“I understand,” I said. Now leave me alone.
She looked out to the rapidly passing scrub oak and tumbleweeds, doing their best to break free in the wind. There were no more bluffs, only endless flat. Up ahead were more mountains, rising from the desert floor, but not for miles yet. She turned back to me. “I loved a man once.”
I glanced down at Ronan. Could he hear us over the wind and engine? Did I care if he did?
“What happened?” I asked her.
“He was taken by the Sheolites,” she said, her brown eyes hardening. “They wanted Kapriel. Knew I knew where he was. So they cut apart the man I loved before my eyes, piece by piece.”
I tried to swallow, but found my mouth terribly dry. I felt the grief within her. The deep mourning, like a dark blue, swirling pool. And the fury. The thirst for revenge.
She shook her head. “Don’t ever let them know. No matter what happens, don’t let them know,” she said, gesturing toward Ronan. Don’t let them know he holds your heart.
I held her gaze and nodded once, the only acknowledgment I’d give her that she was possibly on the right track and I appreciated her warning.
“How’d you do it?” I asked. “Endure it?”
She looked away for such a long while I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me. But then she turned back. “Our strength goes beyond ourselves, Andriana. Remember that too.”
We could see Castle Vega glinting in the periodic sun, breaking between the clouds a good hour before we reached her gates. She was perched in the foothills of the desert mountains, and built largely of white stones. When we got closer, we saw what reflected the sun — big spans of what Azarel called solar panels, made of glass and metal.
Soldiers in clean blue uniforms climbed aboard the truck, examining the boxes, opening a few crates, demanding our safe-passage papers. The family had automatic clearance, I found out with relief, given their kin within the walls of the big city. They merely had to show a beaded bracelet on their left wrists. Thankfully, Niero carried our safe papers in a waterproof oilskin pouch, alongside the remaining armbands, or we would’ve faced additional challenges. Only the edges were damp, and the guard seemed too harried among the throngs entering and exiting to do more than eye him curiously over its edge. Azarel and Asher entered with us, as if they belonged, and weren’t stopped. Apparently this was a city that did not fear its visitors as others did.
After a while, we were cleared for passage and we climbed down from the truck, joining those in a large vehicle that pulled up to take us into the city. I soon found out that many came from Georgii Post daily to work in the city, employed in kitchens and as cleaning servants for houses and buildings bigger than I ever dreamed there could be. Each was practically a palace, competing with her neighbors, climbing high into the pale blue sky.
“One family lives in that?” I asked after a long walk from the city gates, my eyes lifting to search four stories above me. At the top were guards. “Do they not trust their neighbors?”
“Yes, and no,” Azarel said. “Castle Vega subsists in an uneasy alliance. She is largely owned by ten families, all of whom make most of their money off of those who come here from Pacifica to gamble and indulge in other ways.” She looked like she loathed being here, and she seemed jumpy.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she whispered as a patrol of Pacifican soldiers passed us, forcing me to lean in so that I blocked them from seeing her face. “But I haven’t been this close to Pacifica in over three seasons.”
“Three seasons?” I repeated in surprise. “How long since … How long since you saw our friend?” I gave her a meaningful look.
“Four seasons,” she said. “He was taken from me and Asher four seasons ago.” She moved ahead to speak to Raniero, and I considered her words, even as I gaped at houses that I thought would only be found in fables of old. I reached out and touched the polished white stone and then rubbed my fingers together, finding the rock smoother than my skin.
I looked up and saw a small female child, blonde curls bobbing around her head and big ribbons tying each pigtail. She wore a beautiful purple dress, and stared dolefully at me as I passed, finally sticking out her tongue, pulling the prettiest doll I’d ever seen close to her chest.
Her action surprised me, and I fought the impulse to stick my tongue back at her. Did the people of Castle Vega teach their children rudeness?
Four seasons, I thought, going back to Azarel’s words. So Kapriel’d been about a decade and five when she’d last seen him. Ronan and I’d only become accustomed to wielding a heavy sword, lifting a shield by then. It was so young to be taken captive, thrust into prison.
Did Kapriel even yet live? Might he have perished in the prison of Catal long ago? Were we heading deep into enemy territory, seeking nothing but a ghost? All this time, I thought Asher and Azarel had seen him far more recently than —
“Stay together,” Raniero said, urging me to hurry and join the others. We were winding our way up the hill, now entering a market district — much bigger and more permanent than Georgii Post’s — each stall or small store hawking different wares of old. Here a bookshop that called to me — Ronan took my hand and dragged me past — and then a cutlery store full of every sort of knife, fork, and spoon you could imagine. The next was full of dishes, the following an apothecary, with one shelf full of bottles of tonics and potions. It was Killian’s turn to pull Tressa past that one. But my cuff grew cold as we passed a dark tent, with a sign outside offering fortunes told and another offering to summon the spirits of dead relatives and friends.
My attention turned to the people that milled along the streets, rather than on the shops and homes that lined them, and I began to pick out tall, thin, long-limbed women, so pale they looked ghostly, with their hair pulled back in severe buns, dark shadow around their eyes, and brown stains at their lips. At first I thought they were ill; soon I knew it was a look they aspired to obtain. They all wore long, draping gowns that flowed behind them, in various shades of ivory, cream, and pure white. The outer layer was almost translucent. The inner layer was nothing but a body-hugging sheath.
A shiver ran down my back as we passed a group of them, each on the arm of a man in fine clothing. They were unnatural. Almost haunting.
“Who are those people?” I asked, taking Azarel’s arm as we passed another pair of them.
“They are the people of Pacifica,” she said, head down, moving quickly. “Do not let them see you looking their way.”
“Why?”
“They only want their own kind staring their way. Anyone else is considered offensive. Rude.”
I frowned and looked back into the tents as we passed. Again, I got a cold shiver as we passed another fortune teller. “Think we’re almost there?”
“We must be,” she muttered. “There’s not much left before we hit the far wall of the city.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as we turned a corner and climbed a new hill, stopping at the foot of what looked like a castle. “Here,” said the man we’d rescued. “My father is a servant in this household. He will see that we have shelter for the night.”
Azarel paused and looked up at the towering house, then to Asher, who shook his head. Fear washed through her, and in smaller measure through Asher. But it didn’t feel quite like fear, I thought. It was more like warning.
Asher turned to Raniero. “This is clearly your next step, not ours, brother.”
“No?” Niero said, forehead wrinkling as he looked up at the palace before us and then down the street. “Might there be another — ”
“No,” Asher said urgently. “Those within this house … It makes sense that you have been brought here. You shall learn much. Try and avoid notice. Listen. Then escape before you are pressed to do so. It is a dangerous house, filled with dangerous people.” He leaned closer. “But it shall lead you far closer to Kapriel than any other,” he whispered.
“I don’t like it,” Niero said, frowning,
leaning away, “if it will put my people in enough peril that you won’t come with us.”
“Nor should you. But sometimes we do things we do not like in order to win a greater battle, yes?” He reached out and touched Niero’s arm. “Azarel and I … There are many in this household and those who know them who may very well recognize us. We must be away.”
“Even now we take great risk by standing here,” Azarel said, casting a worried eye to the street and back.
“I understand,” Niero said, taking her arm in his. “I confess it wearies me, thinking of carrying on without you two. You’ve eased my burden, for a time.”
“You are strong enough for the task,” Asher said, taking his arm. “The Maker has seen to it. I look forward to the day our paths cross again.”
“Do you need money?” I asked carefully, finding myself wishing there was something to keep them with us. “Anything to see you through? How will you manage?” Asher had left everything behind. Not that we had anything to give ourselves. All our provisions were at Georgii Post — hopefully put to use by Asher’s friends, rather than our enemies.
“The Maker will see us through, just as he will you. You’ll see,” Asher whispered with his gentle smile, looking at me and then the others. “There’s a gift in traveling light. Be confident in him to see to your every need.”
“We will continue to make preparations for the coming king,” Azarel whispered as she took my arm and briefly pulling me closer, “here in the Union. Know that you are covered by our continued prayers.”
“And you with ours,” I said.
Asher lifted a fisted hand, shoulder high so as to not attract undue attention, as they backed away from us. “Until the next time, my sister,” he said to me. “You remember what I taught you, yes?”
I felt our parting like a pang, but forced a smile in return. “Until the next time,” I repeated, watching them go. In them was only hope, such hope for us.
But in me was loss, fear. Fear that we were weaker without them.
And therefore, somehow, infinitely more vulnerable.
CHAPTER
22
The small family’s grandfather was overjoyed to see the loved ones we’d rescued, and quickly ushered us in through a servant’s entrance of the grand house. All around us, the servants were running ragged, preparing, we were told, for a grand party that evening. Out of the fray stepped a man with a closely shorn head and curiously long facial hair on his lip — what I later learned they called a mustache — who introduced himself as Mr. Olin, the butler, and took Niero aside.
After their brief discussion, it was agreed that in exchange for food and shelter for the night, we’d join the rest of the staff in helping with the cleaning, cooking, and service. There was apparently a large party that evening, and Mr. Olin found himself shorthanded. “It will be the best disguise possible,” Raniero said with a sly smile, “if our enemies from Georgii Post come hunting. They’ll look for us in the tourist district, not up here, in the heart of the residential district. But you all keep your heads down. Do your work, and don’t draw attention to yourselves. We’ll work. We’ll eat. We’ll sleep. We’ll gather information, as Asher suggested. And then we’ll leave in the morning after breakfast, to find our way across the Great Expanse.”
So we readily complied to Mr. Olin’s demands. Not that we had much choice. It was as if we’d been spirited into an entirely different world, and I felt like I could barely keep up with all my mind was taking in, forced to focus on my immediate tasks in order to keep breathing. Men were separated from women — leaving every Knight and Remnant on edge — and we were led to the servants’ preparation rooms. We stowed our weapons and coats there, hoping they would be safe, but were faced with few options other than to risk it.
Then we took what they called “showers” — a miraculous contraption that I decided I could rapidly become accustomed to — under warm water, with creamy soap that smelled of lavender. I did my best to keep my armband out of the flow, fearful that the heat would wash away the protective oils and the true brilliance would begin to emerge. Even the constant rub of our clothes had made a bit of the precious metal beneath shine through in places. I looked furtively around as I stepped out of the hot stream, hurriedly wrapping myself in a wide, white towel.
I was handed a brush and told to sweep my hair back from my face to dry. Our clothing had been taken away “to be laundered,” and we were given new underthings and cream-colored gowns that made me pause. They seemed very similar to the white, flowing fabric that the fine ladies of Pacifica favored, but the lines of ours were far more simple. The neck was cut wide, meeting in the barest point at each shoulder so that it draped over my breasts and arms. I frowned at my image in the mirror, noting how it cut away in a slit down my arms before clasping in a loose loop at my wrist. The armband would be visible if anyone gave me more than a cursory look. A girl swiftly tied a black rope of ribbon around my waist, cinching it tight, and, after a nod of approval, left me. I turned slightly, looking at my reflection. I had never seen my whole length in a mirror. I’d seen bits and pieces, but not all of me at once.
And I looked … beautiful. Refined. And clean, so clean. Cleaner than I’d been in weeks.
I rotated and looked at myself over my shoulder. The skirt fell straight to the floor, the back dragging a bit on the polished marble tiles, but not so much as Pacifica’s ladies’ gowns. With my long, dark hair down behind me in a straight sheet, and the ivory gown skimming across my body, I looked foreign. I barely recognized myself.
Our feet were quickly scrubbed, the nails cut, filed, and buffed, as were our fingernails. We were to wear no shoes. “Are we to be servants or ladies of the house?” I asked as another woman brushed out my drying hair and put a braided ribbon of black leather around my head, leaving my hair down around my shoulders. It reminded me of Azarel’s own brown headband — was it a Pacifican style?
“Oh, we are far from the ladies, with our hair down,” twittered a girl. “But the ladies claim we offend their sensibilities if we aren’t as clean as they are.”
I was tossed an apron to keep my gown clean and set before a bucket of potatoes to be peeled. As I worked, I listened to the kitchen help discuss the master of the house and the last party he’d had. Apparently, he’d invited three different women to the desert palace for the party tonight, and the servants were laying bets on who might gain his favor. “He’s past his second decade,” complained a skinny, frowning kitchenmaid. “The master ought to settle down now.”
“There’s no settling that man down,” said her fat counterpart. “Married or not.”
When my peeling task was complete an hour later, I washed head after head of what I thought must be lettuce — I’d only seen it in books — and then basket after basket of small berries. It took everything in me not to sneak bites of everything I saw, because each thing looked more enticing than the last. My stomach rumbled, and the berries looked redder than they had a moment before, and the smell reminded me of Dagan’s precious berries. Would these taste the same? Different? They wouldn’t miss just one, would they?
I was reaching for the nearest one, a perfect teardrop of red, when the butler barked, “Girl!”
I snatched my hand back and looked over to Mr. Olin, once again taking in his short hair and facial hair across his lip. I’d never seen such a thing as his mustache without a beard — the men of our village preferred to shave, as had most I’d seen throughout our journey, other than the Drifters. And his mustache hung so low on either side of his mouth, I fear I stared at him for an impolite length of time.
He rolled his eyes and flicked two fingers over his shoulder. “Come,” he said, already turning to go, obviously expecting me to follow. I looked over at Bellona, who was working on butchering meat two tables over, and she opened her eyes wide as if to say, Be careful. Tressa, folding napkins, gave me the same look.
The man paused at the corner and gestured impatiently for me to take off my apron
and leave it on a peg beside a few others. Then when I stepped forward to go, he looked me over with a frown, paused, lifted a hand, and then flicked those fingers again, chin waiting in the air as he eyed someone behind me. “See to her hair,” he sniffed. I shifted, wondering what I was to do. But then another girl arrived with a brush, and after ten quick strokes of it through my hair I was apparently acceptable in appearance, because he was in motion again. We paused in an enormous cupboard with stacks and stacks of fine plates, bowls, and cups, and he motioned for me to take up a stack of twenty plates — these made of delicate ivory rimmed in gold — as he picked up a similar stack himself.
The stack was unwieldy in height, but I was used to physical work and followed him into the dining room, sweating more over the value in my hands than the weight. But once outside the kitchens, I couldn’t keep from staring in awe at the rich decorations surrounding me.
“Come, come, girl, close your mouth,” frowned the butler, looking at me over his shoulder. “Look nowhere but to my back.”
“Forgive me, sir,” I said.
“You may call me Mr. Olin.” He cast a dry look over his shoulder. “You look as if you’ve never seen a fine house before.”
“I haven’t. Not like this.” It was out before I could think, and I immediately clamped my lips shut. But I’d caught his attention.
“Oh? From where do you hail? Most people in Castle Vega have worked in the noble houses at one point or another.” He peered at me quizzically.
“Far from here, sir,” I said.
“How far? Where specifically? Eh? Never mind. We get people from all over the Trading Union. I’m only glad you and yours arrived in time to assist this night. Lord Maximillian invited an extra twelve people!” he said under his breath, in a tone that sounded like a mix of admiration and frustration.
We turned into a dining room, which contained a table that was longer than my whole house back in the village. It appeared to be made of gold, or at least covered in it, and gleamed in the light coming through the wide windows that banked the room. There were seven pieces of silver at each place setting, and four crystal goblets of various sizes. I gaped at the extravagance. The opulence. The riches. What one set of that silver could do back at Nem Post … the supplies we could purchase!
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