Roses for the ceremony, cut by hand all night long, Corayne remembered the maids in the garden. It would be bare by morning, when Queen Erida married a man she’d been forced to accept. Corayne felt a sting of pity for the young queen. As much pity as a common girl could have for a monarch of the realm.
“Certainly this takes precedence,” she said. “And maybe it’s an opportunity for a reluctant bride. An excuse to delay a wedding she has no desire to go through with.”
Andry grinned at her, his smile like a star. It lit him up. “That could work.”
Corayne couldn’t help but smile too, riding a rare, unfamiliar blaze of hope.
“The Queen will listen,” she said, leaning on the Spindleblade. She used it to push herself to her feet, only to find it was more than half her height in length. “As your queen did not, Dom.”
His great limbs unfolded, and Dom stood with grace. He was like a moving statue, slow and deliberate, a harsh contrast to Andry’s rabid energy. “Mortals are hot-blooded, quick to anger, quick to fight,” he said. “It has been your flaw these centuries past. Perhaps it will be your salvation too.”
Corayne chewed the inside of her cheek. Elders anger too, if you are any measure, she thought hotly. She wanted nothing more than to scold him. You are a pot on a slow boil, angry since the moment I met you, trying to grieve with no idea how, seeking revenge without direction. You are a predator with nothing to hunt.
Instead she glared at the sword, its jewels gleaming.
“I have no idea how I’m going to carry this.”
14
THE GREEN KNIGHT
Ridha
Three days she cursed Sirandel, snarling obscenities with every galloping step of her mother’s horse. In Paramount, in Low Vederan, the bastard tongue born of centuries on the Ward, and in Pure Vederan, the voice of Glorian, the voice of a realm she had never known. Ridha, princess of Iona, heir to the Monarch, only child of Isibel Beldane and Cadrigan of the Dawn, rode with a fury. The sand mare kept on, bred to endure, but even she began to tire. Ridha did not.
Cowards all, the foxes and the stags, she thought, despairing of her home and the enclave now miles behind her. She cursed the Sirandels’ palace of trees and rivers, their forest meadow halls and root vaults. Their city of immortal splendor, hidden deep in the Castlewood, grown as much as it was built. As the daughter of Iona, the Monarch’s heir, they feasted and celebrated, her presence cause for great interest. But it did not last. Her tidings were dark, her requests unthinkable. Ride to war, after centuries of peace? Fight the man who could bring them home, even if it meant losing the Ward to What Waits and the jaws of Asunder? Spill Sirandel blood where Iona would not, for a cause so deadly?
Your mother is wise, the Monarch of Sirandel had said, his long face grim. His hair was more gray than red, silvered by time. We will follow her judgment. Glorian calls.
Ridha wanted to spit in his face. Instead she nodded, drank the spirits offered, ate the food given, and stole away in the night.
Even the wolves knew to avoid her, slinking away from the deer path as she urged the mare through the forest. She no longer felt the armor slung across her body, gleaming green, worked with antlers and the stag she now lamented. Is it raining? she thought after a long moment, breathing in the damp air of the Castlewood. Indeed, water streamed down her face, working through her dark hair with cold, wet fingers. How long have I been soaked to the skin?
It was not the Vederan way to feel such things, but a chill stole into her all the same. And not because of the rain.
Again she cursed in rage. At herself, mostly.
I sent Domacridhan into the world alone, seeking assassins and Cor heirs, seeking a blade, seeking revenge if not death. She saw her cousin in her head, burning as hot as an iron in the forge. All anger, all grief. He was no philosopher or diplomat, or even clear-headed. And now, with the fall of the realm on the horizon? She tightened her grip on the mare’s reins, her knuckles white beneath her gauntlets. Have I sent him to his doom?
Worse even was the more selfish question:
Have I already failed?
As the trees blurred past, green-leaved and black-trunked in the downpour, a white figure rose. It was fixed but following, unmoving but always keeping pace. The image stung, near blinding, and Ridha shut her eyes, letting the mare choose her path. The figure remained. It was no stranger. Ridha would have known her mother’s face anywhere, even in a sending, where all was mist, unreal and real, rippled and distant.
“Come home,” Isibel said. “The Sirandels have refused. So will the rest.” Most of her was as ashes, the edges of her pale skin and silver-gold hair flaking. The sending was not strong, but Ridha was her own blood. It would not take much will to connect them. “Come home.”