Oh, blessed gods.
Pauline?
It hit me as swiftly as a punch to my gut. No wonder she’d been so sallow and tired. No wonder she was so frightened.
“Pauline,” I whispered.
She shook her head, cutting me off. “I’m fine! I’ll be fine. The parritch simply didn’t settle properly.” She sent me a quick pleading look with watery eyes.
We could talk about this later. With Gwyneth looking on, I hurriedly tried to cover, explaining that Pauline had always had a delicate constitution.
“Weak stomach or not, she’s in no shape to travel into a hot canyon for berry hunting,” Gwyneth said firmly, and I was grateful that Pauline agreed. Still looking pale, she insisted she could return home on her own, and I reluctantly let her go.
“Skip the parritch from now on,” Gwyneth called after her as she rode away.
But Pauline and I both knew it wasn’t her morning meal that had made her sick.
From the seed of the thief
The Dragon will rise,
The gluttonous one,
Feeding on the blood of babes,
Drinking the tears of mothers.
—Song of Venda
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Devil’s Canyon was aptly named. The temperate breezes of Terravin didn’t venture down here. It was dry and dusty but strangely beautiful in its own way. Large gnarled oaks mingled with tall palms and barrel cactus. Jewelweed taller than a man hugged the thin rocky streams that sprang from creviced walls. It looked like a demon’s stash, mismatched flora stolen from the corners of the earth to create his own version of paradise. And of course there were the blackberries, his seductive fruit, but we hadn’t come upon them yet.
Gwyneth blew a puff of air from her mouth, trying to cool her brow, and then unbuttoned her shirt, pulling it off and tying it around her waist. Her chemise did little to hide her generous breasts or their perkiness beneath the thin fabric. My chemise was much more modest than hers, but in spite of the sweat trickling down my back, I was reluctant to shed my shirt. I knew Terravin was more relaxed about exposed body parts, but in Civica, nearly bared breasts would have been scandalous. My parents would have—
I smiled and threw off my jerkin and then pulled my shirt over my head. I immediately felt the relief of the air on my damp skin.
“There you go, Princess. Isn’t that better?” Gwyneth said.
I tugged abruptly on Otto’s reins, and he voiced a loud complaint. “Princess?”
She halted Dieci much more leisurely and grinned. “You thought I didn’t know? The all-knowing Gwyneth perceives everything.”
My heart raced. I wasn’t amused. I wasn’t even entirely sure she wasn’t just fishing. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”
She feigned offense, the corners of her mouth pulling back in a smirk. “You doubt me? You’ve seen how good I am at assessing the tavern patrons.” She clicked the reins and moved forward. I followed her, keeping pace as she continued to talk, seeming to enjoy this game even more than the one she played at the tavern. “Or,” she said with grand flourish, “it could be I have a crystal ball. Or … perhaps I snooped around in your cottage?”
The jewels in my bag. Or worse, the stolen—
I drew in a startled breath.
She turned to look at me and frowned. “Or it could be that Berdi told me,” she spelled out plainly.
“What?” I pulled on Otto’s reins again, and he voiced another high-pitched whine.
“Stop doing that! It’s not the wretched beast’s fault.”
“Berdi told you?”
With slow, deliberate grace, she dismounted from her donkey, while I clumsily vaulted from mine, nearly tumbling onto my face. “After all her talk about not telling anyone?” I shrieked. “All her admonitions to be careful and hiding us away for days on end?”
“It was only for a few days. And telling me was different. She—”
“How is announcing it to a tavern maid who chatters with strangers from hither and yon different? There was no reason you needed to know!”
I turned to lead Otto forward, but she grabbed my wrist and jerked me around roughly. “Berdi knows I live in town and I’d be the first to know if a magistrate came nosing around or leaving notices for your arrest if it should come to that.” She released my hand.
I rubbed my wrist where she had twisted it. “So you know what I did?”
Her lips puckered with disdain, and she nodded. “I can’t say I understand why. It’s far preferable to be shackled to a pompous prince than to a penniless philanderer, but—”
“I’d prefer not to be shackled to anyone.”
“Ah. Love. Yes, that. It’s a nice little trick if you can find it. But don’t fret; I’m still on your side.”
“Well,” I huffed. “That’s a relief, isn’t it?”
Her shoulders pulled back, and she cocked her head to the side. “Don’t underestimate my usefulness, Lia, and I won’t underestimate yours.”
I already wished I could snatch my remark back. I sighed. “I’m sorry, Gwyneth. I don’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that I’ve tried so hard to be careful. I don’t want anyone to be hurt by my presence.”
“How long do you plan to stay?”
Had she supposed I was only passing through? “Forever, of course. I’ve no place else to go.”
“Terravin isn’t paradise, Lia. The problems of Morrighan won’t disappear just because you hide here. What about your responsibilities?”
“I have none beyond Terravin. My only responsibilities are to Berdi, Pauline, and the inn.”
She nodded. “I see.”
But it was clear that she didn’t see. From her perspective, all she saw was privilege and power, but I knew the truth. I was barely useful in a kitchen. As a First Daughter, I wasn’t useful at all. And as a political pawn, I refused to be useful.
“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose all the mistakes I’ve made have been entirely my own doing. You’re entitled to make your own too.”
“What kind of mistakes have you made, Gwyneth?”
She shot me a withering look. “Regrettable ones.” Her tone dared me to push further, but her eyes faltered for a fleeting moment. She pointed to two narrow arms of the canyon where she said the best berry bushes thrived. “We can leave the donkeys here. You take one trail, and I’ll take the other. It shouldn’t take us long to fill our baskets.” Our discussion was apparently over. She untied her baskets from Dieci’s pack and left without divulging her regrettable mistakes, but the brief wistful cast of her eyes stayed with me, and I wondered what she had done.
I followed the narrow trail she pointed to and found it soon opened up into a wider oasis, the devil’s own garden, complete with a shallow pool of water fed by a trickling brook. The shaded northern slope of the canyon hung heavy with berry bushes, and their tufted purple fruit was the largest I had ever seen. The devil tended his garden well.
I plucked one of his forbidden berries and popped it in my mouth. A rush of flavor and memory engulfed me. I closed my eyes and saw Walther’s face, Bryn’s, Regan’s, berry juice dripping from their chins. I saw the four of us running through woods, scrambling over moss-covered ruins of the Ancients without care, never thinking our own world would one day change too.
Stair steps, Aunt Bernette called us, all almost exactly two years apart, as if my mother and father bred on the Timekeeper’s strict schedule, and of course, once a First Daughter was produced, the breeding stopped altogether. My father’s glance at my mother on my last day in Civica flashed through me, the last memory of them I’d probably ever have, and then his comment about her beauty on their wedding day. Was it the rigors of duty that made him shove her aside and forget about love? Had he ever loved her?