As if to prove to all concerned that I am, in truth, her attendant, Alyrra invites me to attend her at lunch. She has arranged for me to meet her contact in the afternoon; attending her in the meantime allows her to begin my introduction to the court. It’s a gentle start for which I’m grateful, considering her family will arrive later today and her attendants then will no doubt be under careful scrutiny.
“She’s getting you out of the way so you won’t be limping around her family,” Jasmine tells me in a rare moment of communication. “Don’t think too much of it, kelari.”
I don’t think the princess gives a rat’s claw about my limp, but Jasmine certainly can’t see past it. “I’m not really sure why you’re so concerned about me,” I tell her with a smile that masks my fury, “but I do appreciate it. Veria.”
Jasmine slides her eyes to the side in a look of utter contempt—as close as she gets, I suspect, to rolling her eyes—and turns her back on me.
Thankfully, it is Mina whom Alyrra brings with us to lunch. We enter a gathering room, lined with sofas and filled with nobles and honored guests, most of them milling about the room in small groups. Across from us, the great double doors that will open into the dining room remain closed for the time being.
“Veriana,” Kestrin says, moving at once to intercept Alyrra. He flicks a glance at me, his head dipping slightly, and then refocuses on the princess. Mina motions me back, and we step aside to stand by an empty sofa while the two converse together.
“In a gathering like this,” Mina explains, “we leave Alyrra to mingle as she wishes. If she’s ever alone, or she motions for us, we join her. Otherwise, we are here as members of the court, and can meet those we know.”
Unfortunately, neither Filadon nor Melly appear to be in attendance, which puts to rest the possibility of my meeting anyone. Across the room a woman stands quietly, tall and slim, her hair gleaming black with a faint sheen of blue, a matching iridescent pattern curving down over the brown of her neck and disappearing beneath the long, layered dress she wears. Two young men stand behind her, dressed in similar robes, with that same pattern upon their skin. It looks almost like fish scales.
“Don’t stare,” Mina says sharply. “That’s the princess of the water people who live off the shore of Lirelei. She’s come for the wedding. You’ll do well not to insult her.”
I swallow hard and drop my gaze. Water people? I’ve heard of them, but they always seemed more myth than reality. “My apologies,” I murmur.
Mina sighs. “I must greet Veria Dinari. I’ll see if I can convince her to meet you. She is Verin Melkior’s wife.”
I nod, recollecting that Melkior is the lord high marshal of the realm, which means his wife will have a high ranking as well. Mina departs, drifting over to chat with a pair of women who might be about my mother’s age.
“Kelari Amraeya?” someone asks from beside me. The voice is velvety smooth, deep and sweet with a lilting accent. It’s the sort of voice that immediately puts me on edge. I turn to find myself facing a faerie, tall and elegant, with eyes so dark they appear fathomless. I blink. The faerie remains.
It wouldn’t be that strange ordinarily. The so-called Fair Folk live across the Winter Seas, and after seeing the merfolk here, I would expect the family to maintain diplomatic relations with Fae lands as well. It isn’t the presence of a faerie that startles me; it’s the presence of this faerie with his night-dark hair cascading over his shoulders, setting off the almost luminescent paleness of his skin and the obsidian depths of his eyes. His beauty is as dangerous as a blade, and as familiar as an ally once met.
“Verin Stonemane?” I say, my voice soft with disbelief. “I didn’t expect to meet you here!”
“Nor I, you,” he replies, bowing with exquisite grace.
I remember, belatedly, that I should have curtsied first and dip into a jerky return, my cheeks warming. Desperate to distract him, I ask the first thing that comes to mind. “How is Storm treating you?”
His lips twitch with amusement—because of course one does not inquire after horses before all else, at least not at court. “She’s a fine mare. I haven’t regretted my visit to your farm. But what brings you to the king’s city?”
Slavers. Stupidity. Or, to be perfectly honest but less precise: “My cousin lives at court and invited me to visit, and now I have somehow become attendant to the princess.”
“I have no doubt you will serve her well,” Stonemane says steadily. He is one of the few who have uncovered Niya’s magical ability, and so he knows very well what lengths I would go to, to protect my own. In helping him leave our home unnoticed by a crowd of suspicious townspeople, I was ensuring his silence about my sister’s secret as much as I was aiding him. In return, he granted each of my sisters and me a gift. Mine was the bone knife now sewn into my story sash.
“Thank you,” I say, and give in to my own curiosity. After all, if he can ask what I’m doing here, I can ask the same of him. Politely, as one does in court. “Are you staying here in Tarinon very long, then?”
“For the time being: I serve as permanent ambassador from Chariksen.”
I make a thoughtful sound. “Do permanent ambassadors normally walk around the countryside looking for horses?”
“Sometimes,” he says, his eyes brightening with amusement until it seems that starlight dances over them. It’s utterly unnerving. “When the fancy takes us.” He nods his head toward Mina. “I believe you are being called. I look forward to meeting you again.”
I take my leave of him with some relief and join Mina where she hovers behind the princess. Alyrra is chatting with Kestrin as well as his cousin Garrin and a middle-aged man who bears such a striking resemblance to the prince he can only be the king. The noblewoman Mina greeted earlier remains at a distance, clearly having decided she does not yet need to meet me.
“Ah,” the middle-aged man says, shifting to look at me. “This must be your newest attendant.”
At least this time I remember to curtsy. Filadon would be relieved.
“Tarin,” Alyrra says, confirming my suspicions, “allow me to introduce Kelari Amraeya ni Ansarim, cousin by marriage to Verin Filadon. She does me the honor of attending me.”
“Indeed,” the king says, dipping his head in acknowledgment. “We have long been pleased with Verin Filadon’s service, and welcome you to the palace, kelari. In a court as renowned as ours for hospitality, I have no doubt you will be made welcome.”
“Thank you, tarin,” I manage, well aware that the whole of the room is listening now, and the king has just commanded their support of me.
The king, thankfully, seems to consider our conversation done, and turns to lead the way into the dining room.
I spend the meal seated toward the end of the table, Mina across from me and a few seats farther up. Those nearest me do no more than smile and bid me welcome. They are none of them rude, and for that, I suppose, I must thank the king. But not one of them converses with me more than necessary.
I find my eyes drifting to Stonemane, seated across the table and halfway up. Across from him, barely visible to me, sit the merpeople. Stonemane is engaged in quiet conversation with the lord to his left, but as he turns back to his plate, his gaze catches mine. A faint, derisive smile plays over his lips, as if he knows better than to read anything into my study of him. Embarrassed, I drop my gaze to my plate of spiced, curried goat on its bed of fragrant rice.
“You know the foreign ambassador, kelari?” the lady at my right asks, her expression keen.
“We have met before,” I say, grateful to have someone to speak with. “He came to stay at my family’s home once.”
In order to buy horses from us, but there’s no reason to mention that.
“How curious! But you did not know who he was? You seemed quite surprised to meet him here.”
“I did not know he was an ambassador, veria,” I admit. “But certainly we knew he was a nobleman.”
“Hmm. Country families must ha
ve little regard for propriety if you did not know that much.”
Oh, the nerve of the woman! “We at least know how to give a guest their due,” I say sweetly.
“You cannot do so if you don’t concern yourself with learning the simplest things about your guest,” she says, all gentle condescension. “At least you have found one friend here, though. That must be a relief for you.”
“Quite,” I say, and turn my attention to my meal. But her words settle into me. I cannot avoid the truth that I wasn’t relieved to see Stonemane. I’m far too conscious of his beauty, no doubt in large part because of my own lack of grace or looks.
I glance back up the table at Stonemane, at his long, slender fingers wrapped around his meat knife, at the line of his jaw, and feel that same tightening within my chest, as if I were drawing in, hardening my heart. I look down, take a bite mechanically, the food tasteless in my mouth. Have I really grown so little? I thought I had made some peace with myself after his visit, some peace with how much anger I carried for how people see me. You should on occasion be kinder to yourself, he had told me when he gifted me my bone knife.
But here I am, reacting the same way again to his beauty, even if I might consider him now a friendly acquaintance, if not actually a friend. And who else have I thought less of, because of their beauty rather than their character? I don’t want to do the same to others, regardless of whether they are as beautiful as the Fae, or as plain and different as I.
Seated beside Kestrin is his cousin Garrin, whom I’ve barely spoken to, who greeted me yesterday when he did not have to—no doubt to support his cousin’s betrothed, but still. I had seen only a man who was too beautiful for his own good. Why had I let myself think such things?
How easy it was to sit among my family and promise myself I would change, that I would be kinder to myself, that I would not judge others harshly because of the hurts I’ve nursed. Cripple. Turnfoot. Words that have haunted me my whole life—I thought I would cut them out of me, allow myself to live without the certainty that I was somehow less: less beautiful, less deserving.
I had taken the bone knife Stonemane gave me and promised myself I would do better. And yet I have not changed at all.
Chapter
16
Alyrra seems pleased with my first court appearance. We return to her rooms, and after a few words she dismisses me for the afternoon. I change into one of my simpler riding outfits, trade out my slippers for my old riding boots, and head down to a small courtyard that grants access to the main gates via a side road.
My excuse for leaving the palace is the one Alyrra created for me during our first interview on the walls: I am to visit her house of healing project on a daily basis, to ensure it progresses well. Filadon has had a horse sent up from the stables for me, one that will be mine to use for the duration of my visit. It was a generous gesture, offered with the sort of sparkling smile I knew meant trouble. And indeed, Moonflower is a pretty little black mare with a splotch of white on her forehead and eyes that glitter with distrust. Why Melly allowed her husband to buy such a mean-tempered creature, I can’t understand, but I am coming to think the ways of marriage are complex and generally unknowable.
Other than a few short struggles for control, which I manage to win mainly because I have dealt with ornery horses before, the ride to the house of healing goes well. The page who accompanies me to show the way departs almost at once, while I go in to meet the overseer and look through the building—a great, three-story affair, currently filled with the dust and debris of renovation.
Overall, the house of healing appears to be progressing well, the usual bumps and unexpected problems being dealt with competently enough. The overseer is happy to answer my few questions and send me on my way back toward West Road. My role in this endeavor truly is only an excuse to get me into the city.
When the street I travel meets West Road, I turn down it and continue on to the royal stables just before the city gates, as Alyrra directed me. I ride around the first stables to the second and tie Moonflower to a post. As I turn toward the building, a woman steps out.
“Kelari Amraeya?” she asks, her eyes moving from me to my horse. No doubt she knows exactly who it belongs to, and from that inferred my identity; she’s a hostler, after all.
I dip my head. “And you are Kelari Sage?”
She nods. Sage stands slightly taller than I, her hair gone to gray and silver. Her face, though, seems younger than her hair would suggest.
“Rowan,” she calls over her shoulder. “Will you see to Moonflower?”
A male voice returns an affirmative from inside the stables.
“Come, then,” she says, flashing a friendly smile. “We’ve a short walk to make. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” I assure her. To her credit, she only focuses on my feet for a moment as I turn and fall into step with her, and then she looks ahead. Someone must have mentioned my limp, or the rumors about the princess’s newest attendant have already run through the stables.
“Do you know where we’re going?” she asks.
“To meet a contact of yours who might be able to help with some information we need. Beyond that, I don’t know much.”
Sage nods. “His name’s Artemian. I spoke with him this morning, when I heard from the princess, so he knows to expect us.”
Us? It hadn’t occurred to me that Sage might be a partner in this with me, but Alyrra did say that her friend would put me in contact and provide a way to keep in touch. Perhaps I should have expected it. “Do you know what this is about?” I ask carefully.
“What the princess wants? Yes. And I’ll support her every way I know how.” Her voice is hard, tight. There is some history here I don’t know. She gives herself a slight shake and says, “Well, every way but one.”
“What’s that?”
“Thorn asked me if I’d like to join her up at the palace.”
“Thorn?” I echo, confused.
“The princess. That was her name out here.”
I nod; of course she could not have gone by her true name. “You aren’t interested in leaving the stables?”
Sage raises her brows. “Even princesses can’t have everything they want.”
“No,” I agree. “But she did call you her friend.”
Sage’s whole face warms with a smile. “I knew I’d like you. I’m glad to see you don’t have any airs. You stand by the princess, or I’ll come after you, hear?”
I laugh, delighted. “Glad to meet you too.”
We’ve left West Road behind for smaller streets that wind between buildings. The streets are busy despite the slight spring chill, the cobbles damp from yesterday’s rainfall. Women linger in doorways, young boys squat in front of shops, and children hunch over games of marbles, or run pattering past us playing catch-me and other childhood favorites.
Sage slows before a building where a young boy plays on the step. He looks up, his gaze assessing, and then says, “The Tattered Crow,” pointing down the alleyway.
“Aye,” Sage says.
Grinning, the boy hops to his feet and races off in the opposite direction.
Sage continues on as if it were perfectly normal to have urchins redirect you.
“Are you sure we can trust the boy?” I ask uncertainly.
“It’s fine,” she says. “They pay the street children to help them—keep watch, run small errands, the like.”
I thought we were just talking about the one man, Artemian. “Who, precisely, are ‘they’?”
Sage glances around to make sure no one’s listening. “Thieves.”
Well, that would certainly qualify as “not entirely on the right side of the law.” I cast my mind back over what I know of the city. “Are they part of a ring? I’ve heard of the Black Scholar and Bardok Three-Fingers.” Neither of whom have particularly pleasant reputations, but then, to be the head of a ring of street thieves, you’d have to be ruthless.
“You’ve heard of Red Haw
k as well, I presume. Artemian is one of his men.”
I frown. “Red Hawk? He’s . . . newer, isn’t he?” There’ve been a few stories—whenever one of the thieving rings does something particularly brash, the rumors reach us. The name, as unusual as it is, sounds vaguely familiar.
“Relatively. The Scholar came into power near on fifteen years ago. Red Hawk’s only got two or three years. But he’s a step better.”
“How?”
She shrugs. “He doesn’t kill indiscriminately. He pays the street children well enough to keep them. He stands by his honor.”
“Thieves’ honor?”
She nods, as if that should explain everything. Maybe it would if I were city bred, but it doesn’t mean a thing to me. Which means it’s best to just ask. “The rings don’t have anything to do with the snatchers, do they?”
“No,” Sage says sharply. “At least, not this one. They helped when—a young woman went missing.”
Sage’s voice ends on a rough note. That’s it, then: the history I don’t know. She’s lost someone as well. I almost tell her about Seri, but she’s not asking for empathy or acknowledgment, so I keep quiet. At least it’s a good sign if the thieves were helping to search for a girl who disappeared.
We round the corner to the Tattered Crow, a mosaic depicting a disheveled crow decorating the wall beside the carved door. It’s a distinctly grander building than those around it, though that merely means it’s been kept up, with a few small prosperous touches. The surrounding buildings, in contrast, are dilapidated, the door altogether missing from the building across the road.
Inside, the innkeeper directs us to a staircase with a jerk of his chin and the words, “First door on your right.”
I follow Sage up the stairs one step at a time, favoring my turned foot. Walking hurts, but stairs will be worse. It’s better to go gently.
“Sorry,” I mutter as I rejoin Sage at the top of the stairs.
She shakes her head and leads me to the door, rapping smartly upon its surface. A voice calls for us to enter. Sage pushes open the door to reveal a pair of men waiting for us. I don’t like this. I don’t like that our meeting location was changed, or that there are now two men where we only expected one. I touch Sage’s arm, as if to keep her from entering.
The Theft of Sunlight Page 11