Even Yaika’s back looked shaken.
“What?” she squeaked.
“The Ruler,” the woman said calmly. “Leader of all humanity, Keeper of status, head of the Central family . . .”
“What are you doing here?!” Yaika yelped.
The woman looked amused. “You invited me.”
I glanced over at Mother. She looked like she was about to faint.
“But . . . but I thought you stayed in Central all the time, making rules and things!” Yaika cried.
“Of course I take turns traveling the Roads, just like my heirs,” the Ruler said sharply. “Did you think I leave all the responsibilities to them?”
I swallowed. There could be no good answer to that question.
“O-of course not, Ruler,” Yaika stammered. “I just — the honor is such — I never would have anticipated — this is beyond the glory of even my wildest dreams!”
The Ruler relaxed. The hint of iron beneath her placid surface vanished. “What a sweet child,” she cooed. “Even with the garish manner of your invitation . . .”
I looked over at Father. He was mouthing the word “garish” and rubbing his forehead.
“Yaika, what did you do?” Mother asked, horrified.
My sister looked back at us and raised her chin. “I coated an entire length of the Ruler’s Road with yellow.”
Father groaned, putting his head in his hands.
“A whole length?” Mother said in a strangled voice. “That’s as long as our property! Ruler, our most severe apologies —”
“Oh, no problem,” the Ruler said, waving her hand graciously. “I admit I came to punish whoever was responsible, but I’ve been impressed by this charming young lady. I believe I will visit you again. Are you free next week?”
She said this as if bestowing a marvelous gift. Both my parents looked wild-eyed.
“Of . . . of course, Ruler,” my mother stammered.
“Of course you would be most welcome to come whenever you wish,” my father gasped out.
The Ruler beamed and nodded her head. Then she turned with a swish of skirts that dazzled us with rainbows as she walked down the aisle, through a startled and murmuring crowd, and straight down our road until she was out of sight.
I don’t think any of us three breathed until she was gone. Then Father, Mother, and I all collapsed and clutched each others’ arms for support.
Yaika spun around, a huge smile beaming on her face. “Well, that went well!” she said brightly. “The Ruler likes me!”
“YAIKA!” Mother and Father and I all screamed together.
Yaika flinched back from the onslaught. “What? She didn’t get upset with me. She said I charmed her. That has to be worth a lot of status, don’t you think?”
“The Ruler,” Mother mumbled, clutching her forehead. “The Ruler.”
“Yaika,” Father said through clenched teeth, “we do not go out of our way to attract the attention of the most capricious person in the entire Rulership.”
“Oh, come on,” Yaika said. “She likes me. This is an incredible win for our family.”
“It would be an incredible win if she had gifted you with status,” I snarled. “Did she?”
Yaika paused, looking nonplussed. “Well . . . no . . . but . . .”
“Because you made her angry!” I exploded.
“Okay,” Mother said, placing her hands on my and Father’s shoulders. “Okay. The Ruler’s gone. The chance to offend her is gone. We’re safe. She hasn’t destroyed our status, and she’s likely to forget all about us.”
Father’s shoulders were shaking. “I’ve worked my whole life to get where I am,” he said, his voice high-pitched. “I agreed to be adopted by my parents’ landowners. I spent years of my life pretending that my parents and I weren’t even related. And she — and she — she could take it all away on a whim. Everything.”
“I know,” Mother said. “I know. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I staggered to a front row chair and collapsed onto it. “Did she . . . did she really say she was going to come back?”
“You guys are all a bunch of cowards!” Yaika burst out. “Don’t you see anything? This is the greatest opportunity we’ve ever had as a family!”
“This is not an opportunity!” Father shouted. “The Ruler is a gamble! And a dangerous one, at that!”
“The Ruler is the Ruler!” Yaika screamed. “She’s the Keeper of all status and the most important person in the whole world and she likes me and I’m glad she’s coming!”
Yaika whirled around and stormed down the aisle towards the open space where everybody else was waiting. The filias flowers on each side of her hair bounced and fell off, and she didn’t even seem to notice.
Awkward silence lingered behind.
“Were we too hard on Yaika?” I asked.
Mother and Father exchanged looks. They reached out and took each other’s hands.
“Maybe,” Mother said softly. “After all, she didn’t mean . . .”
“Oh no!” Father burst out.
“What?” Mother asked, looking alarmed.
Father rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Hurik.”
Huh? I thought. I craned my neck to see my brother helping himself to only one pastry, not even blocking the table.
“Oh, no,” Mother breathed. “The Ruler’s going to meet Hurik.”
“When she comes back,” Father said grimly. “The only reason why she didn’t meet him today was because he wasn’t statused.”
Right, I thought. The younger members of the family always stayed in the seats. Hurik was older than Yaika, but he wasn’t statused yet, which was the relevant thing. So what?
“Hurik will ruin us,” Mother whispered, her arms shaking. “One sarcastic comment, and she might be . . .”
“Oh, come on!” I broke him. “Hurik has better sense than to make sarcastic comments to the Ruler’s face!”
“Really?” Father asked sarcastically. “You really want to risk our entire future on that? You’re so certain of it?”
“He’s not an idiot!” I said hotly. “If you tell him how important it is that he act well-behaved, he’ll act well-behaved!”
“Even Yaika can’t manage to behave!” Father shouted. “How in the world can we trust Hurik to?”
“Both of you,” Mother hissed, looking over her shoulder at the crowd milling around the open space, “there are people right over there. Do you really want them to see us arguing?”
Father and I subsided. Nobody seemed to be looking our way, but if we stayed here talking, someone was bound to notice eventually. I traced my feet in the torron grass, ashamed of raising my voice, even though Father had started it.
“And as for your completely valid concerns,” Mother said, running her fingers along Father’s cheeks, “I’m sure there’s something we can do that won’t result in disaster for everybody. We’ll talk about it later. Okay?”
Father nodded jerkily.
“All right!” Mother said, clapping her hands. “Then let us go enjoy the celebration for our daughter’s oath ceremony.”
“I could use a good dance,” Father said, offering his elbow.
I watched them walk away, arm in arm, feeling a little wistful. Hopefully I’d have that kind of relationship with Genn someday. Grandfather and Grandmother’s marriage had been based on friendship, not romance, and they were adorable now. So surely it was possible for that to work for me, too.
I tried not to think too much about Grandmother Rella and Grandfather Doss, who still acted stiff and formal around each other, even after all those years of marriage and two children.
I followed them down the aisle through the empty seats, catching a faint whiff of crushed grass underfoot. My parents had had this whole area planted with torron in order to have an open space for Yaika’s ceremony, and the stalks were tiny, hardy, and flexible, perfect for walking on or smushing under chair legs.
An unusually tall stalk tickled my ankle as I passed by the empty back row, and I stopped to pull my stockings back up. Then I looked around, breathing in the air for a minute. It wouldn’t be long before the torron stalks were higher than me, and vassal children would be chasing each other, playing tag or hide and seek.
When the first frost finally came, the torron stalks would bend over, turn mushy, and be ready to pull threads from. The food crops would be mostly harvested by then, except bulge tubers, which could stay in the ground through cold season. So there’d be a huge party, my family and all our vassals, as we played tug-of-war to strip the threads, then held races to see who could gather the most bundles.
Finally, we would all collapse in an empty field, littered with hollowed-out husks of torron stalks, and drink hot limbas juice that Grandmother made while laughing about how tired we all were from pulling torron all day.
A lump of nostalgia rose in my throat. Would I still be here for the torron-pulling? Or would I be already married by the end of harvest season?
“If you marry Genn,” I told myself quietly, trying to be strong, “you can always come back to visit. You’ll never be that far away.”
But I knew it would never be the same. Once I became a landowner in my own right, I would only ever be a visitor here. And once Yaika and Hurik were married, my parents would adopt some vassal child to be their new heir.
I blinked away the beginnings of tears — this is stupid, don’t cry — and squared my shoulders. Where was Genn, anyway?
He wasn’t in the crowd of people milling nearest the chairs, some of them carrying treats on napkins from the table near the house. He wasn’t in the clumps of gossipers watching the dancers and throwing status at or taking status from them. He wasn’t in the open space between the refreshment table and the musicians, where the least-shy people had started dancing.
Yaika was there. She giggled, red-faced, as a tall boy who was close to my age swung her around. He was light on his feet, and she floated like a leaf on the wind, gathering wisps of further status from the side gossipers.
I saw Grandfather deep in discussion with Hurik, both of them standing by the refreshment table and snacking, and I found Grandmother off to the side, chatting with several vassal women from neighbors’ lands. My parents were both making polite conversation with neighbors on the other side of the crowd, both sneaking glances at the dance area with not-very-disguised impatience.
I couldn’t find Genn anywhere, though. He’d better not have gone home already, I thought indignantly.
“Want to dance?” a voice said behind me. I turned to see Jontan smiling at me.
Uh . . . My mouth went dry. I wasn’t engaged to Genn. Jontan was my friend, and it would be rude to snub him. Also, he was a much better dancer than Genn, and I was going to miss that if I wound up marrying him.
“Sure,” I said, bowing back.
“So,” Jontan said casually, as he put his arm around my waist and we stepped in a square to the beat of the music, “I hear one of our neighbors is courting you.”
My heart skipped a beat. So he had heard about Genn. “Yessss,” I said hesitantly. “He has to get married by the end of the season, so I’m . . . sort of considering it.”
“Are you really in such a rush to get married?” Jontan asked.
“I’m not in a rush!” I said, stung. “It’s just that . . . Genn is. And so if I want to consider him a possibility, I have to factor that in.”
“Raneh,” Jontan said. “I’ve been courting you for years. You still haven’t made your mind up about me. What makes you think you can decide about a stranger in a few weeks?”
Ouch.
I took a deep breath. “The truth is . . . I have made up my mind about you, Jontan.”
He stopped. “Oh?” he asked.
I let out the breath. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m sorry.”
“I see.” Jontan’s face was hidden by a mask of placidity, but I was sure that hurt more than he was showing. “May I ask why?”
“It’s just . . .” I fumbled for an explanation. “Do you remember when we were working in my garden a few weeks ago?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Do you remember what we talked about then?”
“Not really.”
I bit my lip. “Well . . . I asked what you would do if you found out somebody you loved was breaking the law. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely,” he said.
“You said you would inform the Ruler immediately.” I hesitated. “Did you really mean that, Jontan?”
“Of course.” Jontan looked puzzled. “And I know you feel the same way.”
That threw me for a loop. “I . . . do?”
“Your loyalty to the Rulership is admirable,” Jontan said. “The way you grow all those filias, not to wear, not to show off, just to grow them . . . shows how much you truly love the Ruler. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you. It’s why I’ve always hidden filias in your bouquets. Because that’s something special we have in common.”
Oh, gosh. I squeezed my eyes shut. He thinks that’s something we have in common. I couldn’t believe he’d misunderstood me so completely. And it wasn’t like I could correct him. Not with the Ruler on her way back next week.
“Jontan,” I said, opening my eyes, “I . . . I’m honored that you’ve seen that. I truly love you like family. But I just don’t think we have any chemistry. You know what I mean?”
There was a long silence. “No,” Jontan said. “I’ve always thought that we did.”
Ouchhhhh . . .
“Well, I’m sorry,” I said, ducking my face. “I . . . I guess I’ll see you around, then.”
I turned to walk off, even though the song was still going.
“Wait,” Jontan said. “Raneh!”
I turned around, humiliated. “Yesssss?” I asked slowly.
He took a deep breath. “I . . . don’t think you should marry Genn,” he said slowly. “Even if you don’t want to marry me, I don’t think he’s a good choice.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Jontan bit his lower lip. “It’s not my place to say. It’s only a suspicion, and I don’t spread rumors. But talk to him. He may be hiding something, and you need to know it.”
Confused, I nodded. I had no idea what Jontan meant, but he was smart. I trusted his judgment. Even if he had apparently been very wrong about me.
As if to release me from awkwardness, Jontan turned and headed toward the dessert table. Hurik waved at him and pointed vigorously at one of the platters, grinning and shouting something unintelligible from this far away.
I looked around desperately, wondering where Genn was. I had to find him now. He hadn’t gone home, had he? If he had, I’d storm right over there and fetch him back right away!
I shoved through the crowd, heedless of a few offended people snatching crumbs of status from me, and looked down our dirt path leading to the road.
And there he was. Sitting in the dirt. Talking and laughing with . . . who else? . . . his vassals.
I put my head in my hands. How could he do this? How could he be so utterly clueless that he would think this was okay?
Sure, it was fine to be friends with your vassals. Sure, it was fine to spend time with them. But not at a party filled with landowners. Your vassals were always there. Landowners had to come from far away to be seen!
I marched over, trying not to show how irritated I was.
“You know, if you want to sit, you could sit over there,” I said pointedly, gesturing at the rows of seats that were now being lugged away by our vassals.
“Where do you store those when you aren’t using them?” Genn asked curiously.
“Father buys them, vassals keep them, except when we need them,” I said impatiently. “So. Would you like to dance?”
Genn got a woebegone look on his face. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” I said. “The correct answer is yes.”
Genn sighed and heaved himself up out of the dirt path. He brushed off his bottom, which was covered in dusty dirt. “Better?” he asked.
I felt my eyebrows twitching. “Get a napkin. Clean your hands first. Then we can dance.”
Honestly, I thought in annoyance, as he shuffled off to the dessert table. How is he ever going to learn to act like a landowner if he keeps doing such vassalish things?
“Raneh,” the mathematician girl said shyly. “Your name is Raneh, isn’t it?”
“Huh?” I asked, startled. “Oh. Yes.” The girl looked barely older than Yaika’s age. I wondered how long it’d been since her oath ceremony. “And you’re . . . what was your name?”
“Lilla,” she said. “Um . . . I hear Genn is courting you.”
“Yes,” I said. “He is.”
She nodded. She was silent for awhile.
“Well . . . Genn is a very nice person,” she said finally. “I hope you are good enough for him.”
That startled me. I, good enough for Genn? I was about to snap back that he was the one who sat in dirt and had no clue how to dance properly. But then I realized that they’d both been vassals on the same land. They’d probably been friends for years, like Jontan and me.
“Sure,” I said, nodding graciously.
“Good enough for him?” Dakk cackled, scratching his neck. “Good one, Lilla.”
Genn wandered back carrying a filthy napkin, the blue-swirled cloth now covered in brown smudges. He dropped it on the ground and held out his hands. “Better?” he asked.
I tried not to stare at the cloth on the ground, fighting back my temper. He hadn’t been raised with manners, I reminded myself. I couldn’t expect him to realize how rude he was acting.
“Much better,” I said, trying to smile. “Just two dances, I promise. Then I’ll introduce you to our neighbors.”
“Oh, joy,” Genn muttered.
The open space had several more dancers now, enough so that I hoped we wouldn’t stand out too badly.
As Genn jammed one hand under my armpit and dug one elbow under my ribs, I winced and braced myself for dancing that would probably not hurt anyone’s feelings, but would definitely hurt my feet.