“The prince did ask for me to tell you that his mother and sister have arrived and wish very much to meet you.”
His mother had arrived? That was rather unexpected… and unpleasant. She had no idea what she’d say to the woman.
Greetings, Queen. I was forced to marry your son and we hate each other but we cannot seem to stop helping ourselves to each other’s bodies.
Seri’s frown grew deeper and she paused in the long, stone hallway. “Did you say he has a sister?”
Idalla flushed and looked uncomfortable. “He does, my lady.”
“But I thought… Graeme said…”
The maidservant colored a little and leaned in to whisper, “She is not of the Blood, my lady, if you understand me.”
It took Seri a moment, but her eyes widened in realization. “Oh. You mean the queen…”
Idalla nodded, rather smug to be imparting such vital information. “Took a lover, my lady. The king has shunned her ever since. He did not care that she took a lover, except that she gave him a daughter. It is a mortal insult to his line.”
Yet another example of how the strange Athoni court operated. “Where are they?”
“In the solar with the other ladies, Princesse.”
Seri flinched at that. If they were with the other ladies, then that meant Lady Mila and Lady Aynee—both of whom she had been scrupulously avoiding—were with them as well. “Isn’t there some sort of religious ceremony I could be at while Graeme is away?” Seri asked, a plaintive note in her voice.
Idalla chuckled. “Not until the prince returns, my lady. The priests will wait for him.”
Of course they would. She by herself was unimportant. She sighed, defeated. “Let us go and meet them, then.” She touched her hair, self-consciously. Heading into that nest of vipers, she didn’t want to give them anything they could use against her.
The solar was a large, airy room on the far side of the castle in an area she had never gone before. Of course, she told herself, it was not like she had made any effort to socialize with the Athonites. She’d hidden in her rooms for days, only seeing the prince or emerging when she had to.
No longer
, she told herself. She couldn’t hide forever.
The sound of Lady Mila’s trilling laughter touched Seri’s ears before she entered the room, and her insides clenched with nervousness. Of course that shrew was here. She should not have been surprised.
Idalla sensed her nervousness and hesitated by the door. “My lady?” A quiet question.
But Seri straightened her shoulders and thrust her head back, assuming the arrogant posture of the Athonites. “I’m fine,” she assured the maid with a quick smile. “Thank you.”
Idalla smiled and then opened the door for her mistress. Her hands full of her thick blue skirts—to hide their trembling—Seri entered the room as regally as any Athoni lady.
Silence fell in the chamber at her arrival. The room was filled with Athoni noblewomen dressed in every color of the rainbow. Arching, high windows let the moonlight leak in, and brilliantly lit sconces bathed the room in a gentle light, highlighting their pale, sheltered skin. Conversations died and the women looked at her warily, unmoving.
Across the room, a lithe figure in silver stood, and Seri recognized Lady Aynee. The woman’s face was polite as she stood before dropping into a deep curtsy at the sight of Seri. “My princesse.” As if remembering their manners, the women in the room scrambled to their feet and did the same, dropping into low curtsies. Lady Mila was the last to do so, a smug, mocking look on her face. The tension in the room was palpable, angry. They didn’t want to show her deference.
One figure did not stand. One figure remained seated at the front of the room, her hands clasping an embroidery hoop, Lady Mila kneeling at her side. The woman had silver-streaked black hair and a bitter twist to her mouth, age showing in the lines of her skin. She wore a high collar that bloomed out under her chin and a heavy, thick necklace of a similar design to Graeme’s wedding torque.
This was his mother, the queen. An empty, ornate chair sat next to her on the dais, and Seri realized with a sinking heart that it was meant for her. Of Graeme’s sister, there was no sign.
Seri remained in place, waiting, as the woman examined her distastefully and then sneered. “You do not bow to me?”
Tension boiled through the room. The women remained in place, heads bent, but Seri detected a hint of a smile on Lady Mila’s beautiful face, her pleasure at the fact that the woman attempted to put Seri in her place plain to see.
So she instead swept past the kneeling women and across the room as if nothing bothered her and took the empty seat next to the queen. Her slender, shaking hands grasped the armrests and she forced herself to respond coolly. “I am Vidari, madam. As you know, we bow to no one.”
Anger made the woman’s lined face darken, and her mouth pursed. “You are an insolent slut! My son has surely been cursed by the gods to have them choose you to put in his life.”
“On that, madam, we can certainly agree.”
The room fell into uncomfortable silence once more and then Lady Aynee rose, retaking her seat. The rest of the women seemed to follow suit, trickling back to their chairs and picking back up embroidery. The chatter in the room had ceased, and the queen still radiated hostility, glaring at Seri, who had no choice but to stare serenely outward as if this were not the most uncomfortable thing she had ever experienced.
A servant dropped to her knee before Seri’s stiff figure. “May I fetch you embroidery, my lady?”
Seri gave the girl a faint smile. “I do not embroider, but thank you.”
“Perhaps you would like to read some poetry, then?” Lady Mila’s innocent voice rose through the silent room.
Seri’s smile became forced. “I do not read.”
“Play an instrument, perhaps? Or sing? We would not wish to bore you.”
“None of those things.”
A whisper went about the room then, and she saw out of the corner of her eye that several women bent their heads together, talking quietly.
Next to her, the queen spoke. “What is it that your barbarian culture does if they do not teach their women the finer aspects of civility? How do they expect you to find a husband?”
Were their lives so pitiful and small? Anger surged inside Seri that her worth would be determined by something so stupid as whether or not she could sing. “I am afraid that the Vidari are more concerned with trying to eat than whether or not they can recite poetry. When you are forced to slave in your fields all day to serve a conqueror, you find that feeding your family takes up a great deal of your time.”
Uncomfortable silence fell through the room once more, and Seri clenched the arms of the chair, longing to be away from these backbiters.
Lady Mila sat on a small stool near the queen’s feet and smoothed her skirts. She held embroidery as well, though she did not pick up the needle. “My queen,” she said, her voice sweet and smooth as Seri had never heard it before. “Where is the lovely Lady Meluoe?”
“In the stables, no doubt, playing with the animals. The girl is a fool and insists on acting a child when she should be in here, conversing with adults.” The queen’s harsh words left little doubt as to her opinion of her daughter.
“I see,” said Lady Mila, in a tone that indicated that she did not see at all.
If Lady Meluoe had managed to avoid these horrid women, then she was a great deal more clever than Seri herself. Grasping at that small bit of information, she stood, gathering her voluminous skirts around her again so she did not trip over them. “When I was in bed with Graeme last night, he asked me to meet his sister.” Several shocked gasps echoed through the room at Seri’s blunt words. “If you will excuse me, I believe I shall go find her.”
With that, she swept through the quiet room in a flurry of blue skirts and exited out the solar door.
The moment the doors were shut behind her, Seri leaned against the wall, panting, trying to catch her breath and calm herself. Her pulse was racing as if she had fought a fierce battle. And while she had not won, she felt proud of herself for remaining true to who she was throughout the entire uncomfortable conversation—an uneducated, brown Vidari girl dressed up in princesse clothing. She heard the voices on the other side of the door grow thick with conversation once more, the hushed tones implying they still spoke about her.
She wanted to laugh at the vicious stupidity of it all, but instead she forced herself to walk away, her heart lighter for having left the room.
Idalla was nowhere to be found, but that suited Seri just fine. This was her first time to be unaccompanied through Vidara Castle, and she was in no rush to have someone attached to her footsteps again. So she walked, not sure of where she was going, but it felt good to be out and doing something rather than sitting in endless dark rooms. She wished to see the sun, but it would not be up for several hours yet, when Graeme was to return.
So she walked. And she met people. At first they were nervous to see her—servants would spot her in the halls and skitter to a stop, dropping to their knees. But Seri would make them get up and ask them for directions. A kind girl led her back to the kitchens and entertained her with stories of the cook and her fanatical ways as Seri nibbled at a sweet-pie. A kind guardsman—who admitted he’d been seeing a Vidari girl on the sly—offered to show Seri the stables, and he guided her through the castle, introducing her to the rest of the servants. He seemed to sense that she needed to be among people, but not the sort she was forced to be around thanks to Athoni law. They were hesitant when they met her, but eventually loosened up, and she enjoyed herself in that small time more than she had in the past week.
The guardsman—named Kell—led her outside the stone walls of the keep itself and to the outer bailey where the stables were kept. Even at night, the castle teemed with life among the servants. There were people rushing about in the darkness, and lantern light filled the night air. The wind rushed hard and fast at this late hour, and it cut through the filmy fabric of her dress, and she rubbed her arms as Kell led her toward the stable. She noticed the guardsmen touched their foreheads and bowed as she walked past—a far cry from the humiliating treatment they’d given her before. It made her feel smug to see them bend and bow to her—until she remembered that the queen had attempted the same thing with her. That killed her pleasure in it, and she made a note to learn as many names as she could.
The stables were filled with sleeping horses. A massive building that smelled like hay and manure and sweat, the pungent combination made tears prick her eyes. It reminded her of home, and of Rilen, and she suddenly felt like more of an outcast than ever.
“Unless I miss my guess, Princesse, Lady Meluoe is in the back stall with the cat. She gave birth there a few days ago.”
Seri smiled at Kell and thanked him for showing her the way. “Please,” she said, “Call me Seri. I confess I don’t feel like much of a princesse.”
He nodded and grinned at her, touching his forehead in respect. “I’ll wait outside the stables for you in case you need an escort back.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse, but he seemed genuinely concerned, so she simply nodded and let him. “Very well.” She bunched her skirts in her fists when he left and began to pick her way through the stable, cursing mentally the soft, ridiculous slippers that the Athoni women wore, for they protected not from the cold or the mud and were already wet and clinging to her feet.
From the queen’s words, and Kell’s, Seri had expected Meluoe to be young—a smaller, girly, gangly version of Prince Graeme, equally arrogant. The woman she found in the horse stall cradling a tiny kitten to her breast, thick leather workman’s boots on her feet, was none of those things.
Meluoe was beautiful and looked enough like Graeme to disconcert Seri. Her hair was long and black, and she had the same eyes, though hers were a dark blue rather than his cool gray. The aquiline nose was the same, and the chiseled, perfect mouth was nearly identical, except hers broke into a warm smile at the sight of Seri standing nearby.
“You’re here!” She gently put the kitten down next to the mother cat and got to her feet, brushing her dirty hands on the pale pink skirts of her expensive gown, leaving smears on the fabric. Meluoe smiled and extended her hands to Seri. “I’ve been so excited to meet my brother’s betrothed.”
Surprised at the warm response, Seri took the woman’s proffered hands and smiled back. “How did you know who I was?” She looked down at their joined hands and immediately flushed at the sight of her own brown ones against Meluoe’s pale ones. “That was a foolish question.”
“It was,” Meluoe agreed, a smile on her face revealing a dimple in her cheek. “I am told there are not many Vidari wandering through the castle dressed in a gown so sumptuous it would give my mother envy.”
“There are not any Vidari in the castle at all,” Seri corrected, pulling her hands from Meluoe’s. “Your brother lets the Athonites treat them like cattle to be rounded up and starved if the occasion suits them.” Bitterness crept in her voice.
Meluoe’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh.” She didn’t respond to that, only cocked her head and studied Seri, and the expression made her seem older than Seri and Graeme together, and she wondered how young or old Meluoe was. “You’re not in love with my brother, are you?”
Seri laughed at that and shook her head, rueful. “I cannot love the man that oppresses my people. We can barely speak to each other in a civil fashion.” Though bedding together was another matter entirely. As soon as the thought entered her mind, she blushed.
The Athoni woman studied her. “How very curious.” She didn’t seem taken aback by Seri’s words, merely confused. “And it is my father that oppresses your people, not Graeme.”
“But Graeme is here, not your father,” Seri insisted stubbornly.
Meluoe shrugged. “My brother has a very large streak of justice running through him. It would not surprise me if he sought to overturn some of Father’s laws. He’s certainly done so in the past.”
Seri eyed the woman skeptically but did not refute her words. It seemed wrong to denounce Meluoe’s trusting adoration of her brother.