I did my best to copy the graceful sway of hips and arms, the steps and the turns, but my mind was captured by remembrance, and as the words to the maiden song were sung, I knew them, though I couldn’t have pulled them forward on my own.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
He is coming, do not hide.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Let the king make you his bride.
I heard the words in my mother’s voice, lilting and sweet, as if she sang my future from my past. I spun without knowing the steps, and danced without knowing what came next. My eyes found Tiras, visible in slivers and pieces as I whirled with Jeru’s daughters, and the voice in my head became a voice of warning.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Wait for him, his heart is true.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
It was a silly song, an ancient song, a song of being rescued by a powerful man, of becoming a princess, as if a princess were the only thing a Jeruvian daughter might want to be. But it disturbed me, as if my mother, a Teller of considerable power, had made it all come to pass. She had sung me to sleep with that song—Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, ‘Til the hour he comes for you.
‘Til the hour.
Curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour.
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
The maiden song and the curse my mother whispered in my ear the day she died became one in my head.
“Are you unwell, Highness?” Lady Firi touched my arm lightly. I realized I had stopped dancing, making the line bunch around me.
I fanned myself, signaling a need for water and air, and she nodded agreeably.
“Let’s step into the garden, shall we?”
I followed her gratefully, keeping my chin high to keep my crown from sliding around my ears and over my eyes. I knew it made me look haughty, but haughtiness was preferable to bumbling.
The garden was fragrant with the last of the summer’s blooms. The leaves were falling and the air was starting to grow crisp and cool. Jeru City didn’t get much snow like Corvyn, or Kilmorda, or even Bilwick to the east, but the days were growing darker and shorter, the light fading faster, taking Tiras when it fled.
“You lied to me,” Lady Firi said breezily. “You knew that dance, and you did it very well. The king was pleased.”
Her choice of words made me flush. Pleasing the king brought to mind other things. I shrugged carefully and smiled a little, pleading innocence without a word.
“You are quite lovely. I didn’t think so at first. I do now. Shall we be friends, Lady Lark? That is your name, isn’t it?”
I wondered if I could trust Ariel of Firi. She had spoken up for me as I waited at the altar. She had stood with Tiras against the northern lords. Kjell seemed smitten, and I would love to have a friend. But her eyes often lingered on Tiras, and the silent words she exuded were guarded and stiff, as if she were wary of me too.
I nodded, allowing the use of my name, and she leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“I can hear you, you know.”
I drew back as if she’d slapped me. She laughed, a lovely, tinkling sound that made the flowers tip their heads toward her.
“When you speak, I can hear you. Just a word . . . here and there. At the feast you asked me if I wanted more wine. You thought I didn’t know it was you.”
I stared at her blankly, revealing nothing, and she pressed a gentle finger against the thundering pulse on my neck.
“Don’t worry. The Firi are descended from the Gifted too. I have my own shameful secrets. Your mother was a noblewoman from Enoch, yes?”
I confirmed nothing.
“All of Enoch is descended from the first Teller. Enoch and Janda. There were Gifted in Kilmorda, though many of them were destroyed by the Volgar. Some say the Volgar are descendants of the first Changer—though he was a wolf and the Volgar are . . . birds.” Her voice was light, informational, but she didn’t remove her hand from my neck. She held it there, softly, like a caress.
“And some say the Volgar were spun from vultures. I tend to believe that, having faced them in battle. The Bin Dar descend from the Spinners, the Quondoon as well. It is all part of our history,” Tiras spoke up behind us. I hadn’t heard or felt him approach with the blood roaring in my ears and Lady Firi’s knowing fingers at my throat.
Lady Firi dropped her hand and turned with a demure smile and welcoming eyes. Kjell trailed after Tiras, a constant shadow since the king’s wedding day abduction.
“The king speaks truth.” Lady Firi inclined her head in agreement. “But the Corvyns and the Degn descend from the warrior who slayed the Dragon Changer. There is no Gifted in their blood, which is why the throne has remained in the Degn line for over a century, with a Corvyn always waiting in the wings. Pure blood. No taint.” She looked at me and winked.
“But then we marry and mate. And things become messy. Don’t you agree, Kjell?” The smile she tossed toward Kjell was flirtatious. Or provocative. I wasn’t sure. She was friendly and relaxed, but the words she said and the words she hid were different. Something was bothering her. I had a feeling it was me.
“Indeed. But the king is of Degn. I am of Degn. We should both be without . . . taint,” Kjell said with a hint of bite.
Lady Firi walked toward him, turning her back on me and the king, as if we were all old friends. When she drew near, she raised herself on her toes, letting her lips touch Kjell’s ear. Maybe she didn’t intend for me to hear, but the words found me anyway, the way they always did.
“But we all know differently, don’t we?”
The lords and ladies eventually left, leaving relative peace in their wake, but in the days and weeks following our nuptials, the king was tireless, as if time was slipping from him. He slept very little and was almost always in motion, and when he wasn’t, he was listening carefully, ruling judiciously, and instructing. Always instructing. He kept me by his side, demanding my attention and my focus, and when I grew weary or resistant, he would level his black eyes on me and remind me that I was now the queen, and I had “much to learn.” He made me seethe even as I sought his approval.
There were nights he couldn’t stay with me and long days when the paltry light of winter didn’t make him a man again. I did my best to fill my time with reading and writing, but I missed him with an intensity that made his absence painful and his return a celebration. In the dark or the light, in the great hall or in our bedchamber, he was gruff but gentle, arrogant yet attentive, and he made love with a ferocity and focus that made it impossible not to bend myself to his will, even as I found ways to challenge and defy him.
Once a week, when the change didn’t take him, I sat with Tiras during the hearings as he listened to one Jeruvian after another state his case, only to come to a swift decision before beckoning another forward. His subjects respected him, though there were a few who argued, and one who spit at his feet before being dragged away.
Two full moons after we were married, a young woman was brought before the king, her hands chained, her face and clothes filthy, as if she’d been dragged through the streets. A man stepped forward with her and accused her of being a Healer.
I looked at the chains around the woman’s wrists and the defeat in her face and interrupted the questioning, pushing an order at Tiras with such adamancy that he winced.
Tell the man to let her go.
“What is your proof?” the king asked, ignoring me.