Chapter 18
Hours later, Aradella was riding bareback on Qip’s gray horse. It wasn’t easy to hold on, but the wolf had given her some
confidence in her ability to ride anything. She still had on the corseted, low-cut costume she’d worn in the play.
She and Bree had— At that thought, she almost halted. The concept that she and her cousin had done something together was more than her mind could comprehend.
After the play, they saw Qip and the men arriving in the wagon. As before, Bree sat on the seat beside Qip while Aradella
got in the back.
“That’s some dress,” Mekos said. His tone didn’t agree with the look on his face. He took off his jacket and put it around
her.
“Tell us what happened,” Tam said.
Bree twisted around to glance at Aradella, then turned back. By silent agreement, they weren’t going to tell the whole story.
“Nothing really,” Aradella said. “We did a play and as payment they gave us the rose.”
“And the dresses?” Tam was smiling.
“We, ah, left quickly,” Bree said. “We should return them.”
“Some woman put your clothes in the back,” Qip said. “Was the play easy to do?”
“Too easy.” Aradella closed her mouth and answered no more questions. She tightened Mekos’s jacket around her. As they rode back to Qip’s house, Mekos and Tam talked about training with Darr, about how quick he was and that he could fence with both of them at the same time.
Aradella’s mind was too full to think clearly. What she’d learned about Bree, about the secrets her cousin had kept, had destroyed
what Aradella thought to be true.
When they got back to the house, food was waiting. Qip proudly displayed the rose in the middle of the table. Later, there
would be more training before . . . before the battle.
“The entertainment goes on all day,” Qip told them. “After the play, the stages are moved to the back and it becomes an arena.”
Maybe it was the reality of the play that was making Aradella realize the seriousness of the coming contest. Like her, Bree
was quiet, saying little, but the two men were excited, even looking forward to what they were facing.
I must stop this, Aradella thought. As Bree said, all of this is my fault. If I’d married Nessa, none of this would be happening. Or if I’d not killed Valona they’d be safe. If I’d not—
She knew she had to stop regretting what had happened. It was time to go forward.
The others went to the garden, but Aradella said she wanted to rest.
“And change clothes,” Mekos said as he left the house.
She’d given him a half smile, then went to the room they shared. It was as cute as the rest of the house. There were four
shelves holding replicas of animals. Each was about the size of a hand, but they were made of different materials.
“Were we right when we joked that the rose and the medallion are for Qip’s collection?” she whispered. “Is that all they are?”
Qip said that no one knew the medallion was worth anything. Maybe it was a cheap metal but held magic, which people couldn’t see. The window was open and she heard the clash of swords. Would one of the men die today? Lose a limb? A hand? An eye?
There was a mirror on the wall and Aradella paused to look in it. She still wore the stage makeup, still had on the dress.
She’d spent years of her life making herself as unattractive as possible. But here she was on an island where they thought
she was beautiful. “Aunt Olina wouldn’t even recognize me now.”
She turned away from the mirror but then looked back at it. Beauty! How may hundreds of times had she seen the beauty of her cousins turn people into doddering idiots?
When she walked with her cousins, people fell over themselves asking to do things for the beautiful twins. Aradella remembered
a handsome young man getting water from a well and presenting it to the twins. After they’d had a drink, he handed the bucket
to Aradella and said, “Put it back.” She’d experienced that kind of thing over and over.
“What can beauty do?” she asked her reflection.
The answer, based on a lifetime of observation, came to her. Anything!
On the bottom shelf beside a tortoise carved out of green stone, was the little bag that produced an unlimited number of gold
coins.
“Between gold and beauty, I can do something,” she said. “I can change things.”
She didn’t allow herself to think too much, but ran from the house. She’d heard Qip’s horses but hadn’t been to his stables.
It was easy to find. Like everything else, it was clean and tidy. She walked along the stalls and the big gray horse nudged
her affectionately. “Like to go for a ride?”
Minutes later, she was on its back and riding toward town. She was going to stop this fight!