Smiling, Sábria lowered herself onto the soft, maroon cushion. “I wish I could say we provided it expressly for your enjoyment, but I have to be honest and tell you there is one similar to this in every dorm room in the Temple. Some are maroon, some floral, some blue or yellow, or even pink. If a different color suits you better or perhaps matches your decor once you begin to purchase personal items to make this room your own, then simply tell the dormitory matron, Lady Ingry, and if she has one more to your liking, she’ll provide it.”

  Emlyn sat on the edge of the bed and, with a distracted nod, replied, “Thank you, My Lady.”

  If it were possible to feel waves of despair rolling off the young woman, Sábria thought she would have been buffeted by them by now. “Emlyn, I’m so sorry you had to see Tomisa this morning.”

  To Emlyn’s surprise, she blurted out what had bothered her most about that morning. “It wasn’t just seeing her, My Lady. When I saw—” Her throat closed up, and she covered her eyes with her hand. Emlyn’s other hand was wadded into a fist in her lap.

  Sábria leaned forward and gently covered it with her own. “When you saw?”

  “Brita.” The word stuck, painfully scraping by as it rose from her throat and barely escaped her lips.

  The term stumped Sábria, and she vaguely wondered if it was a Kibrunian expression Emlyn didn’t know how to translate. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

  A tear slipped down Emlyn’s cheek and dropped onto her robe, leaving a dark spot on the delicate, pink fabric. “She shouldn’t have been—” A sob choked off the rest of her words.

  The tears fell steadily now, and Sábria shifted over to sit next to her. “If you don’t want my touch, just say so, Child.” She put an arm around Emlyn’s shoulders and pulled her head close so it rested against her shoulder. Running her hand through feather-soft auburn hair, Sábria remained quiet while Emlyn cried out her grief. Knowing the woman needed to talk about the morning, she waited until the tears stopped before asking, “Who shouldn’t have been where?”

  Emlyn pulled in a breath and sat back, using the palm of her hand to wipe away the tears. She took the square of linen Sábria offered and dried her face and nose. “Brita. That was my place. Not hers.”

  Understanding dawned, and Sábria gently stroked Emlyn’s back. “You mean the new lead guard standing behind Tomisa on the dais.” Pursing her lips at her stupidity for not realizing the impact that would have on Emlyn, Sábria softly apologized for her oversight. “I’m so sorry. I never thought to prepare you for seeing something as wrenching as that must have been. You’ve probably—” She stopped when she realized her words were driving the stake further into Emlyn’s heart, and instead of finishing her thought, she simply settled for, “I’m sorry, Child.”

  When the tears began anew, she sighed and pulled Emlyn in close. She couldn’t even say the woman’s heart was breaking. It was broken, and she could only hope it wasn’t damaged beyond repair.

  Emlyn pushed away, and the two sat in silence for a while until Sábria ran a comforting hand down Emlyn’s back. “After this afternoon’s fiasco, as you can probably guess, I have many, many details to see to today. Would you like me to send someone up to be with you until I can return later this evening?”

  Pulling in a deep breath, Emlyn once again wiped her face. Shaking her head, she lowered her hands and smiled sadly. “No, My Lady. I’d like to sleep for a while. I’ll be fine, really.”

  “Well then, I’ll send Kara to you. She’ll give you enough sleeping herbs to help you through the rest of the afternoon.” Rising, Sábria pushed the chair away from the bed and put her hand beneath Emlyn’s chin. “It may not seem like it now, but you’ve found a second family here with the Blades. You’re not alone, Emlyn. Never alone here with us.”

  Emlyn nodded, and when the Arch Priestess left the room, she lay with her back to the door and pulled the covers up while she waited for the blessed herbs that would quiet her troubled soul.

  Twelve

  That evening, Ailith sat at an outdoor table, receiving pats on the back from a few of the Blades who passed behind her bench. The accolades weren’t something she’d looked for, and she politely mumbled her thanks while surreptitiously looking around for Emlyn. She’d known the woman was upset. That was evident to anyone who had two eyes to see.

  Even though they weren’t scheduled to begin training for another two days, they’d been assigned as shivs on deadnight shift. Because they’d be working nights, they’d both been put in the last group of diners for the evening meal. In fact, for the last two days, they and the third shiv assigned to Geller’s watch, Nox, had all eaten at the same time for all three meals.

  Ailith hadn’t seen Emlyn eat at all that day, and when she finished her portion of potato and kidney pie, she rose and took her plate to the tubs set up on tables near the doors to the dining hall. There was always the possibility that Emlyn had dined inside, so she slipped through the door and let her eyes adjust to the relative darkness. Outside, lanterns burned on every table, and torches hung from sconces set in the walls around the courtyard.

  Since most people had eaten outdoors, only a few tables were occupied within the hall, and only they had a small lantern with a dull, yellow flicker of light putting out the minimum amount of light to eat by. Of course, there were torches burning inside, too, but only enough to allow the servers to make their way from the kitchen to the tables or the doors leading outside.

  The tall Kibrunian had an erect, stiff bearing that wasn’t difficult to miss among the more relaxed Blades, but Ailith didn’t see her at any of the tables. She decided to grab a plate on which she piled a ladle of potatoes and kidney pie, two rolls, and a sweet dainty she’d seen Emlyn enjoy the previous day.

  Food wasn’t allowed in the dormitories, so as she crossed the courtyard, Ailith kept to the shadows, casually using her body to hide the plate from any curious onlookers. The front desk in the dorm entry hall was always unoccupied at this time of the evening, and she quickly made her way to the stairs on the right side of the hall. Luckily, she didn’t pass anyone coming down, and when she came to the third-floor landing, she counted three doors down and quietly knocked. When she heard nothing, she knocked again and stage-whispered, “Emlyn. It’s Ailith. Open up.”

  “Go away, Ailith. I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Ya gotta eat. Trainin’ starts soon, and ya won’t do very good with no food in yer belly.”

  The door jerked open, and Emlyn glared out at her.

  Instead of seeing the warning anger on the other woman’s face, Ailith’s gaze fell on the erect nipples poking out the fabric of the silk nightgown Emlyn wore. “Uh…” She realized she was staring and quickly looked up and held out the plate. “I brought ya a plateful.”

  “Can’t you follow any rules? If you were one of my guards, I’d have you flogged for constant disobedience.”

  Ailith shrugged, “Yeah, well, I can’t say that hasn’t happened before, but—” She jerked back when the door was slammed in her face with a bang.

  Turning, she was surprised to see an angry Shirin standing behind an amused Sábria. Her gaze wandered down to the full plate in her hands and then back up at the two women. “Well, ya see, I haven’t seen her eatin’ fer a while, and if ya work when ya don’t eat, it’s no good, and somehow this plate jumped into me hands, and I thought, well, here’s a full plate, maybe Emlyn could use it and…well, th’ door to th’ dorm was open, well it weren’t exactly standin’ open, but it weren’t locked neither, and—”

  Sábria held up a hand. “Ailith?”

  “Aye?”

  “Go.”

  Nodding decisively, Ailith tucked the plate down by her side and skirted around them. “Aye, Lady.”

  For good measure, Shirin cuffed her as she stepped by.

  Ailith glanced at her and grinned, “Aye. And…me thanks.” She ducked when Shirin whipped her hand out to grab her. Hurrying down the stairs, she heard Shirin mutter, “I’m not going to survive this….” and was gratified to hear a soft chuckle from Sábria before there was a gentle knock on Emlyn’s door.

  Figuring the Kibrunian couldn’t be in better hands, Ailith returned the plate to the tubs and climbed the stairs to her room.

  The dawn bell woke her the following morning, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to stop and knock on Emlyn’s door. Maybe the woman would go to breakfast with her if she asked. She knocked several times before giving up. She put her head close to the door and spoke to the wood. “Okay, I tried. I’m here if ya need a friend. I’m no a noble like yer used to, but, well, I guess friends can come in different disguises, eh?”

  She waited another few moments and then made her way down the stairs. When she came out into the dawn light, her attention was caught by the sharp clacking of wood striking wood. And not just a single sound. She’d forgotten someone had told her that every third morning was set aside for drilling with the six-foot wooden staves the Blades sometimes carried.

  Ailith hadn’t been taught staff work in the Dreyuthan army, mostly because it was left to the bigger men to learn the use of the glaves, long thin poles with vicious cutting blades attached to one end. Nobles learned staff work, but as far as Ailith was concerned, that was nothing more than another toy the bored nobility learned to pass the time. In the army’s ranks, mere staves were considered nothing more than a child’s long stick, an inferior weapon the Dreyuthan soldiers preferred not to learn.

  Curious, she walked around the corner of the outer wall enclosing the Citadel, where somewhere around thirty pairs of women struck at each other in a choreographed dance to the cadence of a drummer beating a steady rhythm with a padded drumstick. There were no cobblestones in the yard, only hard-packed dirt that had been compressed by centuries of boots stepping this way and that as Blades learned the art of self-defense and attack.

  Prime Geller, who must have just come off shift, and another Blade Ailith didn’t recognize, walked between the pairs correcting stance, hand placement, and overall body movement.

  Geller signaled to the drummer, who increased the pace to an intermediate beat that Ailith recognized from her sword practice in the army. It was one that would continue to warm cold muscles but would also make the practice slightly more realistic. Since she’d never even held a staff before, she watched the movements with a discerning eye, trying to see what separated the excellent staff work from the merely competent or mediocre. What she found was that while it was fairly easy to separate the warriors into the three categories, it was difficult to figure out what one was doing and another was not.

  Geller held up her hand to stop the drummer and shouted, “Change and give yerselves room.”

  The women chose new partners, some even Ailith could see were ill-matched for a proper exercise. Geller’s assistant, a stocky, thick-waisted pidge whom Ailith decided she wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley some night, made changes to better balance out the pairs. Apparently, the silent type, the Blade didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. When she pointed at someone, they not only jumped, they did so with an alacrity that told Ailith a swift strike with the short whip the woman carried would accompany the order if it wasn’t carried out immediately.

  Ailith didn’t notice Geller signal the drummer, but the doom, doom, doom began again, faster this time. Soon the staves were clacking together in time to the beat. More than once, the lesser skilled pairs fell out of rhythm, and Geller would point at the offending pair, who would immediately stop and begin again.

  Anyone who hadn’t practiced with a weapon might not understand why each step, swing, and blow were choreographed and repeated over and over and over again. Ailith was well aware that a warrior needed candlemarks of practice, going over the same moves until you were sick of them, to build muscle memory that would kick in when chaos surrounded you.

  Her mind turned to battles she’d fought where people cried out and fell at her feet, and blood flew across her field of vision. She’d been saved more times than she could count by pure luck when a sword flew at her head, and she’d managed to block the blow with defensive moves her weapons master had drilled into her from the time she was young. In her mind, she could still hear his voice shouting in her ear, “Up, block, over, recover. Up, block, over, recover.”

  “Some of them are pretty good.”

  Ailith jumped when Emlyn leaned against the wall beside her and crossed her arms. Putting her hand to her chest, she blew out a quick breath. “Ya scared the shite outta me. I was pullin’ th’ bellows.”

  Emlyn scrunched up her face. “You were what?”

  “Pullin’ th’ bellows. You know…” She made to grasp an imaginary lever and mimed pumping it up and down. “When ya pull th’ bellows, ya get that bored, and yer mind goes off to somewhere else. Yer pullin’ th’ bellows.”

  Nodding, Emlyn glanced at Ailith out of the corner of her eye. “Well, since I never had that particular job, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Ailith returned her gaze. “No, I guess ya wouldn’t, but I’ll bet ya were in some pretty boring meetings that ya had no part in, an’ I’ll lay odds ya pulled the bellows, then, aye?” Even though sadness ran off the woman in waves, Ailith was heartened to see Emlyn’s lip curl up in a bit of a smile.

  A loud boom sounded from the direction of the harbor, and to Ailith’s surprise, Emlyn covered her eyes and let out a groan accompanied by something that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “No.” A second boom came on the echoes of the first, and Emlyn pushed off the wall and ran into the Temple courtyard.

  By the time the third cannon blast sounded, Ailith had realized the blasts were the King giving the ships carrying Crown Princess Tomisa a royal send-off. “Fowkin’ bastard.”

  She didn’t know much about Emlyn’s past, but in the few conversations she’d had with her over the past several days, she knew her grief had something to do with the Princess. Hoping she wasn’t too late to stop what her gut was telling her was about to happen, Ailith ran after Emlyn as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Thirteen

  Sábria was sitting with Shirin at a small table in her office, finishing a particularly savory mutton pie, when she heard the first boom echoing across the city. She sat up and growled, “That bastard.”

  Shirin quickly wiped her mouth with a napkin. “What?”

  Getting up and striding to the window overlooking the courtyard, Sábria scanned the area for Emlyn. “That bastard knows how important Emlyn is to Tomisa and vice versa. How often have you heard Aloric give the three-cannon send-off to royal visitors?”

  “Rarely. Never.”

  The cannon boomed a second time, and Sábria growled low in her throat as they watched Emlyn race across the courtyard straight for the tower steps. Before they could move, Ailith ran into the courtyard after her, obviously trying to catch up.

  Emlyn reached the door a good ten paces in front of Ailith, and by the time Ailith mounted the steps, Emlyn had slammed the door and slid the bar into place.

  Ailith rammed her shoulder into the hardwood. Bouncing off, she tried again and then slammed the palm of her hand against the wood. She looked around and then jumped down all five stairs in one leap. Sprinting to the right side of the circular tower, she grabbed a ladder she’d noticed earlier hanging on two pegs driven into the wall.

  Sábria continued to watch Ailith, who grabbed the emergency ladder they always kept by the wall and levered it into place. The ladder had been put there turns before when another young shiv had barricaded the doors, and they hadn’t been able to get to the keys to the side door before she’d thrown herself from the tower. Even though only a few moments had elapsed, Sábria knew they’d wasted too much time gawking. She lunged for the key ring hanging from a peg on the wall and raced out the door.

  Just as Ailith began to climb to the second-story window, Sábria and Shirin ran out of the office door, flying down the stairs and hoping that this time, they’d get to their shiv in time. As she raced out of the front doors, ran through the garden, and ducked beneath the archway leading into the central courtyard, Sábria sent a passionate, heartfelt prayer to her Goddess. “Elyon. Please, please save them both. I’m begging you.”

  Ailith reached the top rung in time to see Emlyn race up the stairs on her way to the next level. The woman’s face was a mask of grief and determination, a combination Ailith didn’t care for one bit. She’d seen that look on soldiers in her regiment, and it had never ended well. “Emlyn! Stop!”

  Leaping into the open window, Ailith almost fell onto her face when her trailing leg caught on the edge of the sill. She gasped when an exposed piece of metal tore a hole in her trews and scraped a piece of skin from her knee. Catching herself on her fingertips, she pulled her foot down and raced after Emlyn. She continued calling her name, hoping to distract her from what Ailith had belatedly realized Emlyn intended to do.

  The top floor was a circular room with four large, rectangular windows, one for each cardinal direction. While the exterior of the building was granite, the interior of the upper floors had been plastered and finished to a flat smooth surface and painted light brown. The walls rose from the decorative tile floor to the vastly more ornately tiled ceiling. A metal bar bolted into place ran the entire circumference of the room. It was raised a half hand’s width above the windowsill, presumably to keep people from sitting on the sill that was easily a full arm’s length deep.

  As Ailith raced up the final steps, she found Emlyn standing on the roughened block sill facing the harbor. “Emlyn?” She walked closer, hoping against hope the woman had only wanted to watch the three ships as they rode the morning tide out of the bay. No such luck.

  Emlyn slowly leaned forward, further and further, until it was evident she intended to keep leaning until she overbalanced and dropped to the hard-packed cobblestone pavers seven stories below.