Chapter 14 #2
“I agree. It’s a horrible country. Flies, and midges, and all this green.
” Nali waited for a glimmer of a smile that never came.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, as gently as he was able.
“Erik, and my men, and yours are all beneath us somewhere, making their way through the tunnels. It would be folly to fly back the way we’ve come and follow them that way.
We have to press on. We won’t find Tessa loitering in the mountains, and the drakes will need to feed soon, besides. ”
Rune puffed more vapor toward the sky. A tear leaked from his left eye, and froze halfway down his cheek. His lips twitched, and Náli had the sense there were a dozen things he wanted to say—emotional and overwrought—and that he was battling to keep them inside.
He wiped his face, and said, “You’re pressing on.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. That’s the only thing I can do.”
Slowly, the snow crunching and creaking beneath him, Rune sat up. He sniffed hard, his eyes and nose red-rimmed. “I don’t,” he started, and stopped. He looked lost. Like the idea of moving exhausted him, and like he might never smile again.
Náli might be a callous brat, but the sight of the always-jovial prince in this state put a lump in his throat.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said, and Rune’s head lifted, brows quirked together in question. He looked desperate for direction. “We’ll ride toward Aquitaine, and we’ll rendezvous with your uncle. We’ll search for Tessa on our way, but if we can’t find her, we’ll ask Oliver what we should do next.”
Rune stared at him a long, bemused moment, and then nodded.
“Do you think you can ride Alfie by yourself?”
“I’ll suppose I’ll have to, won’t I?”
“I suppose you will,” Náli agreed. Then: “Valgrind, be a dear and help our prince.”
Rune realized too late what he meant by that, and squawked in dismay when Valgrind plucked him up by the tunic again and swung him aboard Alfie.
Náli watched Rune brush himself off, and find the stirrups, and gather the reins, expression uncertain. Alfie twisted her head around and made an inquiring, chirping sound at him.
“I don’t know,” Rune told her, with an apologetic stroke to her neck. “I’ll do my best.” He closed his eyes a moment, and bowed his head, and Náli felt even sorrier for him.
What if it had been Matti taken? Spirited away by the enemy, carried to parts unknown? Náli would have frothed at the mouth until Klemens slipped a little sleeping powder in his tea.
He wasn’t used to speaking so carefully, so softly, but he kept trying. “Fasten your tether,” he reminded.
Rune held still a moment, until Alfie nudged his knee, and then he clipped himself to the saddle. When he lifted his head, his eyes blazed. He looked very like his uncle when he said, “Let’s go.”
~*~
Tessa was warm when she woke. She was comfortable.
But that couldn’t be right.
As sleep faded, she remembered the cold of the wind, the screams of the drakes. Remembered falling, and landing against hard metal, and the cruel, pale twist of the Sel’s mouth when he caught her.
Then came panic.
She bolted upright, flailing, reaching for a weapon, or Rune, or a set of reins that wasn’t there.
Gentle yellow sunlight filled her eyes and blinded her.
When she gasped, she breathed in the scents of lavender, and fresh-brewed tea, and soap.
Fresh, clean smells that didn’t belong on the back of a drake.
“You’re awake, my lady,” an accented female voice said, too close for comfort. “Here. I brought you tea.”
She scrubbed the grit from her eyes and blinked until her surroundings came into view.
She sat in the center of a large bed draped in purple embroidered silk, wearing a soft white sleeping gown that wasn’t her own.
She spotted a crackling fireplace, sofas, and chairs, and tables, rugs laid over a stone floor.
Everything was purple and gold and white, clean, and lavish, and expensive-looking.
To her left, a series of arched windows let out onto a balcony, where birds flitted and twittered.
To her left, a pale, petite woman with her white hair in a complicated topknot offered a steaming mug.
Tessa shrank back away from her on instinct.
“Apologies, my lady,” the woman said, and withdrew a step.
Tessa blinked some more, and scanned the room. There was no one else present; the two of them appeared to be alone together.
If the purple and gold décor wasn’t enough of a clue, the woman’s complexion marked this place as distinctly Selesee.
The pale skin, and light eyes, and white hair.
She was tiny: spindly neck, twig-sized wrists sticking out from the sleeves of her purple robe.
Unlike the soldiers Tessa had encountered, however, her expression was apprehensive, without a trace of aggression.
Tessa had a dozen questions…and a very dry throat.
Slowly, the woman inched forward again, both small hands cupped around the mug as she offered it again. “My lady?”
Tessa could smell the tea, and it reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since before she, Náli, and Rune parted ways with the Phalanx and first took flight.
She had no idea how long ago that was; what day it was; where she was.
Someone had changed her clothes, and placed her in this bed.
If they wanted to kill her, it likely wouldn’t be with poisoned tea.
She reached for the mug with trembling hands. “Thank you.”
The woman smiled, a small little thing, a fast quirk of closed lips, and passed her the mug, holding it until Tessa had a good grip on it. Then she stepped back and folded her hands in front of her, waiting, expectant.
The tea proved to have a darker, earthier taste than what Tessa was used to, but it was heavily sweetened, and it was an effort not to gulp it down in unladylike fashion. It warmed her all the way down, soothing and welcome. After, her vision seemed sharper, her pulse slower.
She dabbed stray drops from her lips and said, “What’s your name?”
The woman’s brows lifted in surprise. Likely, she’d expected Tessa to ask something else. “It’s…” She dampened her lips with a quick swipe of her tongue and started again. “It’s Julianna, my lady.”
“Julianna,” Tessa repeated. “You’re Selesee?” Of course she was, but Tessa wanted to ask anyway.
“Yes, my lady.” She curtsied afterward, a stiff drop and a brief spread of her robe’s skirt.
“Are you…” She thought of what Amelia had told her in the Between one night: the story of their prisoner, the Sel soldier who’d called himself a slave, born without parents to a cold barracks, treated never as a child, but only as a warrior who served at the emperor’s pleasure.
“A servant?” she asked, because the other word sat so foul on her tongue.
“No. I’m a slave, my lady.” Said without self-consciousness or fear. A simple statement of fact.
Tessa marveled at her smiling countenance. “And…what is it that you do as a…slave?”
“Whatever my master tells me to do.”
Tessa glanced around the room again. A swath of gold-embroidered purple velvet lay draped over the back of a chair.
A copper tub sat near the hearth, where a line of iron kettles awaited.
“Are you here as my lady’s maid?” she asked, and had never detested the idea of a bath and a clean dress more.
Had never detested it at all. But she could think of only one reason a slave would be ordered to make her presentable, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“Yes, my lady.” Julianna unfolded her hands and stepped forward to turn the covers back. “The water is warming by the fire and ready to pour. I’ll help you bathe, and then there’s a gown for you to wear. Slippers, too, and some jewels my master thinks you’ll like.”
My master. Gods. That was the emperor, wasn’t it?
Julianna stepped back, expectant, one small hand extended toward the tub.
Tessa hesitated a moment, sipping the rest of her tea, wondering what Amelia would do in this situation.
She wouldn’t cooperate, Tessa knew that much.
Would fold her arms, and refuse to get in the tub; would likely throw acerbic barbs at the poor slaves and deliver a few baseless threats.
She’d want to dole out violence, and be twice as angry because she couldn’t.
And then what would happen? Would someone come in and hold her down in the water?
Forcefully scrub her? Or was the emperor in the business of striking women?
Tessa could and had fought at Aeres, when it was her only choice.
But now, she was weaponless, friendless, and unfamiliar with the landscape.
Amelia had spent her girlhood riding, and shooting, and traipsing through the forest with the men.
But their mother had taught Tessa that manners could be weapons, too.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and eased forward until her bare toes touched the rug. “I’m afraid I’m not very steady.”
“Here, my lady.” Julianna stepped forward to take a light grip on her arm. Her fingers were cool, almost cold, but her grasp was surprisingly firm when she helped Tessa to her feet and then guided her across the room.
“Where are we?” Tessa asked. “What is this place?”
“This is Aquitaine, my lady. The deposed king’s palace.”
Tessa paused mid-step, startled. Before Julianna could inquire about her wellbeing, she continued, allowing herself to be steered over to an empty chair, and pressed down into it.
Julianna patted the back of her hand, one fast, perfunctory gesture that Tessa read to mean stay here, and then went to start pouring kettles of hot water into the tub.
So this was the capital. Tessa had always wanted to see it firsthand, but as a guest, rather than a prisoner. Julianna had said deposed king; perhaps, Tessa thought, without much hope, that meant the king of Aquitainia was a prisoner, too, and not dead.
In that sense, Tessa supposed she was lucky to be here in a bedchamber, rather than chained to a wall in the dungeon.
She shivered, and Julianna said, “Are you cold, my lady? The bath will warm you.”
Tessa clutched at the front of her nightgown. Even though she was small, and female, and had been kind, she hated the thought of disrobing in front of a Sel.
But she’d already been naked. Someone had stripped her of her armor, and tunic, and riding skirts, and dressed her in this soft, white gown. She had no idea how many people had seen her without her clothes; who might have touched her bare skin.
She wanted to cry.
Instead, she reminded herself that the servants in Drakewell had seen her naked, had helped her bathe, as was custom with young noble ladies, and so she stood, and lifted the hem of her gown, and climbed into a tub because the enemy emperor wanted her to.