But she was conscious of Caiden, too, walking just behind. Blaive trailed in the rear.
They passed from the low entranceway, which was carpeted with elaborate rugs much faded from their original glory, and up a creaky stair. Wen let go of her arm and she shrunk a little without his steady warmth. But she wasn’t brave enough to reach for him again.
The house was small, the tour brief. Wen spooled out a short history of how it was the last of a number of modest holdings his family had once awarded to faithful lords, back when they were royalty. The other holdings had been surrendered to Enduena, when Ryn was absorbed into the Empire.
Talia peeked into four upstairs bedrooms, a downstairs sitting room, and a tiny parlor.
“Where will your music room be?” she asked Wen as the four of them trooped through the back of the house and out toward the garden.
“What do you mean?”
“The music room. Where will you put your raina and the other instruments?”
He studied her. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Perhaps the sitting room? There’s just enough space, I would think.”
“Even more space at the University,” said Caiden, his voice dripping sarcasm. She wished he would leave Wen alone.
“Lovely idea,” put in Blaive, not to be outdone. “We can hire a cart from the village and start moving everything over today!”
They ate lunch in the garden, a pleasant terrace at the back of the house that looked out toward the distant sea. Anira had laid out a little picnic for them: cold chicken, cider, fresh apples, and coffee. Talia laced her fingers around her coffee mug and drank deeply, shuddering in the wind.
The majority of the meal passed in an uneasy silence. Wen didn’t say anything at all, while Caiden made various attempts at humor and Blaive tried to flirt with him. Caiden’s attitude toward Wen was making Talia increasingly uncomfortable. She caught Wen’s eyes across the way and smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, just studied her. Would he be content, she wondered, spinning out his life in this little house, watching sheep and composing music no one else would ever hear?
No one except for her, if she stayed with him.
The thought startled her—when had she considered, even for a moment, that she would actually marry him?
She dropped her gaze from Wen’s and took a drink of cider.
The wind bit colder and colder as the afternoon went on, and dark clouds began to roll in from the south. Talia was relieved when Anira appeared and said apologetically that they should head back if they wanted to outrun the weather.
The rain caught up with them halfway to the Ruen-Dahr, and the four of them arrived drenched and shuddering just before dinner, a lantern gleaming bright at the door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
SHE WAS EXHAUSTED ENOUGH TO SLEEP THE whole night through, images of Stars and Waves and screaming dead shadows haunting her dreams. She awoke to find the rain had frozen overnight, snow tracing delicate patterns on her window. Her room was completely frigid. She wrapped herself in a blanket and settled on the window seat.
All the world below her, save the sea, was shrouded in white, snow clinging to the rocks and the sand and the hills to the south, blanketing everything in soft winter quilts. The beauty of the landscape took her breath away. It had snowed only rarely in Irsa, a light dusting a handful of times throughout her childhood, and not at all in Eddenahr. The capital was far too warm for anything but an occasional cold rain in the early spring months.
Ro came in with a breakfast tray, and when she’d laid it on the dressing table, she knelt to coax life back into Talia’s fire. “It hasn’t been snowing long enough to close the roads, so the seamstress ought to be here presently,” she said, sweeping away yesterday’s ashes.
“Seamstress?” said Talia, leaving the window nook to pour herself some tea.
“The Baron sent for her last week. You’re to have a few dresses of your own, and a bridal gown, of course, Miss.”
She clenched her teeth. “A bridal gown?”
Ro glanced at Talia over her shoulder. “It’s unlucky to get married in another woman’s dress, you know.” She quirked a grin. “Especially if she’s dead.”
“Don’t joke about that,” Talia snapped, her voice coming out louder than she’d intended.
Ro turned back to the fire. “Sorry, Miss.”
Flames sparked on the stones, and Ro got up and left the room.
Talia nibbled fitfully at her breakfast, staring out at the snow and trying not to think about the sea goddess and her Star, the nine Waves playing music for the dead.
The seamstress barged in when Talia was only halfway through her pot of tea, a wide flat box tucked under one arm, a wooden stool dangling from the other. She was young, no older than Talia herself, and was angular and tall. She wore her brown hair pulled into a rigid knot at the back of her head.
“Up you go then,” she said, plopping down the stool and waving Talia onto it. Then she set the box on the bed and opened it, revealing half a dozen unfinished gowns.
Talia laid down her teacup and obligingly stepped onto the stool.
The seamstress made her try on all of the half-sewn gowns, one after the other, circling her with a critical eye and a fist full of pins. She took measurements and made notes in a little green book, pausing now and then to pin the open seams.
Talia tried on the bridal gown last of all. It was a deep blue, as brilliant as the Enduenan summer sky, with the beginnings of delicate silver embroidery around the neckline. It was beautiful.
The seamstress kept circling like a shrewd hawk, an intense frown of concentration on her face. She slipped a few pins in under Talia’s shoulders, and more around her waist. Then she stood back to scrutinize her work. “That will do, I think. The Baron’s requested he see you in the gown. Shall I wait while you go and show him?”
Talia chewed her lip. What if Caiden had already spoken to him? “I wouldn’t think the Baron would care about a wedding dress.”
The seamstress shrugged. “He’s paying for it. Go on up, Miss. Make sure he approves.”
Talia grimaced, but acquiesced, gathering her skirt in both hands to keep it from dragging across the floor. She stepped out into the hall, and started up the flight of stairs that led to the Baron’s suite. She had little wish for a private interview with him, but she supposed she’d better get it over with.
The Baron answered her quiet knock with a call of admittance and she swept into his study, immediately oppressed with a wall of heat. He was sitting in an armchair pulled close to a roaring fire, a patchwork quilt laying over his knees. He looked more shrunken and old and ill than the last time she’d seen him.
“What is it?” he asked in some confusion.
“The seamstress is here. I came to show you my … the … the bridal gown.”