Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  “Okay,” Mari had said, reluctantly interested, as he always was when Lovisa snooped. The acts the women had described had sounded improbable. It had seemed unbelievable, really, that grown-ups would want to do those things to each other. The children had had to run into another room before their gasps and laughter gave them away.

  Mari thought the memory was funny, because of how his understanding of sex had changed. But Lovisa was more caught up on the cheating, the lying, and how childish the memory made her feel. She had the unsettled feeling that Mari’s attitudes about sex were normal and hers weren’t. Why didn’t she feel attracted to him, like a normal person would? She wanted to have sex with him as a distraction, to force her body to feel something different from what it always felt. But she knew that when Mari talked about it, he was talking about something tempting, something delicious he thought they should resist. He was talking about pleasure. And everyone on campus talked about how attractive Mari was, his fine face, his height, his popularity.

  But all Lovisa’s body had room for right now was this fear, screaming from her core to her skin, making her certain that something terrible was going to happen. That Ferla wanted to silence her. That Benni had done worse things than she knew. That the Queen of Monsea might be dead or in the attic needing her help. Pleasure? She couldn’t imagine it. She also didn’t deserve it, nor did she deserve the comfort of a warm body in bed beside her, helping her sleep.

  On her way to the privy late one night, she almost ran into Nev rounding a corner. Nev wore her coat; she’d only just come in. That little fox was prancing around her feet and she smelled like sweat and cold.

  “Where do you always go so late?” Lovisa snapped at her.

  “Why do you care?” Nev said, in a voice rough with exhaustion. Lovisa studied her curiously, wondering if Nev was wearing herself thin. No. She saw now that Nev had straw in her hair and a face that glowed with the kind of insuppressible joy Lovisa knew how to read. Nev was spending her nights in a stable or a kennel somewhere, maybe pretending to do animal medicine work, but really having sex with Nori Orfa. For pleasure, like a normal person. For an instant, Lovisa was on fire with jealousy.

  She rubbed her hair, tried to rub away her intense feelings. “Just, don’t get in trouble for missing curfew,” she said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Nev demanded, bristling in irritation.

  Because I couldn’t bear it if you got expelled, and left me, Lovisa wanted to say, but didn’t. Like Mari, Nev made her feel safe. She couldn’t understand it, but she knew it was true.

  * * *

  —

  On Friday night, Lovisa climbed the pokey rocks as usual and hid behind a tree, gazing up at the house.

  The uselessness of this grueling daily endeavor was making her resentful, as she’d never been before, of this house. She’d always liked it unthinkingly, been proud of its grandeur, of the airship on its roof. But it was a prison; it was the prison her little brothers would become men in.

  And then something happened, up near the roof, that made her feel like her lungs were trying to climb out of her body. A clattering noise, faint, but eventually repeated. Then repeated again, and again. She waited and listened a long time, holding her breath in agony whenever the guards circled by. Sometimes it was more of a tap or a scrape; other times, it was as if glass rang like a bell; and Lovisa was pretty sure it was coming from the attic window. What did it mean?

  Half out of her mind, she began the climb up the face of the house.

  She didn’t get far, not even past the first story, before logic returned and she saw it was too dangerous and difficult. But she got high enough that she could hear it more clearly, and confirm for herself that it came from the attic window. It sounded like something small and hard crashing against the window glass, over and over.

  The letter opener, Lovisa thought. She’s trying to break the window with the letter opener. And, Oh, I wish she would stop, because they’ll hear her, and then they’ll kill her.

  She’s alive, she thought, dropping back down to the ground, rubbing her painful fingers against her coat, almost sobbing. She’s alive.

  What do I do?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Bitterblue wasn’t coping well in her attic room.

  It was a kind of torture to have little to do but think. Was this what it was like for the prisoners in her jails, all the time? When Bitterblue got home, she was going to learn more about her jails.

  That young woman, that guard, visited most days with a bowl of soup or stew, but rarely brought water. When she did bring water, she put it in a shallow bowl on the floor by the door, just like she did with the food, except that it was an even more deliberate effort to cast Bitterblue as a pet, or a fox. As if Bitterblue should mind sharing the behavior of a fox. Of all the Keepish people Bitterblue had met since her arrival, the fox who visited her regularly was easily the one she liked and respected most. He kept her company. And he brought her things. One night when she was feeling more hopeless than usual, he’d brought her a pastry.

  Bitterblue had come to think of that fox as her fox. He wasn’t the only fox who visited. Sometimes she woke to several foxes blinking at her with incurious gold eyes. But her fox was different from the others. He had a long nose and particularly large and perky ears, and he felt different. She thought—she was almost sure—he might be touching her mind sometimes. That girl who’d burst in—Lovisa—had said that the fox was bonded to her mother, but then, why did the fox feel like he was trying to help? Did blue foxes ever defy their humans?

  She’d found the vent in the wall behind her bed and the heat duct it served, pulling the bed from the wall with hurting hands. But the vent was too small for her to climb into. She’d cried for a few seconds about that discovery, for sometimes she allowed herself a brief burst of tears, to relieve some of her pent-up tension. She never let herself cry for more than a few seconds, though, because she couldn’t afford to dehydrate herself.

  Investigating the grate with stinging fingers, she’d discovered that amazingly, improbably, it swung outward on hinges made of a soft, fine yarn. If Lovisa’s mother wanted the fox to enter and leave this room by the heat duct, wouldn’t she just use wire, or actual hinges? Bitterblue had turned and stared at the fox, who’d been watching her quietly from the corner.

  Then with her small, tired shoulders, she’d pushed the bed back to the wall. She’d climbed under the covers and curled herself around her aching hands.

  * * *

  —

  Bitterblue was good at thinking. She had plenty of experience focusing her thoughts, like tiny, sharp beams of light, through a frightening darkness. And the more she thought, the more convinced she became that she was missing a piece of the puzzle.

  On the day that girl, Lovisa, had burst in on her, followed by the tall boy, then the guard, and then the small, frantic woman, Bitterblue had learned that she was probably in the attic of a private Ledra home and that Lovisa’s father might be a politician, for the woman had told the guard to have him fetched immediately from the Keep.

  She’d also guessed, though it seemed extraordinary, that the woman might be the current president of Winterkeep. She and Lovisa looked so much like Katu Cavenda, even down to that white streak in their hair. Bitterblue knew Katu had a niece and a few nephews; he’d talked about them, though she couldn’t remember their names. And Katu’s sister, Ferla, was the Keepish president. So—the president of Winterkeep had given her a map of Monsea showing Keepish and Estillan flags. Why would Winterkeep and Estill imagine they could win a war against Monsea? Why would Estill ally with Winterkeep? Bitterblue kept reaching the same unsettling conclusion. Winterkeep must have some military advantage of which she knew nothing. She was missing something—something big.

  Bitterblue had tried to prevent that boy from becoming a sacrifice that night. In fact, she’d introduced herself to him as a Lieni
d visitor named Goldie, using the name of her own prison master back home. Lovisa’s mother had stared at Bitterblue, gobsmacked, and indeed, it had been a silly, useless attempt at saving the life of a boy who, according to Lovisa’s rushed words, was only there to have sex with Lovisa.

  Then the guard had left, come back, and handed her a drink. A warm, delicious, steaming drink, in a mug! Parched, Bitterblue had taken a sip, then realized that of course it was a trick. Her head had gone fuzzy and stupid and confused. The next thing she knew, she’d woken in daylight to a room empty of everyone and everything, except her, of course, and the fox.

  She had cried, briefly, for the fate of that boy. She’d cried about Katu as well, because she couldn’t understand what it meant for him if his family was involved. Was he traveling, far away, ignorant, safe? Or was Katu also in danger? Bitterblue realized that she hadn’t thought much about Katu, here in her prison. It made her feel obscurely guilty.

  * * *

  —

  On the days the guard brought water, she did not bring food. On the days she brought food, no water. Bitterblue took to making jokes with herself: It was lucky she had so many years of experience needing to function intelligently while in states of dire distress, or she’d never be able to think her way through this thing at all. Ha, ha. Giddon would’ve thought it was funny. I am stronger than the way this is making me feel.

  Oh, Giddon. How I wish I could hear those words in your voice. My own voice is wearing thin.

  * * *

  —

  Bitterblue had developed a daily exercise regimen, as much to prevent herself from losing her mind as from her concerns about weakening. Her fingers and toes were healing well and she’d removed her bandages. She did stretches, as Katsa had taught her, and ran in place. She did push-ups and sit-ups and tried not to mind how quickly she became breathless and dizzy. She kept Katsa close in her mind, for Katsa, who’d taught her to fight, knew about conserving energy. Katsa was an expert at pushing her students, but never too far. And Bitterblue was frightened to push her exercise regimen too far, given how little food and water she was consuming.

  One evening in the dark, she did a few parries and attacks, using her letter opener as a sword. She’d taken to thinking about killing the guard with the letter opener. Not because she wanted to think about it, but because she had to think about it.

  Giddon? she thought. No one is going to rescue me.

  She began to cry again, painful, tearless crying. Her lack of tears frightened her and she cried harder just to prove to herself that she could make tears. Then, for a brief moment, she lost hold of her judgment. With a vague idea of making a sheet rope to climb out the window like she’d done once with her mother to escape her father, she began to throw the letter opener against the glass.

  A few minutes later, the fox came bursting through the vent and ran back and forth, yipping, yowling, throwing himself around the room. When the letter opener clattered down beside his frantic body, he leaped onto it, grasping it between his teeth. He stood before Bitterblue, the blade in his mouth, his limbs braced and trembling, his ears high, his eyes glowing gold, and Bitterblue stared back at him.

  “Yes,” she said, returning to herself. “I gather you think escape through the window is a bad idea.” She touched her own face gently, touched her own neck, as if reminding herself of her own frontiers. “And maybe that’s because you’re on Lovisa’s mother’s side,” she said. “But maybe it’s because you don’t want me to fall to my death.”

  Bitterblue, who hated heights, shuddered. “All right,” she said. “I lost it there for a minute. I promise it won’t happen again. From now on I’ll only do wise things, like think about murdering the guard.” Then she started laughing. “Oh,” she said, sitting on the edge of her cot and rubbing her greasy, hurting braids with her greasy, sore fingers. “How I want a drink, and cake, and some cream puffs, and a toothbrush, and a bath.”

  And she thought of Giddon, shirtless and muddy, disappearing into his bathing room and splashing water around, while Lovejoy the cat climbed into her lap. And then he’d come out and sat in the chair with them. She’d leaned against him. And even with the anxiety of Skye’s unread letter in her fist, she’d been happy.

  She wondered, what would he say if he were here now? He would say something perceptive that would help her understand her situation better. And he would be funny, and make her giggle and take herself less seriously. Giddon had a special gift for conversations when she was discouraged. All conversations, really. She went to him sometimes feeling like the cleverest person, excited to talk about some new, clever thing she’d thought of, and see his face light up, and make him laugh. And sometimes, when they were talking, he said things that showed her hidden parts of him, and those moments were like stumbling upon unexpected treasure. When this ordeal ended and they all got home again, surely the Council wouldn’t take Giddon away from her right away, would they? Katsa and Po, Raffin and Bann would understand that she needed him, right?

  Bitterblue didn’t know why she was crying. But she knew she had to stop, because she couldn’t afford to lose the water.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Ferla Cavenda was making new plans, and they were terrifying. Every time the fox dipped into her mind, her plans turned his body into a rigid sculpture of alarm.

  Ferla had cared once about not getting people killed. She’d wanted a perfect life, one that would have made her father proud: the perfect Ledra house, all the money in the world. The perfect family: children to raise as she’d been raised, who would go off into the world and reflect their successes upon her, and a husband she loved, who shared her ambitions and cunning.

  Then Benni had struck that boy down right in front of her eyes.

  What was Ferla to do, if Benni kept making decisions that shattered her plans beyond any ability to recover them? How could he not see that everything they’d planned for was impossible now? And what came next? Was Ferla supposed to end up in prison? The Queen of Monsea could not be in her attic. It was an obstacle that had to be removed.

  And Lovisa? Her own daughter! Lovisa knew too much, Lovisa was unpredictable. What was Ferla to do?

  The fox did not entirely understand the roots of all these thoughts. He couldn’t comprehend the details of what messes Benni had made. But he could feel and understand Ferla’s feelings about them, as clear as if they were his own, and he had some ideas of things Ferla might do.

  That night, after Benni had returned from dumping that boy into the sea, they’d fought, viciously. Ferla had always had a terrible temper, but Benni’s could be fearsome too, when things got bad enough: slow, methodical, and not always smart. Benni’s temper had been getting worse lately. His shipping business was losing money, and he was scared.

  They hadn’t stopped fighting until bedtime, when they’d turned toward each other with that focus that always, briefly, made the hard, sharp, inexhaustible ambitions of Ferla’s nature drop away. Usually, after sex, Ferla let herself fall asleep. This time, she’d waited for Benni to fall asleep, then she’d risen from bed. She’d gone to her study.

  At her desk, she’d sat with her back straight as a poker, surrounded by golden silbercow light, a strange, almost jubilant look on her face. She’d felt like . . . too many things. She’d felt like the end of something, and the beginning of something new, as if a limb were tearing away from her body while a different thing grew in its place, a distorted growth that would allow Ferla to do things she hadn’t thought of before. Unnatural, wrong things.

  I might go to sleep now, the fox said to her, shaking with his memories of that boy crashing down, a trickle of blood on his face, if you don’t need me.

  All right, Fox, said Ferla calmly, while that lumpy, raw scar tissue grew over the way she’d used to be.

  * * *

  —

  The little queen was having a hard time of it. She was alive, a
nd her hands and feet were healing. She was exercising, trying to stay strong. But she also spent a lot of time on her bed, curled in a ball of hunger, pain, and fear.

  Or, thought the fox, tapping gently on her mind, maybe it would be more accurate to call it a ball of toughness. It was hard to get into her mind. She was like those other Monseans, Giddon and Hava, who lived in Quona Varana’s house with his siblings: She often closed her mind, made a wall he couldn’t push through.

  Other times, though, she opened her mind, and he could feel the person she was. A hundred times a day, she told herself, I’m stronger than the way they make me feel. Then she would sit there, stubborn and fierce, trying to think her way out of her prison. The fox was trying to think her way out of the prison too, but it was a frustratingly fruitless exercise. Humans were not as easy to manipulate as he’d been led to believe as a kit, not when they were humans like Ferla or Benni.

  The queen had figured out a lot, considering her isolation. She’d guessed that Ferla was careful, logical, the kind of person who might decide to kill her as the result of sound deduction. But she hadn’t seen Benni; she’d been asleep by the time he arrived. So she hadn’t seen him strike Pari. She couldn’t know that there was a man involved who could kill her in an impulsive moment of deciding it was the best next step in a haphazard plan.

  She’d also guessed too much about the fox. This was due partly to her sharp, stabby mind and partly to his own limitations when it came to watching her starve. The food deprivation was so distressing. It made the fox feel empty too, as if the hunger of this little stubborn queen made a hole inside him, beside his own well-fed tummy. He couldn’t sneak her a water bowl, not without spilling it everywhere. But the night the Monseans had come to dinner, he’d brought her a pastry. She’d gobbled most of it down while he’d sat in a corner pretending not to care, then had a bad hour while her confused stomach tried to force it back up again. She’d done something surprising and clever: crawled under the bed and tucked the pastry remains inside the heat duct, to finish later. Then she’d said, “Thank you, fox,” and gone back to thinking hard, tucked into the far corner of her bed.