The Seven Realms- The Complete Series

by Cinda Williams Chima

  By the time she descended into the palace proper, the lanterns were lit along the corridors, and the mouth-watering scent of roasting meat emanated from the kitchens. Raisa kept to the servants’ hallways, but they were unfamiliar, so she kept getting turned around. She walked briskly, looking straight ahead as if she were on some important mission that couldn’t be interrupted. It wasn’t easy since she didn’t really know the way.

  She was just passing the pantries when ahead of her she saw the imposing figure of Mandy Bulkleigh, Mistress of Kitchens, standing, arms crossed, her eyes scouring the corridors like those of some predatory bird.

  Bones, Raisa thought, quickening her pace and lowering her head still farther.

  Bulkleigh allowed her to get almost past, then said in her booming voice, “You! Girl!”

  Raisa didn’t slow down, didn’t even look up. Three more steps, and she heard Bulkleigh coming after her.

  She might have made it, but her feet got caught in her too-long skirts, and she stumbled. Bulkleigh’s hamlike hand closed on her upper arm, jerking her upright.

  “You! Girl! Are you deaf?” she demanded.

  Raisa resisted her first instinct, which was to wrest herself free and ask Bulkleigh just who she thought she was, assaulting the princess heir of the realm in such a manner, and if she’d like to spend the night in gaol.

  Instead, Raisa kept her face turned away as best she could, hoping to somehow salvage the situation. “Yes, ma’am?” she mumbled.

  But Bulkleigh seized her chin and jerked her face up so she was looking her in the eyes. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, girl.”

  Raisa looked into the cook’s eyes, dumbly waiting for recognition to flood into Bulkleigh’s face, waiting for the premature end of her ill-fated adventure.

  “What’s your name, girl?” Bulkleigh demanded, giving her a little shake. “I’m going to report you to the steward, I am. Impertinent little snip.”

  Raisa was so astonished, it took her a while to get her voice going. “Um…R…Rebecca, ma’am,” she said. “Rebecca Morley, if’t please you,” she said, trying for a curtsy.

  “Where were you going in such a hurry?” Bulkleigh asked, steely-eyed.

  “Well. I was…ah…going to market for—”

  “Whatever you were doing, it in’t as important as this.” Releasing her, the cook turned and picked up a covered tray and thrust it into Raisa’s hands. “The princess heir is taking her supper in her rooms,” she said. “Carry this up and leave it in the upstairs pantry.”

  Raisa blinked at her. “This is for the Princess Raisa?” she asked.

  “The princess heir to you,” Bulkleigh said. “Now be off with you; it’s getting cold. If I get a complaint about it, I’ll skin you alive. The princess is very particular about her food, she is.”

  “She is?” Raisa said, before she could stop herself. “And you want me to take her supper to her?” She would have added, Aren’t you worried about poison or assassins, or…but the cook’s expression stopped her.

  “Do you see anyone else waitin’ for the assignment?” the cook said sarcastically. “Queen Marianna is hosting dinner for fifty in the main dining room, and sure it would’ve been more convenient if Her Highness had troubled herself to come down to eat with the rest of ’em,” Bulkleigh said. “But she didn’t. Now go on.”

  Squaring her shoulders, Raisa turned and hurried back the way she came. As soon as she was out of sight of the cook, she stowed the tray behind a statue of Queen Madera feeding the multitudes, and left the servants’ corridors for the safety of the main hallways.

  Raisa felt relieved, yet oddly disappointed. She was the blooded princess heir, yet in servants’ clothes she was apparently unrecognizable. In the stories, rulers had a natural presence about them that identified them as such, even dressed in rags.

  What’s the nature of royalty, she wondered. Is it like a gown you put on that disappears when you take it off? Does anyone look beyond the finery? Could anyone in the queendom take her place, given the right accessories? If so, it was contrary to everything she’d ever been taught about bloodlines.

  Without further incident, she passed through the gate tower, past the dour guardsmen at the entrance, under the dangerous-looking portcullis, and into the chill of the evening. Day workers who lived outside of the castle grounds streamed across the drawbridge, heading home. The younger servants were laughing, joking, and flirting with each other. Some of the older ones plodded along, obviously weary.

  Torchlight flickered on the river below as she crossed over the bridge. At the far end, she stopped and looked back at Fellsmarch Castle, trying to imagine how the people of the city might view it, remote and brooding, lording over the city.

  Amon was waiting by the gatehouse at the city end of the bridge, surveying the flow of people off the drawbridge. To her surprise, he’d shed his blue Guard uniform and was dressed in a long cloak and dark breeches. As he turned, though, she could see the hilt of his sword poking out through the front of the cloak.

  If she’d hoped to fool Amon, she was disappointed. He fixed on her before she got within fifty feet of him, watching her as she pushed through the crowd. She paused in front of him and curtsied low, grinning.

  “You’re late,” he grumbled. “I was beginning to hope you’d changed your mind.”

  “Call me Rebecca Morley, young sir,” Raisa said, rising. “How do I look?”

  “It’d be better if you’d dressed as a boy,” Amon said. “It’d be better if you were ugly.”

  She guessed that was some kind of compliment.

  “I fooled the mistress of kitchens, you know,” she said, rather smugly.

  “Hmmph,” was Amon’s comment.

  “Let’s pretend we’re sweethearts meeting after work,” she said, taking his arm. “Why didn’t you wear your uniform?”

  He snorted. “One guardsman on his own is more a target than protection.” Amon steered her onto the Way of the Queens. “We’ll take this through Ragmarket all the way to the bridge,” he said.

  “I was hoping we’d get to see something of the neighborhood,” Raisa said as he marched her straight down the middle of the street.

  “You’ll see more than you want to see, before we’re done.” He gently extricated his right arm from her grip and moved her to his left side. “So I can get at my sword,” he explained when she looked up at him questioningly.

  Blood and bones, he’s jumpy, Raisa thought.

  “What did Mother Elena say?” Raisa asked, nearly trotting to keep up with Amon’s long legs. “Will she be able to send one of the traders to meet with us?”

  “She said she’d see what she could do,” Amon said. “She wouldn’t promise more than that.”

  I can’t do this on my own, Raisa thought. It was hard enough to sneak out this one time.

  There was little of twilight in the Vale. Once the sun extinguished itself behind Westgate, darkness ran in rivulets through the streets, quickly flooding the entire city. Close to Fellsmarch Castle, the lamplighters circulated, igniting the magical lanterns that lined the Way. But as they proceeded south, even on the Way, there were fewer street lanterns, and many of them appeared to be broken or disabled or simply not attended to.

  Near to the castle, garbage was picked up and stowed away. But here, people pushed it out their doors, and it sat on the sidewalks, stinking.

  At first there were people all around them, but the others peeled away in twos and threes into side streets and alleys, and soon Raisa and Amon were walking alone. Every block or two, a tavern spilled light and music onto the street, and patrons huddled in the doorways, talking loudly, spitting into the gutter, clutching mugs of ale.

  Sometimes girls stood on the porches, watching them pass by. They wore flashy clothes and lots of paint, but Raisa guessed that some were younger than her. They looked at Amon appraisingly but did not speak to him with Raisa on his arm.

  “Are those fancy girls?” she asked Amon.


  He only grunted in reply. Raisa tried to imagine walking this street by herself, and shuddered. She shifted her carry bag on her shoulder, acutely conscious of its valuable contents and feeling more and more like a target.

  The houses seemed to be buttoned up tight, shades drawn, as if unwilling to draw attention to themselves by leaking light into the streets.

  A fine rain began to fall. Amon ignored it, but Raisa shivered, pulling her cloak more closely around her. “Where is everyone? It’s not late. There should be people on their way home.”

  “Most people are too smart to be out in this neighborhood after dark,” Amon said, sliding her a significant sideways look.

  “How do people get around, then?” Raisa asked.

  “They don’t.” Amon was in one of his monosyllabic moods.

  “What about the Guard?” Raisa asked.

  “The Guard can’t be everywhere,” Amon said. “And in Ragmarket, some say the Guard’s been bought off.”

  “Bought off?” Raisa frowned. “By whom?”

  “Like I told you before. Streetlords.” Amon seemed distracted, focused on the streets around them. What with the rain and the lack of streetlights, it was dark as a cellar. Raisa was beginning to think Amon had been right: this wasn’t such a good idea. A rat skittered across the cobblestones ahead of them, and Raisa flinched backward.

  “Just a rat,” he said calmly. “You get used to them.”

  Just a rat, she repeated to herself. After all, there were rats in the palace. Human and otherwise. Could be worse. Could be much, much worse.

  But when the wind slammed a shutter against a building, Amon ripped his sword free in a heartbeat. When he’d identified the source of the noise, he rolled his eyes and stowed his blade away again, but kept his hand on the hilt.

  As they neared Southbridge, Raisa glanced aside, into an alleyway where an unshuttered window splattered light on the wet pavement. She saw a flicker of movement, as if someone were walking parallel to them a block over. Now she watched, and down the next cross street she definitely saw someone slipping from shadow to shadow. And there! The same thing, on the other side.

  Raisa’s heart began to hammer. “Someone’s following us,” she hissed, gripping Amon’s arm.

  But this time he seemed unconcerned. “It’s all right,” he whispered back. “We’re almost to the bridge. Raggers won’t follow us into Southbridge.”

  “But didn’t you say the Raggers just killed a half dozen Southies? In Southbridge?” she persisted, struggling to remember the gang names.

  “Just stay close,” he murmured.

  Raisa was annoyed at his muted reaction. “Amon Byrne! Did you hear me? We’re being followed! There’s two or three of them on either side of us. I’m sure of it.” Raisa groped under her cloak and drew her belt dagger.

  Amon’s eyes widened. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  “At Demonai. It’s clanwork.”

  “Well, put it away. You won’t need it.”

  And then it hit her like a runaway horse cart, and she stopped dead in the street. “You know who’s following us, don’t you?” she said, swinging around to face him. “Don’t you? Who are they?”

  “Who are who? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his gaze flicking to left and right.

  “Who is it? The Guard?”

  He adopted what he probably took for an innocent look, but Amon had always been a hopeless liar. “Why would the Guard be following us?”

  “You there!” Raisa called. “Show yourselves! I command it!”

  “Shhh,” Amon hissed a little frantically.

  “Then tell me who they are.”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “They’re…friends of mine. Cadets in my triple.”

  As a corporal, he commanded a triple of nine guards.

  “I told you, I—”

  “They don’t know who you are.” Amon said. “I told them I needed to walk my sister to temple through Ragmarket and asked if they would provide escort. I said you were rather shy around young men, and so they should try and do it unobserved.”

  Raisa could tell he was rather proud of the story he’d created.

  “Your sister! How could they possibly believe I’m your sister? She’d make two of me.” Amon’s sister, Lydia, was near as tall as he was.

  He flexed his hands nervously. “Well, you’re my other sister. The…ah…short, religious one. I told them you’d gone as a dedicate at a young age. “ Amon seemed to realize he wasn’t doing himself any good. “So, shall we…?”

  “You may as well call them in,” Raisa said, her voice brittle and cold. “No need for them to skulk down alleys.”

  “All right.” He whistled a long low sound. It must have been a preplanned signal, because moments later, Raisa heard running feet as the guard closed on them. She couldn’t say what made her do it, but she waited until they were about ten feet away, then gripped Amon’s lapels and pulled his face down for a long passionate kiss.

  She found she liked kissing Amon. His lips were warm and firm—not hot like Micah’s, and not at all like Wil Mathis’s sloppy, wet technique. It took Amon a while to break away, and when Raisa looked up, they were encircled by six gawking young cadets in civilian dress, all close to their age.

  “So…ah…Corporal,” one of them said. “You’re right fond of your sister, I guess?”

  Amon’s face was flaming. “Sorry. She has these fits sometimes,” he growled. “She got hit in the head when she was little.”

  “I’m Rebecca Morley,” Raisa said, delivering a little curtsy to the cadets. “Who are you?”

  “We call ourselves the Gray Wolves,” a cadet said. She was a tall sturdy girl a few years older than Raisa. “Or sometimes the Wolfpack. I’m Hallie Talbot.”

  The others gave their names—Garret, Mick, Keifer, Talia, and Wode.

  Now traveling as a group, they crossed South Bridge without further incident and entered the temple close.

  It was like crossing into another world. The temple was surrounded by herb, vegetable, and dye gardens, quilted with torchlit pathways, a serene sanctuary amid the squalor of Southbridge.

  A fair-haired girl in a long dedicate robe greeted them at the door, with a bobbing curtsy.

  “We’re expected,” Raisa said. “We’re here for a meeting with Speaker Jemson.”

  “There’s a trader already arrived,” the dedicate said, eying the guardsmen in their dripping cloaks as if they were sweet buns on a plate. “He’s with Speaker Jemson in the study. It’s just down the hallway on the right. May I take your cloaks?”

  They piled their sodden rainwear into her arms, and she practically staggered under the weight.

  “Shall we wait out here?” Garret asked Amon, obviously leery about being drawn into some kind of philosophical discussion.

  “Yes,” Raisa answered for him.

  Amon looked at Raisa. “Shall I…?”

  “Come with me,” she said. “I think you should know what I’m up to.”

  “Finally,” he muttered ungraciously as they turned into the hallway. “That would be a first.”

  “You should talk,” she said back. “Brother of mine.”

  Speaker Jemson’s study reminded Raisa of the temple library in Fellsmarch Castle—lined with bookshelves, warmed by a cheerful fire. Two men were seated by the hearth in large comfortable chairs—one in the garb of a clan trader, the other in speaker’s robes. They seemed to be immersed in a lively discussion—almost a debate.

  When they entered, the trader rose and turned toward them.

  Raisa stopped in her tracks. “Father! You’re back!”

  “Briar Rose!” Averill crossed the space between them with a few long strides, folding her into his arms. She pressed her face against his doeskin shirt, breathing him in. He always smelled exotic—of deerskin and spice and fresh air and faraway places. By the Maker, she’d missed him.

  “I reached Demonai Camp day before yesterday. When M
other Elena said you’d sent for a trader, I couldn’t resist coming,” he said. Holding her out at arm’s length, he grinned at her. “Raisa, I’ve seen you in leggings and I’ve seen you in court dress, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen you quite like this.”

  “I’m in disguise,” she confessed happily, setting her carry bag on the table and stripping off her wet cloak.

  “But you’re wearing Elena Cennestre’s gift?” he said, touching the Demonai amulet he wore around his neck.

  So her father and grandmother had been talking about her. She nodded and fished the Running Wolves ring from under her bodice.

  “Good,” he said. He took a breath as if he wanted to say something more, but apparently thought better of it. He looked travel weary, and his graying hair needed cutting.

  Speaker Jemson had stood also, and when Raisa turned her attention to him, he bowed respectfully but somehow warily. “Your Highness, Lord Demonai wouldn’t tell me the purpose for your visit, but we are honored to have you here at Southbridge Temple.”

  Raisa extended her hand, and he kissed it. “We’ve never officially met,” she said, “but I’ve heard you speak at temple several times. I was impressed with what you had to say about your school and about our responsibility for ministering to the poor. You suggested that the aristocracy could be doing much more. “

  Jemson colored slightly, but he did not flinch, which Raisa liked. “Ah. Well, Your Highness, I hope you did not take my words as too harshly critical of the queen and council. It’s a topic I’m passionate about, however, and—”

  “Your words were critical, Speaker Jemson, and maybe rightly so,” Raisa said. “In Fellsmarch Castle, we’re insulated against the hardships our people experience every day. We don’t ask questions as we should, and if we do ask questions, those who surround us often tell us what we want to hear.”

  “I suppose that must be true,” Jemson said, in the manner of a man who knows he should guard his tongue but can’t restrain himself. “But it’s frustrating to those of us who are immersed in this city, who see how great the needs are, every day. We can’t help but wonder why so much money goes to support the army and the wars in the south. It seems to me that we have no dog in that fight.”