“It's not that I do not like him,” she insisted as she ran the comb through Rayne's still-wet hair. “He is just a difficult man to read.”
“Do you get one of your feelings?” Rayne asked, tugging at her sleeves. They had put her in a deep green velvet dress with long sleeves to hide her bruises, and even though she had spent the first twelve years of her life in elaborate dresses, she was never comfortable in them. She preferred her training garb—earth-tone trousers and loose tops that let her breathe. Tamsin had at least let her wear her daggers in their thigh sheaths beneath her skirt.
Tamsin grunted in response, then quickly said, “We don't talk about that, remember?” Just as Rayne could feel a person's magic, Tamsin could sense untrustworthy or dangerous people just by being near them. It could almost be chalked up to intuition, but it seemed to be more precise than that. Rayne remembered how she had felt the wielder prince tugging at the magic in the tunnel. But women weren't supposed to wield; they weren't touched by Enos. Imeyna had told her, though, about the savage land across the sea and the women who lived in those lost fields. Women who had connections to the elements and the ability to prophesize. Women who had a power all their own.
“Done,” Tamsin said, rising and surveying her work. Rayne's curls were combed into submission and braided flat back from her head, forming a band from ear to ear that held back the shorter strands from her eyes. With her face exposed, she noticed her delicate features and plump, pink lips. With that and the dress, she looked almost like a lady. Almost.
Tamsin, who had not changed yet and still wore a drab smock dress with her hair wrapped in a kerchief, fluffed Rayne’s skirts and smiled at her in the glass. “You are beautiful. Everything will turn out just fine. You’ll see.” She was Imeyna’s counterpart, the positive enthusiasm to Imeyna’s cynical realism. That didn’t mean that she hadn’t known tragedy.
Hail had once been under the rule of the Malstrom family, the only of the five original families that could rival the Crowhearts in power. The Malstrom alliance with the Cliffbanes in Shade had been the turning point in the War of the Five Families and the destruction of the Casuin Empire, and the Crowhearts had never forgotten it. They suffered for a century in the small landlocked country that the families had deigned to grant them before making their move.
Tamsin’s family had been torn apart in the Malstrom Massacre that had catapulted Rayne’s father into power. Tamsin’s own father, a royal guard, had been killed on the palace steps trying to save one of the Malstrom princesses, and her mother, a palace servant, had just had time to stuff Tamsin in a boat going upriver to Shade before being run through by a Crowheart blade. Tamsin had as much reason to hate Rayne and her family as anyone, but she never let it show. Rayne appreciated Imeyna’s strength and honesty but had always found comfort in Tamsin’s kind embraces.
Rayne turned into one now, burying her face in the crook of the woman’s neck. She smelled as she always did—of fresh-baked bread and smoldering embers. If Imeyna had been like Rayne’s sister, Tamsin had been like her mother, and that smell—that smell meant home and safety.
“Thank you,” Rayne said to Tamsin, hoping that Tamsin knew it was for more than that afternoon’s bath. If she did, though, she gave no indication of it, jovially patting Rayne on the arm and smiling in the way that she did to hide her crooked front teeth, lips pressed together, her eyes crinkling in the corners.
That night, the Shadderns lit the ceremonial funeral pyres. Rayne watched from the meeting hall's gabled rooftop, another of her hiding places. She had a lot of them because as much as the Knights had mistrusted her, her twelve-year-old self had been equally as scared of them. She had become skilled at finding the small, dark corners.
Tugging her knees to her chest, she watched a hooded man take a torch to the pyre containing Merek's items. Everything he owned was there—his clothes, his papers, his treasured map book—and would be burned to accompany him to Elanos, where he would feast with Enos and the others that died a hero's death. Shade was the last country to recognize what her father viewed as an antiquated practice. Dusk had a massive crypt beneath the mountains where her ancestors were buried, and where he would be buried. Rayne didn't know where she would end up. In turmoil beneath the weight of the Silver Hills, or perhaps reduced to ashes and smoke and sent into the sky? Even worse would be the traitor's burial, dumped in a mass grave with other criminals or tipped into the river with a rock tied to her ankles. There would be no rest for her then.
There were other fires burning for Emma and Rolf and Giles, scattered throughout Bricboro wherever their families had prepared them, but Rayne only had eyes for the one in front of her. Flames licked at the sky, smoke wafting into the darkness. Rayne shifted forward, sliding against the rough roofing tiles as Merek's pyre began to burn, trying to imagine Merek's fingers in her hair, brushing her face as he ascended.
But she felt nothing.
No, that wasn't true. Almost as soon as she realized she wasn't alone, a voice cut through her silence.
“Can this be our little Crow?”
Of all people, Rayne had not expected to see Wido on her rooftop. She began to scramble to her feet but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“No, don't,” he said. “Let an old man rest.” He sat slowly beside her, and she found herself reaching out to steady him until he was situated. His long legs dangled at least a foot below hers, and he leaned back on his arms, tilting his head to the night sky.
Silence stretched between them until she was squirming uncomfortably. “I'm sorry,” she finally said just to have something to say. “I won't fail again.”
He licked his lips and closed his eyes. Overhead, a cloud moved in front of the sea of stars. “I knew the Malstrom sisters,” he said. “Your father could have married Carys if he hadn't been so obedient.”