“No,” Rayne said. The knife was burning in her pocket. She resisted the urge to rip it out and throw it across the room. “Father has done to you what he has done to the whole country. Locked them away, shut down the people that don't serve a purpose for him or that oppose him in any way.”
“But it's necessary,” Edlyn said, “to keep the peace.”
Rayne stopped pacing and her fingers twitched toward the knife. “Is that what you believe or what he believes? Wouldn't it be more peaceful to give everyone freedom and opportunities?”
“They squander them.” Edlyn stood, her tiny fists balled at her sides. “They ruin their chances by doing things like kidnapping princesses and blowing up royal estates.”
Rayne threw up her hands in frustration. “They do those things only because Father won't let them do anything else.”
“Why would he?” Edlyn's high-pitched voice matched her own. “The slaves are violent and rebellious. To free them would be to ruin us!”
Rayne sank onto a settee, her head falling into her hands. When she looked back up, Edlyn was still standing, her cheeks flushed and her teeth grinding together. No one had probably ever challenged her and King Innis's beliefs. With his iron fist and threats of a slaver's band, who would?
“Please, Edlyn.” Rayne's hand was in her pocket, the hilt of the knife against her palm. Tell me to stop. “You have to understand.”
The door opened behind Edlyn and Tierri stepped through. Rayne watched the way his gaze flitted between the girls and then down to Rayne's hand still buried in her pocket. He had expected to come in and find her dead, she knew.
“I can't,” Rayne said to him.
Edlyn turned, saw him, and looked back at her sister. “Can't what?”
“She doesn't know, she thinks—” An idea blossomed in the back of her mind and the open door called to her. “Get your shoes,” Rayne said to Edlyn. “There's someone I want you to meet.”
? ? ?
There was no elaborate carriage this time, no horses and no guards. Instead, there were just two princesses and a general slinking through the darkness. As they approached the gate, Tierri held them back until a guard's back was turned and they darted forward, slipping outside the curtain walls while the man called to one of his companions.
“I think we need better security,” Rayne mumbled to him.
“Getting out is easy,” Tierri replied, ushering the two girls ahead of him beneath the eaves of nearby shops. “It's getting back in that will be tricky.”
“Getting out has never been easy for me,” Edlyn said. “Believe me, I tried for years.”
Rayne was in the lead, her black hood pulled up over her hair. She threw a glance over her shoulder at her little sister. “You did?”
“Oh, sure. Danyll and I were not always close. It's hard, though, to trick a wielder.”
Tierri grunted from behind them.
When they finally emerged into the marketplace, the sun had just dipped below the horizon but it was still packed with people.
“Fish for dinner!” A merchant waved a paper-wrapped fish at them and it surprised Rayne if only because she hadn't noticed the smell. Tierri was right; she had gotten used to it. A slave girl approached the man, her cut sleeve revealing a silver band.
“Does she look savage?” Rayne asked Edlyn.
Edlyn narrowed her eyes at her. “Given the opportunity, I'm sure she could be.”
“Who wouldn't be?” Tierri asked. “Locked up, her family and her freedom ripped away from her. Who would blame her for wanting her captor dead?”
The slave girl turned her wide eyes on the trio. Surely she was too far away to hear, but there was still fear there—fear at seeing noblewomen, fear at being seen by a general in golden armor.
“Does that sound familiar?” Rayne asked her sister as they pushed past the girl and the fish stalls and into the crafter's row. “Are you violent and savage?”
“That's different,” Edlyn said. “It's for my own safety.”
The red door to the jewelry shop was closed, and the window display had been removed in favor of white butcher paper. “Wonder where he went,” Rayne said to Tierri.
“Probably to Flagend,” Tierri said. “To buy a replacement.” The idea sent chills up Rayne's spine. She couldn't imagine believing that people were so easy to replace.
They passed through crafter's row, Edlyn stopping once to admire silk scarves but quickly being pulled along by Rayne. As they rounded a corner into a residential area, a figure walked ahead of them in a red cloak, standing out like a rose in a field of ashes.
“Is that—” Tierri started, but Rayne cut him off.
“Seloue!” she shouted. The person in the red cloak turned and her hood fell back, revealing golden curls and a wide smile. Rayne closed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug. How she had changed in just a few days. Her cheeks had rounded out and her eyes sparkled. Beneath her cloak, she wore a fine dress with a rope belt and an embroidered overcote. She had been beautiful before, but now she was blossoming like a flower in the thaw.
Releasing Rayne, Seloue turned to Tierri, tall enough not to have to stand on tiptoes to gather him in a hug. “I'm so glad to see you both. I've just been exploring. I hate being in my room when I have all this freedom that I've never—” Then she saw Edlyn and her face went slack. “Are you—? Is that—?”
“Seloue, this is my sister, Edlyn Crowheart.”
Seloue dropped into a clumsy curtsy. Edlyn nodded her head in return. Rayne knew she felt safe; this was just another commoner, not a slave or a rebel, though Seloue was both of those things. Rayne remembered how she had first seen the girl, leaning in the red door's frame, her lips twisted into a scowl as she watched the procession pass. She had not kowtowed simply because of who Rayne was—she was the type who believed that respect was something to be earned, not demanded or expected. It made Rayne value the girl’s friendship even more because of what it said about her own character.
“I wanted her to meet you,” Rayne said. A lamp flared to life in the home behind her. “Could we go to your place?”
Seloue beamed. “My place. Yes, yes, of course.”
The room they had found for Seloue was in a boarding house just off the main road run by an elderly woman and her sister. The two women were dozing by the fire in the main room when Rayne and her group slipped past. Seloue's room had a writing desk, a small bed, and two chairs around a hearth. Someone had already stoked the fire, and a pitcher of cider sat warming on the edge. Seloue hung her cloak by the door and served them the cider in wooden cups. Then she and Edlyn settled into the chairs while Rayne and Tierri sat side-by-side on the bed. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, her heart still raced at his nearness.
“How is it having your own place?” Rayne heard the strain in her own voice but hoped no one else would recognize it. When Tierri looked at her sideways, though, his cup at his lips, she knew he had. He shifted slightly, imperceptibly, so his thigh was against hers. Her head swam and she thought she might have stopped breathing.
“Amazing,” Seloue said.
“Where were you before?” Edlyn asked.