Light flurries of snow began to whirl on the wind, but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I found Griz in the paddock with Eben and the foal.
I jumped up on the railing and down into the paddock.
“What happened here?” Griz asked, clumsily motioning to a place on his own cheek that mirrored mine. His hair flew wild in the wind.
I glared at Griz but didn’t answer, instead turning to Eben. “How’s the training going, Eben?” I asked.
Eben looked at me warily, sensing something was amiss and not just because of my bruised and cut face. “He’s a fast learner,” he answered. “He’ll walk on a lead now.”
Eben rubbed the horse’s muzzle, and the young horse calmed at his touch. Their connection was already evident. The way of Eben, Dihara had called it. There is a knowing between them, a way of trust, mysterious but not magical.… A way that requires a different kind of eye and ear. I reached out and stroked the star on the foal’s head.
Griz shifted impatiently from foot to foot.
“Have you named him yet?” I asked.
Eben hesitated, glancing at Griz.
“Don’t listen to the counsel of fools, Eben.” I pressed my fist just below my ribs. “If you feel it here, then trust it.”
“Spirit,” Eben said quietly. “I gave him the same name.”
Griz’s patience was exhausted, and he motioned toward the rail. “You should be going—”
I lit into him, my voice loud and sharp. “I’ll leave when I’m ready to leave, do you understand?”
“Eben,” Griz said, “leave us alone for a minute. The princess and I—”
“Stay, Eben! You need to hear this too, because who knows what other nonsense these fools have filled your head with.”
I walked up to Griz and poked him in the chest. “Let me make this perfectly clear to you. Though some might seek to make it appear otherwise, I am not a bride to be bartered away to another kingdom, nor a prize of war, nor a mouthpiece for your Komizar. I am not a chip in a card game to be mindlessly tossed into the center of the pot, nor one to be kept in the tight fist of a greedy opponent. I am a player seated at the table alongside everyone else, and from this day forward, I will play my own hand as I see fit. Do you understand me? Because the consequences could be ugly if someone thought otherwise.”
Eben looked at me with mouth agog, but Griz stood there, in all his hulking, menacing mass, looking more like a chastised schoolboy than a fierce warrior. His lips twitched, and he turned to Eben. “Let’s run some circles with Spirit.”
I saw the surprise on Eben’s face that Griz had called his horse by name.
I guessed that Griz had gotten my message. Now if he would only remember it.
* * *
By the time I got back to the Sanctum, the wind was howling and the flurries had turned to driving snow that pelted my face. It was again just as Aunt Bernette had described, the cruel burning side of snow. I kissed two fingers and lifted them to the heavens for my aunt, my brothers, and even for my parents. It wasn’t so hard for me to believe anymore that snow could have such different sides. So many things did. I pulled my cloak close about me as it tried to whip free. Winter was marching in with a vengeance. There would be no remembrances on the wall this evening.
Upon my return, a guard was waiting for me with a message.
Wear the brown.
Even with all the busyness of his Council meetings, the Komizar still managed to send a message. No detail was too small or great for him to control.
I knew why he chose the brown. It was the plainest of my dresses, certainly drab in his eyes, but all the better to contrast and showcase the red he’d have me wear tomorrow. I had no doubt he’d ordered the snow itself as the perfect backdrop, and surely he’d ordered the sun to shine in the morning so as not to deter the crowds.
I dressed as he instructed, but there was more to put on besides the plain brown dress.
I lifted Walther’s baldrick to my lips, the leather soft and warm against them, the ache in me as full as the day I had closed his eyes and kissed him good-bye. I put it on and pressed it against my chest.
Next came the tether of bones, full and heavy with gratitude. I wore my hair loose and flowing about my shoulders. There was no need to show off the kavah tonight. By now, everyone in the Sanctum knew it was there.
I put on the amulet bought in the jehendra, a ring of pounded copper that had been offered by the Arakan clan, a belt of dried thannis woven by a girl on the high plains of Montpair. The welcome of Venda came to me in so many ways, each gift heavy with hope.
There was nothing I wanted more than to leave this place, to disappear with Rafe into a world of our own and pretend Venda had never existed, to pretend these last few months had never happened, to start our dream afresh—to have the better ending Rafe hoped for. I ached for home in a way I hadn’t thought possible, and I knew somehow I had to get there to warn them. But I couldn’t deny a stirring in me too. It caught me in unexpected moments—when a servant girl, ashamed, fluttered her lashes downward, when I caught a rare glimpse of Eben the child, when Effiera echoed her mother’s words—the claw, quick and fierce; the vine, slow and steady. When a tentful of women measured, fitted, and embraced me with their clothes, and I felt the expectation sewn into them. They’ll clothe their own, even if they have to piece together scraps to do it.
And maybe the stirrings overtook me the most when I was with Aster. How had I come to love her in such a short time? As if on cue, she tapped on my door and entered. She had a cart and her chosen army with her—Yvet and Zekiah. They were too small to be barrow runners but were able to earn a meal in the kitchen by doing other tasks.
“We’re supposed to gather your things for you, Miz, and haul them over to your new quarters. If that’s all right with you, that is. But I think it has to be all right, because the Komizar ordered it, so I hope you don’t mind if we fold up your clothes and put them in this here—” Her face flooded with worry, and she rushed toward me. “What happened to your cheek?”
I reached up, touching my cheekbone. I found it hard to lie to Aster, but she was too young to be drawn into this. “It was only a clumsy fall,” I answered.
She frowned as if unconvinced.
“Please,” I said, “go ahead and move my things. Thank you.”
She clucked like an old woman, and they went about their work. If all went well, I’d be in my new quarters for only one night. They gathered the belts and underclothes that Effiera had given me first, then went on to the dresses. Aster grabbed the towel on the bed that Calantha had brought, but as she lifted it, something heavy fell from it and clattered to the floor.
We all sucked in quick breaths. My jeweled knife. The one I’d thought was gone forever. Calantha had had it all along. Aster, Yvet, and Zekiah gawked at the knife, took a step back, then looked at me. Even in all their innocence, they knew I shouldn’t possess weapons.
“What should we do with that?” Aster asked.
I knelt hastily, scooping it up as I grabbed the towel from Aster. “It’s a wedding gift from the Komizar,” I said and wrapped it up again. “He wouldn’t be happy that I was so careless with it. Please don’t mention this to him.” I looked up at the three wide-eyed faces. “Or to anyone.”
They all nodded, and I shoved it into the bottom of the cart. “When you take these things to my room, please unload the knife carefully and place it under all my clothes. Can you do that?”
Aster looked at me, her expression solemn. She wasn’t buying any of it. None of them were. Their innocence and childhoods had been stolen long ago like Eben’s. “Don’t worry, Miz,” Aster said. “I’ll be careful and put it in a real good place.”
I started to stand, but Yvet stopped me and leaned forward to kiss my injured cheek, her little lips moist against my skin. “It won’t hurt for long, Miz. Be brave.”
I swallowed, trying to answer without turning into a blathering fool. “I’ll try, Yvet. I’ll try to be as brave as you.”