“I did what I had to in order to keep her safe.”
Yes, Rayne thought. Imprisoned her, promised her to a power-hungry wielder prince. But at least she was safe. “I worry for her,” Rayne admitted aloud.
“And I worry about my people,” her father said. His voice had changed, grown distant. He was pulling away. She’d had him for a few moments, but now he was becoming the king again. “A Crowheart queen must sit on Hail’s throne; anyone else, and the empire will fall before it is even established. That queen is Edlyn.”
“Edlyn is that queen,” Rayne agreed, “but they will not follow her if they do not see her. It's time to let her go. She cannot hide forever.” Just like Rayne had been forced out of hiding, it was time for Edlyn to take risks, to expose herself and become vulnerable. And Rayne would take advantage of it.
Seeing her father's discomfort at the idea, she reached out and took his hands. They were cold and rough and too big, as they had always been. They were hands that had tucked her in extra-tight on cold, snowy nights; hands that had brushed her hair when the tangles had become too much even for the maids; hands that had brandished the whip that had split Madlin's back, torn her open from top to bottom. Rayne resisted the urge to drop his hands and shove him away. This was what she had to remember. That he had to pay. He had to suffer. He said it himself. He needed a Crowheart queen. She would take Edlyn from him, and when she was gone, Rayne would be his only choice. The Knights would rule Hail and fix the damage her father had done.
“Let her join us for dinner tomorrow night,” Rayne beseeched him.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated, grasping her hands and lifting the knuckles to his lips. He ducked his head; she noticed the spot near the back where he was balding. He was her father. He was the king, the emperor, the man, and the murderer. He was all of these things, and she didn't know if she could forgive him for still not being what she needed most of all.
? ? ?
The light flurries developed into a snowstorm that continued into the night. The palace seemed to sleep through it all, the courtiers and servants and pageboys going into hibernation. Even so, it was after dinner when her father had retired to his solar before Rayne dared to return to the gardens. She wrapped her handful of red-speckled leaves in a handkerchief and stuffed it into her pocket before returning to the quiet inner corridors that would return her to her rooms.
She kept to the path that bypassed the kitchens, hoping to swipe a loaf of sweetbread, and was just coming around a corner when someone slammed into her, knocking her backward with a grunt. There was a clattering noise as the other person stumbled and dropped a small bundle they had been carrying, spilling its contents across the bare stone floor.
“Hey, watch it!” said her assailant.
Rayne pushed herself to her knees. “I'm sorry, let me help.” She crawled forward and her hands wrapped around one of the items and froze.
It was a slaver’s band. Her eyes fell on the pieces that were strewn about them. They were all slaver’s bands—gold and iron and silver, and all of them clipped down the middle.
“What's this?” she asked.
The other person snatched it out of her hands. Its cold weight was gone before Rayne could think twice. “Nothing of your concern.” It was a girl's voice. Rayne looked up, her eyes tracing the form in the darkness. She was familiar—a young, brown-skinned girl. The sleeves of her red blouse were cut in the Hail fashion to show her status, and her arms were lined with bracelets, but one stood out among the others. The silver slaver’s band was thicker and tighter than the other bangles, the skin around it chafed. As the girl scrambled to stuff the bands back into the small bag, the hood on her head slipped back and revealed a mass of golden curls.
“You're the girl from the market,” Rayne said.
The girl paused and looked up, obviously about to make a retort, but then recognition seemed to dawn on her face and her sneer twisted into shock. “You're the lost princess.”
Rayne reached to the side and recovered an iron band, holding it out to the girl. “Found, now.”
The two stood. The girl was leaner than Rayne, but her arms were heavily muscled and her face glistened with sweat. She did not dip into a curtsy or avert her eyes, as most slaves did when she passed them in the halls. “What are you doing with all those bands?” Rayne asked.
“They're mine,” the girl said, too much bite in her voice for it to be an innocent response. “I paid for them.”
“My apologies if you think I implied otherwise. What's your name?”
“Seloue,” the girl replied, tipping her chin up ever higher. She did not stumble over her words or look small beside the palace walls. She made herself taller under Rayne's scrutiny.
When Innis had invaded Hail after the Malstrom Massacre, military resistance had been minimal. Without a monarch, the army had been confused and disjointed. Many of the nobles had also succumbed quickly to Crowheart rule, afraid of losing their positions of comfort in this life. But the people—the merchants, the maids, the fieldhands, and farmers—had not been so easy to dominate. The resistance had burned slow and steady, smoldering just beneath the surface, for years.
For her father, slavery had been the answer. Dusk did not have lush farmlands or access to ports and oceans, and so they traded primarily in people. When the Malstrom family abolished slavery in Hail after the War of the Five Families, it had not been a problem for them—the Far Lands to the southwest and the Western Wilds to the northwest needed workers for their fields and people to row their boats, and so the trade had continued unimpeded. So when death and threats did not work on the resistance in Hail after the Crowheart takeover, the leaders were sold into slavery. Men were shipped abroad, ripped from their families. Women were sold to whore houses, their children taken into nobles' homes to do menial labor. Bands of gold and iron were welded onto formerly-free arms with abandon until the resistance quieted.
Rayne would guess that Seloue’s family had been one of the merchant families, one of the ones divided by slavery. But Rayne didn't ask. Instead, she looked at this girl and she saw Madlin. Not that they were all that similar. Madlin had been quiet, a rule follower. But she had been proud. Proud of who she was and where she had come from, even at her young age. And it was refreshing to Rayne to have someone look her in the eye again.
Seloue was watching her like a deer might watch a hunter—nose twitching, ready to bolt. Rayne reached up and clutched her cloak around her shoulders, dreading the return to her room, the quiet solitude where she would have nothing to think about but the leaves in her pocket and what the next day would hold. “Can I walk you home?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rayne