For two days, they rode in silence. Quintana had spoken only once on the morning after the old man’s death. She had taken Hesta of Turla’s hand in hers.
“You spent your life tending to the dying, kinswoman Hesta,” she said. “When my son is born, I’ll call for you to come help me take care of the living.”
She rode the first day with Lirah, whose own sadness seemed fierce, and there were few words spoken for most of their journey down the mountain.
It was a relief to reach the flat plains of Charyn after the backbreaking days on the steep narrow mountain track. Although there was little to see except brown tufts of grass haphazardly appearing from time to time between the rough and broken earth, Froi could tell that their mood had lifted.
“This is the worst hit area for lack of rain,” Gargarin told him. “It’s one of the reasons Paladozza is a jewel for those traveling from the capital to the east.”
That night, they came across a camp of nomads and exchanged a few copper coins for a meal of sugar beets and barley soup, and a tent to share.
“I’ll ride with her tomorrow,” Arjuro said as they watched Lirah coax Quintana into eating something. She had curled herself up inside the tent from the moment they had arrived and still had not spoken.
Froi walked to where Lirah was feeding the horses. He reached out toward one of the animals, who tossed its mane, its nostrils flaring.
“My captain is a great lover of horses,” he told her. “For his birthday last year, the king and queen found a mighty horse like this after sending the Guard out to search the kingdom high and low.”
“The Serker breed is the greatest in the land,” Lirah said. “When those from the palace ravaged the province, they kept the horses, and they took them to Lumatere five years later.” She pressed her nose against the animal.
“Gargarin once told me the ancient tale of a winged horse sent by the gods to Charyn,” she said. “As it fell to earth, its wings were clipped by the branches of a tree in Serker, but its might and beauty stayed. I’d been looking for a reason to love Serker all my life, and there it was with that story.”
“You must have been appreciative,” Froi said.
“Yes, so appreciative I let him into my bed.”
Froi looked back toward the tent, where Gargarin stood watching. He felt awkward listening to any story about Gargarin and Lirah, but he was more frightened by Lirah’s silence than her words.
“How did you cross each other’s paths in the palace?” he asked.
She stared across the open space, a restlessness to her.
“He liked to please the king,” she said quietly. “I was the reward.”
“You were Gargarin’s whore?” Froi asked flatly.
She sighed. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“Whenever Gargarin says those words, it means the end of a conversation,” he said. Her eyes met his, and then he saw a ghost of a smile on her face.
“He was shamed by the king’s offer. ‘We can sit and talk,’ he told me the first time. I knew the stories of his priestling brother and suspected that Gargarin preferred the company of men in the same way. I told him there was nothing to speak of. I had lived in the palace since I was thirteen, and before that I lived in savage Serker. The only thing I cared to remember from life in Serker was that I loved horses. It was my one indulgence in the palace. Gargarin, as you can probably tell by his riding, didn’t care for horses, and that ended our conversation the first night.”
She stroked the horse’s mane, looking across the plain once more.
“Do you want me to race you?” Froi asked. Lirah was used to a cell and a small garden. He should have known she would crave space. Her eyes, usually so cold and condemning, flashed with excitement, and they both mounted their horses. Lirah was off before he could give the command. She was a good rider, better than him, despite her years of imprisonment. Froi hadn’t been on a horse until three years ago, when he met Finnikin and Isaboe on their travels. It was Trevanion who had taught him to ride well, although he and Perri had conceded that Froi was not a natural on a horse. But it was in Froi to be fearless and reckless, so he took more chances with speed and caught up with Lirah.
“The next time Gargarin pleased the king, I was given a history of Serker,” she continued, her usual bitter expression replaced with a glow. “He loved to explain things, and in my twenty years of living, no one had ever treated me as anything but a possession. The time after that, he read to me. The times after that, he began to teach me to read. By winter, I could read and write, and by the summer, I knew I was in love with him.”
Lirah looked back to where Gargarin still stood in the distance, watching.
“Yet he had not laid a hand on me.”
Froi shook his head with disbelief. “Only Gargarin.”
She smiled. “Yes, only him. So I seduced him,” she said quietly. “All those years a whore, but I had never wanted to seduce a man until then.”
She looked at him with a wolfish expression. “Do you know how I did it?”
“Is it going to make me blush?”
“No.” She laughed. It transformed her face for a moment, and Froi loved nothing more than knowing he could make Lirah laugh.
“I recited love poetry written by the water god when he was courting the earth goddess. The man had taught me to read, so I rewarded him with words of passion.”
Froi waited, wanting more. “What did he do then?”
“He pleased the king every opportunity he could.”
Froi couldn’t help laughing.
“And we spent that year with Arjuro and De Lancey. They hated me. I hated them. Gargarin loved us all. We all loved Gargarin, and those three lads felt as if nothing evil would ever touch their lives.”
The sadness was back there on her face.
“Then the slaughter in the godshouse happened and every thing changed. Arjuro was arrested, and Gargarin was inconsolable. Mark my words, he will never ever love anyone as much as his brother, despite everything.”
There was no envy in her voice, only regret.
“Gargarin was desperate to find a way to have Arjuro set free and began making plans to take us all to Lumatere.”
“Lumatere?” Froi said, surprised.
She nodded. “He said they had good rainfall.”
They both exchanged a look and laughed.
“You can imagine what type of strange man he’ll be as he grows old,” she said.
They made their way back to the nomad camp, and already Froi felt as if he was losing Lirah back to her cold spirit.
“Did Gargarin believe it was his child you carried?” he asked.
“I think he hoped,” she said. “But didn’t care. It’s strange to meet a man who doesn’t judge.”
She looked at Froi, the hard expression back on her face.
“In light of all our truths, do you wonder how I could imagine that he was a murderer of a blessed woman and a babe?”
“I think the proof was there,” Froi said with honesty.
“I knew how much he wanted Arjuro free,” she said bitterly. “I knew how much he wanted to take me away from the palace. I thought he sold his soul for it all.”
They reached the camp. Gargarin limped toward them.
“Even with his body straight, I can’t imagine him standing out,” Froi said quietly. “Why love him and not a man with more command?”
She stroked the horse’s mane.
“Don’t ever underestimate him. He’s the most powerful man you’ll ever know.”
Froi approached Quintana, who was sitting up with her hands wrapped around her knees.
“You’re going to have to ride with me now that we’re a day away from Paladozza,” he said. “If we have to bolt for our lives, I’m the only one who can protect you.”
She nodded, and then her eyes met Froi’s. His heart missed a beat. He felt a grief so deep. And a desire so fierce. Up until this moment, he had not known who the true Quintana was. Who they had lost when Arjuro sang his song for Regina of Turla. But now the relief in seeing her cold savage eyes made him feel guilty beyond reckoning.
He helped Quintana mount first, and then he settled himself behind her, his arms cautious around her waist. He could tell that her belly had grown, and he settled his hand flat against it, heard the bloodcurdling snarl in an instant. But Froi refused to remove his hands.
“I pledged that I would never do anything to hurt him,” he said. “Or you.”
It was some time before her body relaxed against his.
“Does it hurt to have him growing inside?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, and he could see the nape of her neck.
He traced a finger along the lettering there, but she shrugged him away with a growl. He remembered what the soothsayer had said about the little savage born to the palace. Without the indignant Reginita calming her, Quintana could not control her fury.
“Tell me more about this,” he said, his thumb gently caressing the mark. If he was going to protect her, he needed to know everything that made her who she was.
“My father had the female last borns branded,” she said. “His men went from province to province, village to village.”
“Why?”
“He said to protect them, but we … I feared for them. Have you seen Lirah’s branding? In Serker, one was branded with the name of one’s owner.”
He wanted to ask her so much more but couldn’t find the words without sounding like an idiot.
“Where did you go?” he asked, his voice husky. He saw her stiffen again. “Where did you go when the reginita was the one who presented herself? Where did she go when you did?”
“We went nowhere,” she said. “We would never have left each other alone. If I left her alone, she’d say strange things. If she left me alone, I’d do bad things. So we made a pact. To always be with each other.”
“What bad things would you do?” he asked.
She didn’t respond.
“Did you kill the king or did she?”
Still nothing. He wanted her to acknowledge that it was she who had bed him the night they gave themselves to each other. That his broken spirit and hers had created rather than destroyed something for the first time in their wretched lives.
But there was no more talk from her that day.
They saw Paladozza from a distance, and in the early evening light, it seemed a magical place of strangely shaped stones and flickering lanterns. Froi glanced at Gargarin and Arjuro, who were sharing the same mount. It was the first time the brothers were returning together to the home that had brought hope into their lives as children.
As was the case with the Citavita and Jidia, there was little beauty outside the province, but a promise of so much from afar. Unlike Jidia, Paladozza had no wall to guard it and, stranger still, no army except for a small troupe of soldiers and bodyguards who protected the provincaro and his family and kept order among the people.
“De Lancey’s great-grandfather wrote that there was something about a stone wall that invited invasion,” Gargarin said, “and something about an army that threatened war to its neighbors.”
“De Lancey’s great-grandfather was an idiot,” Froi said bluntly.
“The thing about Paladozza is that it has too much to offer. Art, music, enjoyment of life. Why would the palace want to ruin that by invasion when they are guaranteed a portion of the revenue?” Arjuro said.
“You ask such a question at a time like this?” Froi said in disbelief. “Do you honestly think Bestiano and the army of Nebia are talking each other out of invading Paladozza because they love art and music? Wouldn’t they invade Paladozza instead and enjoy what it has to offer by force?”
“You don’t know the people of Paladozza,” Gargarin said. “They would never cooperate with an invader.”
“So we just ride in?” Froi asked. “No papers. No explanation?”
“None at all.”
Froi stared into the distance, shaking his head with resignation.
“I suppose before the five days of the unspeakable, Lumatere was such a place. Anyone could come and go to enjoy what it had to offer.”
Arjuro spluttered. “I can’t believe you’re comparing Lumatere with Paladozza.”
Froi counted to ten. Arjuro was truly beginning to irritate him.
“I take great offense at your insult to my kingdom,” Froi said, trying to keep his tone even.
“It’s not your kingdom, you little Serker shit from Abroi! Charyn is.”
“Sagra,” he muttered. Quintana twisted around on the horse, her face so close.
“You’re easy to rile, Lumateran,” she said.
And there it was. He was no longer referred to as the assassin, so Lumateran would have to do. And he realized that despite the fact that he wanted to toss Arjuro from his mount and give a sermon on all things wondrous about Lumatere; despite his wish to attempt a mock raid on Paladozza to prove how stupid they truly were; despite wanting to lecture them on the appreciation Isaboe and Finnikin had for all things artistic, what Froi wanted to do above all else was kiss Quintana.
“Little Serker shit, we’re speaking to you,” Arjuro called out.
“Sagra!”
Quintana turned again and he saw the ghost of a smile on her face as he counted to ten, his mouth clenched with fury.
“I resent that you persist in labeling him a Serker shit and not a shit from Abroi,” Lirah said coolly.
“Thought you didn’t care about Serker, Lirah,” Arjuro mocked.
She shot him a malicious smile.
“You know what I think, Arjuro?” she said. “I think you have suddenly come to life because De Lancey is beyond those poplar trees and you will always be a panting boy when it comes to Paladozza’s handsome provincaro.”
Arjuro was furiously silent after that.
Gargarin did what Gargarin did best and sighed. “I’m begging you all to allow me at least one night’s rest in Paladozza before De Lancey has us forcibly removed.”
Froi fell in love. He didn’t want to. Not with a Charyn city. But he did because people didn’t stand around in Paladozza and stare suspiciously; they sat around and spoke to each other and laughed. Because at the entrance to the city, they had a town square called the vicinata where the people of Paladozza would take a stroll at night or watch performances or set up market stalls where merchants sold sweet tea and pastries and let Froi and Quintana taste at least five before handing over a coin. Because it was the first time he saw Lirah animated with a stranger as she spoke to an artist about his paintings. Because Gargarin and Arjuro had their heads together over books in a stand. Because for once in Froi’s life, everything felt in place.
Similar to the Citavita, the road that ran alongside the entrance to the city was steep, but not as narrow. Unlike the Citavita, the stalls that lined the road were not selling goods for survival, but trinkets and beautifully crafted daggers and swords and fabrics full of color. When they reached the top, where the provincaro’s residence was built, there was a small piazza where soft-furred hounds were for sale. Close by, a fountain belched out water with great force.
Froi kept an eye on Quintana, who seemed to gravitate toward the hound, her eyes begging Gargarin for one of their young.
“No!” Gargarin said.
Who would have thought that their savage cat was soft for puppies?
It made Froi smile, despite the fact that arrows had been pointed at him from the moment they arrived. Gargarin stood beside him, looking straight up to where a group of De Lancey’s men were hiding.
“You were mocking me,” Froi said.
“Not quite.” Gargarin chuckled. “One doesn’t exactly have to have a wall surrounding them to be a firm believer in protection. The city is trained to go to ground within minutes of an army approaching. They’ve had drills ever since I can remember.”
Froi was irritated.
“So how observant are you?” Gargarin asked.
“Very. It’s what I’m trained to be.” Froi paused and looked around before exchanging a glance with Gargarin. “Four behind the first rock shrine we passed, and two on the rooftops of the house with red gables. Another two on the balconette of the inn with the image of the boar on the front. They make as though they are playing cards, but they throw down their hand too quickly.” He turned and pointed up to a grand house above the piazza. “Most are up there, at every level and every window. Probably De Lancey’s residence. There are at least six in this square.”
Gargarin nodded. His expression showed appreciation.
A moment later, Froi was flat on his face with four of De Lancey’s guards searching him.
“It seems they still haven’t gotten over the incident in the gods house hallway,” Arjuro said, crouching to his level. Quintana was there as well.
The guards dragged Froi to his feet and wordlessly removed his short sword from its scabbard on his back and the daggers from his sleeves.
“What did you do to them in the godshouse hallway?” Quintana asked. The guards didn’t seem interested in the others, and Froi knew this was personal.
“He showed them a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat,” Lirah said. “Just before he stood on the piece of granite over the gravina and bargained for Gargarin’s life. While they stood around looking stupid.” She was angry. “He’s bleeding, you fools.”
“Bargained with what?” Quintana asked.
“A ruby ring given to him by his queen,” Arjuro said as De Lancey’s men shoved Froi forward toward a narrow path that led them to an even higher level of the city.
“Your queen gave you a ruby ring?” he heard Quintana ask coldly.
Froi grabbed her hand and gently placed her between himself and one of the guards. She twisted away, almost breaking his fingers. De Lancey’s men allowed her to step away.
“You’re leaving her unprotected, you fools,” Froi said. He shoved away from them and grabbed Quintana roughly by the wrist, pulling her back into the confines of his protection.
“Now you can pretend you have some control over this situation,” he told the men pleasantly, only too aware that the true danger lay in Quintana’s fury.
“Is that what she bribed you with to assassinate me?” she asked, trying to pull away. This time the guards had the good sense to keep her close.
“I thought we were finished with the talk of assassination,” Froi said, his voice weary.
“Is she your lover?” she demanded.
They reached a gate and walked into a courtyard with more guards. Surrounding them was a cluster of pristine white dwellings. De Lancey came out onto the balcony of the largest dwelling, holding a lantern in his hand. He stared down at them with irritated dismay.
Grijio’s head appeared beside his father’s. Then they both disappeared and it was a few minutes before they walked out into the courtyard. As usual, De Lancey was impeccably dressed, in loose white trousers and a cambric shirt. De Lancey embraced Gargarin and barely acknowledged the rest except for Quintana. His eyes went straight to her belly.
“Is it true?” he asked gently.
“True indeed,” Gargarin said.
Grijio let out a breath that he seemed to have been holding.
Gargarin grabbed two of De Lancey’s men by the back of their necks and forced them to face Froi. “He protects the princess and you protect him. Does that sound like an order?”
There was nothing sinister about the mood between the provincaro and his men, and they walked away.
“My swords!” Froi called out. One of the guards returned his weapons, taking a moment to study the craftsmanship of the short sword.
“I’ll let you play with it if you’re nice,” Froi mocked.
It was tense after the guards left. Grijio dared to break the silence, but he chose the wrong person to address.
“How long has it been, sir, since you returned to Paladozza?” he asked Arjuro politely.
“Nineteen years.”
“Why so long, sir?”
“Because the memory of a farrier whose head was sliced clean from his body kept me away,” he snarled.
Froi saw De Lancey freeze and Grijio flinch. A look of great pain and remorse passed between father and son. Had they spoken of the part De Lancey played in an innocent man’s death?
“Come inside,” De Lancey muttered to Gargarin. “I don’t want to kill him in front of my people. They’re not used to the sight of blood.”
They followed De Lancey and Grijio up a flight of stairs that took them into a hall, overwhelming in its beauty. Frescoes of every creation story Froi had ever heard from this land and those of the lands said to be across the great oceans adorned the wall. He even recognized that of Lumatere’s, a luminous goddess emerging from the earth.
De Lancey took them to a dining room where a long table was set up for three.
“Another five places, Jatta,” he called out.
There was silent awkwardness again, and Grijio held out a hand to Quintana.
“Would you like to see the songbirds I once wrote to you about?” he asked.
She hesitated, looking around the room, squinting.
“Perhaps you can bring the cage in here, Grij?” De Lancey said.
“You’ll love them,” Grijio promised, running out of the room.
De Lancey removed five glasses from a tray. “My son —”
“His son,” Arjuro mocked under his breath.
De Lancey stared at him, decanter in hand.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” De Lancey asked.
Gargarin stood and limped toward the provincaro. “Perhaps I should take over here, De Lancey.”
“No. I want to know what he meant by that,” De Lancey said.
Froi stared at Arjuro. He looked so strange and out of place with his dark robes in this pristine room.
“Your boy out there?” Arjuro shook his head with disbelief. “You disappoint me, De Lancey. We always mocked those fools of men who needed young flesh beneath their body to make them feel powerful.”
Gargarin removed the decanter of wine from De Lancey’s hand.
“How dare you? My son —”
“Your son? You have no son,” Arjuro shouted. “Why the pretense? Eighteen years ago, you had no bride. Yet you have a young lover —”
Gargarin wasn’t quick enough to save the glasses. De Lancey dived across the table and grabbed Arjuro around the throat just as the glass hit the ground and shattered. It took Froi and De Lancey’s men and even Lirah and Jatta, the serving woman, to pull them apart.
Grijio raced in holding a cage of lovebirds, only to see his father being held back.
“What did he say to rile you so?” Grijio asked his father, putting the cage aside.
De Lancey adjusted his clothing and was full of decorum once more.
“He accused De Lancey of taking you as a lover,” Quintana said calmly.
In some way, there was little difference between this Quintana and the indignant reginita. They both had the habit of not recognizing when to refrain from speaking.
Grijio snorted with laughter at the idea. A young woman hurried into the room, her blond curls bouncing around her face, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“What happened?” she asked. “I heard shouting and …” She saw the glass on the ground and looked at De Lancey for an explanation. Froi noticed that in contrast to the richness of De Lancey’s complexion, his children were fair and blue-eyed.
“Arjuro accused Father of taking me as a lover and Father took great offense and leaped across the table to strangle Arjuro.”
The girl was as stunned as Grijio.
“You mean, the priestling’s here and nobody told me?”
She looked around, searching the table. Grijio pointed to Arjuro.
The girl shuddered. “All these years I’ve been expecting a demigod. A less decrepit version of Gargarin.”
“My daughter, Tippideaux,” De Lancey said dryly. She noticed Gargarin.
“Welcome back, sir.”
“Thank you, Tippideaux,” Gargarin managed politely, looking somewhat insulted by her image of Arjuro.
Tippideaux eyed Lirah next with a question hanging in the air.
“Lirah of Serker,” her brother said, blushing the moment he looked at Lirah.
“The king’s Serker whore?” Tippideaux asked, her curls bouncing as she turned to De Lancey for confirmation, as if it could not possibly be true. “What a strange night this is, Father.”
“Lirah of Serker,” her father corrected, looking wary as Tippideaux’s eyes found Quintana.
Everyone in the room except for the two girls seemed to wince at the thought of what would take place next.
“Quintana of Charyn,” Grijio introduced, sending his sister a warning look.
Tippideaux was aghast and held up a hand as if to shield herself from the sight of Quintana. If she weren’t so awful in her honesty, Froi would have laughed.
“What a ridiculous way to wear one’s hair,” she said, horrified. She cast a look down Quintana’s form. “And that dress does not suit your figure, Your Highness.”
Grijio cleared his voice. “She’s …” He leaned over and whispered in his sister’s ear.
Finally they had a moment’s reprieve.
Tippideaux of Paladozza fainted.
Later, Froi sat with Gargarin and De Lancey in a large reading room. The walls were stacked high with books, and the floor was covered by a thick rug that enabled them to lounge on cushions for comfort.
“This could cause hysteria,” De Lancey said. “We could have women fainting all over Charyn.”
“But Tippideaux —”
“Doesn’t faint,” De Lancey interrupted. “Tippideaux causes people to faint.”
“What are your thoughts?” Gargarin asked.
“The princess can’t stay here, Gargarin. I have no way of protecting her.”
“You have no way of protecting your people, you mean,” Froi snapped. “Like you had no intention of bargaining for her life in the Citavita.”
“No,” De Lancey said, anger lacing his words. “I have no way of protecting her. My people know what to do in an invasion. We go to ground, and believe me when I say we can live underground for as long as it takes. But if they come in the dead of the night to take her, there will be nothing I can do.”
Froi looked away in disgust, but he felt De Lancey’s stare piercing into him.
“Your boy needs to learn manners,” the provincaro said. “He has little respect.”
“Only for those who deserve it,” Froi said.
“Wonderful. An Arjuro in the making,” De Lancey muttered.
One of his people came in to serve sweet wine and dried apricots. Gargarin waited for the man to go.
“Where would you suggest, then?”
“Sebastabol,” the provincaro replied. “They have the ocean on one side and a wall on the other. It’s impossible to invade. And apart from the fact that the provincaro is still furious about the kidnapping of Olivier, I think we can convince him to offer the princess sanctuary.”
“How discreet are your guards and servants?” Froi asked.
“They’ve been with me a long time. My guards are the sons of my father’s guards, and my servants raised me and my children.”
“Then speak to them tonight and tell them they must not reveal who your guests are,” Froi said.
De Lancey nodded. “But Gargarin and Arjuro could be recognized in the city. Bestiano’s men will certainly know they’re traveling with the princess.”
“We’ll stay indoors.” Gargarin looked up at the books, a ghost of a smile on his face. “There’s enough here to keep me happy.”
Froi found Quintana, Grijio, Tippideaux, and Arjuro in one of the hallways, leaning on a massive window ledge, looking outside. He squeezed in beside Quintana and she stiffened. It seemed a long time since the discussion of the ruby ring, and he knew he would have to work hard for her trust.
Down below was Paladozza in all its nighttime splendor. It was a province of flickering torches, and there was a beauty in the way they danced that soothed him.
Arjuro pointed down to one of the rooftops, where an altar was lit by a single flame.
“I lived at the godshouse school there,” he said quietly. “And every night, Gargarin and De Lancey would be at this window and we’d wave good night to each other. I couldn’t bear the idea of going to bed without doing that.”
There was silence for a moment.
“I wish you’d forgive my father, Priestling,” Tippideaux said. “I think then he’d forgive himself and get on with his life.”
Arjuro grunted.
“We forgave him,” Grijio said quietly. “Why can’t you?”
“And what did he do to you?” Arjuro asked bitterly, turning to them both. “Betray you? Make you feel ashamed of him.”
“When my mother was carrying me in her belly and Tippideaux was two years old, De Lancey paid my father two silver pieces to run a message for him. A message he was frightened to send in person.”
The last born studied Arjuro. “And I think you know the rest.”
Arjuro closed his eyes as the truth registered. “You’re the farrier’s children?”
Tippideaux nodded. “Our mother died giving birth to Grij,” she explained. “Father always tells us that what began for him in guilt has become the joy in his life.”
Arjuro looked pained. He turned and walked away. Froi wanted to follow. He suspected that the days to come would break the priestling.
“Princess,” De Lancey suddenly called out from the other room.
“Yes,” Quintana and Tippideaux called back in unison, before staring at each other with horror.
After an awkward silence, Tippideaux linked her arm with Quintana’s.
“We’re going to have to do something about the way you dress, Your Highness. And your hair. I can’t be seen walking around my father’s province with someone looking so strange. I’m well known for my good taste.”
She led Quintana away.
“And an important rule for you to remember,” Froi heard her say. “In my father’s house there’s room for only one princess.”
Grijio felt it best that they gave Quintana and Tippideaux time on their own, so Froi sat with him on the roof of Grijio’s chamber and swapped stories of their journey from the Citavita. They both agreed that Froi’s had been the more incident-filled. Later, they joined the girls in Quintana’s chamber and Froi chose an adjoining servant’s quarters to sleep in.
“We can accommodate you in a bigger room of your own,” Grijio said, looking distastefully around the small space where a cot lay on the ground against the wall.
Froi shook his head. “It’s best that I stay close to her.”
They both looked back into the chamber where Tippideaux was attempting to remove snags from Quintana’s hair. Quintana, in turn, had her nails dug deep into Tippideaux’s arm, and Froi could see she had already drawn blood. There was a look of great satisfaction on her face.
Both Froi and Grijio sighed.
“At least Olivier of Paladozza will be visiting in the next few days. He is fun to be around. Tippideaux giggles shamelessly in his presence, so she might not be so pedantic about keeping Her Highness … tidy.”
“Strange days ahead,” Froi said.
“Indeed.”
When the others left, Quintana looked up to where Froi stood at the entrance that divided their rooms.
He pointed to her hair. “It looks … neat.”
“If I had known my hair would be such a concern to this kingdom I would have cut it bare like your beloved queen long ago.”
Froi counted to ten.
“She didn’t give me the ring as a bribe to assassinate you,” he said, trying not to clench his teeth, because it was part of his bond not to. Teeth clenching, Trevanion explained, was a hostile act.
“It was Zabat who gave the order. And I’m not sure whether you’ve noticed, but I had every opportunity to carry it out and didn’t.”
“Then why would she give you a ring?” she demanded.
“Why would you care?” he demanded in response.
How could she look so different from the Quintana he met in the palace? Not because of the hair, but because of her expression and her manner and the anger that permeated every part of her being.
“Did the queen of Lumatere ask you to bed me as a means to find a way into my father’s chamber?” she demanded, her tone so cold.
“Do you want to know the truth?” he said. “Because I doubt you’ll believe anything I say tonight.”
“Do you want to know my truth?” she cried. “That they called me Quintana the whore for so long and I never felt like one until now!”
Froi felt like a proper fiend.
“Quintana —”
“Get. Out.”
He stepped up onto the roof above their compound only to find that he wasn’t alone. Arjuro was there, nursing a bottle. Froi saw a naked love in the priestling’s eyes as he stared out into the distance to the mountains of rocks with wind holes carved out of the stone. Tonight they flickered with the flames of campfires built to keep their occupants warm.
“They’re called the fairy lights of Paladozza,” Arjuro said.
This wasn’t just another kingdom; it was another world.
A song was sung across the landscape, and it made Froi’s skin tingle in its purity. It reminded him of the pleasure he felt every time the priest-king sang the Song of Lumatere, yet he could not remember the words. But here in Paladozza, in the enemy kingdom of Charyn, a song sung once became a tune he walked to.
“Heard every word,” Arjuro said quietly, looking at him. “Between you and Quintana. You’re falling in love with her. Don’t.”
“You’re an idiot, Arjuro,” Froi said, irritated. “And you’re drunk, as usual.”
“Not that much of an idiot and not that drunk. It’s why you had to prove yourself to the Turlans.”
Froi got to his feet, but Arjuro grabbed the cuff of his trousers and dragged him down to sit again.
“If she births this child and they allow her to live, the best plan is that the provincari allow her to stay in the palace to raise the little king herself. She will be wed to one chosen by the provincari, and it won’t be you, Froi. It won’t be the son of the king’s Serker whore. It won’t be the Lumateran exile who has found himself in these parts. Charyn won’t care who the father of the child is, as long as there is a child. But they will care who brings up the future king. And it won’t be the grandson of a pig farmer from Abroi.”
Froi looked away, but Arjuro grabbed his face between his hands. “You are better than anything my brother and I could have imagined,” he said fiercely. “Better than anything Lirah of Serker dreamed of in her boy. Walk away from Quintana, Froi. For her sake and yours. Fall in love with another girl and be a king in your own home.”