The memory of what he saw in the cave with the women haunted Lucian all week. Phaedra scrubbing blood off stone. Harker’s daughter sobbing against her mother, the girl’s face battered by a man’s fist. Worse still was Quintana’s look of despair. Lucian knew that her body had swung its way close to oblivion months ago in the Charyn capital. What terror and madness went through the mind of one who knew she was moments from death? Had she ever imagined that Froi would save her? And with those thoughts, Lucian felt contempt for himself. He should have been able to protect his own wife, and he didn’t. When he first saw Phaedra in the woods with the princess, he should have dragged her kicking and screaming up the mountain, but he allowed his pride to get in the way.
Days later, when he found time to escape, he traveled down to the valley. Tesadora and the girls were across the stream, and he joined them as they were about to enter the cave of a dying man. He noticed even more fear among the Charynites, and Tesadora glanced up high and then back to Lucian as a warning. On one of the rock ledges above, he could see a furious exchange between Donashe and his men. Rafuel was with them. When they noticed Lucian, Donashe climbed down to where he stood.
“One of my men seems to have disappeared, Mont. Galvin of Jidia. You would have seen him with me.”
“And that fool Gies insists on searching for him,” Tesadora said as Rafuel and the rest of Donashe’s men joined them.
Lucian kept his expression impassive. He knew Tesadora was warning him that Gies had crossed the stream.
“This man who’s disappeared?” Lucian demanded. “Let’s hope he doesn’t think he has a chance of getting up my mountain. He’ll pay with his life.”
“I heard Galvin’s grumbling from time to time, Donashe,” Rafuel said. “And he’s a lazy one. If he’s chosen to run off, we’re better without him. I’d go through all your things to make sure he didn’t take any with him.”
Donashe thought for a moment.
“He has challenged me from time to time. Even in the Citavita, he wanted all the control.”
“Why would he leave?” one of Donashe’s men asked.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Rafuel said. “It’s a large reward the First Adviser Bestiano is paying for the return of Quintana of Charyn. Perhaps Galvin realized he was wasting his time in these parts and has been given an inkling of where she is in the north country.”
Lucian secretly applauded Rafuel for the doubt he was planting in the camp leader’s head. He hoped it worked. It meant that Donashe would steer the search for Galvin the hangman far from the women.
He spent the rest of his time in the valley with Kasabian and Harker. The men had learned half the facts of what had taken place in the cave.
“Arm us,” Harker begged. “The people here are frightened. Donashe has become even more violent since Galvin disappeared. He says he trusts no one. And there’s talk that an army is two days’ ride from here, among the three hills of Charyn. Along with hundreds of men much like Donashe, who answer to no captain but the promise of gold. It will end in this valley, Lucian. I feel it in my bones. Arm us, so we can better protect the princess and our women.”
Lucian shook his head, frustrated.
“Don’t ask me to do that, Harker. That decision belongs to my queen and her consort.”
Instead of returning home, Lucian found himself riding away from the mountain. It was close to her cave that he found Phaedra, not realizing that he had gone searching. He was on higher ground and could see her below in the gully. And when Phaedra heard the horse, she cried out in alarm, dropping the bucket of water she was carrying. Lucian dismounted and slid down the slope toward her, and they stood apart, facing each other, neither speaking. Once, when Lucian had returned from Alonso to argue the so-called promise between his father and the provincaro, a cousin had asked him to describe Phaedra. He had shrugged. “There’s nothing about her to remember.” Looking at his wife now, there was so much about her he couldn’t forget. Her soulful eyes. The roundness of her face. The pinch of red on her cheeks. Lucian wanted nothing more than to take her home.
It was Phaedra who walked to him, and Lucian lifted her with an arm around her waist, so they were eye to eye. He wanted to go back to the first time they met. He wanted to change that one night in Alonso when he was expected to take the rights of a husband. He knew he hadn’t used force. Was careful not to. But he hadn’t acknowledged her fear of being alone with a man for the first time in her life. She was no Mont girl, unabashed and earthy and used to swimming naked in the river with the lads. He had mistaken so much for weakness, yet there was nothing weak about Phaedra of Alonso.
“Why are you here?” she asked quietly in Lumateran.
“Because I couldn’t keep away,” he replied in Charyn.
Lucian felt her study him.
“You have a scar,” Phaedra said. “On the lid of your eye. It looks as if it’s been there some time, but I never noticed.” There was a sadness to her words. “Did you receive it at the hands of a Charynite?”
“I received it at the hands of my cousin Balthazar when we were children,” he said. “Or one of his ideas, anyway. He decided that we’d swing from one tree to another to save Isaboe and Celie of the Flatlands from the silver wolf we imagined in the forest.” He chuckled. “It didn’t end well.”
He watched a smile appear on her face. “Silly boys,” she said. “Brave, silly boys.”
She shrugged out of his arms, took his hand, and drew him away, and Lucian let himself be led until they reached a small shelter made of ferns. She crawled inside first, and then he followed.
“Is this yours?” he asked as they knelt before each other in the small space.
“I share it with Her Majesty,” she said, as if it was the most natural thing to do with the strange princess.
Lucian waited, thinking that perhaps he’d like to speak. To tell Phaedra that he loved her, because it didn’t seem so hard to think the words.
“Do you love me?” he asked instead. “Because if you don’t, I’d wait until you did. I’d wait weeks and months and years.”
Phaedra traced his jaw with a finger, then his cheeks, the space around his eyes, the lump in his throat.
“No need to wait,” she said. “Perhaps I’ve loved you for weeks and months and years. When I was a young girl in Alonso, my father told me about a Lumateran lad who would keep me safe, and perhaps I loved you then.”
She reached for the frayed edges of his tunic, and when it was removed, she traced a finger against the scars: some from the battle to take back Lumatere, some from the skirmishes with his cousins.
“The gods drew you well,” she said.
He chuckled softly.
“Can I be reminded of how the gods drew you?” he said. She nodded and he slowly fumbled with her clothing and she was naked before him and suddenly it all felt new. He copied her actions, tracing her body with a shaky finger. No scars but a small purple birthmark on her breast. A bruise or two on her body.
“I’ve made windows in the cottage so we can see the entire mountain,” he murmured. “For you.”
“Speak Lumateran,” she said. “When you speak Charyn, you sound so strangely distant. Our voices sound kinder in the skin of our own language.”
He cupped her face in his hands and he kissed her open-mouthed and he imagined that she had never been kissed before, but they kissed all the same until their lips felt bruised and swollen and then she lay back and his hand found its place between their bodies and she gasped, and Lucian thought he’d never heard a sound so promising.
Later, they lay talking, her head on his shoulder. They spoke all day and night as if they didn’t have time left in the world. About the cottage and its views and Orly and Lotte’s pregnant cow and of Yata, who was excited about his cousin Isaboe’s decision to birth the babe on the mountain soon, as she had done with Jasmina. They spoke of the valley, and Harker’s and Kasabian’s sadness and joy, and of her father’s fury and whether Lucian could find a way to send word to the provincaro that Phaedra was still alive without putting her life or that of the women at risk. She spoke of the women, and he could hear in her voice that she had grown to love them in a way. And they spoke of Quintana of Charyn and of every scar on her body, and of the hangman who twice tried to take her life.
“I’m no better than an animal,” Phaedra said after talking about the man’s death.
“And no worse,” he said. “It’s what I’ve always liked about our four-legged friends. They act on what’s inside here.” He placed her hand against his heart. “It’s their instinct and their need to survive. No malice, nothing.”
He brushed the back of his finger across her cheek.
“I didn’t kill my first man until the battle to take back Lumatere. All those years of practice and my father’s pride in the great warrior I was.” Lucian shook his head. “But nothing prepares you for the real thing. In practice, there was no blood spraying into my eye and blinding me, and there were no sounds quite like an ax wedging itself into a man’s flesh. And in practice, there was no rage for —”
He bit his tongue to stop himself from saying the word.
“For Charynites?” she asked.
He took her hand. “For the Charynite king. For his family. I wanted all of them dead. And four years on … I’m protecting her in this valley.”
“Despite everything, Luc-ien,” Phaedra said softly, “she is worth protecting.”
“Is she as mad as she seems?” he asked.
“Oh, not at all,” Phaedra said. “Which doesn’t mean she’s not the strangest person I’ve ever met, but those deemed mad in Alonso have no control over their minds. Quintana of Charyn has total control over everything she does.” He noticed the smile on Phaedra’s lips.
“I told her once that I constantly hear my mother speaking to me. Guiding me. In my head, I ask her questions all the time. Quintana understood perfectly what I was talking about. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘They’re most helpful, the half-dead spirits are. I only wish I knew where mine came from.’ ”
“Half-dead?” Lucian asked, thinking of his own conversations with his dead father.
“Well, Quintana says they can’t be completely dead if they live inside of you.”
Light pierced through the branches shrouding them, and he held both their hands up to its illumination.
“We’re such different shades, you and I,” Phaedra said. “Strangely, you could belong to the Paladozzans and Nebians of my kingdom. You have their coloring.”
“I belong to you and you belong to me. That’s all that counts.”
She pressed her lips to his shoulder.
“I can take you away,” he whispered. “Hide you on the moun-
tain. You don’t have to stay here, Phaedra. I can look after you.”
She made a sound of regret. “We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,” she said. “Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.”
She placed her head back against his chest, and he felt her tears. “This is not our time.”
“But that will never mean I love you less,” he said.
They slept awhile, and when he woke, he kissed her brow. He wanted to stay, but there was too much happening on the mountain. Isaboe would soon come for her birthing, and his village would be swarming with her guards and those wanting to visit her.
He crawled out of their resting place and faced the spear first. Then he looked up and saw the strange Quintana of Charyn staring down at him, with her rounded belly and savage snarl. Harker’s daughter, Florenza, was there as well, her face battered but her eyes defiant as she gripped her own weapon.
“I was just with Phaedra,” he mumbled as a means of explanation.
“Really,” the princess said coolly. “You don’t think the whole valley heard the caterwauling?”
Lucian felt his face flush as he stood. Quintana of Charyn pressed the spear to his chest.
“Phaedra,” he called out softly. “Can you come out here … now?”
Phaedra heard the voices and was wide awake in an instant.
“Your Highness,” she said, crawling out and getting to her feet. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Come now, Phaedra,” Quintana said briskly. “We’ve got to go home.”
She sounded like Cora, and Phaedra wondered if she was mimicking her.
Phaedra stole a look at Lucian, who bent to kiss her good-bye but changed his mind.
“We’ll speak later, Luc-ien,” she said.
He stared down at Quintana’s belly. “You should be resting, Your Highness. Your birthing time will come soon.”
“And you’d know that because you’ve birthed a child before?” Quintana asked.
“No,” Lucian said politely. “I know that because I live on a mountain with many women. I’ve seen enough of those,” he said, pointing to her belly. “And you don’t have much time to go.”
Quintana rolled her eyes. Lucian narrowed his.
“Queens and princesses should show more restraint in eye-rolling,” he muttered. He stepped forward again to kiss Phaedra, but Quintana tugged her hand and dragged her away. Phaedra turned to see him, still standing by the shelter. Lucian held up a hand and waved, then disappeared between the trees.
She looked at her two companions, feeling lighthearted despite Quintana’s fingers digging into her hand.
“You were away too long,” Quintana said accusingly.
“What have I missed?” Phaedra asked.
“Oh, the usual,” Florenza said.
“Cora says no one will marry Florenza now with a broken nose,” Quintana said.
“Cora is playing with you,” Phaedra said.
“And Ginny is acting strange, sniveling in a corner one moment, disappearing the next,” Florenza said.
“You’d think she had never seen a corpse before the hangman’s,” Quintana said.
“We’ve all had a shock,” Phaedra said. “Florenza could have been killed, and the hangman could have taken you, Quintana. We’ve just got to be patient with everyone’s moods.”
She felt the princess studying her.
“What were you doing all that time, Phaedra? Swiving doesn’t take so long.”
“We were talking, Your Majesty,” Phaedra said, ignoring the word, knowing quite well that Quintana was only using it to irritate her. “We had much to say to each other.”
Quintana was silent for some time.
“On my last night in Paladozza, I lay with Froi and we spoke of everything,” she said. Phaedra wondered if she was trying to compete.
“And in the end, he asked me who I trusted most in the world and I told him the names of four people and then I asked him who he trusted most in the world and he told me the names of thirty.”
“It’s a Lumateran thing,” Phaedra said absently, the memory of Lucian’s hands on her body.” They travel in packs and trust one another with all their hearts. It doesn’t mean that they have the capacity to love more than us, but they do know how to trust. It’s because of their queen and her father before her and his father before him. The trust of a people comes from the goodness of their leaders.”
Quintana stopped. “Are you questioning my family’s failure to rule, Phaedra?”
Phaedra wanted to be mean-spirited. She wanted to hurt Quintana because so much was broken due to her. Phaedra wanted to hide on the mountain with Lucian, but this girl and Charyn’s unborn child stopped her.
“Your father and the house of Charyn didn’t fail as rulers,” Phaedra said boldly. “They failed as leaders.”
Quintana’s stare was fierce, and Phaedra shivered at its force.
“Well, now you’ve gone and offended me, Phaedra, and I’m not going to tell you what I meant to tell you.”
Phaedra sighed. “I haven’t offended you,” she said, trying to keep a patient tone, because she knew that Quintana had nothing to tell her. It was just a ploy so that Phaedra would be forced to beg Quintana for the news. “I offended your father and the house of Charyn.”
“I am the house of Charyn. This,” Quintana said, pointing to her belly, “is the house of Charyn. And you didn’t just mean my father, Phaedra; you meant to insult the whole bloodline.”
“Your Highness, she didn’t mean —” Florenza began.
“Didn’t you?” Quintana demanded.
Phaedra stared at her. “Yes,” she said truthfully. “I meant your father and his father and his father before him. My own father says that Charyn’s royal bloodline is tainted.”
“And your father thinks that women don’t have courage,” Quintana said, “and that his grief is mightier than his duty to feed a people. So perhaps you should question what your father has to say about the bloodline of Charyn’s first child.”
“I didn’t mean to insult your child,” Phaedra said. “Come, now,” she added gently. “What were you going to tell me?”
Quintana looked away with an arrogant toss of her head. “You’re humoring me now, Phaedra. Placating me like I’m some stupid hound who will be satisfied with a bone. When you learn to respect me, I will speak to you as an equal.”