Vorsha laid down the brush and drew something from a pouch that dangled on her belt. “You know how concerned your uncle is about your safety. How distrustful he still is of House Jadaren and their motives in this alliance.”
Kestrel sighed. “Yes, I know. He’s made it perfectly clear.”
Vorsha put her hand on Kestrel’s shoulder and held out her hand. On the upraised palm was what looked like a glass bead, looped on a delicate gold chain.
Curious, Kestrel took it between her fingers. The bead was smoother to the touch than it seemed glass could be, as if there were no friction between its surface and her fingertips. The middle was thicker than either end, and inside were swirled tiny ribbons of color-green and blue, and an intense purple so dark it looked black.
She held it up before the embers of the fire. Embedded in the glass between the colored ribbons were what looked like strands of metal wire: gold, bronze, and copper, all thin as hairs.
“It’s a protective charm-an amulet,” said Vorsha. “Your uncle Sanwar has spent a long time making it. It’s to shield you from magical attack.”
Vorsha’s hand tightened. “I want you to promise me-and your uncle-that you will wear it at all times. On the journey to Jadaren Hold, and while you live there.”
Kestrel’s thumb rubbed the curve of the bead reflexively. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother. You don’t seriously think Arna’s family-or Arna-wish me harm.”
“Honestly? I don’t suspect that boy of anything but loyalty to his family. And it’s clear he’s fond of you. I think you have as good a chance for happiness as anybody. But this feud has lived longer than any of us, and there might be those in that fortress they call home who still believe in it.”
Like your uncle, she thought, and she knew Kestrel thought it as well.
“Please, Kestrel. Sanwar’s very fond of you. He was most insistent that you should wear it.”
Kestrel sighed and put the charm carefully on the desk beside her ledger book.
“Very well. At the least, it’s very pretty.”
She closed her eyes and let her head dip back. “Brush my hair some more, Mother. It’s the last time you’ll be able to do it for a while, and I don’t want to shock my future in-laws with my hellion appearance. They might back out of the deal.”
“I doubt that,” said Vorsha, picking up the hairbrush, while thinking it might not be a bad thing, after all, if they did.
Early the next morning, the traveling party assembled in the courtyard outside the stables. The new brick paving protected their shoes and the hems of their cloaks from the dust that, no matter how often the area was swept, wisped across the packed dirt where the wagons passed. Ansel Chuit stood near Kestrel, his blue uniform newly pressed and every button shining. His eyes were in constant motion, surveying every corner of the yard as if brigands were likely to be lurking there, and his hand was near the hilt of his sword, as if he would fight every one of them.
“I think I’m safe enough here,” whispered Kestrel, amused.
“We thought that on the road to Shadrun,” replied the young guard, without looking at her. “And I don’t intend to make that mistake again.”
Ciari was directing the servants in their loading of bundles and trunks onto the wagon with her accustomed vigor, but Kestrel couldn’t help but notice she had a satisfied, satiated expression on her face, not unlike a cat’s. Vidor Druit was not in evidence, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Ciari announced her own intention to marry within the next season or so.
Nicole Beguine spoke to Sanwar, with Vorsha standing a little apart. Kestrel’s parents, along with Ciari, were to accompany her to Jadaren Hold for the wedding, while Sanwar would stay in Nonthal to supervise the thousands of minutiae intrinsic to a merchant’s business. It was a relief to Kestrel and, she supposed, to her uncle that he would not attend the wedding, openly hostile and distrustful as he was toward the Jadarens.
Kestrel watched her father and her uncle speak, and it suddenly struck her how worn and gray Nicol looked next to Sanwar. The brothers were only two years apart, but Nicol looked twenty years older at least, his complexion muddy and his face gaunt, whereas Sanwar had kept the ruddy olive Beguine coloring, and his shoulders beneath his cloak were wide and muscular. Kestrel felt stricken that she hadn’t noticed her father’s ill health before. He’d seemed well enough when she left to journey to Shadrun-of-the-Snows. When she returned, he was under the weather, claiming to have only a slight cold. She thought he’d recovered, but perhaps he never quite got over it, losing a little more strength every day.
She saw her mother glance from Nicol to Sanwar, and a frown creased her forehead. She must have noticed the difference as well. Perhaps a journey in the open air, away from the cares of business, would be good for him.
The brothers clasped hands, and Sanwar came to Kestrel.
“I wish you the best, Niece,” he said as kindly as he had when she was a little girl and he brought her and Ciari little trinkets from his travels abroad. He hadn’t spoken to her like that for a long time, she thought as she embraced him. He held her by the shoulders, and Kestrel realized what he was looking for beneath the ties of her new traveling robe.
With a laugh she loosed the ties and showed him where the charm lay on her breast, the gold and copper wires inside glinting in the sun that was breaking through the morning clouds.
“Not to worry, Uncle, I have it,” she told him. “And I’ve promised Mother I’ll wear it always.”
He breathed a sigh of relief and touched the glass bead with the tip of his finger, pressing it slightly so it indented her skin. She felt a vague prickling sensation, just short of a sting, at the close contact. Perhaps it was the magic.
“This eases my mind, Kestrel,” he said. “Even if your husband’s motives are pure, there are still those who might seek advantage in harming you. My little charm won’t turn a blade aside, and it won’t neutralize poison-you must still watch against those-but it will ward off a curse or a malicious spell. Thank you for listening to an old man’s request.”
Kestrel smiled in return. Over his shoulder she saw her mother, now beside Nicol, staring at Sanwar’s back. Of late Kestrel had wondered if her mother and Sanwar had argued. The odd tension that always seemed between them had intensified. Still, Vorsha had brought her the charm at Sanwar’s behest. She hoped that whatever disagreement they had had, they could resolve it. Family ought to get along.
Sanwar felt the magic from the amulet tingle through his finger and his hand and up his arm, painful yet pleasurable at the same time. It had taken a day of concentrated work to craft the object-weaving three of Kestrel’s hairs and one of his own into the correct configuration, adding the proper elements, making his will and desire a tangible thing, and melting it along with the glass. All the time that strange geometrical figure that he’d copied from the wall of the sanctuary cell glowed dark purple on parchment, pulsing before him like a steady flicker.
He had begun constructing the charm with knowledge gleaned from his books, but as he progressed, words formed in his head, droning with a steady rhythm like that on the parchment and stringing themselves like beads on a thread until they made coherent instructions of how to bend a strand of melted glass so; how to pull a grain of pigment through the charm’s substance; how to make such a small object brim with unrealized Power.
He hadn’t lied. The charm would protect his daughter from magical attack until the time was right, and all his pieces were in place.…
Patience, whispered the voice from the sanctuary. Sanwar had patience and briefly cupped Kestrel’s cheek in his hand.
“Come, Kestrel,” called Vorsha. “Ciari says the horses are ready.”