Authors: Sharon Shinn
“My mother doesn’t like us to eat street food, but this is wonderful,” Teyta agreed. Corene noticed that Teyta tried a little of everything except the meat pie with zeezin. Clearly her grandmother had taught the next two generations the prohibition against that funereal spice.
Once they’d finished their meal, Corene insisted that Teyta stand at the railing and take in the vista below them—the toy-sized houses and horses in the streets nearby; the shadow of the sea in the distance; the chiaroscuro arrangement of the palace labyrinth, light and dark nestled together. “Wasn’t I right? Isn’t the view worth the effort of the climb?”
“It is pretty impressive,” Teyta admitted.
“Yes, exceedingly grand,” Melissande added. “But myself, I am not enough enamored of the scenery to want to climb up these steps ever again. And I am starting to grow very warm. Is it time to climb back down?”
Liramelli started gathering leftovers. “I think it is,” she said. “We have to get back. I have a great deal to do before dinner.”
“Yes—how shall we manage dinner?” Melissande asked as she came gracefully to her feet.
“Alette has been in your room these past few nights, hasn’t she?” Corene asked.
“She has. But whenever she doesn’t join us for a meal, the empress sends servants with a tray of food. And depending on who the servant is—”
She might realize that Teyta is an imposter.
Corene frowned. “Then perhaps neither of you go down to dinner tonight,” she said. “When the servants come, you can answer the door and say Alette is sleeping. Say you both feel unwell and you decided to stay in.”
“That should work,” Liramelli said. “But how do we get Teyta
out
of the palace? They’ll stop her from leaving if they think she’s Alette. And when they realize she’s not—”
Teyta, who should have been far more nervous than she appeared to be, merely smiled. “My mother and my sister are coming quite early
in the morning to make deliveries to the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll be downstairs awaiting them and I’ll walk out when they do. No one will notice that there is one more Dhonshon in the group.”
“If it is that simple, we should have sent Alette out with Teyta’s family!” Melissande exclaimed.
“No, because if the guards stop Teyta’s family tomorrow, they’ll find only Teyta,” Liramelli said. “But if Alette had tried to escape with them—”
“It still feels very dangerous,” Melissande said. “I cannot help but worry.”
“Worry won’t help anybody now,” Liramelli said, following Foley as he lowered himself to the stairs. “We just have to act our parts.”
They got a chance to do that sooner than they expected. They had barely settled themselves in the carriage when they spotted a group of five riders approaching the tower on horseback. Corene had barely registered that three of the riders were wearing palace livery when Foley leaned over and spoke in a low, sharp voice.
“Royal guards. And Garameno. He’ll want to speak to you.”
“Oh no!” Liramelli cried, instantly looking around as if there might be a place to run. “Has he seen us?”
“Of course he has,” Corene snapped. “Teyta, draw your shawl closer. Shut your eyes. Lean against Melissande as if you’re ill.”
Teyta had barely complied with these directives before Garameno hailed them, drawing his horse alongside their carriage.
“I see we all had the same idea on this fine day,” he greeted them. “Had I known you were coming here, I would have petitioned to accompany you.”
Liramelli fidgeted in her seat, but Corene spoke with what she hoped was indifferent calm. “It wasn’t our original destination. First we headed to the Welchin temple down by Little Islands. Coming here was a last-minute thought.”
His attention had been caught by Teyta’s mournful form. “What’s wrong with Alette? She didn’t attempt—” He kindly did not complete the sentence.
“No, we think she may have eaten something that disagreed with
her,” Corene said. “We stopped to pick up food along the way and—” She shrugged.
Now Garameno glanced at Liramelli. “You didn’t take them to Tower Alley, did you?”
She looked guilty. “I did! But we were careful about what we bought—at least I thought we were.”
He shook his head, looking faintly amused. “The sickest I ever was in my life was the time I ate fried meat strips I bought off a cook in Tower Alley,” he said. “I threw up until I thought my bones would be the next things I vomited. And if I remember correctly,
you
had a similar experience.”
Liramelli managed a wan smile. “Yes—Greggorio and I both were sick on more than one occasion. But that was ages ago! Surely they’re all different vendors by now!”
“Different vendors, same effects,” Garameno said. “How are the rest of you feeling?”
“I was fine until you started talking about vomiting,” Corene said.
“I admit, my stomach has been feeling just a tiny bit unsettled,” Melissande said in an uneasy voice. Teyta gave a small moan, and Melissande drew the girl closer. “But at the moment I am most concerned about Alette. Can we not simply go home now, as quickly as possible? I want to get the poor girl to bed.”
Garameno waved carelessly and backed his horse from the carriage. “I’ll see you all tonight at dinner—or perhaps not!”
Liramelli and Corene waved back; Melissande just patted Teyta’s hair and murmured reassurances into her ear. Corene waited until the tower was a good distance behind before she spoke in an excited voice.
“That could have been a disaster, but I think it was a stroke of luck,” she said. “Now he will believe us when none of us come down for dinner.”
“Well, I really think I
could
throw up, so I don’t know that I was lying,” Liramelli said.
“Oh, you should have done it—right on his shoes!” Corene answered. “That would have convinced him.”
“Can I sit up now?” Teyta asked, her head still on Melissande’s shoulder.
“Better not,” Corene decided. “I’m sure some of the soldiers report directly to Filomara. Let’s not give them any reason to doubt our story.”
They had always known that the diciest part of the whole day would be their arrival at the palace doors, and Corene found herself growing increasingly tense from the minute they passed through the gates of the inner wall. Her stomach felt like it had been clenched in an iron fist, and as they turned into the courtyard and came to a gentle stop, she felt that grip tighten and twist.
Footmen streamed from the door, but Corene didn’t wait for their assistance. She leapt from the carriage, ran to the decorative bushes that lined the nearest wall, and vomited up her lunch. A retching noise to her left informed her that Liramelli was right beside her, doing the same.
As she knelt before the bushes, waiting to see if she would be overtaken by another bout of nausea, she heard Melissande’s imperious voice behind her. “No, I do not want to be helped up the stairs, and neither does Alette. We are in a very precarious state and if you jostle us, you will be sorry. Merely stay out of our way and let us get to my room. Thank you.”
Corene heard the rustle and creak of people disembarking from the carriage, then light footfalls fading away as Melissande led Teyta into the palace, then the sound of wheels and horse hooves as the carriage drove off. More footfalls, these drawing closer, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Can I help you to your room?” It was Foley.
“I’m not sure I can stand.”
“I can carry you.”
“I think if you move me, I’ll just throw up all over you.”
“That wouldn’t bother me.”
She managed a ghost of a laugh. “Well, it would bother
me
. Just let me stay here another minute.”
She took a couple of slow, shallow breaths then tried lifting her head. That wasn’t so bad. She was even able to glance around to take in the scene. Liramelli had managed to come to her feet with the aid of Lorian, who fussed over her with the solicitude of a beloved uncle. He led her to the door, where other footmen waited, but Corene didn’t see if he handed her over to anyone else.
She turned her head just enough to address Foley in a low voice. “Melissande and—and Alette?”
“Through the door with no interference. I didn’t watch to see how far they made it. I’m more concerned about you.”
“I’m not the key player in this particular drama.”
“To me you are.”
That was nice to hear, though still inaccurate. Corene put out a hand and Foley gently pulled her to her feet. Nausea roiled through her stomach again, but she waited and it passed. “Let’s try it,” she said.
The walk from the courtyard through the door took impossibly long, and the path from the door to the stairwell seemed like a mile. Corene came to a halt before placing her foot on the first step and gazed up at the endless staircase.
“I’m not sure—”
“I know,” Foley said. He bent and picked her up, cradling her against his chest as he slowly ascended.
Corene closed her eyes as her head swam and the steady motion made her stomach clench again. But in a moment the dizziness subsided and all she was aware of was her cheek pressed against the rough cloth of Foley’s jacket. The shape of his body and the scent of his skin. It was almost worth being sick to experience the pleasure of being in Foley’s arms.
This was not the first time he’d carried her somewhere. Even in her wretched state, she found herself wondering if he remembered that.
It had been during the winter she and Josetta were away from the Chialto court, hiding out in case anyone else wanted to harm them. They had been traveling the country in the company of two itinerant traders, friends of Zoe’s, and Foley had been with them. Of course Foley had been with them. Those were the days when you never saw Josetta unless Foley was three steps behind her.
Jaker and Barlow had been at a small town off the main road, finding buyers for their merchandise, but they’d left Corene and Josetta at the campground with the wagon. The day had been cold but sunny, and it was a rare treat to not be trapped in the rocking wagon all day, covering the interminable open miles of the western provinces. So they’d gone off for a slippery walk across an icy meadow, reveling in the sunshine and the exercise, and Corene had tripped and fallen and twisted her ankle.
She’d tried not to cry—because she was twelve years old now and people were finally starting to treat her like an adult and Josetta was finally starting to like her after all those years of despising her—but she couldn’t help it. She was in too much pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said over and over as Josetta carefully straightened her leg and felt along the bruise and pronounced, with great relief, that she didn’t think anything was broken.
“Sorry about
what
?” Josetta finally said, but not in a mean way. It had taken Corene that long to realize Josetta never said anything in a mean way. Josetta was barely fifteen herself, scrawny and big-eyed and nervous and worried, but there was something so steady about her. You felt like you could hold on to her if you were going under.
“I’m sorry I fell—I’m sorry I’m crying—I’m sorry I’m so horrible—” She sobbed out all the words.
Josetta had left off poking at Corene’s foot and scooted over until she could take Corene’s shaking body in a close and comforting hug. “I’m not sorry about any of it,” she said. And even though her words didn’t exactly answer Corene’s confession, Corene understood Josetta’s meaning:
Terrible things have brought us to this point, but here we are and you’re my sister and I love you.
Corene hadn’t had the words for all that when she was twelve, but she had never forgotten the feeling. Josetta was the first person who’d ever loved her just for existing, without requiring anything from her, even that she be lovable. Coming to that realization had been one of the profoundest moments of Corene’s life.
“But I can’t walk back to camp,” she hiccupped.
“It’s all right,” Josetta replied. “Foley will carry you.”
And he had, matter-of-factly scooping her up in his arms and moving with great care through the snowy landscape. Corene was at the age when she had just started to notice boys—the handsome soldiers in the royal army, the promising sons of the Five Families who came to the palace on public days—and she practically adored Foley. He must have been twenty at the time, and he could have stood in for her ideal—a tall, quiet man who never bothered boasting about the fact that he was extremely good at the job he had chosen to do. He wasn’t handsome in the well-groomed way of the rich boys she saw every day, but he had strong clean features and a serious face that became merry when he laughed.
And there he was, holding Corene against his chest, carrying her as if she weighed nothing at all. She’d never forgotten the thoughts that had circled in her excitable, pain-hazed, twelve-year-old brain on that day.
I love Foley. I will love him forever.
And here he was again, holding her carefully against his body, carrying her as if she was sweet and precious cargo. Was he devoted to her or was he just too stubborn to allow harm to come to her while she was under his protection? Did he watch her so closely because she was an assignment or because she was a woman?
I shouldn’t get sick. I shouldn’t get hurt. I think such impossible things when I do,
she thought. But she buried her face more deeply into his shirt, took in another breath, inhaling his scent again.
The palace stairwell, unlike the one at the tower, seemed much too short.
Someone had alerted the servants, so Emilita was awaiting them in Corene’s room. The little maid clucked in sympathy as Foley placed Corene on the bed, then she practically pushed him out the door.
“I will take care of her now,” she said in Malinquese. Corene didn’t have the strength to protest. She lay on the bed, feeling her stomach cramp again, and knew she wasn’t done with the day’s miseries yet.
But in her right fist she clutched a small object, and now she opened her eyes just enough to get a look at it. An ordinary silver button, round and a little tarnished. It had been on Foley’s jacket, and it had come off in her hand as she clung to him for support.