The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (20 page)

I rolled my eyes. Another man who thought he owned me. How typical.

X
ander
Ricknagel’s
house sat in the midst of his city, Shankar, with barracks full of soldiers surrounding it.

I’d never grown accustomed to city crowds, but Ricknagel’s confidence washed over me as we moved with military precision through Shankar. His house rose four stories, with nothing but a wrought iron fence containing its grounds. The mansion perfectly fit the man who ruled it: stony, strong, unyielding.

He marched me through the foyer and up three flights of stairs. Footmen flurried, offering assistance, but Ricknagel waved them off. He opened a door and gestured me into a bedchamber that must have been the ready haven for unexpected guests.

“I’ll send someone to help you,” Ricknagel said. “Forgive me. My household was not expecting a guest. I’ll have to prepare them. We’ll send you food up here.”

A serving girl brought a dark blue dress so I could change out of the heavy court gown I’d worn in Vorisipor. The only other thing I wanted—an ulio to cut the tight ung-aneraq that still connected me to the governor—she could not provide.

Ricknagel himself came to my door later in the afternoon. “Please come and meet my family,” he said, offering his arm as if I were a lady of his own status. He had not asked my name, apparently too preoccupied with his plans for my magic to think of it. How did he call me in his head—the Gantean woman? The sea witch? The concubine?

He led me into a salon downstairs where three women were arrayed in the grand fashions of upper class Lethemia.

“My wife, Lady Ricknagel,” Ricknagel said, gesturing to the honey-haired woman in blue who stood as I entered. “This is the Gantean woman I told you about, my dear,”

“And what is your name?” Lady Ricknagel asked. She suited her mate; they were both tall, stately people with the best qualities of the Lethemian type: long bones, clear skin, shiny hair. In the harem I had come to understand that Lethemians were blessed with a high standard of living and health. Most people in the world lived as the Ganteans did—on the edge of enough.

“They call me Miseliq,” I said, not prepared to reveal my true identity.

“And you are really from Gante?” the elder of the two girls sitting on the brocade divan behind a tea service interrupted. She looked much like Lady Ricknagel except for the strong line of her dark eyebrows, which mirrored Lord Ricknagel’s exactly. She had to be their daughter. Her face wore a familiar look, one I had seen enough to recognize: she did not approve of Ganteans.

“I grew up in Gante. I left as a young woman, younger than you. I have not been back for many years.”

“Imagine,” the girl said, looking me over as if I were only part human, “a Gantean in Fosillen silk.” She giggled.

“Stesichore!” Ricknagel said sharply.

“I’m sure it’s never happened before, Father.”

I had seen enough women of Stesichore’s ilk in the harem to allow her words to glide off me like water from sealskin. I smoothed the dress. “I do prefer silk,” I said as grandly as an empress.

“Miseliq, may I introduce my daughters, Stesichore and Sterling?” Ricknagel indicated the girls as he spoke their names. The other girl, Sterling, was only slightly younger than my Leila would be. She had an unfortunate birthmark on the right side of her face from neck to cheekbone.

“I am pleased to meet you,” I said to her.

“Welcome,” she said softly.

“Father says he brought you all the way from Vorisipor,” Stesichore interjected.

“So he did,” I replied.

“But Vorisipor is nowhere near Gante,” young Sterling mused as she prepared the tea.

“I have traveled far in my life.”

“I would like to travel,” Sterling said.

“I am sure you will,” I told her. “But I would not recommend either Gante or Vorisipor as your destinations.”

“Why not?” Sterling asked as Lord Ricknagel chuckled.

“They are grim places, full of dangers. You should go instead to the High City or to Orioneport to admire the white-walled Alcazar.”

“And have you seen such places, Miseliq?” Ricknagel asked.

“I have,” I answered, accepting a cup of tea from Sterling. “They were far lovelier than either Gante or Vorisipor.”

S
terling Ricknagel would often pay
me a visit after her morning sessions with her governess. Her mother was unfailingly polite to me, her sister, unfailingly rude, but I imagined either would have put a stop to Sterling’s curious intrusions had they been aware of them. Her father had little knowledge of the details of his household; he was absent more often than present.

I recognized Sterling as a fellow outcast. I had been shunned in my childhood, too, marked by my destiny as the Cedna. Sterling’s loneliness was different. People did not know how to treat a disfigured girl.

“What do you like to do?” I asked Sterling one afternoon. We had settled into a room on the third floor—a library or study with nautical charts and globes spread everywhere. It must have been Xander’s space; Lady Ricknagel or Stesichore would never care to peruse such charts. Their interests extended only to fashion and manners, and their time was spent in a social scene of great complexity. Sterling was never invited into their sphere.

“What do you mean?” Sterling asked. If not for the birthmark, the girl would have been beautiful. She wore her curly blond hair drawn off her face into a tail tied with a ribbon. Her eyes were a silvery, sparkling blue, but she rarely smiled.

“I mean,” I said, “do you have a hobby?”

“A hobby?” Sterling frowned and spun a globe.

“When I lived in Vorisipor, I took care of the rose vines.”

Sterling considered me, still frowning. “We have roses here.”

“Can we go look at them?” I was sick of being cooped indoors.

“Mother doesn’t like me to go outside; she doesn’t like people to see me.”

I herded the girl towards the study door, scowling behind her back. Lady Ricknagel would be embarrassed by her child’s birthmark.

“It’s my face,” Sterling whispered, her steps dragging in the hall. “She doesn’t want people to see my face.”

I grabbed her arm. “Listen to me, Sterling Ricknagel.” I touched the mark on her cheek. “Where I am from, we say that a hard life blesses you with uncommon strength. All things contain their own opposite. If you are thought ugly, the beauty within you will be all the more potent. You cannot hide because of a mark on your face. Now, walk outside and show me the rose garden.”

Sterling rubbed her face where I had touched it. “Stesichore said no one would want to marry me.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, Sterling. What you think shapes the world. The stories you tell yourself in your head matter. Do not let the opinions of others rule you. Make your own world, and start with what you believe about yourself.”

Sterling did not reply.

We arrived in the rose garden, a fenced area not far from the house. Like all the fences around the Ricknagel mansion, these were old, spiked wrought iron. The roses, too, looked old, with a woody, tree-like consistency, the blooms fragrant but small. They had been left to their own devices for long years, climbing over the fence and the trees that lined the outer walk of the garden.

Sterling wandered to a gap in the roses and peered through the fence at her father’s men practicing archery in the far field.

Many Gantean hunters favored the bow and arrow over the spear or knife, so I’d seen men at target practice during my days in Gante. As the Cedna, I’d never learned such skills, and I had a sudden, raw longing to try. The same desire was written on Sterling’s face.

“We can learn to do that,” I said.

Sterling shook her head. “Mother would never let me.”

“If you are going to break the rules, the first thing you have to learn is not to tell anyone.”

The following morning I headed to the place where we’d seen the archery practice.

When the men finished, I approached. “Good morning. I want to learn to use the bow.”

One of the men raised his eyebrows. He wore the Ricknagel livery. “I beg your pardon, but who are you?”

“Miseliq. I am a guest of Lord Ricknagel’s.”

“Ah,” he said. “The Gantean.” From the look in his eyes, I suspected Ricknagel had mentioned my powers to this man. “I suppose there’s no harm in teaching you archery.”

“Good. Can we start today?”

Soon I knew enough to get Sterling started.

I found her curled on a settee in Ricknagel’s study, looking at an atlas.

“Today,” I told her as I leaned over her shoulder.

“Today?” she echoed.

“Archery. I have it all set up to teach you.” I’d spent the past three days scouting the range, walking around the yards to find the best spot for us to work, the least noticeable from any angle.

Sterling hopped up from the couch, the atlas sliding to the floor. “Really?”

I’d never made anyone beam so brightly in my life.

A
fter his return
from an unknown locale, Xander Ricknagel hosted a dinner party. Sterling hopped with excitement when she learned I would join the group.

“It will be so much better with you there, Miseliq. I’ll have someone to talk to,” she burbled as I followed her down the stairs towards the entertaining salon. She wore an ugly dress—I’d taken note that her wardrobe was far shabbier than that of her sister or her mother.

A group of people, young and old, gathered in the salon. Sterling lost all her brightness as she ventured amongst them. I followed her like a shadow. Someone placed a glass of wine in my hand.

Lord Ricknagel took a moment to introduce Sterling to the two young sons of a visiting noble family. Both nodded politely and averted their gazes from her face.

Sterling slouched backwards, nearly pressing into me. I prodded her back, straightening her stance.

Lord Ricknagel frowned as he noticed his daughter’s discomfort. He turned and said to one of the young guests, “I heard you are planning a trip to Entila, Taran. Sterling is interested in geography.”

“My first stop will be Queenstown,” the young man said. He still looked down at the carpet.

Sterling asked, “If you could travel anywhere in Lethemia, where would you go?”

“Yes, do tell.” Stesichore joined our little group, pushing past her sister to take a seat on the divan. She spread her skirts and smiled at the youth.

He offered, “Gante,” of all places.

Stesichore lifted her nose at that answer, casting me a sidelong glance. “Ugh, Gante? Well, at least Lady Malvyna Entila has eradicated the barbarians at last. I’ve heard she wants to spearhead a Lethemian colony. House Entila is giving land grants to people willing to settle there. Perhaps you should apply, Taran.” She giggled.

“They say it is a spectacular landscape,” the young man, Taran, said. “What with the ice and the fire mountain. Hazardous, though.”

My trembling fingers tightened around my wine glass. I blinked up to meet Xander Ricknagel’s cool gaze reading my reaction to the conversation. I bit my inner cheek to gather my face into a calm expression.

Taran went on, “I should like to see it before it gets too civilized.”

Later I could not eat despite the excellent food. Conversation shifted and moved around me, but I could not follow it.

A colony in Gante?
These southern fools didn’t know Gante! They’d never tried to weather a two-moon storm mired in days of sunless blackness. They did not even know what it took to feed the Hinge to create the warming magic that let Ganteans survive the winters! And what did Stesichore mean about “eradicated the barbarians”? A slow, viscous panic oozed down my spine, colder than Gantean ice. What about Leila? What about the Hinge? What about magic?

Blood pounded in my veins, begging for release.

The guests gathered to take drinks after the meal. I stood by the hearth trying to warm myself without success. Lord Ricknagel came to my side and murmured, “Are you well, Miseliq?”

“I did not know.”

“What’s that?”

“I did not know Malvyna Entila had been so successful in her campaign against Gante.”

“She cleared the island of its inhabitants to make it ready for new settlements. Lethemian settlements. But I hear it has been difficult for her to find settlers. No one wants to live there.”

At a different time, my anger would have surged against his words. But I’d left Gante behind. I’d left Leila behind; not even the faintest cord connected us in Yaqi. All I had in Yaqi was this putrid grey ung-aneraq from Vorisipor, a phantom bind with Onatos that could not possibly exist, and a hatred that nearly drowned me. Thinking of Gante left a bitter taste in the back of my throat, the flavor of a neglected duty.

After the party, I found a knife and cut myself, dripping my blood on the soil of the rose garden beneath a spruce needle moon, wondering if I bled in vain for a vanquished people.