“As you wish.” I’d almost forgotten meeting Sage at the stables and going with her to that first meeting with Artemian and Bren. “I don’t think I need to meet them again. But I do need to keep working on this.”
Alyrra rubs her mouth, and in that movement I see the uncertainty she’s been hiding. “We will keep working on it, I promise you that. But, Rae, I thought we lost you. When I realized you’d left and no one noticed until the following morning—we all just assumed you were with your cousin, and she thought you were with us—anything could have happened to you.”
“I made it back here,” I say, which isn’t the most convincing argument.
Alyrra drops her gaze to my arm. “Twenty-seven stitches,” she says. “Whoever cut you like that was trying to kill you.”
“I know.” Somewhat unwillingly, I add, “It was the Black Scholar.”
She nods. “From the letter I received, I suspected it might be one of the rival thief lords. So it was unrelated to the snatchers?”
“Yes.” Unless the thieving rings are involved—a possibility I’d entertained for a moment at the very beginning of my investigations. It seems quite possible that a man like the Black Scholar could be involved with the snatchers. And now I also know how easy it is to disappear.
“Even so,” the princess goes on, “I won’t forgive myself if you die—or disappear—because of me. Because of this work. Do you understand?”
“I won’t disappear. I’ve never been at risk from the snatchers—they only take able-bodied young women.”
Alyrra eyes me narrowly. “They may make exceptions for those they think are dangerous to them. Are you asking to continue this work?”
I pause, and realize I don’t want to risk my life any further. I don’t want to be attacked, or cut, or held hostage, or treated like a gambling bit. But there is Mama’s letter on my desk, her words still fresh on my mind, her trust in me to do the right thing. But also to be careful.
“I don’t want to quit,” I tell the princess. “I think we’re so close to finding out information that might slip through our grasp if we stop now. I won’t go into the city unless I need to. I wasn’t dressed as a noble while I was gone, and there’s no reason for the Scholar to realize my identity now. If he doesn’t see me again, he can’t possibly recognize me.”
Alyrra is quiet a moment, her expression grim. “I spread about a story that you were unexpectedly called away to help a friend in need. If we can hide the fact that you’re injured, he may not connect who you are. But such men did not get where they are without being clever. He may still figure you out, if word gets out about your wound.”
“There no reason for it to get out.” Even if the Scholar has placed pages and servants here who will carry him the odd tidbit of gossip, I should be able to hide the truth from them. After all, tunics are always long sleeved, warm in the winter, and wide and airy in the summer. Regardless of the weather, my arm will be hidden. No one should ever actually see my wound, as long as I avoid the baths from now on. Easy enough when there’s a bathing room attached to our quarters.
“If you really want to hide your injury, you’ll need to make an appearance tonight at the sweetening. Do you have the strength for that?”
It’s a test, I think. Alyrra sits, poised and ready and a little too still. She’s hoping I’ll insist I need rest and that will mean rumors about my being unwell and more clues for the Scholar—so that I will step back from my work. But I’m not ready to make that decision yet, and I’m not going to let my injury get in the way. I’ve worked through pain before. I can do it again.
“I should be fine for this evening,” I say easily. “I’ll just take a little rest this afternoon.”
Alyrra dips her head. “Very well. Stay safe, Rae.”
“And you, zayyida.”
Alyrra casts me a wry glance and lets herself out.
Chapter
33
I join my cousins for tea in the afternoon, as well as a conversation I’ve been dreading since I returned to the palace this morning.
“Where, exactly, did you go?” Melly asks as soon as the maid leaves. “We both know perfectly well you didn’t hare off to help a city friend of yours.”
“It’s . . .” I glance between the two of them, Melly with her features glowing with health but her mouth pressed into a flat line, and Filadon straight and slim, brows heavy with frustration. “. . . complicated.”
They exchange a glance. “Tell us about it,” she encourages. “Whatever it is, we can help.”
Ah, they think I’m in trouble with the princess. “It’s not like that,” I assure her. “The princess knows what happened better than anyone. She’s the one who shared the story about a friend needing help. And it’s at least true in spirit.”
Filadon sets down his cup. “That was Alyrra? She doesn’t make up stories lightly. What happened?”
I consider my tea, the faint wisp of steam rising from it, and sigh. I expect I can tell my cousins a part of it, given their loyalty to the royal family. But only a part. “The princess asked me to go into the city for her, to find out about a question she had. I ran into some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Melly asks. Her face has softened, and now her features hold only worry. I peel back my sleeve, exposing the still-healing line of the wound curving up my arm, sealed together by Berrila’s magic. Melly and Filadon stare at it in silence. After a moment, I pull my sleeve down again.
Filadon rubs his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he says. “First the foreign prince, and now this. What is going on, Rae? Attendants don’t get hurt. They—they—” He waves his hands back and forth helplessly. Is he actually flailing? “They attend.”
“I know,” I say consolingly. “The prince—that was Alyrra’s own trouble with her family. You know that as well as I. It could have been any of her attendants; it just happened to be me.” Although that’s not strictly true, because I both failed to call for help and then baited him in order to provide a distraction.
I glance down at my arm. “I took a risk with what I was doing for her. I didn’t imagine it would become as dangerous as it did. She certainly didn’t mean to endanger me. And I won’t be doing such work from now on.” At least not for the time being.
“Who did that to you?” Melly asks, her voice shaking. I meet her gaze, and realize it is fury and not shock or worry that has unbalanced her.
I lick dry lips. “You’ve heard of the Black Scholar?”
“Himself or one of his cronies?” Filadon asks, his voice sharp.
“Himself,” I admit.
Filadon leans back in his chair. “You ran into a thief lord on this errand?”
I ran into a couple, actually, in the company of the third one’s man. But I don’t say that; I just nod. “It was a bit of an accident.”
“How did you get away?” Melly asks.
“I, ah . . .”
“Yes?”
“Kneed him,” I admit. “And then I jumped out a window and ran for it.”
“You’re going home,” Melly says flatly. “You should have left this morning.”
“No, I’m not,” I say with a little smile. “I’ll be safe in the palace. But that’s why I won’t be leaving the palace as much. The princess doesn’t want to take a chance on the Black Scholar finding me again.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Filadon says, his tone curt. “Will he know where to look for you?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t give him my real name or much else about me, other than that Baba is a horse rancher.”
“And there are plenty of horse ranchers in Menaiya,” Filadon agrees. “I can’t imagine what the princess was thinking—the Black Scholar.”
“She wasn’t thinking of the Black Scholar at all. I just happened to get mixed up in things a bit.”
Filadon looks unappeased. “I’ll be asking the prince for his own explanation of what happened to you when we meet shortly.”
“As you like,” I tell him as he ri
ses to leave. “But it might be better to just let it go.”
“Oh no,” Filadon says, with a dark grin. “I think it’s about time Kestrin answered for some of this mess.”
He drops a kiss on Melly’s cheek before he departs.
I stay a little longer. I know I need another nap, but I don’t want to leave the comfort of Melly’s home. She steps out for a few minutes to speak with her maid, and I settle a little further into my sofa, glad I’m not on a cushion today. They may feel more like home, but they are harder to get up from.
I do miss home. I miss my family desperately. I miss Niya’s clear gray gaze, and her touches of magic in our food, and the way her hair never quite stays in its braid. I miss Bean’s energy and passion and tendency to pick up strays. I miss both my parents, so different in their ways and yet united in their love. And I miss silly little things: our kitchen table with its worn surface, and the shabby cushions we sit on to eat. That cracked bowl we should have gotten rid of years ago. Muddle with her bright coat and impudent manners.
I run a hand over my waist, over the beautifully embroidered sash I wear, and feel the slight bulk of my story sash tied just below it, hidden beneath my tunic, the ends tucked up. It might be one way to carry my family with me, and after my latest adventures, I’m not leaving it behind anywhere. Just as I have my bone knife strapped to my calf even now. After all, Bren may not be there to find a way to help me should I get into trouble again. It’s wise to be prepared.
I take a deep, steadying breath, but now that I’ve thought of him, all the humiliation and sheer awfulness of our final encounter comes crashing back down on me. I bite my lip, but even that doesn’t keep the tears from welling up.
I’m not going to cry again. I’m not going to cry.
“Rae?” Melly stands in the doorway, her brow creased with worry.
At the sight of her, my eyes start leaking tears again. I blink them away furiously. Haven’t I cried enough?
She crosses to me. “Rae? Is it—has something else happened?”
“No, nothing else,” I say, wiping my nose with my sleeve, which is decidedly not ladylike, and I don’t even care. “It’s nothing.”
She eases down beside me, her gaze flicking from my wounded arm to me again. “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be crying.”
“It’s just I—I . . .” But how do I tell her when she doesn’t even know Bren exists?
She takes my good hand in hers, her words practical as ever. “Start at the beginning, if you can.”
I sniffle. “I punched someone.” Tears spill down my cheeks. “In the face.”
Melly’s eyes widen, her jaw working but her lips pressed shut. Finally, she says, “Well, you’ve never done that before. I expect they deserved it.”
“No, they didn’t,” I wail. “They—he—saved my life. It’s just that he was laughing at me. And then he laughed more after I punched him.”
“Aha,” Melly says, features brightening. “Who is he?”
“Just a boy—man.” No, he’s far too infuriating to call a man. “Boy,” I repeat.
“A boy-man.” Melly nods, then pauses. “Is he mixed up with these thief lords who are hunting you?”
“Kind of.”
“That’s a yes.”
“Yes,” I echo, sniffing again. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is I punched him, Melly. And he laughed at me. He just—he laughed. And I’ll . . .” I’ll carry that laughter with me the rest of my life. And I’ll never be able to take back that punch. “I didn’t really mean to hurt him. I mean, I did, but not really. I just wanted to stop him because . . .”
“Because laughter hurts,” Melly says, finally understanding. “Oh, Rae.”
Her gentleness breaks through what little strength I’ve managed to shore up, and I bend over, sobbing into my hands. Melly shifts, slipping her arms around me, and my head ends up on her shoulder.
“I don’t want to be like that. To punch people.”
“Rae, you’d just been attacked yourself, hadn’t you? That’s a lot to handle. That doesn’t mean you’re the kind of person who punches people. Especially not people you like.”
Except that I did. Bren isn’t a friend, not really, but as infuriating as I find him on occasion, I do like him as a person. I don’t wish him harm. But I still punched him.
“It’ll be all right,” Melly says softly.
“No, it won’t.”
“Perhaps,” she agrees. “But you will get through this.”
That much is true. I let out a slow breath and rest against her, my tears slowing.
“Now, come. Have another cup of tea. And a biscuit. Life is always better after you’ve eaten a biscuit.”
I let out a watery laugh and straighten up. It’s the sort of thing Bean would say.
“That’s better.” Melly smiles and hands me the promised biscuit.
While it doesn’t take away the past, at least it makes the present more bearable.
Chapter
34
Tonight is the sweetening, the last big celebration preceding the wedding procession in two days’ time. Mina sends for her maid to help us both get ready. All the attendants have been provided with matching ensembles of pale blue silk embroidered with silver, a seamstress coming to ensure that any last adjustments are taken care of. Once we are dressed and our hair done up, we switch off with Jasmine and Zaria, keeping the princess company as she dresses along with half a dozen ladies of the court.
The ladies Havila and Dinari sit in a pair of armchairs set nearby the dressing table, a couple of young women hover nearby, chatting and telling jokes, and three more sit on the bed, joining in the conversation when they aren’t giggling with each other. It gives the room a bright, festive atmosphere. No one reflects on the absence of the foreign queen, and Alyrra doesn’t seem to note it herself. Perhaps she did not expect her mother to be present; it’s hard to know what her own traditions might be.
Regardless, Alyrra seems cheerful and curious about the night’s events. Havila provides a rundown of the evening’s progression: the men and women will gather in different halls; there will be singing and dancing, and henna for the women; the men will play tricks on Kestrin, and the women will feed Alyrra more sweets than she could ever possibly want; and Kestrin will enter about halfway through the night. The women will present themselves as utterly demure while he offers Alyrra a set of gifts, at which point they will chase him out, saying he doesn’t value her enough. He must then return with a second set of gifts.
“Really?” Alyrra asks, amazed. “You’ll chase him out?”
They don’t disappoint. When Kestrin arrives, kneeling before Alyrra where she sits on a sofa set up on the dais, he offers her an intricately designed gold set that easily weighs as much as all the gold my family owns. I stare at it in awe.
“You think that’s a fit gift for a bride?” Havila demands, her cane thumping against the carpets of the raised dais to create a hollow boom. “Are you descended from prairie dogs? Have you the brains of a mud-dwelling fish?”
The whole hall immediately erupts into jeers and shouts. Alyrra’s eyes widen, and Kestrin, looking up at her, grins impishly and runs out of the room, arms over his head as if fearing thrown vegetables, trailing an entourage of highly amused attendants.
“How very strange,” the foreign queen remarks from her seat on the dais. “I should think you would have more respect than that.”
Alyrra turns toward her mother. “I believe the point is he should have more respect for his bride. It seems an excellent custom. Perhaps it should be adopted in Adania as well.”
“To call one’s prince a rodent . . .”
“Oh, indeed,” Havila says. “It is better, though, than having a viper as a prince, don’t you think?”
The queen’s expression shutters, her eyes glittering with fury for a bare moment before she gives a disdainful sniff. “You see, Alyrra? Even the old women here know nothing of respect.”
Havila smi
les, a smooth, pleasant look that says she has brought out for display exactly what she wished from the queen. And as the queen’s eyes narrow, I can catch a terrifying glimpse of an evening ruined by this arrogant woman’s pride and disrespect—an evening that Alyrra has every right to enjoy.
“Oh!” I cry, stumbling forward and bumping a tray of sweets set on a table beside me. I step on the edge of my skirt for good measure, and then my hand accidentally comes down on the edge of the tray, sending it flying. Jasmine shrieks.
I catch myself on my hands and knees and pain screams through my arm. I hold myself stone still, and then slowly ease the weight off my wounded arm. I take a shaky breath and try to school my features into something neutral.
“I told you not to allow the lame one here,” the queen says, which is news to me.
Alyrra stands helplessly a few feet away, having leapt up from her seat, her hands still covered in half-dry henna. “Rae?”
“I’m sorry,” I manage, and look up to find the dais littered with crumbling sweets.
“Someone pushed her,” Zaria says from beside me, turning to scan the empty space behind the dais. What?
The nobles exclaim and shake their heads as Mina helps me to my feet. A trio of servants swoop in to collect the fallen tray, scooping the destroyed sweets onto it and sweeping up the remaining crumbs.
“Are you all right?” Alyrra asks, her gaze flicking from me to where I stood, seeking the nonexistent perpetrator.
“Yes, only I’m so sorry to cause such a scene.” My arm still hurts, but I can’t check it now. It will just have to be all right.
“That hardly matters. At least the sweets didn’t get on you!”
“Just my hands,” I say ruefully, turning my palms over to show the sticky sweet crumbs attached to them.
“Nothing a bit of water won’t fix,” Mina says with impressive cheerfulness.
I agree with Mina’s suggestion, and dip a quick curtsy before retreating from the dais. Havila throws me a considering glance as I step down, but she says nothing. I weave my way through the crowded hall to one of the food tables, where a servant offers me a napkin and a cup of water to clean my hands. A subtle check assures me that my wound has not begun to bleed again.
The Theft of Sunlight Page 25