SHIRONNE SAT IN a tiny anteroom, one designed for listening to whatever happened in the receiving hall beyond its doors. Do all halls in the palace have an alcove to listen like this? She’d overheard most of what passed between her mother and Mikael, although at some point her mother had lowered her voice, leaving Shironne to guess.
In the past month, she and her mother had discussed Mikael Lee many times. Her mother had asked the doctor, Deborah, to come out to the house on Antrija Street a few times to discuss him. She’d discussed him with those servants in the household who knew him. Her mother probably knew almost everything about Mikael Lee by this point. With good cause.
Until a month ago, Shironne had rarely thought of marrying.
Then she’d met Mikael. Now it seemed inevitable.
That was the true reason behind placing her in the Lucas Family. They did want to keep her safe, but if that were the only reason, they could simply surround her with a wall of quarterguards in a borrowed bedroom in the king’s household within the palace.
This was about her learning to live in a different world. A non-Larossan world.
The three peoples of Larossa had shared this land for two centuries, and the Larossans and the Six Families went even further back than that. When the Larossans migrated onto their territory, the Families gave them seeds to plant. They helped them settle near their Fortresses. And the two groups had lived in relative peace . . . until the Anvarrid invaded. The Anvarrid and the Six Families had a treaty now that bound the Families to serve them first, making the Larossans an afterthought in their world, always separate.
The Larossans and Families supposedly worshipped the same god, but Shironne knew from Mikael’s mind that the true god she’d been raised to revere was not the same as the Family’s Father Winter—and the Anvarrid hardly revered anything at all. And although the Larossans spoke Anvarrid now, they carried deeper blood ties to the Pedraisi on the far side of the eastern border.
Most importantly, a Larossan woman had very few alternatives for her future, while an Anvarrid woman or a Family woman could work alongside their male counterparts without censure. They could do things with their lives.
Her mother would have to learn to be Anvarrid now, as would Perrin and Melanna, but for Shironne, this was all about Mikael Lee, learning his world, his people and their customs. In the course of her previous interactions with Mikael, she’d been down inside the Fortress a couple of times and had even worn a brown uniform, but that wasn’t the same as being Family all day long. This was going to be a test by fire.
She heard Dahar with his grumbling mind approach the door to the tiny room in which she waited. The sounds of moving fabric and metal rings on a metal bar were followed by the door opening—the door must be hidden behind a set of draperies. “Shironne,” he said, “will you come join us?”
She had walked into this spot with her mother’s help, so it was surely just a matter of retracing those steps. Forcing down her trepidation about being in an unfamiliar place, Shironne rose, brushed gloved hands down her new trousers to straighten them, and walked out of the tiny room into a larger hall. Incense burned somewhere in the room, faint brushes of the oily smoke touching her cheeks—sandalwood, like the perfume her mother wore. A fire on the far side of the room crackled slightly, smelling of old oak. Shironne came a few steps into the room and stopped when her feet touched a rug. No, she hadn’t come this way before. She tried to get a sense of where the furnishings were but failed. She drew in a shaking breath.
“If you go straight ahead, there’s a chaise for you to sit on,” her mother’s voice came softly. “Its back is to you, so you’ll feel that at waist height.”
Pressing her lips together, Shironne walked straight forward across the rug and located the chaise. Her gloved fingers caught the slickness of leather, and she sensed her mother’s approval. She carefully walked around the chaise and sat. The tiny anteroom she’d been in had smelled stale, but in this room the scent of old incense permeated the fabrics and the rugs, the draperies and upholstery. If she took off her gloves, she would probably feel smoke trapped in the fibers like ghostly memories.
“Is Eli out there?” Dahar asked of someone.
One of the ever-present quarterguards. Shironne often didn’t sense them until someone addressed them directly. Their ability to keep their emotions hidden frequently surprised her. That was the most important thing for the Lucas Family—to keep their emotions calm—and they were clearly well practiced.
“Yes, sir,” a woman responded.
“Then fetch him in.”
A door opened, telling Shironne where the room’s entryway was, so she shifted on the leather seat to face it. She had no idea how her brown uniform looked, but her mother would have warned her if she wasn’t presentable.
The trousers and vest and jacket were plain brown, without any ornament—a strange thing. She’d grown up with elaborately embroidered clothes and bright colors. These trousers also fit far more closely than those she’d worn under her petticoats, binding and cutting if she sat the wrong way.
It had been one thing to wear these clothes for a single day last month. It had been temporary. Now she would have to wear them all the time, and the drawbacks were becoming more evident.
When she’d met Eli that day, she’d done no more than exchange names. Shironne knew from her past encounters—by her sister Perrin’s reactions to the young man at that time—that he was handsome. That told her very little about his character. But he was Mikael’s student, and as such, she knew about him. Mikael liked him and thought him very self-assured for his age, perhaps even to the point of arrogance.
The person with Eli was much harder to read. Like the quarterguards, the newcomer faded into the background, her emotional responses far quieter than the room’s three other occupants. Mikael had seen this girl in the hallway—Tabita, her name was—and knew her from . . .
Shironne swallowed. She wasn’t supposed to know that. She wasn’t supposed to steal from his mind.
But it’s so easy now.
She sniffed and shook her head to clear that thought away. She clutched at the crystal in her pocket, the focus her mother had taught her to concentrate on when she became perturbed. As she understood the rules, she was allowed to have it with her as long as it wasn’t visible. She wasn’t even certain she needed it any longer. Instead of drawing the physical stone out of her pocket, she set her mind to recalling the straight lines and angular planes of it, creating an imaginary crystal to calm herself.
“Shironne,” Dahar’s voice came, interrupting her thoughts, “I’d like you to meet Eli and Tabita of the sixteens. They’re going to be your yeargroup leaders for the next few months.”
Shironne rose and bowed in what she hoped was the correct direction. “I am honored . . .” she began, only to grasp by virtue of Eli’s flaring skepticism that she’d made the wrong greeting.
“It’s good to meet you,” she tried instead, a Family greeting stolen from Mikael’s memories. She could just feel Tabita’s interest now, a keen tumble of observation and evaluation held close inside her own thoughts.
“Yes,” Eli answered for both himself and Tabita. “And you as well.”
Shironne nodded. Am I supposed to sit down now? Or do we all remain standing?
“Why don’t the two of you sit over there,” Dahar said in a testy voice.
Footsteps sounded around the room, muffled by the thick rugs. Shironne took that as permission to sit as well. Tabita and Eli ended up on an upholstered seating surface to her right, which left Shironne in the center, between them and their elders. She didn’t have any idea how this transfer of responsibility was to be handled, primarily because Mikael had no familiarity with it. She couldn’t skim knowledge he didn’t have from his mind. What do I do?
“Shironne is my sister’s daughter,” Dahar began, “and thus part of the House of Valaren. Her mother will continue to live here in the royal household, so Elder Deborah will act as Shironne’s sponsor within the Family. Queries go to her first.”
Shironne hadn’t known the doctor would be her sponsor. The woman was Mikael’s sponsor also, and Elisabet’s, two people within the Family she already knew. A bit of tightness that she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying eased out of her shoulders.
“She’s a touch-sensitive,” Dahar went on. “No one in Lucas has dealt with that condition in decades. There will be some concessions needed, and at this point, we can’t be sure what they all are. Tabita, her supplies will need to come from the quartermaster new, nothing used. If that goes outside her budget, the Valaren will pick up the expense.”
Shironne felt herself blinking stupidly, a reflex, as if clearing her nonfunctioning eyes could clear her mind. I have a budget?
Dahar went on to lay out more conditions, mostly addressing Tabita as he did so, matters of sleeping arrangements—she had to be in the group quarters, which would be an adventure in itself—and other daily functions. He finished his lecture with an admonition not to let the other girls haze her.
Haze? That hadn’t even crossed Shironne’s mind before. She kept her mouth shut because it should have.
“What about duties, sir?” Eli asked in his flat voice.
“She’ll be serving in the infirmary,” Dahar said, “and for the engineers as well, whenever they request her.”
That announcement surprised Eli, but he quickly tucked his response away. “Yes, sir.”
“And, as a favor to the army,” Dahar added, “she may still be asked to visit their headquarters at times. She’s worked with them before. That will be handled through the infirmary, who will inform you of any changes in her schedule.”
Shironne felt Eli’s exasperation swell around him.
From Mikael, Shironne knew schedules were the framework of Family life. Eli and Tabita, as her First and Second, were expected to know where she was at all times, so her schedule had to be posted somewhere. Mikael wasn’t sure where, as every yeargroup had its own way of doing things. She would have to figure that out on her own.
“What about her studies?” Tabita asked.
That question stymied Dahar. “I will discuss that with Elder Deborah,” Dahar said after a moment, his irritation rising. “I suspect she’d prefer to evaluate Shironne’s prior knowledge before deciding.”
Shironne shifted her hands in her lap, tired of being talked about. “I’m good with basic mathematics, biology, and chemistry,” she said, “but my studies in literature and history have fallen off since I can’t read any longer.”
That provoked a quick flare of disdain from Eli, and an equal touch of remorse from her mother.
Dahar considered her pronouncement peculiar, suggesting that he hadn’t given her education—or lack of it—any consideration before. “Since you’ll be working under Deborah, she’ll decide what you need to study. I’ll leave it to her.”
There were a few more instructions, but then Eli asked, “Is that all, sir?”
“Yes. Shironne, you’ll need to go with them now.”
That’s it? She’d been handed off to the long-term custody of two sixteen-year-olds with no more fanfare than leaving one of her younger sisters with the governess? Shironne swallowed her consternation and rose. “Um . . . I’ll need some guidance.”
Again she felt a stab of annoyance from Eli.
“I can help you,” Tabita said. Shironne heard muffled footsteps approaching, and then the other girl took her gloved hand in her own. “Do I hold your hand?”
Even through the cotton of her glove, Shironne could feel Tabita’s careful curiosity. “I . . . um . . . I usually put my hand on someone’s arm.”
Tabita moved her arm, and Shironne set her gloved fingers on the girl’s sleeve. They were close to the same height, so that would make this easier.
Can she sense what I’m thinking? Tabita wondered, her thoughts seeping through the contact. What is she thinking? Is she afraid?
“Yes, I’m afraid,” Shironne admitted, keeping her voice soft enough that she thought only Tabita would hear it.
Tabita almost jerked her arm away, disconcerted. Her surprise spread about her like petticoats flaring out, then quickly pulling back in around her legs.
I shouldn’t have said that.
It was awkward enough to be going into this new situation. She didn’t want to frighten her potential allies. She needed Tabita on her side. “I’m sorry,” Shironne said. “But you should know now, not later.”
The others in the room seemed curious about their whispered conversation but didn’t interfere. Tabita took a careful breath. “Yes, I agree. We’ll discuss this at greater length when we get down to our barracks.”
Barracks. That sounded very impersonal.
“Go ahead,” Dahar said to some signal that Shironne didn’t sense.
Silent communication. The Family were known for their silence. Shironne held in her sigh.
She nodded once in her mother’s direction and let Tabita lead her from the hall. Once out in the hallway, Tabita paused. “You should go ahead, Eli,” she said. “We’ll take longer. Don’t worry, I’ll get her settled.”
Eli’s thoughts reflected relief. “I’ll get back to work, then.”
Shironne heard his feet carry him away, muffled on the hallway’s runners.
“You’ll answer more to me anyway,” Tabita said. “If there’s a problem, you bring it to me first, then Eli, then a sponsor. Unless that problem is with me or Eli, in which case you’ll take it to your own sponsor, Elder Deborah.”
Tabita had begun walking again, slower than Shironne needed. Then again, she didn’t know this part of the palace and might fall down an unexpected stairwell or trip over the edge of a runner and land flat on her face.
“How much do you get of what I’m thinking?” Tabita asked.
“If I’m touching you, I will pick up most clear thoughts. Solid thoughts, I mean. Ones where you’re actually using words in your mind. A lot of thoughts are just . . . mush.”
Tabita calculated, her mind turning quickly like a machine’s gears. “Even through the gloves? And my clothes?”
Shironne shook her head. “The fabric only mutes it.”
“It would be best not to tell the others that. We’re coming up on a stairwell. What do I do?”
Shironne took mental stock of where she was. They were on the third floor of the palace, which meant going down two levels, then to the grand stair that lead below ground to the Fortress, and however many levels down they needed to go after that. She tried to mentally map that out. “If you’d put my hand on the stairwell wall, I can get down the steps myself.”
“Very well.” Tabita lifted Shironne’s hand from her arm and carefully laid it against the stone wall, but not before her relief seeped into Shironne’s consciousness.
Shironne felt the stairwell wall and slipped out one foot to feel for the first step, grabbing with her other hand to lift her petticoats before she recalled she didn’t have any. It was going to take some time to become accustomed to that. She sighed inwardly as she started downward.
“I don’t know how much you know about the Family,” Tabita said. “Should I assume it’s nothing?”
Shironne paused. She’d just lost count of the steps. So much for that. “Um, no.”
“Where do I start?” Tabita asked from the step above Shironne.
How do I answer that? Anything that was in Mikael’s head, she could know. In theory, that meant she could figure out anything about the Family she needed to know. Or the Fortress, for that matter. She even knew about Deep Below, which very few members of the Family had ever seen. Mikael had. As had Tabita, because Mikael had gone down into Deep Below to locate the girl while he was in the Jannsen Fortress. But as Shironne was forbidden to talk about her ability to reach into his mind because Mikael was an adult, that made everything more difficult than it truly had to be.
“Irritated?” Tabita asked.
The other girl must have picked up on her annoyance. “You understand about secrets, Tabita. You know things you’re not supposed to know. So do I. And neither of us can talk about them.”
“You have secrets?” Tabita asked, caution underlying those words.
There in the stairwell, no one would be able to overhear them. That’s why people whisper secrets in the wells. That’s why if two sentries wanted to steal a kiss, they would cross paths there. Those things were in Mikael’s mind, and Shironne didn’t want to chase that knowledge further. “I have secrets,” she told the other girl. “I know you’re a Jannsen, for example, not a Lucas.”
Mild surprise floated around Tabita for a moment, quickly negated. “That’s not a secret.”
“But I shouldn’t know that, should I?”
“You got that from touching me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Tabita’s aspect was cool now, her earlier disquiet returning. “Anyone can look at me and tell.”
Shironne felt her brow rumpling. “How?”
“When the Lucases call you a termite,” Tabita answered briskly, “you know you’re pale.”
Shironne pressed her lips together. There was a faint edge of hurt under Tabita’s words, indistinct enough that most sensitives might miss it.
When they’d first come to Larossa two centuries past, the Anvarrid had called the Family termites, a fitting name since the Six Families were pale and lived underground. It was meant as an insult, though. The term was rarely heard any longer, just as Anvarrid were not often called warbirds either. Time had worn the edges off of those prejudices, or Shironne had believed so. Perhaps she was wrong. “I’ve only ever seen the Lucases before I went blind,” she admitted, “so I had no idea that there was any difference between different Families.”
“Hmmm,” Tabita said. “That’s like saying all Larossans are the same shade of brown.”
There wasn’t an intention to offend behind those words; Tabita was making a valid comparison. “I suppose it is,” Shironne said. “My apologies.”
Tabita didn’t speak, but Shironne felt a hint of impatience from the other girl, so she started down the steps again, fingers trailing along the wall. “Will you warn me when I hit the landing?”
“Yes. Two to go,” Tabita said, her worry dissipating. “After the landing, you turn about and go down again.”
She knew that much, at least, having traversed one of these stairwells before. “I am sorry that you’re being burdened with me.”
Tabita laughed. “Given what I’ve heard, you’ll be pulling more than your own weight. And I promise, I intend to find some way to use you to my yeargroup’s advantage.”
That was probably why Tabita was a leader in the first place.