As Jak brought her tea, Berenene ordered Quenaill to fetch Sandry a chair. Once Sandry took her seat with a word of thanks, Finlach fer Hurich offered her a plate of tiny dumplings, fresh strawberries, and marzipan roses. Redheaded, with a handsome face composed entirely of carved angles, he rivaled Jak for looks. As he and Jak hovered around Sandry, she noticed that they glanced frequently toward Berenene. She was about to demand that they decide who they wanted to talk to when she saw the mage Ishabal and another older woman whispering together and looking in her direction.
It hit her like fireworks: These are my cousin’s choices, Sandry realized. She’s picked Jak and Finlach as the ones she wants to court and marry the heiress if they can. Uncle warned me she’d try this. If I wed a Namornese nobleman, I stop taking my income to Emelan. My wealth stays here.
Sandry veiled her eyes with her lashes as she bit into an early strawberry. So the summer’s game of snare-the-heiress begins, she thought cynically. It will be interesting to see how they try to do it, especially now that they know I don’t care for flattery.
She sighed. I hope they’re entertaining, at least. Otherwise I’m going to be very bored until it’s time to go home.
After an hour of further mingling, Berenene proclaimed it was too fine a day to spend indoors. She invited her court and her guests outside to view her gardens. Immediately Rizu went to a pair of doubled-glass doors that opened onto a marble terrace. When she struggled with the latch, Daja went to help her.
Rizu smiled at her through the curls that had escaped her veil. “These old things are always stiff this early in the year,” she said. “I told the servants to oil them yesterday, but it was a bit cold last night.”
Daja reached into the latch with her power and warmed the oil in its parts. The latch turned. The doors swung outward. “You just have to know how to talk to locks,” she told Rizu.
“So I see,” the young woman replied, and laughed. “Obviously I need to learn a new language. My goodness ...” She looked at Daja’s brass-wrapped hand. “Is that jewelry?”
“Not exactly,” Daja replied. She offered the hand for Rizu’s inspection and turned it over so the other woman could see the brass on her palm. As Rizu inspected her hand, Daja felt warmth start under her skin where Rizu touched her. It fizzed up into her arm, making Daja feel both odd and pleased at the same time.
“Does it hurt?” asked Rizu, awed, when she saw the metal was sealed to Daja’s flesh.
Daja shook her head. “It’s part of me. And it’s a long story.”
“I’d love to hear it,” said Rizu, walking onto the terrace. “If you don’t mind telling it?”
Daja smiled and tucked her hands in her tunic pockets, falling in step with Rizu as the nobles surged out into the morning sun. “Well, if you insist.”
Tris drew back as the courtiers streamed outside. Let them go walk and flirt and gossip about people I don’t know, she thought, meaning the nobles, not her friends. If I wanted to be bored, I’d have tried embroidery. She smiled. And Sandry would scold me for saying it’s boring, she added.
The truth was that the breezes surrounding the palace at ground level drowned her in images and voices trapped in its air currents and drafts. They were the gleanings from the hundreds of people who walked and worked on the grounds. Tris could block out most of the voices, but it was harder to keep bits and pieces of pictures from assaulting her eyes, and Sandry had forbidden her to wear her colored lenses on the day she was to be officially presented at court.
I need spectacles that block the images without looking odd, Tris told herself. Or I need to tell Sandry that I don’t care how strange I look.
Or ... there are advantages to staying indoors, she thought. This is a new place. Better still, this is a new wealthy household, which means more books. I doubt the empress will even notice I’m gone, she told herself. She’s so busy watching Sandry, I’ll bet she has eyes for little else. I wonder where Her Imperialness keeps her library?
Briar drifted through the crowd of nobles, getting to know who was who, particularly among the women. He didn’t go all out with any one female, not today. You’ve got all summer to spend in this human garden, he told himself, when the urge to single out a particular beauty caught him up. And some of these flowers are well worth the effort to cultivate. You don’t want to race around clipping them like a greedy robber.
A few male mages drifted his way to get acquainted. They accompanied their greetings with a subtle pressure to see if Briar was weak or unprepared, a magical touch like a too-strong handshake. It was a popular game with insecure mages, particularly men, and Briar withstood it without pressing back. He ended the conversation and moved away from the pressure as soon as was polite. Why do they waste their time like this? Briar wondered for perhaps the thousandth time since he had begun his mage studies. They aren’t competing with me, or me with them, so why bother? None of my teachers ever tried that nonsense.
“Stop that,” he finally told the last mage crossly. “I’m not going to yelp like a puppy and I’m not knocking you over, either. Stop wasting my time and yours. Grow up.”
Quenaill was within earshot. He came over, waving off the man who had begun to turn red over Briar’s remarks. “You’d better hope Her Imperial Majesty doesn’t catch you at such tricks with her guests, particularly not with a garden mage,” he advised the nobleman. As the older mage left, Quenaill smiled quizzically down at Briar. He was a hand taller, the tallest man at court. “You think it’s a waste of lime?” Quenaill asked. “Not a way to gauge the potential threat of a stranger?”
Briar dug his hands into his trouser pockets. “Why?” he asked reasonably. “I’d be an awful bleat-brain to try anything here, where even the pathways are shaped for protection.”
“You don’t want others to respect you?” asked Quenaill. He had the look in his eye of a man who has stumbled across some strange new breed of animal.
“What do I care if they respect me or no?” asked Briar. “If I want them to learn that, I won’t use a silly game to teach it. I save my power for business.”
“Well, my business is the protection of Her Imperial Majesty,” Quenaill reminded him.
“And mine isn’t anything that might mean her harm,” Briar replied. “You obviously know that already. I’m a nice safe little green mage, all bestrewn with flowers and weeds and things.”
Quenaill covered the beginnings of a smile with his hand. When he lowered it, his mouth under control again, he said, “Little plant-strewn green mages aren’t safe, not when they wear a medallion at eighteen. I was considered a prodigy, and I was twenty-one when I got mine.”
Briar shrugged. “That’s hardly my fault. Maybe your teachers held off because they were worried about you respecting them—and maybe mine already knew I respected them for anything that truly mattered.”
Quenaill began to chuckle. Once he caught his breath, he told Briar, “All right. I give up. You win—such tests of power are pointless in the real world. But if you think any of these wolves won’t try to show how much better than you they are, in magic or in combat, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
Briar brushed off the idea as if it were a fly. “Just because they want to dance doesn’t mean I’ll do the steps,” he replied. He and Quenaill fell into step together as the court wandered down into the park that surrounded the palace. “So where did you study?” he asked as they followed the lords and ladies.