by Sharon Shinn
“Maybe she won’t come. She’ll send some excuse.”
“That would make her even more pathetic,” Deryk said callously. “She’ll be here. You’ll see.”
“Well, I don’t care about any of the rest of them,” Elyssa said as they finally stepped across the threshold into the crowded dining hall. “As long as you’re here.”
“Oh, yes, do flirt with me outrageously for the whole visit,” Deryk said. “That will make Jordan so jealous he’ll propose within a week.”
She laughed, seemingly genuinely amused. “And if he doesn’t, at least I will have been greatly entertained.”
But she was neither amused nor entertained as the evening wore on and Jordan essentially ignored her. It wasn’t just the Pandrean noblewoman who diverted his attention; he engaged in a long conversation with Cali that started over the dinner table and continued when the group withdrew to a parlor after the meal. I had only the vaguest memories of meeting Cali in the past, but I was certain she was from Alberta because she was decked out in the signature amethyst jewelry. She was not especially tall, not exactly slender, and not particularly beautiful; compared to Elyssa’s dramatic looks, her curly brown hair and rosy cheeks seemed ordinary, though her expression was open and cheerful. She only had two echoes, but even they had pleasant looks on their faces.
Late in the evening, Deryk brought Elyssa a glass of wine and whispered, “Bad enough to be supplanted by a Pandrean, but by a girl from your own province? My dear, how can you bear the insult?”
His echoes had brought glasses for the three of us as well, and I was dismayed when Elyssa consumed the contents with a few swallows. It was not the first measure of wine she’d downed that night, and I was beginning to feel my head swim. “If you were a true friend to me, you’d flirt with Cali yourself,” she informed him, but she was clearly furious.
“Ugh. Virginal and kind. Not my type at all.”
“Type doesn’t matter in this particular game,” she replied.
“It does if no one is forcing you to pick your partner.”
She gave him one hard, level look. “Tonight would not be the time for you to tell me I’m not the woman you’d choose if you could choose from the whole kingdom.”
He smiled down at her. “We’d kill each other inside a week.”
“I might kill you right now,” she agreed.
“But for that week I’d like you better than anyone else in the room.”
“Well, that’s something,” she said. “Maybe we would make it a month instead.”
He turned slightly, as if to block her view of the room; his echoes made a wall around us and I couldn’t see over their shoulders. “Don’t look that way, but the Banchura girls are whispering together,” he said. “I think they disapprove of us having a private conversation.”
“Oh, that’s right, I’m supposed to behave like a royal princess, even though I might never be one,” Elyssa said. “I think I need another glass of wine.”
Deryk followed her as she wended her way through the room, and both of them paused from time to time to speak to some of the other guests. I could tell she was still raging inside, but she managed to keep her voice light and her expression amiable as she bantered with nobles from Thelleron and Sammerly. She did drink two more glasses of wine, but fortunately no one bothered to hand goblets to any of her echoes.
Neither Cormac nor Jordan spoke to her for the rest of the evening.
Darrily was the first one to make her excuses and head off to bed, claiming that she was tired from a full day of travel. Elyssa lingered just long enough to not seem to be in a rush, and then she, too, said graceful goodbyes and led the three of us toward the door. The Banchura triplets were right behind us, so engrossed in their own conversation that they didn’t seem to notice that we were only a few feet ahead of them as we climbed the stairs and headed down the wide corridors.
We stepped inside our room and Elyssa closed the door as carefully as if she was setting down a sleeping baby. She turned the lock and kept her fingers on the key, as if checking to make certain that she had done it right. Then she stood there motionless for the longest moment of my life. Filled with silent dread, I stood with the other echoes in a semicircle around her, trying to avoid making any movement that would catch her attention. I could see the tension stringing across her shoulders, noted the way her ribs moved as she took in short, sharp breaths on a rising wave of rage.
When, without warning, she whirled around, I held fast, my gaze fixed on the floor. But one of the other echoes took a reflexive step backward. That was all it took. With a choked cry of fury, Elyssa dove for her, closing her hands around the echo’s throat and kicking hard at her legs. The echo’s face contracted with fear and pain, but she made no sound and did not seem to have the volition to try to free herself. The lack of response just made Elyssa angrier, and she shook the creature so hard her head wobbled and bobbed and her eyes became wide and glassy.
She’s going to strangle the echo—kill it! I thought wildly. Could I stop her? Did I have the physical strength to break Elyssa’s grip? Would I be able to withstand her fury once it was turned on me?
I had taken a step toward them when, with a choked cry of loathing, Elyssa opened her hands and flung the echo away from her. The creature fell to the floor, boneless, gasping for air, but otherwise still silent, still offering no resistance. Something about the echo’s empty expression reignited Elyssa’s rage, and she rushed forward in a feral leap, landing on the echo’s ankle with both feet. The echo spasmed and lay still.
For a moment, Elyssa stood there panting, staring down at the twisted body. I wondered if, even in her haze of fury, she realized she had just made a grave mistake. The poor creature might be too injured to leave the room for the next few days; surely someone would notice her absence, even if Prince Jordan no longer felt curious about Elyssa’s echoes. How would she explain this away?
But she seemed, at the moment, so filled with wild emotion that she still couldn’t think clearly. “Get out of my sight,” she grunted, then lunged across the room and bolted out the door. I imagined her standing in the hallway, still breathing heavily, her hands balled into fists and her face showing every nuance of her enflamed temper. If one of the other noblewomen were to step out of her doorway and see Elyssa in such a state …
I couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t do anything about it, one way or the other. I merely bent over the injured echo, pulled her up, and led her as gently as possible across the floor toward our small alcove behind the screen. I lifted her onto the bed, stripped off her dress and pulled a nightgown over her head; then, as best I could, I cleaned and bound her ankle. She lay there the whole time, simply staring.
The third echo had followed silently behind me. I helped that one into a nightshirt as well, then changed my own clothes. All three of us were lying quietly on our beds, staring up at the ceiling, when we finally heard the door open again. I tensed with alarm, listening for any sound that would indicate Elyssa’s mood. Any sound that would indicate she was still furious enough to come for one of us again.
But there was only the noise of the lock reengaging, and Elyssa’s footsteps crossing the floor. She didn’t bother to peer behind the screen to see what had become of the injured echo, or even to check that any of us were still in the room. She just continued on to the bed and dropped heavily on the mattress and began a low, steady weeping.
I lay there and listened for hours.
In the morning, Gretta tended to the four of us in absolute silence. She had come by once during the night, but Elyssa had refused to let her in. So the maid must have been somewhat apprehensive the following day when Elyssa unlocked the door upon her knock. I supposed that one look at Elyssa’s face had warned Gretta to keep her thoughts to herself because she merely said, “My lady,” and set about the task of getting Elyssa dressed for breakfast.
After about an hour of quiet activity, Elyssa said in a casual voice, “The echoes will need som
e help.” That could hardly be a surprise, since Gretta commonly dressed us, but it was no doubt a warning that things might be a little different this morning.
Gretta came around the edge of the screen a bit hesitantly. I wasn’t looking directly at her face, but even so, I could see the way she blanched at the sight of the injured echo lying on the bed, her face and arms bruised, her wrapped ankle swollen under my hasty bandage. Gretta’s mouth opened as if she would demand what had happened, but snapped shut when she realized what the only possible answer could be.
She tended to the hurt echo first, cleaning her face thoroughly and changing the bandage with competence. I also saw her discreetly press her hands over the echo’s stomach and hips—checking for hidden damage, I thought. But nothing made the echo wince in pain, so it seemed her only real injuries were the visible ones. A small comfort.
Then Gretta dressed the other echo and me in dark blue gowns edged with white piping, and pulled our hair back in a simple style. Once she was done with us, we lingered behind the screen while Gretta went out to tell Elyssa we were ready.
“I only dressed two of them,” she added. “The third one must have twisted her ankle. She won’t be walking anywhere for some time. I’ll go down to the kitchen and bring up some food for her, shall I?”
“Yes, excellent,” Elyssa said coolly. She didn’t even bother trying to construct an explanation for what had happened. “Make sure the purple gowns are ready for tonight. All the other guests are supposed to have arrived by dinnertime, and it will be the first formal meal the prince is hosting.”
“Certainly, my lady. Anything else?”
“No.” And on the word, she tightened that mental leash, and the other ambulatory echo and I jumped to our feet, bound once again to Elyssa’s will. We came around the screen with our heads bowed and our eyes down, as if we were truly mindless shadows.
As we headed to the breakfast parlor, I found myself wondering what the other noble guests would say to Elyssa when they realized one of her echoes was missing. Who would notice first? Sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Deryk? Self-assured Cali, an Alberta woman who wouldn’t have to think hard to remember how many echoes Elyssa was supposed to have?
Prince Jordan, who had been paying more attention to her echoes than she knew?
I fantasized that he would demand to know what had happened, race to her room to check on the echo’s well-being, then proclaim, “You have no right to the ancient tradition of echoes. I hereby free them from your control.” Could he do such a thing? Could the king?
Could anyone?
It didn’t matter if he could because he didn’t notice. No one noticed. The nobles circled through the breakfast room and filled their plates and sat by their favorites and talked and laughed and filled their plates again, and not one of them knew or cared that Elyssa was missing an echo or that she had done her best to practically murder that echo in a fit of rage. There was no succor. There were no champions. The echoes might as well not even exist.
It was my darkest day since I had achieved any kind of sustained sentience. It was also the first day in all these months that I moved and functioned almost completely as an echo—blind, listless, wholly without volition. If Prince Jordan had looked my way even once this day, he would have been convinced that he had never seen a spark of awareness on my face.
My attention did sharpen again that night, but only slightly, as the nobles gathered to socialize ahead of the evening meal. Elyssa made a point of introducing herself to the newest arrival, Lady Marguerite of Orenza, and I was roused to enough curiosity to make an effort to look her over. If she thought she was here to win Prince Cormac’s favor, she didn’t show it; her face was composed, even guarded, and her manner was reserved. She was pretty enough, with fair hair and a heart-shaped countenance, but she didn’t have Elyssa’s striking looks or Darrily’s arresting style. I let my attention stray to her echoes; I was always curious to see if one of them might look back at me with a consciousness like my own. But it was hard to even see their faces through the fine mesh veils they all wore. Some kind of fashion trend from the city of Oberton, I supposed. At any rate, none of them looked like a kindred spirit.
The meal was long, the post-dinner gathering even longer, and I had to think Elyssa was exhausted by the end of the endless day. I certainly was, and the echo beside me would have drooped to the floor by now if it hadn’t been slaved to Elyssa’s inflexible will. None of us had slept much the night before. I could only hope Elyssa was too tired to throw another tantrum when we retired to our room.
My attention was caught by only one of the night’s conversations, and that came very late in the evening, as Elyssa was making her way toward the door to go upstairs. Deryk fell in step beside her, ready to gossip.
“Have you heard?” he said. “No one knows where Jamison is.”
She seemed only mildly interested. “Where is he supposed to be?”
“Well, last time anyone saw him, he was in your father’s house, apparently insulting one of the noble neighbors.”
That actually made her laugh. “Oh, that’s right. Poor little Velda. She shrank away whenever the bastard prince so much as looked in her direction.”
“And apparently he offended the girl’s brother so much that Cormac ordered him to stay behind a day and make amends,” Deryk went on with relish.
“I did hear something to that effect.” Elyssa yawned. “Not that I would ever expect one of Jamison’s apologies to be sincere.”
“Or to take very long,” Deryk added. “He should have been back a week ago, but no one’s heard from him. The king is worried, they say, and so is Cormac.”
Elyssa laughed again. “If there’s anyone in the entire kingdom who can take care of himself, it’s Jamison. He’s probably found some other pretty girl to seduce—one who doesn’t have a righteous brother to interfere.”
Deryk snorted. “My thought exactly. Still, it’s delicious to think someone might have slipped a knife between his ribs.”
Elyssa gave him a warning look. “Careful who you say that to. He’s abominable, but his father and his brothers are fond of him. And with the royal inquisitor lurking about, this is not the place to make jokes about murder.”
Deryk smirked. “Only to you, dear one, because your heart is just as evil as my own.”
She smiled back. “Surely not. You flatter me.”
They had reached the stairwell, and he bowed as if he had escorted her as far as he planned to go. “I flatter myself,” he corrected her. “You outdo us all.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Now that the full complement of guests had arrived at the palace, Prince Cormac apparently had events planned daily. At least that was the case the next day, when we learned there would be shopping in the morning and a formal dinner at night, followed by presentations to the king and queen. In the following weeks, there would be more daytime excursions, more evening activities such as card parties and balls. The men seemed most interested in the card games, the women in the balls.
Today’s shopping trip involved the deployment of a dozen or more coaches and the splintering off of groups once we had arrived at our destination. It was a charming section of town, three or four blocks square, where quaint stone storefronts offered wares that varied from fabrics to jewels to shoes. Elyssa strolled along idly beside the Banchura triplets, but when they squealed over a selection of gloves displayed in a store window, and slipped inside to try them on, she continued walking along, alone except for her two echoes. I had already lost track of Jordan, and most of the women had disappeared inside jewelry stores the minute we arrived. It didn’t seem impossible that Elyssa would wander so far off from the others that she would be left behind when they climbed back in the carriages to return to the palace. She didn’t seem particularly interested in buying anything, or interested in this excursion at all. I thought she had only come along because she was determined not to be left out of anything. Marguerite had stayed behind, which intrigued all the
other women, and Elyssa did not want to be the subject of gossip.
We came to a perfumier’s place and she paused before the window, looking in at the displays of fantastically shaped and colored bottles. The air drifting out from the half-open door was full of tantalizing smells, some floral and delicate, some heavy and cloying, some elusive and strange. I sniffed the air appreciatively and wondered what scent I would choose if I could have my way.
There were light footsteps behind us and then a man’s shape materialized beside Elyssa. Taken by surprise, she stiffened and drew back, drawing breath to call for help. But a second later she recognized him, and her emotion transmogrified from alarm to delight.
“Marco!” she exclaimed in a low voice. “I didn’t know you were in Camarria!”
“Longer than you,” he retorted. “I saw your carriage pull up the day you arrived.”
“You should have sent me word.”
“So far I don’t have any spies set up in the royal palace, so I couldn’t find a safe way to send you a message,” he replied. “I have to assume that every communication that comes through the door is read by an inquisitor or two.”
His words seemed to strike a memory, and she edged a few inches away. “Yes, and inquisitors are sneaking around outside the palace, too,” she answered bitterly. “The queen made a point of telling me that I would be closely watched and I had best behave.”
He sounded amused. “Really? Had you done anything to draw her censure?”
“No! I have been most demure. But because of my possible connection to Jordan, she says—”
“Oh, yes! Your royal romance! How is that progressing?”
She shrugged. “Some days he is attentive and some days he is not, and I think he would prefer any other bride to me. So some days I try to charm him and other days I ignore him. I don’t think anyone is sure of what will happen next.”
“Poor Elyssa,” he said lightly.
“We all know why I am in Camarria,” she said. “Why are you here?”