Ro came to help her dress for dinner, cinching tight the laces of the despised corset, and buttoning the back of a pale yellow gown. The waistline was embroidered in green and studded with pearls; the sleeves were poufs of confectioner’s cream, showing the length of Talia’s brown arms. She wondered which Baroness the gown had belonged to—Caiden’s mother, or Wen’s.
She settled in front of the mirror while curly-headed Ro arranged her hair. “Have you worked at the Ruen-Dahr very long?”
“About a year,” said Ro, twisting a strand of Talia’s hair and pinning it up.
Talia grinned in what she hoped was a conspiratorial manner. “Then you know all the house’s secrets, I imagine.”
Ro laughed. “Not even the Baron knows all the house’s secrets, Miss.”
“But you know what happened to the Baronesses?”
In the mirror, Ro avoided her eyes. “I’m not supposed to talk about them. Lyna scolded me for what I said last night.”
“I won’t tell her,” Talia promised.
Ro shook her head and grabbed another pin. “I’m sorry, Miss.”
Talia chose her next words carefully. “What’s at the top of the tower? I thought I might explore the house tomorrow, but I don’t want to go places I’m not allowed.”
Ro seemed relieved at this change in subject. “Nothing up there but the Baronesses’ old suite, all dust and spiderwebs. There’s the library too, of course, but it’s locked up.”
Now she was getting somewhere. “The library?”
The maid shrugged a little. “Some sort of tragedy, I don’t know what. The Baron had it locked long before I came to work here.”
Interesting. “What if I need something to read?”
“Master Wendarien keeps books in the music room. You could always ask him, Miss.”
Talia grimaced—she’d take her chances with the locked door.
Ro slipped in a final pin, and stepped back, nodding in satisfaction. “You’ll make a very pretty bride when the time comes, if you don’t mind my saying so. It’ll cheer up Master Wendarien, too.”
Heat rushed through her, and she rose abruptly from the stool.
“Why does Wen need cheering up?”
“Because of the difficulty over University, of course. The Baron was so angry when he said he wasn’t going after all, and then he had the audacity to claim he knew what had happened to the Baronesses and—” Ro cut herself off. “I’m sorry, Miss. I really shouldn’t be talking about it.”
Talia stamped down her frustration and tried a different tack. “Do you really hear voices from the tower?”
Ro caught her eye. “If I said I did, would you believe me?”
“Yes.”
The maid’s face grew tight. “Do you hear it, too?”
She didn’t mean to say it, but the words spilled out anyway. “Not exactly. But my mother—my mother claimed the sea was singing to her. On the ship.”
“I heard about her death, Miss Dahl-Saida. I’m very sorry for it.”
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
Ro regarded her with a shake of her head. “So much sadness in this house. I am sorry some of it has found you.”
The wind whispered against the window, and Talia heard an unearthly melody coiling up from the sea. It sang of sorrow and danger and longing. It made her feel as if the waves had already swallowed her whole, and she was just taking a long time with the drowning.
Chapter Fifteen
CAIDEN AND WEN WERE WAITING FOR HER when she arrived in the dining hall, her skirts whispering about her knees. They both jerked their heads up and rose from their seats, bowing almost in unison, one light head and one dark. She felt exposed in the tight-waisted, short-sleeved gown, acutely aware of the brothers’ gazes. She strode quickly to her chair from last evening, and sat down.
Wen and Caiden resumed their seats, and Lyna swept in carrying dinner: roasted fish with wild pears and a spicy-sweet sauce.
“Is the Baron not joining us?” Talia asked, in order to have something to say.
“My father is very tired,” Caiden told her. “We’ve been holed up nearly since breakfast, going over the accounts from my review. He’ll have his dinner upstairs in his rooms.”
“Is he—” Talia cut herself off and glanced down at her plate, then back at Caiden. “Is the Baron ill?”
Wen fidgeted beside her and a hint of tension flicked across Caiden’s face. “Our father has not been well since …”
“Since my mother died,” said Wen quietly.
She looked at him. His face was open, his eyes seeking hers.
“Grief is not an illness,” she said.
“Isn’t it?”
“You are not ill. Caiden is not ill. I am not—” she swallowed and brought her hand up to her forehead “—ill.”
Wen tapped his finger on the handle of his knife. “I think it’s more to the point that our father does not wish to be well. And so he is not.”
“He makes himself older than he is,” Caiden agreed. His gaze locked with Wen’s for a moment until Wen shifted uneasily and looked away.
For a while the three of them lapsed into silence, focusing solely on their plates. Talia kept stealing glances at Caiden, watching the way he cut his food or admiring his long fingers wrapped around his wine glass. He would fit in nicely at the Enduenan court, and she couldn’t help wishing both of them were at the palace in Eddenahr, eating sherbet out of crystal glasses. They would dance at some elaborate party; he would ask her to go walking with him through the gardens in the starlight. She would marry him in the spring, diamonds in his hair and gold thread in hers.
She realized Caiden was talking to her, and she jerked her attention to the present. “I’m sorry?”
He quirked a grin. “I was just asking you why our esteemed Empress banished you to lowly Ryn. I can’t imagine you having done anything to offend her.”
Talia fiddled with her knife handle. “She found out that the Emperor intended to name me his heir, instead of her.”
Caiden’s eyebrows went to the top of his head. “Aigir’s bones.”
“You were going to be Empress?” said Wen, shocked into speaking. “Why?”
“Because—well because I’m the Emperor’s daughter.” She stared at her plate, her food turning sour in her stomach. “The man I thought was my father nearly my whole life … it turns out he wasn’t. My mother only told me a few days before Eda seized the Empire.”
Wen shook his head and Caiden swore again. “Why don’t you go back to Enduena? Raise an army of your own and take back the Empire? It’s yours by birthright!”
The fire was making her too warm, and the neckline of her dress itched. “I have no money, no army, no support, no way to even make the return journey. Eda will kill me if I show my face there again.”
Caiden leaned toward her across the table. “So find a way! Gather support, raise an army. Ryn would stand behind you.”
“It’s not that simple, Caiden. And besides—I’m not sure I even want to be Empress.” She imagined sinking onto the Emperor’s ivory throne, a crown on her head. She imagined Eda, groveling at her feet. But none of that would bring her mother back.
Caiden shrugged. “I just don’t think you should dismiss the idea entirely. It’s worth thinking about, anyway.”
She tried to smile. “Perhaps.” She scrambled for some way to change the subject. “I saw you out riding today. You have a very fine horse—is he of Enduenan stock?”