Kingdom of Sea and Stone

Shiloh tossed her blond hair out of her eyes and grinned. “I’m not.”

Adriel’s pale cheeks pinked beneath her freckles. I’d never seen her blush before.

Inside, the inn was even worse than it looked from the outside. The carpets were threadbare, the wallpaper dingy with years of smoke, and there was a damp, rotten smell permeating the air. It was clear most people hadn’t come for the ambiance.

“This way,” the innkeeper, an older woman in a stained dress, said to us, leading us upstairs to the third floor of the building. The stairs creaked ominously beneath us.

“Your friend paid for two rooms,” she said, indicating two doors next to each other. The roof was gabled and Sami had to duck to enter. “Don’t matter to me how you split up. Bathroom’s at the end of the hall. Hot water costs extra.”

Zadie and I shared a glance, and I immediately fished one of the coins Talin had given me out of my purse. “We’ll take enough for all of us,” I said. “And something to eat for our friend outside.”

“You’ll have to take it to her yourself. I won’t serve a flea-ridden horse lover.”

I was about to say something when Adriel cut me off with a sharp look. “Don’t get involved,” she said when the woman had gone. “It’s better not to call attention to ourselves. The innkeeper might call the guards.” She pointed to the room on the left. “Nor and I will take this room. We can reconvene when we’ve all bathed and rested a bit.”

The bathroom, it turned out, consisted of one metal tub filled with tepid water that had a brownish tinge to it even before I got in. But it was the first time my entire body had been immersed in water since I left Varenia, and I was grateful. I scrubbed the filth off my skin with the bar of soap provided by the innkeeper, then worked it through my long hair, which had been braided throughout the journey to keep it from getting tangled.

When I’d finished, I changed into my last remaining clean item, the dress Talin had purchased for me from the Riaga tailor before we went to Galeth. It felt strange to wear a gown again after spending so long in trousers, and the corset felt restrictive even though it lacked the boning that my New Castle gowns had.

When I returned to our room, Adriel sat up on the bed and smiled. “I’d forgotten what you looked like under all that dirt.”

“Me, too.” I dug a comb out of my bag, then began the long, tedious task of combing my hair. I was tempted to ask Zadie for help, but she and Sami hadn’t had a moment alone together in a week.

“Let me,” Adriel said, sitting behind me on the bed. She soaked up the remaining moisture from my hair with a towel and began to comb gently from the bottom. “Soon you’ll be walking on your hair if you’re not careful,” she said. “I could cut it for you, if you like.”

“I’ve never cut my hair,” I admitted. “Neither has Zadie.”

“Then I’d say you’re about fifteen years overdue.”

I chuckled. “Mother said long hair was a sign of femininity. The longer we grew it, the more alluring we’d be.”

“Nonsense,” Adriel said. “Shiloh’s hair barely reaches her ears, and I’d say she’s plenty alluring.”

I turned to glance at her. “Really?”

“It’s not about hair, Nor.”

I shrugged. “I know. But it’s hard to let go of something that was ingrained in me from infancy.”

“And you wonder why you still want acceptance from the Varenians? You’ve tried so hard to escape that way of thinking, but it still controls you subconsciously. Real beauty can’t be painted on with cosmetics or pinned up onto your head. I know you know that.”

I remembered what Zadie had told me before I left for Varenia, how it was my inner strength that made me beautiful. But maybe Adriel was right. Maybe, deep down, I hadn’t let go of all the stupid rules I’d spent so many years trying to break.

“I like my hair,” I said finally. “Even if it’s because some part of me believes it’s feminine, or because it’s the same as Zadie’s. I don’t want to cut it.”

“Good,” Adriel said. “I like it, too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a bath myself before this dirt decides it’s happy where it is and chooses to take up permanent residence.”



* * *



The innkeeper’s idea of supper turned out to be a thin soup that looked frighteningly similar to the bathwater.

“That will be another of those gold coins,” she said, setting a tray down on the wobbly and suspiciously sticky table in our room.

Adriel and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

The innkeeper sniffed and looked down her crooked nose at us as if gravely offended. “You’re lucky I took you in at all. No one else in this city is open-minded as I am. I could report you just for being on land,” she added, looking directly at me.

“What?” I asked, my stomach twisting.

“I know who you are.” She lifted her pointy chin with an impressive degree of imperiousness. “And I know what you are.”

The blood drained from my face. There was nothing about my appearance that marked me as a Varenian, which meant Ceren must have put the word out about us. “What do you want?”

“Coin,” she said with a gap-toothed sneer. “Or I’ll call the king’s guard myself.”

“Do it,” Adriel whispered to me.

I removed the small coin purse from my waist and handed it to the woman, who hefted it greedily. “Enjoy your dinner,” she said and closed the door behind her.

“We have to leave,” I said the moment she was gone. “I don’t trust that the innkeeper won’t call the guard anyway. Not if there’s any kind of reward involved.”

Adriel was already stuffing her belongings back into her bag. “I’ll finish packing. Get Zadie and Samiel.”

I nodded and opened the door a crack, listening. The only sounds were coming from the common area downstairs, along with a faint creaking from one of the rooms down the hall. I darted out and knocked briskly on my sister’s door.

There was no answer. Heart pounding, I tried the door and found it locked. “Zadie,” I hissed. “Open up.”

I was just beginning to panic when the door opened to reveal a shirtless Sami, blinking sleepily. He scratched at his bare torso. “What is it? We just fell asleep.”

“The innkeeper knows who we are,” I said, pushing past him. “We have to go, now.”

Zadie sat up. She was clad in only her shift, her hair in loose waves around her. “What’s wrong, Nor?”