the islands. It was one storm season that Roos saw an opportunity. There were trading ships from Rescela, and a man who had promised to help Roos leave for the north as long as she shared his bed for the time of the journey. She agreed, and she begged Olina to come—but by then, Olina had already joined the network of whispers. She’d helped plan the revolution, and she knew she’d be needed. She stayed. Roos never forgave Olina for this. She left her friend behind, angry that Olina would be so foolish as to stay in the islands for a war she knew they would not win. At the root of this anger was shame for abandoning her.
And now her friend is dead. Olina had been free for the first time in her life, the moment she arrived on the docks of Rescela—but she didn’t realize her freedom before she died. Roos mourns Olina, but she doesn’t see the point in these tears, either. Crying won’t help me or Georg, and she understands the three of us came to the northern empires for a purpose. For the sake of Olina, Roos has already decided to help us in whatever it is we need.
“I was Olina’s messenger,” Roos explains. “Any letter she sent would come to me, and I would deliver the letter as needed. I can’t read, so I never knew what the letters said, but I do know that Olina sent her messages to one person in particular. She believed that they were the most likely to aid us.”
Roos speaks of Dame Nage Aris.
“The Rescela has been sympathetic to the islanders’ plight,” Roos says. “Olina was courting her. Asking her for resources, guards to aid in the war. From what I understand, Dame Aris has been hesitant. The Koninkrijk Empire and the Rescela Empire aren’t enemies, but they aren’t allies, either. Dame Aris could gain a lot of enemies from both the Koninkrijk and Rescela Empires alike if she were to help you.”
Olina had been working on convincing Dame Nage Aris for months. All of the work she’s done is gone with her death. I’ll be starting a new attempt and a new relationship by asking for this stranger’s help. Dame Aris has no reason to trust me—no reason to agree. The pressure is already building.
We stay only the night. Roos helps to arrange horses to take us from the coast of Rescela into the countryside where Dame Nage Aris lives. The trip would normally take a week while stopping at inns to rest along the path, but Roos understands the urgency and outfits us with the strongest horses, already marking spots on the map where we will stop to swap horses with people she calls friends who owe her favors. The ride out of the Krage and into the city is as overwhelming as the docks. The city is impossibly large, never ending. And even with so much space, it seems like there are more people. I wonder if this is why the Fjern in Koninkrijk decided to conquer other lands—if they simply ran out of space for all the people in these nations—but it doesn’t explain why a nation like Rescela would exist as it does, without need of attacking and pillaging and enslaving others.
Eventually the city becomes a smaller town with wider cobblestone roads, and then that eventually ends, taken over by fields without any trees in sight. The grass seems limp and brown. The sun isn’t as bright as in the islands. It’s dim and pale and reminds me of the moon, with skies that are dull and gray. For all the horrors of the islands, I can see how they are beautiful in comparison to the north.
We ride into the night, Roos warning us of the possibility of bandits. We’re lucky to emerge unscathed as it turns into morning. My body is desperate for us to stop. My hands cramp from gripping the reins, and my legs are sore, my back and neck aching. Pain shoots up my spine with every step the horse takes as it gallops, but I remind myself of the stakes: Stopping means taking more time to meet Dame Nage Aris—more time to convince her to help us, more time for her to send the guards and supplies if I’m successful, more time for the aid to arrive. And in that time, we could have already lost the war. Hans Lollik Helle could have already been attacked by the Fjern. Everyone could already be dead. I ride harder. Georg keeps his pace beside me.
After two days of riding, stopping only for water and quick meals of dried meat and to exchange the horses at inns along the way, we come to a path that cuts through the fields and to a single manor in the distance. Roos leads as we race to the house, slowing down as guards wait in the gardens to greet us. The guards are pale-skinned and carry swords at their waists. I tense, expecting them to attack, but they wave and speak in a language I’ve never heard. I’m surprised when Roos responds in their tongue.
She jumps from her horse, and I swing a leg over and jump to the ground as well. My palms are bleeding. I hold my hands as fists to hide the cuts. Georg looks faint on his feet, and I stand beside him, ready to steady him if needed.
“Dame Nage Aris’s friend Olina sent two messengers in her stead,” Roos says, switching over to our language. The guards seem curious, glancing at us, but I see no hostility in their gazes.
“Is Dame Aris expecting you?” one guard asks her.
“Unfortunately not, but we must ask to see her at once.”
One guard nods to the other, who disappears into the manor. Barely a minute passes before he’s returned with an accommodating smile and a gesture for us to enter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The house is lavishly decorated, more so than any house I’ve seen, more than the inside of Herregård Constantjin. There are paintings every few feet with golden frames covering floral wallpaper that has details of birds and butterflies. The marble tile shines, our boots clacking as we’re guided down one hall and then the next. We’re taken into a sitting room of ribbon and lace. I almost don’t see the woman sitting on her sofa. Her dress blends in with the extravagance of the room. She has brown skin, close to mine in shade, and a pretty smile that I sense she likes to use to get her way. There’s something about this woman that reminds me a little too much of Sigourney Rose.
Dame Nage Aris stands and greets us like we’re friends she’s known all of her life. I’m taken aback—not only by this, but by the strong sense of kraft. I can immediately feel the ability Dame Aris has over persuasion. She’s a woman who is used to having her way with the simplest of requests. Olina hadn’t mentioned that Dame Aris had power in her veins. She’d said, in fact, that the woman was devout to her gods and could potentially have me sent to a temple were she to learn that I have a kraft of my own.
Dame Aris doesn’t seem to notice my surprise. Olina had also warned us that the woman would be offended by our appearances, but she isn’t fazed by the ragged clothes or the dirt and sweat and blood from our long journey.
“I’m so delighted to meet you,” she says, her voice high like a child’s, though she seems at least a few years older than me. She speaks with a strong accent that makes it difficult to understand her words. “I consider Olina a great friend. She’s a brilliant woman. You must be special to be her friends as well.”
I try not to be distracted by the woman’s kraft. I don’t want her to notice how nervous her power makes me. An ability like hers feels particularly dangerous. She could have
me do or say anything of her choosing. If I don’t manage to use my kraft against her in time, she could control my will completely. I’m not sure I should use my kraft to defend myself. She’d feel my power used against her, and her view of us could shift from friend to foe. We would not only lose any possibility of help from Dame Aris, but potentially be captured and imprisoned.
Dame Aris would expect me to bow in greeting. If Olina were here, she would be annoyed by my lack of northern manners. But I’ve never seen the point in mimicking the rituals of the Fjern. “Thank you for inviting us into your home.”
“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t have refused you. Travel is difficult on anyone, and especially for you. You’ve come from the islands of Hans Lollik, yes?” Her expression darkens when we nod. “The stories Olina has told. Some of them I can’t believe.”
In the time leading up to the revolt, Olina had come here to visit Dame Aris whenever she had the opportunity to accompany her Fjern master. She would slip away under the cover of night to visit Dame Aris and build a relationship with the woman, hoping that her sympathy could be useful when the revolt began.
“Hard to believe,” Dame Aris repeats, “but the more I asked of others from those lands, the more I realized she spoke the truth. Horrible. My heart breaks.”
I’m not sure what to say to this. Her heart breaks, and yet she still hesitates to help us. Olina must have been near madness with frustration. “Thank you,” I tell Dame Aris.
Her eyes suddenly brighten. “But where is our friend? She didn’t stay behind in those horrible islands, did she? I look forward to her visits.”
I glance at Roos, who looks to the marble floor.
“Olina passed away,” I tell Nage. Her shock is immediate. She gasps, and the tears that fill her eyes are genuine. When she asks what happened, I explain Olina’s illness on the trip here and how it overcame her so quickly.
“She was a spectacular woman. A true friend.” Dame Aris wipes her eyes, then claps her hands together. It’s startling. Georg flinches. Roos meets my eye. She thinks there’s something strange about Dame Aris. Something performative. She’s right. The woman enjoys having an audience while she stands in the center of our attention. When I read Dame Nage Aris, she does honestly feel pain for her friend, but there’s also a flurry of other emotions that are difficult to pin down. She isn’t cold or calculating. It seems she operates on whim. This is more concerning.
“Let us celebrate Olina’s life,” she says. “Join me for dinner and drink. We’ll toast to her.”
The dining room has a table too large for the space, made of a lighter wood that I’m unfamiliar with. This is the least decorated of all the rooms, with patterned wallpaper and a golden chandelier that hangs over the table. There are others at the table as well. I hesitate, Georg and Roos at my sides, as Dame Aris sweeps into the room with a wide smile.
There are three guests. A woman who is pale and sallow and looks sickly, with thin black hair and a gaze that doesn’t linger. It doesn’t seem she would be the type of person to be a friend of Dame Nage Aris. The two men sit side by side, both with dark skin unmarked by scars, wearing bold patterned colors and strings of gold around their necks. They greet us with smiles as pleasant as Dame Aris’s, but their eyes skim the state of me, Georg, and Roos—our clothes, the dirt and smell.
I speak for both Georg and Roos as well as myself. “We don’t want to intrude,” I tell Dame Aris.
“I insist,” she says, gesturing to three seats. “Join us. The longer you take, the more time it’ll be for us to have our food and our wine and celebrate the memory of our lovely Olina.”
We sit as far from the others as possible at the ends of the table—not only out of self-consciousness, but because it’s difficult to trust any of these strangers in this foreign land. The woman is introduced as Dame Ione Galatea. She speaks with an accent as well, though it’s softer than Dame Aris’s. Ione is the daughter of a wealthy merchant from the empire of the Aldies, sent here to Dame Aris’s home to learn the etiquette of a fine lady of society. She is only recently of age and believes she was sent here by her father so that he could be free from her. The two men are Sirs Clef and Renate Vashel. Clef Vashel is from an old royal family, a distant cousin of the king of the Rescela Empire and a good friend of Dame Aris. The two men have the same family name, so it’s easy to assume that they are related by blood. It’s an assumption I can see in Georg, though not Roos, who is more accustomed to the culture of the northern empires. Relationships like these aren’t unheard of in the islands. I remember two women I’d seen when I was a child one particular storm season, holding hands every morning on the bay of Hans Lollik Helle when they didn’t believe anyone was looking. There was a day when I didn’t see them on the sand. I later learned that they’d been caught by their mistress. One woman was sold to another island. The other had dove from the cliffs in her grief, her body washing ashore days later. The Koninkrijk Empire has not been accepting of this sort of love. They view this as an abomination. It interests me that this isn’t the same in all the northern lands. It makes me wonder if this sort of love might have been accepted in our islands before the Fjern arrived as well.
Clef Vashel has decided to be polite, though he doesn’t approve of the dirt and smell that covers us. “What has brought you to the Rescela Empire?” he asks. “I have never met any islanders of Hans Lollik. Have they—” He hesitates, meeting his husband’s gaze, then asks, “I mean to say, have the Fjern surrendered and given you your freedom?”
Georg barks a laugh. I can see this is inappropriate according to Rescela Empire manners. Georg notices as well, but he doesn’t care. He thinks this was a foolish question, and he’s right. “Do you think the Fjern would ever willingly give up the land and people they’ve stolen?”
Clef Vashel raises his eyebrows. “No, I suppose not. I didn’t mean to offend you with the question, sir.”
“Forgive Georg,” I say. “We’re all tired. We’ve traveled far to come here.”
“And why did you come here?” Renate asks us. “If you’re still at war as you say, then you must have risked much to escape the islands.”
“I suspect they hope to start where our dear Olina stopped,” Dame Aris says, feigning shyness with a polite smile, her gaze on the wine she swirls around in her cup. “That is to say, they hope to request my support in this war.”
Clef and Renate meet each other’s eyes with interest. Ione Galatea has not moved or said a word or looked up from her empty plate, but I feel her attention focused on us with intense curiosity. She’s never seen an islander before. She’s heard much of the war of Hans Lollik in recent days as news has traveled of the slaves who managed to kill their masters.
“But enough of that,” Dame Aris says, clapping her hands. “Let us eat!”
Food is brought: chunks of meat, I’m not sure what, and vegetables and fruit in spices, red drink that I learn is wine created from a fruit called grapes rather than sugarcane. Georg, Roos, and I eat like we haven’t eaten properly in days, because we have not: We rip into the meat, forgetting the manners of polite society. The others watch with some amusement, and more food is brought for us. As she promised, Dame Aris raises a toast to Olina’s memory. She sips, watching me closely.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying the food,” Dame Aris says.
“Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Not at all. Any friend of Olina’s is mine as well,” she says. “You should try the meat pies.”
I’m hungry enough to eat anything on the table. But Dame Aris’s slight smile and the silkiness of her voice has me reaching for the pie before I’ve noticed my hands have started moving. She watches me, satisfied, as I obey the order of her kraft. The discomfort of her being able to control me churns through me.
“What do you think of the Rescela Empire, Løren Jannik?”
I hesitate. It feels like we’ve begun the game of politics, and that any answer could affect her decision to send aid. “It’s a
beautiful country,” I say. This is met with silence, so I realize it isn’t enough—that I’m being too careful. “It’s large,” I add. “The size is overwhelming.”
“Well, I suppose anything would be large when you’re used to living on such small islands,” Dame Aris says.
Anger pinches through me. Her tone is condescending. “They might be small in comparison to your homeland, Dame Aris,” I tell her, “but they’re still worthy of respect.”
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” she says with an apologetic tone. “I’m only curious about what you think. Interested in learning more about your lands. It must be strange, to see someone like me, who looks like you, with my freedom and my wealth.”
She’s proud especially of her wealth. I think of those on the streets of the docks of the city, the children starving and begging for food. People with brown skin might have their freedom in the north, but I suspect there’s a different sort of oppression—one that isn’t as easy to see, because it doesn’t have the name of slavery. “It gives me hope for my people, that we can have our freedom one day, too.” I say this because it’s true, and because it’s what Dame Aris wants to hear.
“There are some across the empires who are disgusted by the Koninkrijk Empire,” Clef Vashel says, as if this is a consolation. “They argue on your behalf, that the Fjern cannot classify a group of people as lesser, or as slaves. But it can be difficult to force change in politics that aren’t your own. The few Fjern in the north who do argue for your freedom are often branded as traitors and forced into exile.”
“It truly is barbaric, the way they treat you,” Dame Aris says. “The Aldies had a brief history of slavery as well, but they abolished the practice many eras ago.”
At the mention of her homeland, Ione Galatea’s eyes glance from her place before falling again. Dame Aris notices. She smiles. “What do you think of my friend, Herre Jannik?”
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