“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I suppose I don’t mean anything either. Tell me why you blew me a kiss. Was it just to mock me?”
“Just a harmless joke.” Rema’s throat tightened, and she took a quick breath. Time to change the subject. “Are we both invited to breakfast, then?”
“Well spotted, Remela. Perhaps my mother has realized that when making a decision regarding my future, I should be present.”
“If you’re going to call me Remela, at least say it right. You have to roll the r with your tongue.”
“If only you were this interested in my tongue before.” Elise’s voice became suddenly urgent, her face naked with a desire for consolation. “Rema, did you read my letter? Did you feel anything at all?”
Rema opened her mouth, but all she could think of was Yorin’s warning. “Let’s go in,” she said. Elise’s lips quivered, and a hot sickness flooded Rema’s heart. She hurriedly opened the door, and they both trudged into Talitha’s chamber, a chill distance between them.
“Sit down, both of you,” said Talitha, beckoning to the women. She seemed to have aged half a decade since Rema had last seen her. Her eyelids drooped, veiling her murky eyes, but there was still energy in her voice, and her fingers played nimbly upon the spine of the book in her lap.
“Odd,” she said. “I’d have imagined you both would get on, yet here you are as cold as morning’s frost.”
“I have things to do,” said Elise. “Can we not take care of this quickly, Mother?”
“We’ve yet to even get the food in, Elise. Our guest must be fed.” Talitha tapped her nails on the cover of the book. “Where is that girl?” On cue, a servant woman knocked and entered, bringing a tray of small cakes. They looked like nothing more than little bundles of flour and sugar, and even a hundred would be unlikely to satisfy Rema’s hunger.
Talitha waited for the servant to leave before biting into a white mouthful. “Very well.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Talk to me.”
Rema’s cake was already halfway to her mouth, and she put it back on the tray. Presumably Talitha, not confident of her own ability to defeat Rema, had summoned Elise for reinforcement. Rema would have to restrain herself for fear of seeming callous, while Elise would be given opportunity to cut through Rema’s arguments and expose the cruelty of the demands. It was a clever stratagem, and it might have worked on a lesser diplomat.
Rema took a measured breath. “Let’s start with Calan.” Talitha blushed and glared at her book. “He’s made demands upon the Emperor to which I can’t possibly concede.”
“He’s a little foolhardy, I’ll admit.”
“An understatement if I ever heard one,” said Elise. “Get to the point, Remela.”
“Calan wants to change the terms of the agreement. Instead of ending the war, he wants it to continue until Lyorn is utterly defeated. The wealth will be split between Ormun and himself. Do you know what this would mean?”
“Rhetorical question, I assume,” said Talitha.
“It would mean further years of war and death. It would mean ruling over a people who resent you and will revolt at the least provocation. It would mean imperial provinces at your doorstep, garrisoned with Ormun’s restless armies.”
“That sounded like a threat,” said Elise. “Is that how you steal princesses? Bully their mothers into submission?”
“Elise, dear, you’ll have your say,” said Talitha, lifting her fingers in a gesture of reproach. “Rema, continue.”
“If you follow Calan along his mad path, what I’ve described is only the most fortunate outcome,” said Rema. “It’s just as possible that the Emperor will take offense at the renegotiation and withdraw his support, leaving you at the whim of an outmatched warmonger.”
“Enough about Calan.” Talitha’s voice expressed a deep fatigue tinged with grief. “It’s the fate of Elise that I’m concerned about. My daughter, Rema.”
“Let’s talk about her, then. If my terms aren’t accepted, Lyorn will destroy you, and Elise will suffer the fate of all princesses taken through conquest rather than marriage. If you accept my offer, she will at least live at my court in Arann.”
“If you can call that living,” said Elise with simmering temper.
“Be clearer,” said Talitha. “What is the difference between Lyorn someday breaking these walls and snatching her, and my giving her to a man who breaks walls the way other men break their bread?”
Rema swallowed. Gods help her speak these cunning half-truths. “She’ll be his twentieth wife. He’s only one man. There’ll be indignities and suffering, but she’ll have the freedom of the palace.”
“The freedom of the palace!” said Elise. As before, she was beautiful in her outrage, her round cheeks livid with color. “So I’m free to move about in my cell. Thank you, Remela, for that generous concession.”
“There’s little time to negotiate. If you don’t accept my terms as they are, then you may find that it is too late. Calan will act with all the impetuousness of youth. Your kingdom will suffer, and Elise will be no better off for it.”
“Hmm.” Talitha ran her tongue across her teeth. “Elise, think clearly now. What do you make of our situation?”
“I won’t respond until she looks at me,” said Elise, and Rema reluctantly faced her again. Elise’s lips were parted in fury, and the temper in her eyes was as controlled and steady as a lance. A prickling heat crept across Rema’s face. To think this frozen land could produce a woman of such ardor…
“Remela is telling the truth. The war will consume us, and Calan’s way will lead to butchery and suffering. But Mother, Ormun is wrong to ask this of us. He isn’t offering us aid but an insult, not only to us but to all women. We must seek other allies, other options—”
“You don’t have time,” said Rema. “There’s no—”
“Don’t you dare interrupt me. My entire life I’ve had to endure being interrupted, and you have no more right to do so. I’ll admit that I’m being selfish. I have a strange desire not to be sent away to marry a tyrant. But this isn’t only about my desires, Rema. We have to prove that Ormun can’t just take whatever woman he wishes.” Elise leaned forward. Her voice, though angry, was melodic, and it washed over Rema’s body like a shiver. “There will be a better way. Yes, sometimes sacrifices have to be made, but this is only cruelty disguised as benevolence. I don’t see a peace offer. All I see is a kind heart closing itself to kindness and a woman who knows right willingly doing wrong.”
Rema’s face burned as she inhaled deeply and looked into Elise’s eyes. Anger, pain and sorrow seethed in those silver depths, but so too did love, distant and longing. Finally Rema understood: it was by love, and love alone, that she would reach Elise. For this trade to take place, Rema would have to offer something of her own in exchange, the sacrifice she had never given another. And for this defiant lover of women, this healer of the sick and forgotten, this furious goddess who had stared down her brother and set the court ablaze—for Elise, Rema would gladly give it.
She took Elise’s hand into her own. Elise’s eyes widened, and Talitha raised an eyebrow. “My father was a poet,” Rema said. “He told me that the gods give every poet a riddle, and they must devote their lives to solving it. His riddle was peace. He believed that someday the world would no longer know war and suffering. He tried to describe how that might feel—to evoke an understanding of peace so powerful that it could become real. He dreamed that anyone who heard his poems would never raise a hand in anger again.”
Rema pressed Elise’s hand tighter, and her anger faded, replaced by a look of bewildered affection. “As a little girl, I played around his feet while he wrote. Sometimes he’d look down to me and say, ‘Remmy! Tell me what makes you happy.’ And with the innocence of a child, I would name him those things that brought me joy. The sound of laughter. The warm night air of the savannah. My pet lion cub. One night, he asked me that question, and I thought longer than b
efore. Finally I said that my truest happiness was watching him hold my mother. He wept and kissed me.”
She swallowed, her throat squeezed by emotion. “My father was the reason I went to Arann. I wanted to make his dreams real, but I knew that it would take more than poetry to do it. My parents helped me pack and farewelled me with tears. Neither doubted that I could become a diplomat.” She could see their faces now, clearer now than they had been for years. “I dressed as a boy and went to the palace, where I claimed to have an important letter and acted dumb when they asked me who it was from. As I hoped, the guards took me to one of the diplomats. He knew straightaway that I was a girl in disguise, but I begged him in every language I knew to let me stay.”
Talitha remained still and attentive, while Elise continued to stare at Rema with intensity. “There was no law against women being diplomats,” said Rema. “Only a common belief that they lacked the intelligence for the role. I was allowed to enroll in the school, and I went through the training with the boys. The diplomat who had first helped me was young, and we grew close. I valued his friendship, but I broke his heart when he learned I had no interest in men.”
Elise’s face trembled, but Talitha nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Too busy with your studies.” Despite her emotion, Rema was unable to keep back a smile. Thank the gods for naive hearts.
“Before long, Emperor Togun learned there was a girl among his junior diplomats. He was Ajulese, like my father, and I spoke his native tongue, a lyrical language called Ajulai. I used to read poetry to him, a slight young woman kneeling at the feet of a living, laughing mountain. He was a conqueror too, but conquest brought him no happiness. I dared to read him my father’s poems, and he came to share my faith in their vision.” Rema blinked, and a tear spilled from her lashes. “We became friends and achieved much. When Ormun killed him, I was left hollow. I’ve done what I can since, but it’s been war after war, the dead stretching across the plains.”
Rema exhaled softly, keeping the ache of her old grief in check. “A year after Togun’s death, my father and mother visited me in the city. They saw my pain and consoled me. Father read me his latest poem, his truest work, he said. I’ve learned it by heart. It goes as thus.” She closed her eyes and recited the poem in Ajulai, the language of her father. The sounds were mellow in her mouth, light on her tongue and ethereal in her breath. Each verse resonated into the next, and the words hung in the air like lyrical smoke. As Rema concluded the final verse, the tears pressed hard to her eyes, and her throat squeezed shut with grief.
“How pretty that sounds,” said Talitha. “I would like to understand the words, however.”
“Do you speak Annari? It’s easier to translate to.”
“The language of the Empire. Of course we do. We’re educated women.”
“It loses its poetic form, but this is the closest I can manage.” Rema closed her eyes and recited again.
“Beneath the wing of despair,
I drift, feathered with tears.
Shadow wreathes my every bone,
Sorrow seeks my soul.
But then I fracture, falling broken,
And the darkness breaks with me.
I feel that I am light again
And know that I am saved.
Now drift to me, twin of my heart,
Toward this certain bliss.
For love has lain a path for you,
And you will find me waiting.”
The short silence that followed was broken by a confused snort from Talitha. “I don’t understand what this has to do with our situation.”
Rema ignored her—Elise, for whom the message had been meant, had clearly understood it. Her grip had tightened, and her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She turned her face away and pressed her other hand to her lips.
“Sometimes we must lay down in darkness if we hope to see the dawn,” said Rema, her voice soft. “But you won’t be alone, Elsie.”
Elise tugged her hand free, leapt to her feet and hurried from the room. Talitha jumped in her seat as Elise slammed the door behind her.
“Well!” Talitha said. “That was unexpected. Did you intend to scare her away with that story? Were you trying to persuade her by clutching her hand like that? Your manner of diplomacy is very odd.”
“Talitha, please do this terrible thing.” Rema closed her eyes for several seconds, searching for comfort in the blindness. It was as if all her unhappiest years were pressing upon her heart at once. “Tell your husband that you accept my conditions, and do so before Calan can destroy untold lives.”
“I was expecting her to talk me out of it.” Talitha stared in disbelief at the empty chair. “That was why I asked her here. I don’t want to be persuaded, damn you. Yet Yorin has been at me day and night, and now Calan is causing trouble. If Elise won’t stand up for herself, what am I supposed to do?”
“You know there’s no choice. I think Elise has just indicated that she knows it too.”
Talitha bowed her head. “Please leave me. I have to reflect.”
“Thank you for your hospitality.” As Rema departed, she glanced back. Talitha sat hunched, her eyes sightless and her mouth compressed to a tight line. As quietly as she could, Rema shut the door.
Chapter Twelve
Rema took a seat in the front court. Peasants trudged past her, their faces smudged with dirt, their nails ragged and their backs bent from labor. Few things were as despicable as feudalism. Even Ormun, who had reinstated the slavery laws Rema had fought so hard to abolish, made no pretense to rule by divine blood. Not like here, where the serfs beyond the city walls were doomed to menial toil while the aristocracy elevated their sons to greatness and damned their daughters to forced matrimony.
In Arann, Elise could have lived and loved as she willed, and the great city would never have paused in judgment. She and Rema could have been lovers, perhaps even living together in Rema’s mansion by the sea. It was impossible not to envision returning home to find Elise waiting in the front archway, her eyes heated with a consort’s welcome, her lips relaxed in a smile, the seductive curves of her body silhouetted beneath loose silk…It was madness, yet Rema could think of no way to escape it.
She needed to clear her head. She followed the winding corridors to the gardens. Trembling crystals of dew hung on the grass and leaves, and as she walked through the hedges, a bird gave a shrill cry. Rema passed by a row of short trees, running her fingertips over gnarled patches of bark, and stopped at an elaborate bed of flowers near the furthest wall. She inhaled the elusive scent of the petals, tasted the thick aroma of damp soil. A butterfly perched on her nose, tickling her with its wings, and she laughed. It was as her father had told her: the sun knew when to rise.
A dry rustle rasped nearby, as of several sticks being broken at once. Rema looked up to see a tall figure slip through a weave of trees and into the dark grove. Though the tall figure had moved quickly, it had appeared to be one of the Narandane, perhaps one of Domyr’s servants—if not Domyr himself. Her curiosity piqued, Rema entered the trees. The foliage hung heavy with moisture, and as she walked, the soil sunk beneath her step and wet leaves clung to her boots. She stood in the middle of the grove but saw no one.
“Hello?” she said. “I only want to talk.”
A freezing pain pierced her chest, as if somebody had touched ice to her skin. Instinctively she reached for the sensation: Elise’s pendant, now colder than any frost. She stepped forward, propelled by fear, and a line of pain scorched her back. Overwhelming nausea crumpled her knees, and she dropped to the mud, landing on her hands. As a disorienting mist tugged at her sight, she twisted her head. One of the Narandane servants stood behind her, holding a short sword. Its end was stained with blood.
The nausea intensified, and a tremendous sucking sound filled her ears as darkness flooded her vision. The Narandane stepped forward and raised his sword. Just as he seemed about to strike, an impossible creature radiated into being, an angel of countless colo
rs, and collided with him. It was too much to comprehend. Nothing existed but the mud beneath her hands, the churning sickness in her stomach and the line of agony drawn across her back.
“Rema,” said a voice somewhere in the fog. Loric. Sweet, kind Loric.
“She’s hurt,” said another voice. Muhan. Strange old Muhan. “Help her. I have my hands full.”
Hands gripped Rema beneath her arms, and her body swayed. Her back throbbed—no, her coat! Could it be ruined? Gods, not her coat…She opened her mouth to speak, but only managed a groan. Ashamed, she decided never to open her mouth again. She focused instead on breathing, which was something that still seemed to make sense. If she breathed slowly and yielded to the dizziness, even the pain seemed to slip away.
The fractured darkness clung to her for some time, tormenting her with agonies and half-thoughts, until a hand touched her cheek and brought her back to the world. She opened her eyes and struggled to understand where she was—nothing but shapes and blurred outlines. “It was the Narandane,” she said, determined that the world know her attacker. “He ruined my coat.”
“Hush, sweetheart,” said Elise. “We know. Lor, get me the box from that high shelf. Rema, drink this. It’ll clear your head.” A sweet liquid touched Rema’s lips. She sipped, and warmth spread through her body. “There, doesn’t that feel better?”
Rema nodded, and Elise took the flask away. “I have to get to the wound now. Be brave, dearest. This will sting.”
Suddenly the jumble of impressions before Rema made sense. She was lying on Elise’s bed, turned awkwardly on her side, with a cool pillow beneath her head. Loric was fumbling through the mess in the corner, and Elise was sitting at Rema’s side, her face gentle with concern. “Elsie,” said Rema. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush now.” Elise leaned forward, and the loose strands of her dark hair tickled Rema’s nose and face. Elise began undoing the buttons of her coat, and Rema shifted her torso to make the task easier. Every movement brought pain, but she was determined to help, and soon she was free of the coat. She raised her arms, allowing her undershirt to be pulled over her head. The fabric was plastered to her back, and Rema bit her tongue as it peeled away from her skin. Her back burned, and she inhaled deeply, struggling to stay conscious.
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