by R. K. Thorne
A bell tinkled as she opened the door—the bell was as much for his guards as her Da. Two men lounged in armchairs provided for this purpose in opposite corners, thankfully both awake. It was still early.
The rest of the place was lined with pegs full of tools, the center crowded with tables filled with projects in wood, some in bone or ivory. Was that a chair under construction? Or maybe it was a birdhouse.
Da did not need to earn a living as a carpenter, and that was a lucky thing, no matter how much he loved working with wood.
The smell in his workshop had always made something stir, something warm and happy and yet a little anxious too. Warmth and sawdust hit her in a wave, a small stove in the corner stoked and heating the place. Barely. Da should at least put those guards to work keeping the fire going. But that wasn’t the sort of thing he remembered to do.
Her room would have been much cozier. She hadn’t ventured out of it for weeks, though—or more likely months—and it was time for that to end.
Today was six months since her brother’s death. The day she had decided that since the rest of the world was forcing her to move on, she would start to comply.
Or at least play along.
She’d pulled on a heavier crossover and marched to the first place she could think of that wasn’t her bed—the cemetery.
So moving on hadn’t gotten off to such a great start, but she’d had some prayers to pray. Forgiveness and permission to ask for.
Because today she was playing along, but only playing. She had plans of her own.
“Good morning, Da,” she said as he turned.
“Lara! So good to see you out here.”
“Well, you know, six months, I thought I ought to start pretending that life moves on.”
He sighed and set down the wax crayon and metal triangle he’d been using to plan his next cut. Did his hand shake with the movement, or was it her imagination? “Yes. It does. And it doesn’t.”
She nodded. “I wanted to remind you. You need a companion to take to the emperor’s banquet.” She had long ago taken on these duties of her late mother’s, but they’d fallen by the wayside in her grief. She’d shirked them long enough.
He squinted, scratched one bushy eyebrow. “Which ball?”
“The one for the Feast of Souls. It’s not even two weeks away.”
He waved her off, picked up his triangle. “There’s plenty of time.”
“Not for your companion to make a gown fit for an emperor, if she doesn’t already have one.” Or to alter one. Buying fancy gowns for every feast was a thing other, richer clans did.
“Eh.” He waved at her again and picked up the black stick of wax wound with thread.
“What about the new Winor woman?”
“The one who’s barely got all the yak fur off her skirts? While Pavan does enjoy meeting his people fresh from the steppe, I’m expecting this might not be the best occasion for that. No, my love.” His bushy eyebrows frowned at her. He took a sip of the tea that sat nearby on the bench, then narrowed in on marking the wood. “Can’t I take you?”
“No. I ought to attend on my own.” They probably expected her to cave and bring Andius. That wasn’t happening.
“I’ll deal with it, my little mother hen.”
“Come now. I’m just trying to help.”
“This isn’t about the ball, is it?”
She dodged the question. “There’s always Rior Delacrew. She’s lovely.”
“She’s a decade younger than me.”
“So? It’s just a ball. Although…”
“Don’t start.”
“…you never know!” She brightened, leaning on the workbench conspiratorially. “You might find a suitable longer-term interest among many of these ladies—”
He dropped the tools and pivoted to face her. She thought he might shout, but instead he laid a hand on each shoulder, gentle as usual. When she met his sorrowful gaze, all her forced mirth dried up. His fingers squeezed once before he spoke. “My darling dragonfly. Our situation is what it is. Your mother is gone, and now your brother too.” He stopped, swallowed, overcome for a moment.
“Myandrin. You can say his name, Da. It won’t hurt anything.”
“We are stuck where we are stuck.” His sad eyes stared at her. He still hadn’t said it. “There’s nothing to help it.” His voice was rough, and she understood. Her throat was tight too.
“We could change it. We could try.” She straightened a little. “We should try.”
“We can’t control who we’ve lost. Nor the consequences. We must simply do the best with what we have left.” He patted her shoulder and turned back to his work.
They weren’t talking about balls or companions anymore, of course. But she persisted in pretending anyway.
“What about Menin’s sister Qela?”
“What about her?”
“She’s young and fair, and, and—” Lara groped at the air. There had to be some other good quality about her.
“No, Lara.”
“She’s not so bad.” She crumpled back against the dusty workbench. What were the guards making of all this?
Da raised an eyebrow, took another sip of tea, and said nothing.
“Okay, maybe she’s that bad. But she seems to like you. And she’s young! Won’t you at least consider it? For me?”
“Lara, I can’t—”
“It matters, Da. Any of those women would gladly go to balls with you. Permanently. As a wife. Carrying you a nice new heir—” She jiggled her hands over her belly.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Women are not just jars for babies, Lara.”
Her eyes flashed, suddenly angry. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Those women all deserve love, companionship. And that is something I cannot give them or even offer. Or force.”
“What about my chance at love?” She stabbed a finger at her chest, restraining herself to a mere snap instead of a shout.
“People like us do not get to choose whom we love, Lara.” His voice was gentle, but the words stung. She had never really disagreed, but when Myandrin had been alive, she would likely have avoided it. Or sidestepped the matter until she was too old—or independent—to be desirable. It wasn’t something she’d grown up expecting to deal with. She was probably already too independent, but there was no choice now.
It was stupid. Some stupid part of her persisted. Probably the part of her that was smart enough to know that it wasn’t fair.
“I know this is about Andius,” he said into her silence. His voice was soft enough the guards were unlikely to hear, although they couldn’t have missed her words. Andius was popular with many of the clan guards. He was popular with everyone, because the parts of the day he didn’t spend bragging, he spent kissing asses. “I’m sorry, my child. I wish there was something I could do.”
“It’s not about him.” That was not entirely true. She didn’t want to marry anyone, but especially not him. “It’s about me. About my life. My happiness.”
“I live for your happiness, my little fig pie. You know I wouldn’t have it this way if I could. It was supposed to be—”
She cut him off. “That doesn’t matter now. He’s dead.”
Da winced. “Even if I remarried, the possibility that I might at some point conceive a child that might be a son? That is not going to change their minds. Especially not so soon after Myandrin’s death, with no one carrying the clanblade. I’ve given it up, and I won’t retake it. And the dragon won’t have me anyway.”
“Surely the dragon can be reasoned with.”
He laughed softly. “If you’d spoken much with dragons, you’d understand. Darling, all a marriage would do is deny those women any hope of happiness.”
And make them richer than they could dream of being. But her father had already thought about it. She could see it in his eyes.
“Something has to change their minds. It has to.” The words fell from her numbly because she needed them
to be true, not because she believed them.
“It’s not our choice, Lara. These laws are generations old.”
“You are the clan leader. Change the laws.”
“Attempting that would only make things worse for you.”
She didn’t meet his eyes, not wanting to admit he was right on any angle. She was being obstinate, but it couldn’t be helped. Reality was hard to stomach at this point.
He continued. “We would be certain to fail at any change. I don’t have the support. Andius is popular with the council. They won’t make any change he is against, because they’ll have to deal with him much longer than they’ll have to deal with me. They were already through with me. It was Mya’s turn.”
Her turn to wince at that. “But you could try—”
“If I went to serious lengths, it would be obvious that it’s personal. That it’s not about what is proper as law, but about a petty attempt to keep Andius from the seat of power.”
She bit her lip. It’d be obvious because it was the truth. Keeping Andius from the throne was exactly what she wanted. No, to be more specific, she wanted to keep him from her bed. Unfortunately, now that her brother was dead, taking one necessarily required him to take the other.
“He’d retaliate against you. And you know it.”
She smirked to herself. “I thought Andius could do no wrong. Everyone’s darling. He’d never hurt a fly, unless it was hurting one of his precious people.” Bastard put up a good facade.
“I’ve taught him for fifteen years. You think I don’t see through it? I can’t put you in that position—”
“I’m already in that position.”
“This would be worse.”
“Can’t you at least consider remarrying?”
He straightened his crossover. “I won’t. It wouldn’t do what you think it would, Lara. Even if I immediately had another child, they’d be only a baby. It’d be more than a decade before they were grown and able to take the mantle and blade. I would have to retake the clanblade, and I can’t. The child would be irrelevant. There is no stopping Andius now.”
She blew out a breath. He was right, and she hated him for it. “Save it, Da. I’m going for a walk.” She spun on a heel and headed for the door.
“Wait. Does this mean you’ll be in class later? And go to the ball with me? Lara!”
He called after her, but she didn’t answer, and she didn’t stop. Something had to be done. She refused to believe that there was no way out of this situation, out of enslavement to this gilded snake of a man.
This morning, she’d shed tears on Myandrin’s stone, asked his permission and his forgiveness.
Now she would try the one other idea she had. The most desperate one, the one she’d hoped to avoid.
She couldn’t blame Da for not wanting to remarry or to quarrel with Andius. He was right in all his arguments. But something had to be done.
He’d left her no other choice.
Dozens streamed past the broad window before Nyalin. The sun beat down on an ocean of robes and crossovers in black. He brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, feeling claustrophobic just looking at them all, and searched for Grel approaching amid the faceless mass. Their cat Smoke was curled beside him on the window seat, purring as he absently returned to petting her. His knee wouldn’t quit bouncing from nerves, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“No Grel yet,” he murmured.
The people were packed like rolls in a breadbasket, shoving past each other in the din, shoulders brushing. He’d returned from the graveyard through back alleys to avoid entering this fray. Thank the Twins for the back servants’ gate.
Some could take this road, and the crowd gave them a wide berth. Necromancers, for example. One strolled by now with plenty of room to stretch. His ropes of hair were tied back from his ruddy face, and he wore a necklace of mouse and rabbit skulls—hopefully that’s what they were—punctuated by bright blue beads. Peacock feathers hung down the back of the man’s head, and three black vials hung from his belt, surely filled with blood.
The only other people who could cut a path through the crowd—besides the clan leaders and the emperor in full regal procession—were the bladed women. The reasons for that were more complicated than fear, but there were so few bladed women, it hardly mattered. Too many people were uncomfortable with women wielding both magic and a sword.
Inside the Obsidian Clan’s manor, the air was still and oppressive with the scents of incense and woodsmoke that never seemed to lift from the lower floor of his foster parents’ estate. Servants creaked upon the wood floors of the rooms above him, but these lower rooms were frozen and silent, like air trapped in a jar waiting to be released. Quiet birdsong rose from the back garden. His stomach growled as the scent of some baked blackberry creation wafted from the rear kitchens and caught on his tongue. He longed to quit this place, whether for the warmer kitchens with Dalas or the solitude of his work in the library.
But it didn’t make sense to continue copying another tome if tonight he ended up not living here anymore. He ran his hand through Smoke’s black fur and waited. Her purring thrummed against his hand. “Just a little longer, surely,” he reassured her. Even though he knew what they’d decide, he had to hear it from Grel’s mouth first. And then he’d have to figure out what the decision truly meant.
The hungry growl in his stomach tightened into a knot of anxious dread.
At his words, Smoke stirred, unfurled herself, and stretched, arching her back with a lazy yawn. “You’ve got the idea, Smokes,” he muttered, hopping to his feet. “Yes, that’s it. Expend some of that nervous energy.”
He paced the mahogany floors, eschewing the carpets for a circuit from the wide front window, to the marble hearth, to the armchairs and the bear rug, and back past the weapons stands. The lonely bows and daggers called out for some attention.
The third time around his circuit, the tiny chime on the great iron front door tinkled. Nyalin stopped and spun.
It wasn’t Grel. His younger brother Raelt met his eyes with a sneer. Smoke fled the room, an annoyed growl in the back of her throat.
“I beat him back, didn’t I?” said Raelt, grinning.
“What did they say?” He tried to keep his tone flat, emotionless, although nothing would keep his sadistic “brother” from savoring the moment. At least if the council had finally doomed Nyalin, he could get away from this fool.
Raelt swaggered forward and leaned against the arch that separated the grand entry hall from the sitting room. Nyalin looked pointedly at the decorative ceremonial daggers that had conveniently ended up beside him.
Raelt snorted. “Have you been waiting here the entire time we’ve been gone?”
Nyalin said nothing.
“A whole meeting about you, you’d think they would have invited you.” Raelt’s self-satisfied grin only widened.
Nyalin narrowed his eyes and waited. He wouldn’t take the bait.
Thankfully, the chime rang again. Oh, thank Seluvae—Grel.
“They said a rat’s anus has more magic than you,” Raelt blurted before Grel could barge in and ruin his moment. Raelt dashed halfway up the stairs, putting a nice buffer between him and Grel. “And they’d rather teach the rat!”
Nyalin just shook his head. Raelt had probably been hoping to cultivate something more stinging to say than that, but Grel had forced his hand.
Grel stopped in the doorway, pushing his too-long black locks out of his eyes, and glared at Raelt. “What, did you run the whole way? Just to rub it in?”
“I’m just fitter than you,” Raelt called down, now out of Nyalin’s sight.
“Balls off,” Grel snapped at him. “You live to rub salt in wounds. Get out of here.”
“Hey, this is my house too. You can’t kick me out. Unlike him.” He raised his voice. “Your days are numbered, Nyalin, you’ll see.”
“Oh, what a loss,” Nyalin drawled. “How will I stand being without your excellent company.”
“Not everything is about you, Raelt,” Grel growled, stepping in and opening the door wider. “Now beat it before I beat you out of here.” Grel started forward, suggesting the threat was anything but idle.
“Fine. I’ll leave you two to your crying party.” Raelt’s feet thundered the rest of the way up the stairs and down the hall.
Grel closed the door behind him and met Nyalin’s eyes. His expression twisted something in Nyalin’s chest.
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly.
“Want me to send some tea?” Raelt called down. “You ladies need any refreshments for your commiserating?”
“Eat toad testicles!” Grel yelled after him. “C’mon, Nyalin. Let’s get out of here and away from him.”
Nyalin shrugged and followed his brother back out the door to hear the details of how it had all gone down. He’d endure the crowd to get away from Raelt. They shouldered through the throng for a while in silence.
“Toads don’t have testicles,” Nyalin said as they found their spot in the river of people and began moving toward the east Obsidian market square.
“Yeah, but he’s not smart enough to know that.” Grel smiled, his arms clasped behind his back, but didn’t meet Nyalin’s eyes.
Nyalin snickered, but then sighed. “So they said no, huh?”
Grel hung his head. “Indeed.”
“So that’s it then?”
“I suppose.”
They walked in silence for a moment.
“That can’t be it,” Nyalin groaned.
“I know.” Grel clenched his jaw.
“What are we going to do?”
“Let’s get some ale. I think I need to get drunk.”
“I don’t think that’ll fix anything. And it’s barely lunchtime.”
“All the more reason why.” They walked the rest of the way in silence, and only when they were settled with two mugs of sweet black brew did Grel speak again. “I argued vehemently, of course.”
Nyalin leaned back in his chair, balancing on two legs. “You didn’t need to do that. They have their own issues with you. Enough you didn’t need to take up my cause.”