"For Ilya?"
"Ilya is not the sum of your life, Tess. You forget that I have been to Jeds. I have seen the prince on progress through the city. I know there is more to you than these plains, and yet, there is Ilya as well. And you are the only woman-the only woman? no, the only person, truly-who has the courage to stand up to him on every ground. If there is no one to hold him in check, then what is to happen to him and to us?"
Tess stared down at her hands. "You're asking too much of me," she murmured, but when she looked up, Sonia had gone. Every doubt she had ever carried flooded back in on her. All the burdens of being Charles's heir, the cold weight of duty, and now this. Lord, to add this on top of it all.
She heard from outside the sound, but not the words, of a brief conversation: a woman's voice, a man's. Then the rustle of the tent flap and his movement through the outer chamber. He pushed aside the curtains that separated the outer chamber from the inner one and halted, poised there.
"Gods," he said, staring at her, "you are beautiful, my wife."
She said nothing, but her gaze followed him as he let the curtains slip down behind him and crossed to her. He knelt in front of her.
"I brought this for you." He unclasped the black necklace and with the greatest tenderness clasped it around her throat. He let his hands settle on either side of the curve of her neck, warm hands, though she felt the slight tremble in them against her skin. He gazed at her as if the answer to every question he had ever asked rested in her face.
He was so close but she could move neither toward him nor away from him, caught in this eddy.
"I am lost," she whispered.
His eyes narrowed and his lips, slightly parted, closed tightly. "You are afraid of me." He took his hands from her. "You were never afraid of me before," he said accusingly.
She wrenched her gaze away from him. "I don't know what I am.''
She felt him stand, and looked up to see him walk to the curtain. "You are my wife. You are also, I believe, heir to the Prince. And Sonia's sister, and a daughter to Irena Orzhekov. But mostly you are Tess." He looked furiously angry and yet at the same time terribly upset. "And if Tess ever decides she wants me, I will be waiting for her."
He jerked the curtain aside and left. Tess sank back into the pillows. She felt so utterly relieved that she could almost laugh at herself. She stared at the shadows dappling the soft ceiling of the tent. Footsteps stirred, and the curtain slipped aside.
"Tess?"
"Oh, hello, Sonia," said Tess in a voice that sounded almost normal.
"Tess. I-" She hesitated. "Do you- Perhaps- That is, I saw Ilya- But perhaps you'd rather I left you- I don't know-"
"I'm hungry," said Tess, sitting up.
"Well," said Sonia briskly, "you hardly ate a bite at supper so that doesn't surprise me."
"You aren't mad at me?"
"What occurs between you and Ilya is not any of my business, Tess."
Tess stood. "You and Yuri have been matchmaking since the day I got to your tribe. Admit it."
"No, in fact, it was several days before the thought occurred to me. It was at the dance, when you told him you were riding with them. And forced him to accept it and take you along."
"What's wrong with me?" Tess asked, remembering how brash she had been.
"You were almost killed, and you still haven't regained your strength. And you saw your brother killed. I grieve as much as you do but I didn't see him die. I can still imagine that he is simply out riding and will come back tomorrow. I don't envy you that knowledge or that memory.''
"But, Sonia, I want that knowledge and that memory. For you, they rode out one day and never came back. I couldn't stand to live that way.''
Sonia took her gently by the arm. "Perhaps that is why you still practice saber. Come, Tess. There's still meat, I think, or if you wish, a celebration at the Veselov camp. Arina has gone into seclusion for the next nine days but we women can visit her. I'm sure she would like to see you."
"Yes," said Tess, taking great comfort in the thought of the company of women, "I'd like that."
Sonia surveyed her critically. "And I want you to know how very much I hate you for being able to wear that particular shade of green. That is Nadezhda Martov's dye, is it not? Yes, we had some of her cloth once but it simply made me look ill, and it did nothing for Stassi or Kira or Anna either, so we had to trade it off. It made us sick to give it up. But it looks stunning on you." Tess blushed, remembering Ilya's voice as he called her "beautiful."
"Well? Are we going? Or are you going to stand there and gloat over your good looks all night?" Tess laughed and followed her out.
It was easy enough, in the morning, to go back to her old habits: in the mornings she would practice saber and fighting, and in the afternoons she would work and gossip with the women. Now that Bakhtiian's jahar had returned, she had plenty of company on the practice field, and their acceptance of her presence there did not go unnoticed by the others: especially the respect with which such noted riders as Josef and Tasha treated her. Bakhtiian, who observed and even participated out on the field at intervals, ignored her as he might ignore any other young rider whose presence was beneath his notice. If he did address her, it was always and only as "Cousin." He spent a great deal of time with his new horses, or speaking with the men who had come to join him, or taking reports from the scouts and parties of riders sent out to search for Mikhailov. Kirill continued to be a patient, fair, and shrewd teacher, and he carried himself with a new self-assurance to which even the older men deferred at the appropriate times. But Tess kept in general to the company of the orphans, feeling rather more comfortable with them, half in and half out of the tribes, than with anyone else.
With the women she felt entirely at home. Mother Orzhekov said nothing about her marriage. If anyone noticed that she slept in her tent and Ilya in his, no one mentioned it to her. At meals, Ilya was unfailingly polite to her. If she caught him staring at her now and again-well, then, could she blame him? If she caught herself staring at him-well, God knew how handsome he was.
"I am getting stronger," she said to Sonia one day. "I got through all morning without having to rest."
"Yes," said Sonia, "and we've worked all afternoon without you resting either. Tonight Arina comes out of seclusion. Poor Kirill has been hiding outside of camp all afternoon."
"Yes," said Tess with a grin, "he was looking rather nervous and pink at practice. I told him so."
"You are feeling better."
"Yes," said Tess, realizing it was true. "I am."
After supper, Tess went alone to her tent and pulled out the tiny dagger and stared at it. She slid her thumb up the blade, felt it hum. The hilt peeled away. Charles needed to know that she was alive. She lifted it to her eye level so the intricate machinery could take her retinal scan. Then, with decision, she triggered the codes. Not the primary codes, the emergency alert, but the secondary pulse, tuned to her signature code, that said merely, I am safe. For five minutes it pulsed, silent to her ears, and then it stopped. She slid the transmitter back into its sheath and left it with her saber and her jahar clothes, safe in her tent.
That evening the two tribes held a dance in honor of Mother Veselov's wedding. Arina was carried out to the great fire, weighed down with so much finery that she actually shone. Kirill, allowed to see her for the first time since the day he had marked her, greeted her with a kiss far more intimate than was proper for so public a place, and he was chastised good-naturedly all evening by women and men both.