Ulla saw that Signy and Roffe were looking at her strangely, but there was little time to think on it, for the coaches had arrived, wrought in silver and gold, their doors bright with lacquer and emblazoned with the symbol of the sildroher royal family—though that emblem would mean nothing to the men of the shore. The horses, vast beasts of dappled gray with black eyes like seals, stamped their massive hooves as Signy and Ulla gasped and Roffe doubled over with laughter. None of these wonders were new to him.
Soon they were thundering down the great road that ran along the edge of the coast to the city of S?ndermane. They had all seen the city from afar, perched on the tip of the white cliffs they called the Severed Moon, the towers of the church where the great iron bells, enchanted by sildroher magic, were said to compel even the worst sinners to prayer. But Ulla could barely think for all the sensations racing through her—the seat beneath her newly formed thighs, the brush of her skirts against her legs, the jouncing of the carriage. With every jolt the sildroher whooped or clutched their sides, wild with the strangeness of it all.
Through the chaos and commerce of the lower town they rattled, over punishing cobblestones, then past the gates to the great palace. How it glittered, white and silver and surrounded by towering pines, as if hewn from pearl and possessed of its own magic. Its spires were so slender it seemed a breath might topple them, and each balcony, railing, and casement was worked in gauzy stonework so light it looked less like masonry and more like airy tongues of frost. Over all of it loomed the legendary Prophetic’s Tower, where scholars from every country came to study and debate their findings with the king’s chief advisers and seers. Ulla found it hard to believe mortal hands could have made such a place.
“Many human nobles spend the warm days here,” said Roffe, nodding toward another cluster of carriages. “They think we’re from an estate far to the south.”
When the footman opened their door, Kalle, the eldest of Roffe’s brothers, was waiting, mouth full of warnings.
“Take your pleasures as you will,” he reminded them as they slowly ascended the wide sweep of the palace steps—still not entirely sure of just how their bodies should align in the act, testing the cold marble through their shoes. “But remember how fragile these creatures are. Spill not their blood. Draw not their notice.”
His gaze lingered upon Ulla too.
Through two high, narrow doors they passed, into a grand entry flanked by curving staircases that met in a broad landing above. Again they climbed, muscles trembling at the unfamiliar work of it, clutching the banister, surprised at the weight of their bodies, the drag of their clothes. Finally, they reached the top of the stairs and entered a long audience chamber, teeming with people.
There were men and women of every country here, swathed in lace and rich silks, jewels at their cuffs, little gilded heels on their shoes. Ulla marveled at how different they were from the Hedjüt with their broad shoulders and bent backs, their thick knuckled hands and weather-ravaged faces. These were the soft, perfumed bodies of people who did not work.
Silence fell as the sildroher passed, and Ulla found it hard not to laugh at the thought of Kalle’s warning. There was no way their party could avoid drawing notice. Despite their tentative steps, the sea folk moved as no human could, their lithe bodies drifting in a liquid sway, their limbs graceful as seagrass.
As they’d been instructed, they made their bows and curtsies to the human king, who greeted the royal brothers warmly. And well he should. For though their clothes might be peculiar and their accents strange, each year the sildroher brought such treasures as the human king had never seen. Kalle gestured to his servants, who carried forward three chests of pearls. The first were white and luminous as snow, the next the silvery gray of storm clouds, and the third chest of pearls glittered blacker than a moonless night. There were chests of coin too, jeweled swords, heavy trenchers made of gold. Ulla watched the mortal king smile and preen and pour wine into a silver cup, little realizing that this treasure had come from wrecked ships, gifts from dead men, their bones rotting at the bottom of the sea. What did mortals care? Treasure was treasure.
But as the eyes of the human court were focused on each new gem and bauble, Ulla saw that one young man did not gawk or marvel. He stood behind the king’s throne, beside a bearded man who wore the sash and smoky-blue sapphire of a seer. The boy’s clothes were black, his hair blacker still, and he was looking directly at Ulla, the weight of his stare heavy ballast. Ulla returned his gaze, expecting him to glance away. He did not, and though she knew it was impossible, she had the strange sensation that she’d met him before.
The king clapped his hands. The doors to the feasting hall were thrown open, and the nobles moved forward in order of rank. But as Ulla drifted through the doors of the audience hall to the strange smells of human food beyond, she looked back and saw the boy in black still watching.
They feasted. They danced. They lifted cups of wine to their lips for the first time. They laughed and stomped their feet as the mortals did, in time with fiddle and drum. The humans clustered around the sildroher, blood suffusing their warm cheeks, chests rising as if they couldn’t quite catch their breath, eyes moist and glittering with desire, and by evening’s end, Roffe had one mortal girl on his knee, another tucked close against him.
Ulla could not see the pain in Signy’s face, but she saw the effort her friend took to hide it.
“You knew why he wanted us here,” Ulla reminded her, as gently as she could.
Not for love but for magic, for what they might help Roffe accomplish onshore.
Signy shrugged one gleaming shoulder. She had drawn her hair back from her face with two sapphire combs and changed into a corseted blue gown that curled like a wave over her breasts and left her white shoulders bare. How many times had Ulla seen Signy’s shoulders? Why, now that they were framed by silk, did they seem like something entirely new?
“He’s meant to have his fun,” Signy said with ease that did not ring true.
“You should have some, too,” said Ulla, and took Signy’s hand, drew her back into the dance, let the heat of human bodies, the brief, wild flutter of mortal life surround them.
Later, when the candles burned low, and Ulla toed her pinching slippers from her feet, when she’d bound her damp hair in a braid, marveling at the moisture that beaded at the nape of her neck, when the wine fizzed happily in her blood, and the shadowed corners were full of ardent gasps and low laughter, she leaned back against the wall, shoved another body away, and wondered why she did not feel the pull the others did.