‘Jasmina, my beloved. Finnikin and I …’
Isaboe’s eyes met Finnikin’s and he nodded at her with encouragement.
‘ … We’ve had the most beautiful of beds made for you. So beautiful that every little girl in the whole of our kingdom wants to sleep in it. Tonight we thought you could sleep in the most beautiful bed in Lumatere, and Finnikin and Isaboe could sleep on their own. Together.’
Together. Finnikin smiled at Isaboe. He was proud of his queen. Proud of them both. Jasmina meant everything to them and he couldn’t imagine their lives without this blessing. He did imagine frequently, however, sharing a bed with just his wife while their little blessing was asleep in another room.
Their daughter stared from Finnikin to Isaboe. He beamed at her, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in days.
Jasmina’s bottom lip began to tremble.
‘Do you think she’s going to be smarter than us?’ he asked as they lay in bed later that night. He could see the moon through the balconette doors before them, looking almost close enough to grab and, as usual, it made him wonder about all things strange and mysterious. And about how insignificant he was in the scheme of things.
Finnikin turned to see Isaboe bending to kiss Jasmina’s brow as she slept between them. ‘Most probably,’ she murmured.
‘Then she won’t need us one day.’
‘What a thing to say, Finnikin,’ Isaboe said, ‘when I feel a need for my father and mother now, more than I ever have.’
‘True enough,’ he said gently. ‘It may have to do with such attachments belonging to women,’ he added.
When Finnikin added words, he always regretted it. He was regretting it now because the flames from the fireplace illuminated his wife’s stare of disbelief.
‘Your father lives in the chamber beside us, Finnikin. You speak to him every night and every morning and if for some reason you can’t sleep through the night, you speak to him then as well. Do you not see that as an attachment?’
She waited for his response and he chose not to reply because then they’d get into a discussion about why Trevanion had not announced his betrothment to Beatriss yet, which would lead back to a discussion about empty Flatland villages. Then they would both fall asleep thinking of neighbourless Flatlanders and Finnikin would wake up in the dark, despairing for his kingdom. Not able to get back to sleep, he’d knock on his father’s door because Trevanion didn’t sleep either, and then Isaboe would win this argument.
‘True enough,’ he sighed. He could see her mind was already elsewhere and he knew exactly where.
‘Sleep and don’t think about it,’ he said. He was sick and tired of the subject of Charyn.
‘How can I not?’ she asked. ‘Barren wombs and curses. If you ask me, they’ve poisoned all their children.’
‘If only you did believe that, then we could kill the Charynite in the mountain and banish those in the valley and not send Froi into the unknown.’
Isaboe turned to face him. ‘But you must think it’s all strange?’
‘Isaboe,’ he said, exasperated. ‘Unbeknownst to us, our neighbouring kingdom has not birthed a child for eighteen years. How can I not think it strange?’
She placed a finger to her lips as a sign for him to lower his voice. ‘I know you,’ she whispered. ‘I know you’re trying to find reason where there is no place for it.’
‘Reason failed halfway down that mountain,’ he said. ‘I think Rafuel of Sebastabol speaks sincerely.’
‘Then you seriously want me to consider this plan for Froi?’
‘I don’t think we will ever get into that fortress any other way,’ he said.
‘It’s too perfect,’ she said. ‘We want the King dead. They want the King dead. They need an assassin who is of age and speaks Charyn. We have an assassin who is of age and speaks Charyn.’
She looked at him, pained. ‘How would they have known?’ she whispered. ‘Do you think we have Charyn spies in Lumatere?’
They had spoken often of spies in the early days after the curse was lifted. Exiles had entered the kingdom with nothing to vouch for the fact that they were indeed Lumateran. Anyone could have been a spy. They both knew that there was still a lack of trust between those who had been trapped inside and the exiles. Regardless of the years of progress, it would be some time before their kingdom was back to what it once was.
Finnikin sighed and reached over to blow out the candle and they lay silent, listening to Jasmina’s breathing.
‘I hate them,’ she said, moments later. ‘It hurts to hate this much, but I do. I want them all dead, especially everyone in that cursed palace. I think of that abomination of a Princess and I want her dead as much as her father. Because I want to lie down to sleep and not imagine them coming over our mountain and annihilating my yata and Mont cousins first. I don’t want to imagine them clearing the Flatlands, turning our river into a bloodbath, storming your rock village. I want to stop thinking of them coming through the castle doors and doing to our daughter what they did to my sisters and my mother and father.’
He felt her breath on him as she leaned close.
‘Promise me, my love. Promise me that if they come through the palace doors and there’s no hope, you do what you have to do. You make it quick for her so she doesn’t suffer.’
Finnikin swallowed hard. He remembered the first time he was forced to make Isaboe such a heinous promise as Jasmina suckled from her breast.
‘Let’s not talk of these things, Isaboe.’
He gathered them both to him and he felt her lips against the back of his hand. At times like this he ached for her, but sometimes there was more between them than their daughter.
‘I’ve never spoken of this,’ she said quietly in the dark, ‘but when we lost Froi in Sprie that first time, I didn’t return for the ruby ring he stole from me. It was as if I was sent there to search for him.’
Finnikin was quiet. He had always felt threatened by the bond betweeen Isaboe and Froi. They shared a desperation to survive and there was a feralness and a darkness about them that he envied fiercely, though he was frightened by what this might mean.
‘I’ve questioned the intentions of the goddess these past three years, and she has whispered to me over and over again, “You will lose him.” ’ He felt Isaboe shudder. ‘I have a bad feeling about this, Finnikin.’
He leaned over and kissed her. ‘And I have a bad feeling that I’ll never have a moment on my own with you again,’ he murmured. He heard a sound coming from Jasmina and he lay back down on his side again.
‘Tomorrow,’ she whispered, ‘between me seeing the Flatland Lords about the cistern system and you placating the fishmongers about the taxes, I think we may be close to the guest closet on the third landing before I have to go off and speak to the Ambassador about Belegonia and you have to speak to Beatriss about Sennington.’ She paused. ‘We’ll have time.’
He sighed. ‘So I’m reduced to taking my wife up against a wall in a palace closet?’
She chuckled in the dark.
‘And why do I have to speak to Beatriss?’ he asked with a groan. ‘I’d rather speak to the Ambassador about Belegonia.’
‘She may not have given birth to you, but Beatriss loved you as a mother in the years she was betrothed to your father, and still does. Perhaps you’re the best person to speak to her, or Tesadora if she returns to her senses and comes back up the mountain. Beatriss can’t live in that dead village any longer, Finnikin.’
He was pensive a moment. ‘Tesadora reacted strangely to the news of the Charynite. She was not surprised about the curse and then she left all of a sudden and I could swear it seemed as though she would cry.’