Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  “Wait,” said Bitterblue.

  The woman turned back. “I forgot to add,” she said, voice flat, “that you should always ask politely.”

  Bitterblue took a breath. “Please,” she said, “would you wait?”

  The woman nodded. “Go on.”

  “Please,” said Bitterblue, “may I have something to eat?”

  The woman lifted the bowl from the tray and placed it on the rug beside her feet. Then she stood there, waiting.

  “Thank you,” said Bitterblue.

  “I’ll stay until you’ve eaten it,” the woman said.

  “Please, would you bring it to me?” Bitterblue said. “I’m in a lot of pain.”

  The woman flashed her teeth, less of a smile than an expression of frustration. At Bitterblue? Or at whoever was making her play this role?

  “Don’t you think you’re getting greedy?” she said.

  Bitterblue held her eyes for a moment, knowing that this woman probably guessed she couldn’t walk; understanding that she’d placed the bowl on the floor to mimic feeding a pet.

  Humiliation is just a feeling, she said to Giddon. You’ve known humiliation. So has Po, and my mother, and practically everyone who’s ever mattered to me. I can know humiliation too.

  Carefully, she got out of bed, doing her best to balance, managing a few steps. Finally falling, trying to land on her knees and elbows to spare her hands. Her breath came out in a small cry.

  She crawled to the bowl. There was no spoon. It hurt to lift the bowl, but she managed, drinking messily at the woman’s feet. The stew was full of meat and vegetables; it was delicious. But salty. When she’d finished, the woman bent, took the bowl from her, and left, closing and locking the door.

  Curling up around her still-growling stomach, Bitterblue wished for a drink to quench her rising thirst.

  * * *

  —

  She stayed by the door for a while, curled in a ball, caught up in a realization. That last time Giddon had gone to Estill, to smuggle people through the tunnels. He’d been away for weeks, then come home, fallen into bed. She’d woken him, read him Skye’s letter, gone off to check her records of trade. Come back in a fury about her lost zilfium.

  He’d comforted her, planned this trip with her, changed his entire Council schedule to come to Winterkeep with her. And it was a silly thing to realize suddenly, here in this room, ridiculous that it should mean everything suddenly, but—while Giddon was in those tunnels, his birthday had passed. He had an August birthday. It was now October. She’d forgotten all about it. She hadn’t even wished him well.

  Giddon, she thought. I’ve been so self-centered. And you never are, ever. You’re unhappy somewhere right now, and I can’t help you.

  She forced herself to sit up.

  I’m going to get out of this room, and wish you a happy birthday, she thought.

  She pushed herself back to the bed.

  * * *

  —

  It was strange, wasn’t it, the way she kept falling asleep? Bitterblue began to wonder if she’d been drugged.

  She woke yet again, to hunger, thirst, and another peculiar, fox-related thought: that she really, really, really shouldn’t tell anyone about all the foxes she’d seen before.

  A fuzzy, odd, not-quite-dreamlike feeling accompanied the thought. Saf had the Grace of giving people dreams. The dreams he’d given Bitterblue, back when they’d loved each other, had had a sort of edge, a border, that felt like him somehow, like his enclosing arms, rather than like something that sprang from inside herself. She’d learned to recognize the difference between dreams that were his gifts and dreams of her own.

  This thought about the foxes felt like a gift dream. It also reminded Bitterblue of the thought she’d woken to previously, about how she shouldn’t tell anyone about that first fox.

  Bitterblue looked around, unsurprised when she saw a single pair of golden eyes glimmering at her from the corner. Blinking, staring, blinking.

  Are you talking to me? she thought at the fox. I thought you didn’t do that, unless we were bonded. Are we bonded?

  When the fox gave no indication of having heard or understood her, she tried speaking the same message out loud, in Keepish, but that garnered no response either.

  Oh well, Bitterblue thought. You probably don’t hear me. But I won’t tell anyone about you, or your friends. If there’s a hole in the wall under the bed, or something, that my captors don’t know about, I don’t want them to know.

  And then she became paranoid, wondering if the whole thing was a test; if her captors were filling her room with foxes, then pretending not to know about the foxes, to see if she reported them. To tell if she was trustworthy. To catch her on the day she tried to crawl out of her prison through a hole under the bed, and laugh, and tell her they knew it all along, and punish her, by depriving her of food or water.

  This is what they want, she suddenly realized, remembering the drawing, the rule, the lack of information, the humiliation. They want me anxious.

  When the gray dimness of morning began to turn pink, the fox scampered under the bed and disappeared.

  Thinking, Bitterblue waited.

  * * *

  —

  When the light came, Bitterblue crawled back to the door and peeked through the keyhole. She saw nothing but more light and decided she was looking into a room with large windows.

  Once more, she crawled back to the bed, but this time she examined the space under it. She could make nothing out in the shadows; no visible escape hatch. She grabbed one of the bedposts and tried to shift the bed, but the pain left her gasping. She tried moving it with her shoulder too, but it wouldn’t budge. She felt her weakness, her exhaustion.

  I will do it, she told Giddon, knowing that he could have moved the bed with one hand, but refusing to be ashamed. I will, as soon as I can. My hands will heal.

  Next she stood on the bed, forcing her aching feet to bear the weight of her body. I’m good at this, she said stubbornly, because I’m small, so the weight on my feet is less. But all she could see through the window was sky, and the tips of one tree whose leaves had turned gold. The wind was ferocious. Sometimes it slammed against the walls.

  This was her inventory: her bed; its sheets, blankets, and pillows; the pajamas she wore, which were dark and soft; the bandages on her toes; the chamber pot; one piece of paper with a drawing on it; her thoughts; and her own body.

  Her body ached with frostbite and thirst. Her body coursed with anxiety too, but she met it, battled it back, with long, steady breaths and determination. Irrationally, she wished more than ever for her mother’s ring to hold on to, something hard and real.

  The conversation with Giddon on the ship, under the moon, had also been real. I’m not stronger than my captors, she thought, trying to lick moisture into her dry mouth. Dreaming of a drink, and a peppermint, and a toothbrush. They’re stronger than me. But I’m stronger than the way they’re trying to make me feel.

  Okay, she thought, sitting down again. Let’s think.

  Chapter Fifteen

  On the Sunday following Lovisa’s adventure with the house guard, she wasn’t sure whether to expect her father’s arrival for their weekly walk home to Sunday dinner. It was a bit of a tradition, one Lovisa treasured: half an hour spent alone with her kinder parent, talking about whatever they liked. But if her mother thought she was a dirty slut who kissed the guards, would she still be invited to Sunday dinner?

  Then a knock came, as always. Sitting at her desk surrounded by papers and books, she called for her father to enter, then waited, a bit nervous, as nothing happened.

  “Come in!” she called again impatiently, then crossed to the door and pulled it open.

  Her father was talking with Mari Devret in the corridor, asking after his studies, his family. “Would you like to join us
for dinner?” she heard Benni ask Mari, whose eyes brightened with quiet acknowledgment of Lovisa when he saw her. Mari was a tall boy with a fine-boned face, a thin gold scarf around his neck. Gold had always been Mari’s favorite color; it suited his warm brown skin. Lovisa could remember him at four or five, asking his mother to knit him a soft gold hat. When she did, he wore it every day for two winters.

  Lovisa mouthed Yes, please to him behind her father’s back.

  Mari twitched a smile at her. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I wish I could, but I have too much work to do.”

  “Your parents will be there,” said Benni.

  “Please tell them I’m sorry too,” he said. When Lovisa scowled, his smile widened. “Don’t look so grouchy, Lovisa,” he said. “You get to meet the Monsean delegation tonight.”

  “Ah, there you are, Lovisa,” said Benni, turning, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Where’s your coat?”

  “Is the Monsean delegation coming to dinner, Papa?” said Lovisa.

  “Yes.”

  “Including the Graceling?”

  “They’re all invited,” said Benni. “We have no control over who comes. Go on, choose a coat. Such a smart boy, that Mari,” he added idly as Mari disappeared down the corridor.

  Hearing the change in his tone, Lovisa instantly understood that her father had invited Mari to dinner because Lovisa had been caught with a house guard. Mari Devret—wealthy, well-mannered, from a good Industrialist family—was the sort of person Benni wanted to dangle before her.

  It made her inexpressibly tired, to think that her parents might start trying to put her friends forward for that purpose.

  She found a coat. “I’m ready,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  “There’s some news, sweetheart,” Benni said as they walked through the city toward Flag Hill. “You should know it, in case you’re seated near a Varana at dinner.”

  “Oh?” said Lovisa, intrigued. “Social news or political news?”

  Benni flashed a quick smile that showed her something she hadn’t noticed before—the strain of exhaustion in his face—and yet, it was hard to keep up with him today. As he turned onto a staircase, she had to reach a hand out to slow him down.

  “Criminal news,” he said.

  “Criminal!” she said. “What happened?”

  “Some engineering plans have disappeared from a safe in Minta Varana’s house.”

  “You mean she was robbed?”

  “Presumably, yes,” said Benni. “Someone stole a few chemical formulas, including one for the reaction that extracts the gases used in varane from the atmosphere.”

  “Am I supposed to understand what that means?” said Lovisa dryly.

  Benni grinned. “The mixture of gases that makes up varane is perfectly balanced. Without all the formulas for how to extract and combine all the parts, airships don’t float, and they’re also dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?”

  “With the wrong combination? Among other things, fire,” said Benni. “The Kamassarians have been trying to duplicate airship technology for years, and I understand they’ve had a number of deadly fires. The Varanas too had a couple of dangerous explosions early on, while they were tinkering with the formula.”

  This sounded familiar. “Didn’t a professor in the school of chemistry get fired for causing an explosion in one of the labs a few years ago?”

  “Yes, but that was something to do with zilfium.”

  “Zilfium explodes too?”

  Benni waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t know anything about it, just that it was zilfium, not varane. Regardless, the Varanas figured out the right balance of gases for varane, and the solution is a big secret.”

  “Do you think someone stole the formulas to sell them to Kamassar?”

  “Or Borza, or Tevare, or Mantiper,” said Benni. “Everyone wants airships.”

  “Did the thief who stole the formulas break Minta’s safe?”

  “No. Apparently they opened it.”

  “Really? Will Minta be at dinner?”

  “No, but the prime minister will.”

  “Are people blaming that Graceling who finds things?”

  “Trina? There’s talk, of course,” said Benni. “But Minta has as many guards as anyone, and that woman has never once been invited into her home.”

  Lovisa wondered if Minta’s guards were involved. Then, thinking of the valuable item her father was keeping protected in the attic room, she wondered if her father trusted his own guards. Maybe Benni was wise to be taking extra precautions. “Well,” she said, obscurely excited by the news. Wishing she could tell Katu. “I won’t provoke Sara Varana about it at dinner. Unless, of course, you want me to.”

  “My girl,” he said, smiling absently. Then he pulled her close for a moment, kissing her on the top of the head, his lips touching her white streak, right there in the middle of the street.

  * * *

  —

  Atop the Cavenda house, Lovisa saw Quona Varana’s airship docked alongside her parents’.

  She inhaled, preparing to be patient. “You invited Quona too?” she asked. “Why?”

  “We couldn’t invite the Monsean delegation without inviting their host, could we?”

  “Want to bet how many times she mentions cats?”

  Benni pursed his lips. “I’ll go with five.”

  “Then I choose six.”

  “What are the stakes?”

  “Candy,” said Lovisa nonchalantly. “Anything but samklavi.”

  “Ugh. The loser should have to eat samklavi,” said Benni, wrinkling his nose but giving no indication that samklavi had any recent significance to him. The guards opened the door and Lovisa stepped into a crowded, noisy party. Glancing up the stairs, she saw Vikti, Erita, and Viri tucked behind the banisters, peering down with interest. They spotted her immediately. Viri called out her name, then someone must have caught sight of them, because all at once they went wide-eyed and bolted upstairs.

  In the meantime, her father had abandoned her, so Lovisa did what she did best: found a dark corner, made herself small, and watched.

  * * *

  —

  At dinner, Lovisa sat near one end of the long table, next to her father and Mara Devret, Mari’s mother, mercifully removed from her own mother. The room was ablaze with silbercow oil lamps. Lovisa wondered how much this dinner cost, and which of the foxes darting around the room was her mother’s.

  To her delight, two of the Monsean delegates were seated right across from her, including the Graceling, Hava, who, it turned out, was just a girl. Lovisa had been expecting someone grown-up, flashy. Not this pale, plain girl who never talked.

  “Are you studying Lingian in the school of politics and government, Lovisa?” said Mara Devret in Keepish, an obvious attempt to draw the Monseans graciously into conversation.

  “Yes, though I’m afraid I’m not very good at it,” said Lovisa, who was excellent at it.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if your Lingian is better than my Keepish,” said the pale, dark-bearded man across the table from Lovisa, politely. His name was Giddon, and he was working hard to be attentive. Every time he spoke, he seemed to pull the Keepish words out from a deep, dark well. Lovisa wondered if he was one of the people who’d jumped into the ocean looking for the queen.

  “We could all use some Lingian practice, I’m sure,” said Mara, switching into Lingian.

  To Lovisa’s astonishment, Giddon was suddenly blinking back tears. “You’re very kind,” he said.

  The Graceling girl spoke then, with a randomness that made Lovisa think she was trying to distract them from her crying friend. “We’re curious about the relationship between humans and silbercows,” she said, continuing in Lingian. “Are these lamps burning silbercow oil?”
<
br />   “Ah, yes,” said Benni pleasantly. “If you don’t know the nature of our relationship with our silbercows, it might seem odd. When a Keepish person dies, we bury them at sea, which is traditionally considered to be an offering to the silbercows, since glassfish eat human bodies, and silbercows eat glassfish. Similarly, when a silbercow dies, its family brings its body to land and presents it as an offering to humans. And though humans don’t eat silbercow bodies or use their hides, we do use their oil, for it makes the finest golden light in Torla. It’s highly regulated, though, and very rare. Very expensive. I believe you import the tiniest amount to Monsea. We burn it in our lamps today to do you honor, and to express our sympathy for your loss.”

  Lovisa wondered how the Monseans felt, now that they were imagining glassfish eating their queen’s body. She thought Benni might’ve found a way around planting that image in their heads. “Do you know our fairy tales?” she said, to distract them further. “About the Keeper, the hero who lives in the ocean and defends the planet, supposedly? The stories come from the silbercows. The Keeper is their hero, really.”

  “Is Winterkeep named after the Keeper?” said Giddon.

  “Doubtful,” said Benni.

  “But of course it is,” said Quona Varana smartly, leaning in from several places away.

  “Respectfully, Quona,” said Benni, “many nations refer to their fortress or their safe place as a keep.”

  “Yet we don’t have a fortress here in Winterkeep,” said Quona. “Our Keep is no more than a castle, sitting beside a school. And our careful, balanced relationship with the sea, the animals, and our natural resources is what defends us from self-destruction.”

  “What a conscientious Scholar you are,” Benni said, with a sharpness that startled Lovisa. Benni was not usually sarcastic to guests, even ones with visible cat hair streaking their gowns.

  Embarrassed for him, she spoke quickly, calling out to Sara Varana nearby. “Are you ready for the gala, Prime Minister?”