Fortune and Fate

Jasper Paladar did not seem shocked or perturbed. In fact, he looked as if he had stumbled upon a most intriguing puzzle. “So that’s your real name? Wen?” he said, trying out the sound of it. “Not very melodious. Wen. And yet it fits you, somehow. Brisk and to the point, though not at all harsh.”

She had to explain—she had to apologize. No one enjoyed being lied to, particularly not a man who had hired you believing in your honor. This was grounds for immediate dismissal, and she should be spending her energy now arguing her way back into his good graces. Yet she could not think what to tell him, how much to give away. So she remained silent and merely watched him, though every nerve quivered with the need to dash from the room.

“I see by your stricken face that you think you’re a moment away from being unceremoniously ejected from the grounds,” he said, his voice still pleasant. “Will it make you feel less uneasy if I tell you that I am in no way surprised at this revelation? It was always clear to me that you had secrets, and your identity was certainly one of them. I am just sorry that circumstances have tripped you up. I was rather hoping you would confide in me one day of your own free will, because you had come to trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she said, almost forcing the words out.

He laid his fingertips together and leaned back in his chair. “And it was always clear that Willa could not possibly be your real name,” he said, smiling a little. “I wonder why you chose it.”

She took a breath and made two tries before she could answer. “It is—it is my name, or part of it,” she said. “My family all call me Willa, but I tell my friends I am Wen. My true name is Willawendiss.”

“Willawendiss! The tragic heroine of Danalustrous!” he exclaimed. “But that’s a most romantic name—entirely unsuitable for you, of course, but with a glorious and heartbreaking story behind it. It was always my daughter’s favorite tale. Someone in your family must have had a taste for the old folk stories.”

“My mother,” Wen said.

“Somewhere in the library I have a book called Epics of the North, and it has a couple versions of Willawendiss’s story in it. I’ll let you borrow it, now that we’ve done with Antonin. She was quite a popular girl a couple hundred years ago—she performed a singular act of sacrificial bravery and then threw herself into the northern sea out of grief and despair. But I thought you were from Tilt, where they have all sorts of brave heroines of their own. Elisa and Altaverra—”

Wen’s mouth twisted. “Two of my sisters’ names.”

“So she called you after the doomed but noble girl, thinking you would become—what? Gloomy but honorable?”

Wen managed a smile. “I don’t think she expected any of us to turn out like our names. She just liked the way they sounded.”

He put a hand to his chest and declaimed, “ ‘Save us, save your loved ones, Willawendiss!’ Never such a heartrending cry went so horribly unanswered! She had to choose, you see, between saving five members of her family and two hundred people in the village. Not an easy decision for anyone to make, but history generally concedes she chose correctly.”

“She was real, then?”

“She was, as far as we can determine. Unlike Altaverra, who was probably an amalgam of two or three girls who lived at about the same time. And Elisa is thought to be an entirely fabricated woman, though her story is even more dashing. They’re all covered in Epics of the North. You can be reading about your family for days.”

Wen smiled tightly and did not answer.

Jasper dropped his hand and tilted his head to one side. “But I suppose the real question at hand is not ‘how do you resemble your namesake?’ but ‘why bother concealing your true name at all?’ You are not, forgive me, like Senneth Brassenthwaite, who disappeared for nearly twenty years and had a name that everyone in the Twelve Houses would recognize. I have not heard of Wen any more than I have heard of Willa. So why bother with the deception?”

She made a helpless gesture. “I wanted to leave myself behind. That meant leaving my name behind as well.”

He watched her gravely. “Making sure that no one who might be looking for you would be able to trace you by your name.”

She shrugged and was silent.

“Is anyone looking for you, Wen?” he asked gently.

That was a question that had haunted her nights ever since she walked out of Ghosenhall. Were they hunting for her, those friends who had been closer than siblings, those companions who had helped her discover her absolute limits and then pushed her to achieve more? She had had no contact with any of them; she had not answered the letters forwarded to her from her mother; she had changed her own address so frequently that even if her mother gave it out, it would have been hard for anyone to track her down. Not impossible, perhaps, but were they even trying? Most days she could not decide which would be worse—knowing they would not let her go, or knowing that they already had.

“If they are, it is because they miss me,” she said at last, “and not because I harmed them.”

“And if they miss you,” he said, his voice gentler still, “should you not return to them and let them know you are well?”

She surged to her feet, unable to sit still. “I can’t,” she said. She wanted to pace—she wanted to run from the room—but she thought she might fall over if she tried. So she stood there, trembling, wringing her hands together to keep them from shaking. “I can’t,” she said. “That life is over. I can’t go back to it.”

More leisurely, he came to his feet on the other side of the table. Now he looked concerned and deeply sympathetic. “I wish you would tell me, Wen,” he said, “what terrors that old life held.”

“I told you,” she said. “I failed to save someone I was sworn to protect.”

“Who?” he said. “Who died?”

She shook her head in short, jerky motions. “It doesn’t matter. If it was a boy in an alley or a marlady in her House. I was trusted but I failed. I am unreliable.”

“You are utterly reliable,” he said. “So much so that I am convinced it was impossible to save this person who so unfortunately met his demise. He willfully darted into the streets to be run over by a carriage, or flung himself from a turret, or swallowed poison, or buried a dagger in his heart. Or she, of course.”

“He did none of those things,” Wen whispered. “He wanted to live.”

“Did you abandon him? Desert him in his hour of desperate need?”

“No! I fought beside him, but I—but he—he fell and I did not.”

“Were you injured?”

Reluctantly she nodded.

“Severely?”

“Yes.”

“So you both took blows, yet only his were fatal?”

“Others died defending him.”

Jasper took a deep breath. “So you were in mortal battle, and everyone around you was in a brutal fight, and some lost their lives and some did not, and you yourself were badly hurt, and yet you believe it was your fault that this man died?”

“I should have died first!” she burst out. Now she found the power to move again; now she did break away and pace, feeling caged, feeling desperate. “I should have been dead before the sword went through his body!”

“So that is what haunts you,” he said. “Not that you failed, but that you survived.”

She whirled on him. “Because I failed, I don’t deserve to live!”

“Then why do you?” he said. “You know how to take a life. Why haven’t you taken your own?”

She stared back at him, motionless again. Shocked that he had spoken the words. But his expression wasn’t severe; he had not meant them harshly. He had intended them as a hammer blow, aimed at her hard shell of self-loathing.

“That would have been another failure,” she said at last. “I was prepared to lose my life, but I thought I should make it count. I thought I should sacrifice it on someone else’s behalf. I am surprised it has taken me so long.”

He nodded, as if that didn’t surprise him, either. “So you went to Karryn’s rescue, expecting to die. And you fought for Bryce and Ginny, expecting to die.”

She felt a surge of irritation. “No. I wasn’t even close to death either of those times. I knew I was better than my assailants.”

“So even though you’re worthless and you ought to be dead, you’re good enough to save other people—strangers—although your actions won’t bring you any closer to your ultimate goal of losing your own life.”

She was jerked into motion again and strode angrily around the room. “You don’t understand,” she flung at him over her shoulder.

He pivoted just enough to watch her as she moved. “I’m trying to.”

“As long as I live, I must turn my fighting ability to some kind of good. It is not enough to atone for what I have done wrong, but it improves the world by a small amount. And I will continue, day by day, trying to make up for that other loss, by using my sword to fight for anyone who needs protecting.” She came to a sudden halt and swung around to face him. “But if I die in any of those attempts, that will be a relief to me. I don’t really care about living. I only care about using what life I have left in a way that matters, at least a little.”

“You’re right,” he said solemnly. “With an attitude like that, it’s a surprise you aren’t already dead.”

“It will be hard to kill me. You don’t really understand how good I am.”

“And what kind of woman is such a skilled warrior that she is almost impossible to defeat?” he asked. “I think perhaps I shouldn’t be asking for your true name, but your true profession. What position did you hold before, Wen, in whose household?”

She caught her breath. Just by knowing to pose the question, he would be able to deduce the answer. Perhaps he had known the answer all along—and perhaps it didn’t matter. She was running from her own memories of Ghosenhall. What other people thought of her could hardly weigh her down more than those regrets.

Still, she did not reply aloud, but watched him with a wary gaze.

He nodded once, shortly, as if coming to an inevitable conclusion. “You’re a Rider, aren’t you? In service to Amalie.”

“No,” she said sharply. “I never swore my fealty to the queen.”

“You must have been present when Baryn died.”

She wheeled away from him, for it hurt to hear the words said aloud, hurt even to hear the king’s name. “We were all there that day,” she said, her voice very soft. “Assassins slipped over the palace walls—hundreds of them. Fifty Riders and assorted mystics held them off until the city guard could arrive. You never saw such slaughter in such a small space. You never saw soldiers fight so hard. Princess Amalie was spared. Queen Valri was spared. But the Rider Tir was killed, and Baryn after him, his body crumpling on top of Tir’s. You could not tell their blood apart as it pooled there on the floor. That is the way a Rider should die.”

She swung back to face him. She felt heavy, lost, oppressed with an old grief that never seemed to lose its sharpness. “Do you think Tayse would still be alive if the king was dead? Would Justin? No. Hammond fell guarding the princess, and only magic kept him alive long enough to recover. Four other Riders died that day. I should have, but I did not. I would not swear my oath to Amalie because I could not be trusted to keep her safe. Maybe you should not trust me with Karryn’s life, either. I’m hard to kill, but death is not afraid to follow in my wake.”

There was nothing more to be said. She shrugged, squared her shoulders, and headed for the door. But the geography of the room placed him closer to it, and, moving with surprising swiftness, he beat her to the exit. “Wen,” he said, putting his back to the door. He lifted his hands as if to place them on her shoulders and physically restrain her. “You cannot leave while you’re so distraught.”

She was tempted to shove him aside so hard that he would have a better idea of her strength, but she halted a few steps away, not close enough for him to touch. “This is how I feel all day, every day,” she said bitterly. “This minute is no different, except that you can see it.”

“That’s not true,” he said softly. “I have watched you, you know. It was always obvious you were a soul in torment, but here at Fortune you seemed to have found a measure of peace. I am sorry that by my clumsy questioning I have wrought you up to a frenzy. That was not my intention. But I am not sorry to have learned the story behind your mask. Some of it I had guessed, and none of it surprises me. But it is a sad story even so, and I do not want to see you drown in it.”

Half of what he said made no sense to her, but behind the flowery phrases she could read his real concern. “You don’t have to worry that I will kill myself in the night because I have been made so wretched by this conversation,” she said, her mouth twisting in what was almost a smile.

“That is only one of the things I fear,” he said. “I am also afraid that you will slip away under cover of darkness, leaving us all behind because one of us now knows your secret.”

It had been topmost in her thoughts, of course, the idea of abandoning Fortune and all its inhabitants. Her bones were all jangling; she thought she would not be able to sit still for a full day. It would be so much easier to run away, to expend her despair in motion. “I have not forgotten, even if you have, that my second month of service is up today,” she said through stiff lips. “This conversation just makes it even clearer that it is time for me to go.”

“But not tonight—not even this week,” he said. “Karryn still needs you. We have a ball to give in two days, don’t you remember? The house will be full of strangers, and you are the only one who knows how to be truly watchful. You cannot walk away from us before then.”

It was strange, she thought, how it was possible for her to passionately believe two contradictory things at the same time: that she could not be trusted to keep anyone safe, and that she was the only one good enough to reliably defend the House. I would disappear tonight, she told herself, if not for this wretched ball. I cannot leave Karryn so much at risk. I will stay for the dance, and then I will go.

She made her voice frosty. “Of course I would not desert you at such a time,” she said. “But I can make no promises beyond that event. It is time for me to be moving on. I have been here too long.”

“Have you?” he murmured. “I think you have not been here nearly long enough. Let us negotiate again once the event is over. Swear to me you will not leave without giving me a chance to convince you to stay.”

She did not want to make such a vow, but his face was set. She did not think he would let her through the door without an argument or an act of physical aggression, and she was suddenly too weary to contemplate either.

“All right,” she said ungraciously. “I will let you know when I am about to leave. But in return you must make me a promise.”

“And that is?”

“Don’t call me Wen in front of the others.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You think Karryn and Serephette are conversant with all the names of the Riders who used to serve the king?”

She shook her head. “Not them, perhaps, but Orson and Eggles and some of the guards might recognize the name. Most soldiers idolize the Riders.”

“Orson and Eggles might well have guessed your identity before this.”

“Maybe. But it makes it easier for everyone if they don’t have to know for sure.”

“Then, Willawendiss, I agree to refer to you only by your common name when anyone is near enough to hear.”

She almost smiled. “And don’t call me Willawendiss.”

“Ah, now, that is a promise I’m afraid I cannot make. The name is too sonorous and charming and inappropriate to be forsworn.”

She rolled her eyes and then gave a ghost of a laugh. “You’re the strangest man,” she said. “Half the time I don’t understand the things you say, and most of the time I don’t understand what you’re thinking.”

He surveyed her with a small smile. “Don’t you?” he said. “And yet I have never thought of myself as particularly opaque. I can be explicit, I suppose. I do not wish you to leave. I do not wish you to be grieving over a tragic but absolutely unavoidable incident in your past. I want you to be happy and at peace—and at Fortune. Is that plain enough?”

She nodded, but she felt a certain wariness come over her expression. “Most employers wouldn’t care so much about one of their staff or servants.”

Now his expression was grave. “Friends do, however,” he said. “And I thought we had achieved a measure of friendship.”

He had said virtually the same thing two weeks ago, and yet tonight it made her feel peculiar to hear the words again. Peculiar and yet delighted, filled with a buzzing warmth. Strange how that warmth served to combat the cold despair that had flooded her as she once more relived her memories of Baryn’s death. “Friends of a sort,” she amended, for true friendship was forged between equals, and they would never be that.

He was amused again. “Very well. So as almost-friends, we have managed a pact. I have promised not to give you away and you have promised not to leave without notice. I have expressed concern for your well-being and you have promised to care for yourself. I suppose those are the only pledges we need to make for tonight, at least.”

“Then I am free to go?” she asked, for he still blocked the door.

He moved aside. “Free to go from this room,” he said, smiling slightly. “But not much farther.”

She was able to return the smile. “I won’t stray past the hedge.”

“Then goodnight, Willawendiss. May your dreams be peaceful.”

She nodded, said nothing more, and paced out of the room. But she didn’t think peaceful would describe any of her thoughts for the rest of the evening.