“Oh, no,” Delora said. “I’ve decided it isn’t pretty enough for me to wear.”
“I don’t see Zoela here,” Hespera said after a minute. “Don’t tell me the little Queen wasn’t invited. I think Dahlia’s parents invited every aristo girl in the Province who is the same age as darling Dahlia.”
“I heard Lady Zhara brought Zoela to the city and is going to have her live there now. Just as well. Zoela really isn’t our kind of aristo. She’s almost a rube.” And not a girl who looked the other way when rules were bent, let alone broken. That was a shame. Having a Queen as a good friend would have been useful. But there were other girls, other Queens. It was just a matter of choosing the right kind of friends. Blood sings to Blood. Like calls to like. And if a person didn’t fit with her? Well, someone had to be the prey in the games she enjoyed the most.
She and Hespera split up as they reached the tables set out with platters of food. They moved in and around the adults, smiling and polite, as they selected a small amount of delicacies and were encouraged to take more. She looked away, blushingly shy, when complimented on her dress—and she laughed silently when she overheard a Warlord who was going flabby in middle age tell her father how delightful it was to see a girl her age who was so well-behaved.
An hour later, Dahlia began looking for her kitten, who wasn’t in the shielded basket where she’d put it while she had something to eat.
Delora and Hespera rushed to help with the search.
“I’m sure we’ll find him,” Delora said, putting an arm around Dahlia. “A small thing like that couldn’t have gone far.” She stayed with the other girl as they looked for the kitten, staining her party frock by getting on her hands and knees to check under bushes.
No sign of the kitten. Nothing. Gone.
As Delora led weeping Dahlia toward the house, she said very quietly, “It’s too bad about the kitten, but it could have been worse. If your baby brother had gone missing, that would have been a tragedy.”
Dahlia stared at Delora. Delora patted the girl’s shoulder and smiled sympathetically.
The party continued a while longer, mostly because one didn’t invite this many aristos—and have a sufficient number deign to attend—and then ask them to leave before the usual time.
After receiving praise for their efforts to find the kitten, Delora and Hespera linked arms and made another circuit around the lawn.
“Do you think anyone will find the kitten?” Hespera asked.
Delora didn’t even glance at the large tree or the roots that were lifted above the ground. Didn’t need to look to know that no one would check around the trees carefully enough to spot any sign that the ground had been disturbed. She passed by the tree and imagined she could still hear faint, desperate mewing.
“Perhaps someone will someday.” She gave her best friend a brilliant smile. “But not in time.”
Lucivar slipped into the communal eyrie after dinner, not sure why Hallevar had acted so cagey about wanting to see him this evening. The crusty old arms master had been one of his own trainers in the Askavi Terreille hunting camps and was now teaching the Eyrien youngsters in Ebon Rih how to handle weapons—and was the sort of man who usually said whatever was on his mind.
When Lucivar saw Rothvar waiting with Hallevar, he hesitated. He didn’t want to think Rothvar had turned on him or that Hallevar had betrayed him, but his previous second-in-command had not been an honorable man and had managed to hide that truth for several years.
“Figured you should both hear this,” Hallevar said. “I didn’t promise the boy I’d keep quiet about it, so I’m not breaking trust.”
Lucivar approached slowly. “All right.”
“It comes down to the traffic and trade between Kaeleer and Terreille,” Rothvar said.
“Some people have always come through the Gates, and I guess there’s always been some trading.” Lucivar couldn’t imagine wanting anything from Terreille, but that didn’t mean other people felt the same way.
“Just because someone left Terreille doesn’t mean there aren’t ties,” Rothvar said. “Some of the Eyriens living here have family that either stayed in Terreille by choice or didn’t get to the service fairs before the purge that cleansed the Realms. News from family can have a powerful pull.” He looked Lucivar in the eyes. “Not for me—I was glad to leave that pus-riddled Realm—but for some.”
“Are we talking about anyone in particular?”
“Dorian,” Hallevar said. “Alanar overheard Dorian and Endar arguing over some letters she received from family still living in Terreille. The boy doesn’t know what the letters said, just that it sounded like Dorian had been sending and receiving letters for a while now and his father was upset about it.”
“People in Terreille poisoning the well out of spite?” Rothvar suggested. “Or preparing the ground for a battle to help the family’s Queen gain control of some territory?”
Hallevar snorted. “Endar brought his family to Kaeleer because it’s obvious the girl has a bit of a short-lived race in her bloodline, and Eyriens in Terreille wouldn’t have accepted her as a Queen they were willing to serve.”
“That was before the purge,” Lucivar said. “Now?” It was a possibility. Train the girl here and then return to Terreille to set up a court. Except anyone who thought Daemonar would follow Orian to Terreille was a fool. More likely, set up the daughter’s court as the means of bringing the rest of the family to Kaeleer.
“Ask around,” he said. “Find out what you can about Dorian’s family. My impression was they weren’t aristo, but they might have unrealistic expectations about what they can gain from having a Queen in the family—especially if they’re looking to reconcile with Dorian for some kind of profit.”
What sort of profit they thought to gain from Endar was anyone’s guess. But it could explain Dorian’s interest in setting a hook into the Yaslana family. He—or one of his children—had the kind of wealth that could support a Queen’s court in style.
He’d send them to Hell—and to the High Lord—before he let that happen.
After thanking Hallevar for bringing this to his attention, Lucivar walked out with Rothvar.
“Might be nothing more than letters from home,” Rothvar said. “Might not have anything to do with Dorian feeling sour about her life.”
“Might not,” Lucivar agreed. “But distance can make some things look better, just like stories can gloss over a truth to make it less ugly.”
“Or less frightening?”
“You don’t think the stories about me are frightening?”
“They are.” Rothvar lowered his voice. “They’re still not close to the truth about you. I’ve worked alongside you enough years now to have figured that out. There may come a time when I can’t stand with you, Lucivar, but I’ll never stand on the other side of a line against you. You need to know that, here and now.”
Lucivar stepped aside and spread his wings. “Then let’s hope we never find that line.”
Tomorrow he would go to the Keep and ask Geoffrey for whatever was available about Dorian’s bloodlines. Now, as he flew home, he wondered if Marian had received any letters—and he wondered what he would do if she had.
Daemon waited until Jaenelle Saetien fell asleep before riding the Black Wind to the Keep, leaving his girl in the care of Beale and Holt. It was the same arrangement they had worked out for the times when Surreal wasn’t at the Hall and he needed the solitude of staying in his father’s old suite, with the layers of Black shields keeping everyone away from him while he regained his self-control and emotional balance.