“Perhaps you said all those nice things to get my guard down.”
“A fine plan, but alas, this is not as exciting as all that, I’m afraid. I’ve brought you to Audric’s healer.” Ludivine ducked out from under the archway and crossed the courtyard. “Audric much prefers him to his father’s healers up at Baingarde. He’s a good man. Discreet, no-nonsense. And, for all our sakes, I’d like to know that, going forward, your body is protected. Just in case.”
Rielle stopped midstride. “You brought me here so I could buy a contraceptive tonic.”
“Did you think to buy one for yourself?”
“I…” Rielle flushed once more. “I didn’t. I suppose I was still rather caught up in all the…” She gestured helplessly.
“The kissing?” Grinning, Ludivine knocked on the door. “Understandable. That’s what friends are for: to do the thinking for you when your own mind’s gone fogged.”
The door opened, revealing a ruddy-faced older man of middling height and weight, with shaggy brown hair, a slight beard, and piercing blue eyes. He held up a candle, squinting.
“Ah, Lady Sauvillier. Good. And…” He looked to Rielle. His eyebrows raised slightly. “And the honored candidate herself. What a night for me. My name is Garver Randell. Garver is acceptable. Follow me.”
Rielle glanced at Ludivine, who hid her smile behind her hand. No-nonsense indeed.
He ushered them inside, through a small entryway and into a quiet room lined with shelves of vials, jars, and labeled boxes. Through a door in the far wall, Rielle saw a softly lit staircase and another, smaller room. The sounds of someone sweeping and a child’s cheerful humming drifted out to meet them.
“My son’s around here somewhere. He’ll fetch it for you.” Garver found a seat by the crackling fire. “If I have to search through these shelves one more time today, my eyes are bound to pop out of their sockets.”
“Here, Father!” A small boy hurried out the lit doorway into the main room, a broom clutched in one hand. “What do you need?”
“A packet of contraceptive powder for Lady Rielle.” He glanced back at her. “I’ll give you a month’s worth. You’ll have to come back for more.”
Rielle saw the boy’s eyes widen at the mention of her name.
“I hope, Garver, that I can count on both you and your son to be discreet in these matters,” she said.
“Do you think I’d be in business, Lady Rielle,” Garver replied mildly, “if I were in the habit of walking around me de la Terre spreading news of what medicines people take?”
“No,” Rielle said, with some difficulty, “I suppose not.”
Garver’s little son had already found the packet in question, packaged it in a small, plain box, and brought it to Rielle.
“Here, my lady.” He held up the box, his cheeks bright red. “That’ll be five coppers—”
“I’ll waive the cost this time,” Garver called from the fire. “You did well at the metal trial, Lady Rielle. It’s the least I can do.”
“We were there,” the boy blurted out, seeming ready to burst. His eyes shone. “At the end, with all those swords… My lady, we were screaming for you. Did you hear us shout your name?”
“I heard everyone.” Rielle took the box from the boy with a smile. “Thank you for cheering for me. It makes all the difference in the world and helps me not feel so afraid. And, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve yet learned your name.”
“It’s Simon,” said the boy, beaming. He was practically dancing on his toes, quivering with excitement. “My name is Simon.”
30
Eliana
“Hello from home, my love. We celebrated Eliana’s twelfth birthday this evening. As I write this, she and Remy are lying on the floor by the fire, bellies full of cake. Eliana is reading aloud from Remy’s notebook while he draws a picture of her. His stories really are quite good for a five-year-old. I’ve enclosed three for you to read. Though we miss you terribly, we are all doing quite well. Eliana stays with me most days, helping me with my mending. She is good with her hands, maybe even better than me.”
—Letter from Rozen Ferracora to her husband, Ioseph
May 17, Year 1012 of the Third Age
Eliana awoke with a gasp, her hair clinging to her neck and shoulders.
So much for that bath.
“El?” Lying beside her on their shared cot, Remy came awake at once. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled, covering her face with one shaking hand. “Nightmare.”
Which was true. Since Red Crown’s attack on the Empire’s outpost, the same dream had plagued her. It began with the cries of the trapped prisoners. She searched through the smoking ruins for them, shoving past heaps of rubble and digging through piles of ash that grew every time she touched them, until she was swimming through the ash, choking on it, while the prisoners’ screams grew ever louder.
Then their screams would change.
They would call out her name.
It was then that she would finally find someone—a hand, cold and stiff from death, reaching out of the ash.
She would pull and pull on the hand, even though she knew what she would find on the other end. But she couldn’t stop. She did not deserve to be spared. So she dislodged the person from the sea of ash—and the dream would end as she stared into her mother’s death-stricken face.
“What can I do?” Remy scooted closer. “Do you want me to tell you a story?”
“I think I need a walk.” The room Camille had given them for the duration of their stay was luxurious, but the air inside it was too still, too close. Eliana felt like a heavy blanket had been wrapped around her and was winding tighter and closer with every passing moment, binding her limbs to her sides.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She dropped a hasty kiss on Remy’s brow, stumbled out of bed and toward the door.
“I love you,” came Remy’s small, uncertain voice.
“And I love you,” Eliana said and left him for the hallway.
Camille’s apartments were vast, a labyrinth of bedrooms, parlors, and bathing chambers lined with Astavari artwork she had obtained through the underground markets. If Eliana had had to go far, she might have given up eventually, collapsed in a heap of dream-panic until someone found her in the morning.
She was glad, then, that Navi’s room was so close.
Knocking softly on the door, she tried to collect her thoughts. What would she say? And what right did she have to complain to Navi of nightmares after everything she’d done?
I should leave, Eliana thought, still shivering from the lingering awfulness of the dream.
The door opened to reveal Navi, sleep-rumpled and wide-eyed with worry.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Eliana began. “I’ve no right to ask you for anything.”
Navi clucked her tongue. “We’re friends now, aren’t we? And you look terrible.”
Navi guided Eliana inside her candlelit room, then sat on her bed and watched as Eliana furiously paced.
“You’ve had a nightmare,” Navi said.
Eliana nodded, her throat tight with tears. “The prisoners at the outpost… I heard them screaming for me. I searched and searched, but I couldn’t find them, and then I found…my mother. She was dead.” She paused. “They were all dead.”
“Haven’t you had such nightmares of your victims before?”
The simplicity of the question cut Eliana like one of her own knives. “No. I never allowed it to bother me. I couldn’t, or I would never have been able to finish a job. And then where would we all be?”
“None of your family seems very safe right now as it is,” Navi pointed out. “Despite everything you’ve done for them.”
Eliana laughed. “You’re right. All my work, and Mother’s still gone, and Father’s still dead, and Remy and I are at the mercy of people I used to hunt. And Harkan…” We can’t know for certain. He could still be alive.
She dragged a hand through her hair. “What’s the point, then, of any of it?”