by CJ Brightley
“Riona, you’re lovely! You need better dresses than you’ve been wearing.”
I didn’t really know what to say. You can’t scrub floors in velvets and silks. They’re beautiful, but I could never afford them. Like every girl, I wished I had one nice dress of my own, just to have and admire, but I had no use for one.
“Try this one first.” It cinched about my waist with a long swath of silk, the sleeves lacy and flowing. Kveta was smiling, as if this was exactly the type of afternoon she had planned for herself. I felt terribly uncomfortable. It wasn’t my place to be wearing a queen’s dress, much less picking and choosing among them.
“That one is nice, but try this one now.” She watched me critically. This was velvet, a deep blue with cream colored lace and a neckline that felt scandalous. I suppose it wasn’t really; I’d seen Kveta wear this dress and it was modest enough. It was only that I was used to wearing high necked work dresses. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I nearly didn’t recognize myself. Work dresses are shapeless things, belted for the sake of convenience but hardly flattering. The woman in the mirror was not me at all; she was glamorous and beautiful, slender-waisted and wide eyed. Only my hair and my hands showed my true self. My hair was up in a practical bun, as it always was, and my hands were rough from work. I don’t know whether I was beautiful, but in comparison to how I normally looked, I was positively transformed.
“That one. Wear that one. It’s the perfect color! It makes your eyes glow.” She was altogether too excited, and I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Are you sure? This is beautiful. I shouldn’t.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re lovely. The dress is perfect. We don’t even need Lika to alter anything. We’ll have to do your hair.” She was grinning. “Kemen will be speechless.”
He was. He scarcely took his eyes off me the entire banquet. I was painfully self-conscious. Our table was on the dais looking out over the nobility. It was not a huge banquet, but it was luxurious, and the king had met with several of the men present earlier in the day about various projects. The queen sat at the king’s right hand and Kemen at his left. I sat on Kemen’s other side, and I watched carefully to see how I should eat and drink, how I should hold the cups and the utensils. The Tarvil boy, Elathlo, sat on my other side, and he too seemed uncomfortable. He sat rigidly upright, glancing across me at Kemen periodically to see what he should be doing.
Finally, I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I don’t know what I’m doing either.”
He looked up at me with wide eyes and a tentative smile.
When Tanith filled my wine glass, she smiled and whispered in my ear. “You look beautiful.”
The king made an effort to speak with me across Kemen. It was awkward, and I’d never really noticed how that method of seating was good for allowing the king to look over the room, but not particularly good for encouraging conversation at the royal table. He could really only speak with his queen and with Kemen, but he made an effort. We had little to say to each other, but I appreciated the attempt. He had kind eyes, intelligent and perceptive. When I bowed my head with the usual respect, he shook his head. “There’s no need for that tonight.”
The food was delicious. I’d helped cook it, and servants eat the leftovers of banquets, so I’d had much of it before, but never as it was served, fresh and hot, with the successive types of wine to complement each new dish. The music in the background was stirring and beautiful, plaintive and joyful by turns. It was a beautiful night, and when Kemen quietly clasped my hand under the table, everything was perfect.
Finally the king stood, with a bow to his queen and a lesser one to me, though still more than a king should ever bow to a servant. He whispered something in her ear, and she nodded. Kemen bowed to the queen with a smile, and then to me before whispering in my ear, “Thank you.”
40
Kemen
She was beautiful. Stunning. She took my breath away, and it was all I could do to catch every other sentence that Hakan spoke to me. He knew it, and didn’t mind. With the compassion of a man deeply in love, he understood how helpless I was. He asked me to speak with him afterwards, but I don’t think he intended to say anything in particular.
We were both a bit tipsy, though not drunk. The room had a low fire, and we sat in companionable silence. Hakan poked at the embers. “Are you going to marry her?”
“If she’ll have me.”
“You must be blind. She’s only waiting for you to ask.” He sat back and pulled off his boots before sticking his bare feet toward the fire.
I poured a bit more wine into our glasses. I would ask her, but she deserved a little more courtship. I should not assume her feelings, despite Hakan’s confidence.
There was a long, comfortable silence.
“What really happened up there?”
“Where?” I’d been staring at the fire.
“In the battle when you were wounded. I never got a good report. Do you remember?” He was solemn now, and I swallowed.
“There was a blizzard coming. We had the gates open to let in the men who were out cutting wood. None of us knew how fast a storm can hit. The weather at Izotz is unlike anything I’ve seen, even at Fort Kuzeyler. The Tarvil attacked as the snow hit, and a few were inside the gates by the time we got them closed.”
He waited, staring at me, and after a long silence finally asked, “Did you really mean to die?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” I stared at the floor and finally drained my glass. “Not consciously, not at first. Later, perhaps. He looked just like you. You might have been twins.”
“The boy?” Now he was looking at me very strangely. “The one you pulled to cover and nearly died for it?”
I nodded. “Yori.” The name means trust.
“He looked like me?” His voice was rather strangled.
“Aye.”
“You might have told me that.” He sounded like he wanted to cry, but I don’t know why he should have.
“Why? What difference does it make?”
He shook his head.
“You were right. You were rational. You thought like a king. I’m not a king. I’m only a friend, and I couldn’t be rational. I couldn’t watch him die alone.” I poured another glass of wine but didn’t drink it.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him. What difference did it make what Yori had looked like? Did a boy with Hakan’s features deserve to live more than a boy with a different nose, a different jaw? Perhaps I burdened Hakan by telling him. It wasn’t fair to Yori, either.
He said quietly, “I thought perhaps all this time I was wrong. That we weren’t really friends after all. I’d called friendship what I ought to call patriotism.” He took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have cared so much whether you do it for Erdem or for me. It shouldn’t matter.”
“It was love of Erdem when I served your father, Hakan. I was selfish when I sought to die, but what good I did for your throne, I did for you.”
Epilogue
Riona
As the king and I had both known, Lady Grallin was again made welcome at court. The king presented Kemen with the question during a small picnic in the royal rose garden. I was again a guest rather than a servant, and though it felt awkward and presumptuous, I was proud to sit next to Kemen. My heart trembled with joy when he reached for my hand, and I intertwined my fingers with his.
When the king described Lady Grallin’s punishment, Kemen raised his eyebrows. When the king asked, with a sparkle in his eye, whether Kemen was willing to allow her back at court, he raised my hand to his lips.
“Invite her back. Though I pity the man who weds her.” He smiled at me, and my heart nearly burst with love for him. “What do I care what Lady Grallin thinks? I’ve never been happier.”
The royal child was born that summer while Kemen was away, a boy with wispy blond curls and wide blue eyes filled with laughter. The birth was not especially easy for the queen, but neith
er was it difficult enough to keep her in bed for more than a day. She and the king glowed.
The boy was given the name Kemen Tahir Hakan, in honor of the man I loved so dearly. He was six weeks old when the queen invited me to come sing with her. I didn’t know Kemen and the king would also be there, but the king was more than welcoming and Kemen’s smile made me blush with pride in him.
The king himself played the mardosin, his hands brilliantly skillful, and the queen and I stood close to see the music. Kemen sat a few feet away holding his namesake. The queen had shown him how to hold the baby’s head so that the child’s neck would not be strained, and Kemen had taken the child as if he were made of the finest crystal, infinitely fragile and precious. Tonight he watched us, and his gaze was so warm on my face I kept looking up to smile at him and losing my place in the music.
He was still very thin and quickly tired, though he was regaining strength. The slow recovery frustrated him, and he pushed himself harder than he should have. He’d begun early morning training sessions with the Tarvil boy almost immediately on his return. They drained him, though he tried not to show it. The one time I asked him to take things more gently, he smiled and said it was not entirely out of pride, but for Elathlo’s benefit; the boy needed a challenge.
The last song was one of my favorites, but I barely sang. The king’s voice soared, effortlessly beautiful, and the queen’s lighter one wove around it like a golden thread. I closed my eyes, my lips barely moving. It was a love song, as all great songs are, and I smiled to hear it so perfectly sung.
When the song ended and I opened my eyes, the king was smiling gently, but not at the queen as I expected. His gaze went past her shoulder to Kemen. He was asleep slumped in the chair, long legs stretched out, with the infant cradled against his chest. One elbow was braced on the arm of the chair to support the child, and the other curled across the baby’s back protectively. He was smiling slightly in his sleep and his cheek brushed the baby’s fluffy curls.
Epilogue 2
Kemen
“I don’t know how to dance.” She kept her voice low, but she sounded on the verge of panic.
“Stand on my feet.”
She almost giggled, and my heart leapt at her beauty. “They’ll all laugh.”
“I can’t see anyone but you.” I pulled her close with my right arm. She looked down for a moment and placed her dainty feet on my boots, and slipped her right hand into my left.
“Left. Right. Left.” Then she had the rhythm, and she trusted me, lifting each foot in time with the music. She smiled up at me, and everything was perfect. I barely noticed when that song ended and another began.
I leaned down to speak in her ear. “I love you, Riona.”
She kissed my cheek. “I don’t know why.” Her eyes were so blue I nearly lost my breath. “I love you too.”
My heart was pounding so hard I was dizzy, and my voice shook a little when I whispered in her ear. “Will you marry me?”
She had tears in her eyes, a smile that lit the room, when she nodded. She slipped her other arm around me and in the middle of the dance floor, I kissed her.
Afterword
Thank you for reading A Cold Wind. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review! The Erdemen Honor series continues in Honor’s Heir. If you’d like to check out my other works, you can find a complete list on my website. If you’d like a quick note when I publish a new book or short story, please sign up for my newsletter! I sometimes send out information on contests, giveaways, and how to snag review copies, too. If you’re on social media, you can find me on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
Sneak Peak
Things Unseen
A Long-Forgotten Song, Book 1
Researching this thesis is an exercise in dedication, frustration, making up stuff, pretending I know what I’m doing, and wondering why nothing adds up. Aria swirled her coffee and stared at the blank page in her notebook.
Why did I decide to study history? She flipped back to look at her notes and sighed. She couldn’t find enough information to even form a coherent thesis. The records were either gone, or had never existed in the first place. Something had happened when the Revolution came to power, but she didn’t know what, and she couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when.
The nebulous idea she’d had for her research seemed even more useless now. She’d been trying to find records of how things had changed since the Revolution, how the city had grown and developed. There were official statistics on the greater prosperity, the academic success of the city schools, and the vast reduction in crime. The statistics didn’t mention the abandoned buildings, the missing persons, or any grumbling against the curfew. At least it was later now; for a year, curfew had been at dusk.
She glanced around the bookstore at the other patrons. A man wearing a business suit was browsing in the self-help section, probably trying to improve his public speaking. A girl, probably another student judging by her worn jeans and backpack, was sitting on the floor in the literary fiction section, completely engrossed in a book.
Aria flipped to the front of the book again. It was a memoir of someone she’d never heard of. She’d picked it up almost at random, and flipped to the middle, hoping to find something more interesting than dead ends. The words told of a walk in the forest, and for a moment Aria was there, her nose filled with the scents of pine and loam, her eyes dazzled by the sunlight streaming through the leaves swaying above her. She blinked, and the words were there but the feeling was gone. Rereading the passage, she couldn’t figure out why she’d been caught up with such breathless realism.
It wasn’t that the words were so profound; she was confident they were not. Something had caught her though, and she closed her eyes to imagine the forest again, as if it were a memory. Distant, faded, perhaps not even her memory. A memory of something she’d seen in a movie, perhaps, or a memory of a dream she’d had as a child.
Something about it troubled her, and she meant to come back to it. Tonight, though, she had other homework, and she pushed the book aside.
Dandra’s Books was an unassuming name for the best bookstore in all of the North Quadrant. Dandra was a petite, grey-haired lady with a warm smile. She also had the best map collection, everything from ancient history, both originals and reproductions, to modern maps of cities both near and far, topographical maps, water currents, and everything else. She carried the new releases and electronic holdings that were most in demand, but what made the store unique was the extensive and ever-changing selection of used and antique books. If it could be found, Dandra could find it. Aria suspected she maintained an unassuming storefront because she didn’t want demand to increase; business was sufficient to pay the bills and she refused to hire help.
Dandra also made tolerable coffee, an important consideration for a student. Aria had spent hours studying there as an undergraduate; it had the same air of productive intellectualism as the university library, but without the distraction of other groups of students having more fun than she was. She’d found it on a long, meandering walk avoiding some homework. Something about the place made concentrating easier.
Except when it came to her thesis. Aria told herself that she was investigating what resources were available before she narrowed her focus. But sometimes, when she stared at the blank pages, she almost admitted to herself the truth, that she was frustrated with her professors, her thesis, and the Empire itself. She didn’t have a good explanation, and she hadn’t told anyone.
Something about this image of the forest felt true in a way that nothing had felt for a very long time. It was evidence. Evidence of what, she wasn’t sure. But definitely evidence.
She finished her homework and packed her bag. She put a bookmark in the memoir and reshelved it, resolving that she would come back later and read it a bit more. It was already late, and she had an early class the next day.
After class there were errands, and homework, and more class, and lunch with a boy who’d seemed almost lik
able until he talked too much about his dysfunctional family and his abiding love for his ex-girlfriend, who lived down the hall in his apartment building. It was a week before she made it back to Dandra’s.
The book was gone.
Dandra shook her head when Aria asked about it. “I don’t know what book you mean. I’ve never had a book like that.”
Aria stared at her in disbelief. “You saw me read it last week. It was called Memories Kept or something like that. Memory Keeper, maybe. Don’t you remember? I was sitting there.” She pointed.
Dandra gave her a sympathetic look. “You’ve been studying too much, Aria. I’m sorry. I don’t have that book. I don’t think I ever did.”
Aria huffed in frustration and bought a cup of coffee. She put too much sugar and cream in it and sat by the window at the front. She stared at the people as they came in, wondering if her anger would burn a hole in the back of someone’s coat. It didn’t, but the mental picture amused her.
Not much else did. The thesis was going nowhere, and the only thing that kept her interest was a line of questions that had no answers and a book that didn’t exist.
Was the degree worth anything anyway? She’d studied history because she enjoyed stories, wanted to learn about the past. But the classes had consisted almost entirely of monologues by the professors about the strength of the Empire and how much better things were now after the Revolution. Her papers had alternated between parroting the professors’ words, and uneasy forays into the old times. The research was hard, and getting harder.
The paper she’d written on the Revolution, on how John Sanderhill had united the bickering political factions, had earned an F. Dr. Corten had written, “Your implication that Sanderhill ordered the assassination of Gerard Neeson is patently false and betrays an utter lack of understanding of the morality of the Revolution. I am unable to grade this paper higher than an F, in light of such suspect scholarship and patriotism.” Yet Aria had cited her source clearly and had been careful not to take a side on the issue, choosing merely to note that it was one possible explanation for Neeson’s disappearance at the height of the conflict. Not even the most likely.