Lark rose from her throne and joined her husband, extending a hand to Sasha as she summoned her lady in waiting, who hovered nearby. “I will have Pia escort you to Mistress Lorena,” she said. “She will take good care of you. If employment is what you seek, we will see to that as well. But for now you will rest. It was not so very long ago I was dragged from Corvyn by one of Kjell’s closest friends. I had to be carried from the horse. I am impressed by your stamina.”
The king’s eyes gleamed at his queen’s tart reference, but this was not what Kjell had intended. He had not planned for Sasha to be taken away and “seen to.” He watched Pia escort her from the room, quelling the urge to keep her in his sights. She’d barely left his side since Solemn. Four weeks and three days since he’d found her near death at the base of a cliff. Since then she’d ridden in his arms, slept by his side, and crept inside his walls.
The King’s Council observed with craning necks and prying eyes, and Kjell sneered at them, jutting his chin and tossing his head toward the wide doors.
“Go and do no harm,” Tiras dismissed them, and waited until they gathered their scrolls and scuttled from the hall, bowing repeatedly to him and the queen before taking themselves away.
“You look good, brother,” Lark said to Kjell, her eyes affectionate, her voice kind. “We’ve missed you.”
“He looks like a great, dusty, bristling bear,” Tiras laughed. “And yes, we’ve missed you. Now tell us about the girl.”
“She was a slave in Solemn, in the province of Quondoon. The people tried to kill her because she was Gifted. They ran her from the town and forced her off a cliff at the end of their spears. I healed her,” Kjell offered awkwardly.
The queen blanched and Tiras hissed. He held himself responsible for every injustice, and Kjell had no doubt there would be emissaries sent to Quondoon in the near future.
“What is her gift?” Tiras asked, eyes flat, hands clenched.
“She is a Seer. She tried to warn the people when she saw harm. They harmed her instead.”
“You called her Sasha,” Lark said, her brows raised in question.
“Yes. That is what she’s called. I feel like I’m insulting her every time I say her name,” Kjell admitted.
“She doesn’t comport herself like a slave,” Tiras mused, his jaw still tight. He’d abandoned his teasing grin and his cutting remarks.
“She was sold in Firi and indentured by an elder of Solemn and a delegate of Lord Quondoon. It is believed she was once a servant in the house of Lord Kilmorda before the province fell. I wonder if perhaps she was something more.”
“It is believed?” Tiras asked, incredulous.
“She doesn’t remember.” Kjell shrugged.
“She is familiar to me,” Lark said, her brows furrowed above luminous eyes, her small pointed chin cradled in her palm.
“It is the hair,” Tiras remarked, his eyes trained beyond Kjell where Sasha had been, turning pages in his head, trying to find something he’d once seen.
“I’ve never seen hair like hers,” Kjell interjected, and felt a wash of embarrassment at the awe in his voice.
“No. Not as deep a red,” Tiras said. His eyes were troubled.
“Lady Sareca of Kilmorda had hair like that. She was a friend of my mother’s. She came once to Corvyn before my mother’s death and several times after. My father considered Lord Kilmorda an ally. Surely there is someone from Kilmorda who would remember a girl like Sasha in the lord’s house,” Lark ruminated.
“Zoltev was convinced the lordship in Kilmorda gave refuge to the Gifted, and he put a great deal of pressure on the lord of the province to continually prove his innocence,” Tiras said.
“Or maybe he wanted to control the ports and the wealth in Kilmorda,” Kjell said. “I was old enough to accompany the guard to and from Kilmorda several times before Zoltev disappeared and you became king, Tiras. Kilmorda was the richest province in Jeru, even richer than Degn. Lord Kilmorda had close relationships with the lands to the north, conducting trade that did not involve the oversight of the kingdom. Zoltev didn’t like that.”
“It was no coincidence that Kilmorda was the land he most completely destroyed,” Tiras agreed.
“And no coincidence that the lord of the province and his family did not survive the attacks,” Kjell added.
For a moment the conversation lulled, the king, the queen, and Kjell all lost in their own memories of what Kilmorda had endured.
“Sasha will be our guest, and she will be safe here,” Lark promised. “We will see to it, and we will do our best to find someone who might be able to identify her.”
***
Sasha was not terribly comfortable being a guest.
Mistress Lorena, under the queen’s direction, put her in a room in the same wing as the family, assigning a lady’s maid to dress her hair and assist her in her daily toilette. Dresses were commissioned, and all manner of bits and baubles, underthings and overskirts, slippers and shoes, and handkerchiefs and head scarfs were brought in for her use. Sasha accepted it all with gracious wonder but promptly donned one of the dresses Kjell bought her in Solemn and braided her own hair.
When Lark discovered Sasha could read and write, she asked her to act as her personal assistant, though Lark’s abilities made assistance feel more like providing company rather than work, and Sasha was accustomed to work. Kjell overheard her needling Mistress Lorena for a bucket of water and a stiff brush to scrub the cobblestones in the courtyard.
The first morning after their arrival, he found her wrapped in a fur, asleep on the floor outside his door. The next night he left his door unlatched for the first time in his life and lay with his ears straining for her arrival. When he heard a slight scuffling and a small bump against the corridor wall, he rose and led her into his chamber. He patted the side of the bed farthest from him, and she promptly climbed in and fell asleep. Every morning after that, he found her curled beside him, and every morning he woke her before sunrise so she could return to her own room to avoid alerting the very curious staff of their arrangement. He never denied her. In fact, they never even spoke of their odd need to continue what they’d started weeks before.
During the days he hardly saw her. And he missed her. He ached with it. In the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat, in the balls of his feet and the palms of his hands, he missed her. It horrified him, and he made himself volunteer for patrol, staying away two days longer than needed just to prove he could. Then he practically ran through the halls of the castle, through the kitchens, into the cellar, and out in the gardens looking for her.
He found the queen instead, sitting among the roses, a book in her hand and Wren in her arms. The book floated in front of her, the pages turning at her command.
“Are you abusing your power, Lady Queen?” he asked.
“I am using my power, brother. I don’t want Wren to tear at the pages.”
“Wren is sleeping.”
“Yes. And I want to hold her and read. The book is heavy,” she protested, but humor danced in her large, grey eyes. “Are you looking for Sasha?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, sheepish.
“You look as though you are desperate to find her,” she remarked, commanding the book to lower and close. She was teasing him, but it was the absolute truth, and he was certain she knew it.