“They will let you stay in Solemn. I will see to it. This home will be yours, and you will not be a slave. You will have nothing to fear,” he promised, needing to give her something.
“There is always something to fear,” she replied, her eyes on the blade she wielded. She said no more, and he was too drowsy to press the issue. He forced himself to remember the cool breezes of Jeru City, the shade of the trees, the sound of his brother’s voice, the clash of blades in the yard, the smell of fresh hay in the stables. He made himself think of home, yet he felt no pull toward it. Instead, it was his head in the lap of a slave, the silk of her breath on his face, and the tenderness in her hands that soothed him.
“You don’t look like the people of Quondoon,” he said simply, resisting the lethargy that wanted to pull him under again.
“No. Mina said I am ugly. My hair is not black and straight, my skin is not brown. I’m freckled and pale. My hair is the color of fire and it curls and tangles no matter how much I try to keep it smooth,” she said ruefully. “But it is the only home I know.”
“You are not ugly.”
Her back stiffened in surprise, and the blade paused on his skin for a heartbeat. He cursed inwardly, but when he avoided her gaze and offered no further comment, she turned the conversation away from herself.
“Do all the people in Jeru City look like you?” she asked.
“No. But there are many more people in Jeru City than in Solemn. There are more people in Jeru City than in all of Quondoon.”
“You are the brother of the king?”
“Yes.”
“So are you . . . a prince?”
“My brother is a king, and I am a soldier. That is all.”
“You look like a king,” she protested softly.
He was a big man—bulky even—layered with muscle and sinew hardened down by years of combat and grueling physical labor. He’d grown up in the jousting yard, dragging a sword before he could wield one, shielding himself from blows before he learned to land them. He looked like a soldier.
But he also looked like his father. And his father had been a king.
Kjell’s hair was just as dark and his eyes were the same pale blue. Cold. Flat. Cruel. His father had never claimed him, but it had never mattered. When people saw Kjell they always knew.
“You were born in Quondoon? Where is your family?” he asked, pushing his own paternity out of his thoughts.
“I am of Kilmorda. But Mina says I was born a slave, and I will always be a slave.”
“Kilmorda was destroyed by Volgar.”
“I am told I was the daughter of a servant in Lord Kilmorda’s household.”
“Lord Kilmorda and his family are dead.” The whole valley was a wasteland of Volgar nests and human remains. The villages were desolate, homes and fields were empty, and the carcasses of cattle and sheep were strewn across the country.
“Yes. That is what I am told.”
“You don’t remember?”
“My first memories are of fleeing to Firi with other refugees. I knew no one. I had nothing to eat. No clothes. No family. In Firi, I was indentured and sold and brought to Quondoon.”
“Solemn is a long way from Kilmorda.”
“Yes,” she agreed quietly, “but I do not miss what I cannot remember.”
“Why don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know. Mina said it was because I am . . . simple.” Sasha’s voice changed, and he couldn’t resist looking at her. “But I can read. I can read and I can write. The slaves here in Solemn do not read or write. I learned how . . . somewhere.”
“But you’re a Seer . . . surely you must have visions of your family.”
“I don’t see what has already been. I can only see what is to come, and even then, it’s like the breeze. I don’t call the breeze, it finds me. The things I see are like that. I don’t call them to me. They come. Or they don’t.”
She’d had no visions of her family. He wondered why. He could choose whether or not to wield his gift. She didn’t seem quite so lucky, though he supposed her choice lay in whether she kept the visions to herself.
“There was a man who walked with me from Kilmorda to Firi. When my feet bled, he helped me bind them. When my mouth was dry he gave me water. And he told me stories. I was afraid, and he told me stories. I came to Quondoon with a head full of tales and no memories. No sense of myself. It was as though the Creator formed me from the clay, fully grown, like the Changer, the Spinner, the Healer, and the Teller. But even they knew from whence they came. They knew to whom they belonged.”
They knew to whom they belonged.
His brother had always had that sense of belonging. Tiras was arrogant in the way all kings were arrogant, but that was merely survival. Tiras’s opinion of himself guided the opinion others formed about him. A king had to act as if he belonged on the throne. Kjell would have never been able to convince anyone he belonged.
“But now I belong to you,” Sasha said firmly, and she dried his face with a cloth, indicating she had finished.
He sat up abruptly, startling her, distancing himself.
“No. You don’t.” He stood, and a wave of dizziness flooded him. She reached out to steady him, but he shrugged her away.
“You must eat. Sit. I’ll bring you food and more wine,” she insisted, rising beside him. Her hands were folded in front of her, her eyes cast down.
“Sasha.” He waited for her to lift her eyes to his. She was very composed, but her eyes shimmered with disappointment.
“You don’t belong to me. The people I healed, the people you helped me heal . . . they don’t belong to me either. That is not the way it works. I do not want a servant, and I don’t need a woman.” He spoke slowly as if he spoke to a child, and she nodded once, indicating she heard him.
“Mina said I was simple. She said I must obey her and I would be safe. But I am not simple. I am not stupid.” Sasha’s voice was almost musical in its tranquility, but beneath the surface there was steel, and the gleaming in her eyes had changed. He’d made her angry. Good. Some fury was in order.
“You are not stupid. But you are too forgiving and too trusting. You are a Seer, yet you don’t see the obvious,” he said.
“Most of the time the obvious blinds us to the hidden.”
Kjell sighed heavily, pressing his palms to his eyes. The woman had powerful opinions for someone so defenseless. He pulled on his boots and ran fingers through his hair, determined to dismiss her. She stood quietly by, waiting for his direction.
“Where are my men?”
“Jerick is outside. The others have been taking shifts, as you instructed. They are helping bring water from the mountain stream.”
He tried to thank her, but the words felt false, so he simply shook his head and left the house. He had business to attend to, and then he was getting on his horse and leaving Solemn and all her people behind.
***