Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Probably,” he said, standing up to escort her back toward the door. “I’ve got nothing else planned, anyway.”

  “Good.”

  Wen followed them to the house and then loitered in the shadows while a groom went to fetch the serramar’s horse. Moss had followed the seamstress inside; Wen would see Ryne Coravann off the property.

  He surprised her by peering over his shoulder as if looking for someone. When he spotted her, he waved enthusiastically. His grin was such a patent invitation that she strolled forward to exchange a few words.

  “Invisibility,” she said. “You would choose magic like that.”

  He appeared delighted. “I knew you were listening.”

  “Was the whole demonstration for my benefit, then?”

  “Mostly. But you don’t have to worry. I’m not very good at it yet, as you could see.”

  “You pretended you weren’t very good at it,” she retorted.

  This seemed to please him even more. “Oh, I wish that were true! I would sneak back in here tonight and start knocking over benches and flower boxes. Just to make you insane.”

  She didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. “I’ve fought against magic before,” she said. “Fought with it on my side, too. I confess I’d rather have magic as an ally than an enemy, but all it requires to defeat a mystic is a different kind of weapon.”

  He gave her that lazy, devastating smile. “Do you really think I’m your enemy? Or rather, Karryn’s enemy?”

  “Have you done anything to prove you’re her friend?” Wen replied softly.

  That snapped the smile right off his face, but then he gave a little laugh. The look on his face was appraising. “Maybe we define friendship differently.”

  “If you do anything to hurt her, you’re not her friend,” Wen said. “That seems like a pretty simple definition.”

  Now he was frowning. “I would never hurt Karryn. I know you don’t like me, but I’m not cruel.”

  “You’re thoughtless, and I think you don’t know how cruel a thoughtless man can be,” she replied coolly. “But you’re wrong. I don’t dislike you. I just don’t trust you.”

  He jerked his head back, real anger now showing in his eyes. “I can’t believe a guard has the nerve to say such things to a serramar!” he exclaimed. She had to think he was the kind of man who didn’t trade often on his rank; she must have really galled him. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll complain to Jasper about you?”

  The groom was leading his horse up—with some difficulty, as the animal fought and sidled all the way from the stables. “Go ahead and complain,” Wen said. “I say what I want because I don’t care what anyone thinks—you, Karryn, Jasper. Anyone.”

  “You’ll care if you’re released from your position,” he said. He sounded curious, now, as opposed to threatening. He took the reins from the groom’s hand but kept all his attention on Wen.

  “It’s a temporary position, anyway,” she said. She allowed her smile to grow. “I’m already planning when I’ll leave.”

  He swung himself into the saddle, letting the horse dance under him. “You’re a strange one,” he said. “But I admit you’re interesting.”

  She was still grinning. “Ride with care,” she said. “No more incidents in the marketplace.”

  “Not today, anyway,” he said. He didn’t bother with a farewell, but laughed, pulled the horse around, and trotted for the gate.

  WEN recounted this entire incident to Jasper Paladar that night. “I don’t know what to make of him,” she summed up. “I don’t honestly think he intends harm to Karryn, but I think he’s careless enough that trouble follows him like a faithful dog, and Karryn could suffer for it.”

  “And yet, we have already agreed that it would be pointless to forbid him the house,” Jasper said. “I see no reason to change our minds about that. Dangerous as he might be, she likes him. And I like to see her learning how to be at ease with a young man.”

  Wen grinned. “I suppose I can teach her to stick a knife in his ribs if he ever puts her in a truly risky situation.”

  Jasper leaned back in his chair. They had dealt out a card game, but after one halfhearted draw and discard, they had pretty much ignored their hands. “Is she still coming down to the training yard in the mornings?”

  Wen laughed. “Yes! Even during all the excitement of the ball! Not only is she making real progress in her skills, but she’s become a favorite with all the guards. Some of them would fight for her now even if they weren’t taking home a salary for the privilege.”

  “Does that mean I can pay them less?” he inquired.

  Wen shot him a doubtful look and he burst out laughing.

  “A jest,” he said. “Loyalty is more precious than skill. If anything, I should pay them more.”

  “Well, no one would object to that,” she said.

  Before he could answer, there was a knock on the door a scant moment before Serephette poked her head inside. “Jasper? Can I see you for a minute?”

  He came gracefully to his feet. “Certainly.”

  They conferred just outside the doorway for a few minutes. Wen tried not to listen, but it was clear that Serephette wanted Jasper’s opinion on a social invitation she had just received. Wen picked up her cards and sorted through them again, but she still didn’t have much of a hand. It would be better to talk than to play.

  Jasper was turning back into the room and his voice was a little louder. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d have to ask Wen.”

  “Could you do that?” Serephette asked rather sharply. “As soon as possible?”

  “I will,” he said, and he closed the door. Returning to his chair, he picked up his cards without making any comment. Wen waited while he studied and rearranged his hand, but he seemed in no hurry to speak, so she finally said, “Ask me what?”

  He looked up in surprise. “What?”

  “What were you going to ask me? You said, ‘I’d have to ask Wen.’ ”

  He laid his cards on the table and studied her with sudden attention. “Serephette wanted to know if I’d be willing to visit the Flytens this week, and I said I’d have to ask when they wanted us to come.”

  Wen felt ridiculous. Not only had she been mistaken, she’d been caught eavesdropping. She could tell her face was heating, but she tried to sound nonchalant. “Oh. Sorry. I thought I heard my name.”

  “Which is interesting,” he said, “because you’ve always told us your name is Willa.”

  Chapter 24

  WEN FELT HER FACE GO FROM RED TO WHITE, AND HER stomach closed into a hard ball of distress. She stared at him, unable to speak.

  Jasper Paladar did not seem shocked or perturbed. In fact, he looked as if he had stumbled upon a most intriguing puzzle. “So that’s your real name? Wen?” he said, trying out the sound of it. “Not very melodious. Wen. And yet it fits you, somehow. Brisk and to the point, though not at all harsh.”

  She had to explain—she had to apologize. No one enjoyed being lied to, particularly not a man who had hired you believing in your honor. This was grounds for immediate dismissal, and she should be spending her energy now arguing her way back into his good graces. Yet she could not think what to tell him, how much to give away. So she remained silent and merely watched him, though every nerve quivered with the need to dash from the room.

  “I see by your stricken face that you think you’re a moment away from being unceremoniously ejected from the grounds,” he said, his voice still pleasant. “Will it make you feel less uneasy if I tell you that I am in no way surprised at this revelation? It was always clear to me that you had secrets, and your identity was certainly one of them. I am just sorry that circumstances have tripped you up. I was rather hoping you would confide in me one day of your own free will, because you had come to trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” she said, almost forcing the words out.

  He laid his fingertips together and leaned back in his chair. “And it was always cle
ar that Willa could not possibly be your real name,” he said, smiling a little. “I wonder why you chose it.”

  She took a breath and made two tries before she could answer. “It is—it is my name, or part of it,” she said. “My family all call me Willa, but I tell my friends I am Wen. My true name is Willawendiss.”

  “Willawendiss! The tragic heroine of Danalustrous!” he exclaimed. “But that’s a most romantic name—entirely unsuitable for you, of course, but with a glorious and heartbreaking story behind it. It was always my daughter’s favorite tale. Someone in your family must have had a taste for the old folk stories.”

  “My mother,” Wen said.

  “Somewhere in the library I have a book called Epics of the North, and it has a couple versions of Willawendiss’s story in it. I’ll let you borrow it, now that we’ve done with Antonin. She was quite a popular girl a couple hundred years ago—she performed a singular act of sacrificial bravery and then threw herself into the northern sea out of grief and despair. But I thought you were from Tilt, where they have all sorts of brave heroines of their own. Elisa and Altaverra—”

  Wen’s mouth twisted. “Two of my sisters’ names.”

  “So she called you after the doomed but noble girl, thinking you would become—what? Gloomy but honorable?”

  Wen managed a smile. “I don’t think she expected any of us to turn out like our names. She just liked the way they sounded.”

  He put a hand to his chest and declaimed, “ ‘Save us, save your loved ones, Willawendiss!’ Never such a heartrending cry went so horribly unanswered! She had to choose, you see, between saving five members of her family and two hundred people in the village. Not an easy decision for anyone to make, but history generally concedes she chose correctly.”

  “She was real, then?”

  “She was, as far as we can determine. Unlike Altaverra, who was probably an amalgam of two or three girls who lived at about the same time. And Elisa is thought to be an entirely fabricated woman, though her story is even more dashing. They’re all covered in Epics of the North. You can be reading about your family for days.”

  Wen smiled tightly and did not answer.

  Jasper dropped his hand and tilted his head to one side. “But I suppose the real question at hand is not ‘how do you resemble your namesake?’ but ‘why bother concealing your true name at all?’ You are not, forgive me, like Senneth Brassenthwaite, who disappeared for nearly twenty years and had a name that everyone in the Twelve Houses would recognize. I have not heard of Wen any more than I have heard of Willa. So why bother with the deception?”

  She made a helpless gesture. “I wanted to leave myself behind. That meant leaving my name behind as well.”

  He watched her gravely. “Making sure that no one who might be looking for you would be able to trace you by your name.”

  She shrugged and was silent.

  “Is anyone looking for you, Wen?” he asked gently.

  That was a question that had haunted her nights ever since she walked out of Ghosenhall. Were they hunting for her, those friends who had been closer than siblings, those companions who had helped her discover her absolute limits and then pushed her to achieve more? She had had no contact with any of them; she had not answered the letters forwarded to her from her mother; she had changed her own address so frequently that even if her mother gave it out, it would have been hard for anyone to track her down. Not impossible, perhaps, but were they even trying? Most days she could not decide which would be worse—knowing they would not let her go, or knowing that they already had.

  “If they are, it is because they miss me,” she said at last, “and not because I harmed them.”

  “And if they miss you,” he said, his voice gentler still, “should you not return to them and let them know you are well?”

  She surged to her feet, unable to sit still. “I can’t,” she said. She wanted to pace—she wanted to run from the room—but she thought she might fall over if she tried. So she stood there, trembling, wringing her hands together to keep them from shaking. “I can’t,” she said. “That life is over. I can’t go back to it.”

  More leisurely, he came to his feet on the other side of the table. Now he looked concerned and deeply sympathetic. “I wish you would tell me, Wen,” he said, “what terrors that old life held.”

  “I told you,” she said. “I failed to save someone I was sworn to protect.”

  “Who?” he said. “Who died?”

  She shook her head in short, jerky motions. “It doesn’t matter. If it was a boy in an alley or a marlady in her House. I was trusted but I failed. I am unreliable.”

  “You are utterly reliable,” he said. “So much so that I am convinced it was impossible to save this person who so unfortunately met his demise. He willfully darted into the streets to be run over by a carriage, or flung himself from a turret, or swallowed poison, or buried a dagger in his heart. Or she, of course.”

  “He did none of those things,” Wen whispered. “He wanted to live.”

  “Did you abandon him? Desert him in his hour of desperate need?”

  “No! I fought beside him, but I—but he—he fell and I did not.”

  “Were you injured?”

  Reluctantly she nodded.

  “Severely?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you both took blows, yet only his were fatal?”

  “Others died defending him.”

  Jasper took a deep breath. “So you were in mortal battle, and everyone around you was in a brutal fight, and some lost their lives and some did not, and you yourself were badly hurt, and yet you believe it was your fault that this man died?”

  “I should have died first!” she burst out. Now she found the power to move again; now she did break away and pace, feeling caged, feeling desperate. “I should have been dead before the sword went through his body!”

  “So that is what haunts you,” he said. “Not that you failed, but that you survived.”

  She whirled on him. “Because I failed, I don’t deserve to live!”

  “Then why do you?” he said. “You know how to take a life. Why haven’t you taken your own?”

  She stared back at him, motionless again. Shocked that he had spoken the words. But his expression wasn’t severe; he had not meant them harshly. He had intended them as a hammer blow, aimed at her hard shell of self-loathing.

  “That would have been another failure,” she said at last. “I was prepared to lose my life, but I thought I should make it count. I thought I should sacrifice it on someone else’s behalf. I am surprised it has taken me so long.”

  He nodded, as if that didn’t surprise him, either. “So you went to Karryn’s rescue, expecting to die. And you fought for Bryce and Ginny, expecting to die.”

  She felt a surge of irritation. “No. I wasn’t even close to death either of those times. I knew I was better than my assailants.”

  “So even though you’re worthless and you ought to be dead, you’re good enough to save other people—strangers—although your actions won’t bring you any closer to your ultimate goal of losing your own life.”

  She was jerked into motion again and strode angrily around the room. “You don’t understand,” she flung at him over her shoulder.