Chapter 12 #2
Most of the records around scourge sorcery have been destroyed to try to prevent anyone from following their footsteps.
Alek hasn’t been able to find any accounts that mention the inverted sigil.
And recognizing the words and the dartling egg smell is just my experience, not something anyone can confirm.
Which is why we need more proof. I worry at my lower lip for a moment before catching myself.
The palace bell begins its hourly ring, and Julita perks up.
Speaking of hunts, it’s almost time for the weekly practice hunt the leadership division holds.
They’ll let an interested assistant tag along.
There are a couple of regulars I’ve been keeping an eye on. And everyone does plenty of talking.
I don’t know what a practice hunt is, but I’m all for finding it out if it means making some progress toward completing this mission. “Sounds good. Where’s that?”
Ah, I think you should probably get changed first.
I glance down at my combat leathers, which have seen exactly zero combat while on my body. She may have a point.
At the next bell, after changing into one of the riding dresses Casimir provided and pinning my hair into one of the loopy updos that the noble ladies seem to favor, I head over to the stable.
If it seems as odd to Julita as it does to me to get dressed up to hang out with horses, she doesn’t give any indication.
I think this is the best one, she remarks as I smooth my hands over the subtly pleated silk. It makes your eyes look even more blue.
It’s the turquoise dress, which I think is my favorite too. The cut is simple in its elegance, with only a little gold embroidery, no beading or elaborate swirls, decorating the neck- and waistline.
And I’ve discovered that the folds on this one allow me to conceal one extra dagger compared to the others. Which is the most important factor, naturally.
Even if I have three dresses, I could get away with wearing this one more than the others, right? After all, I’m supposed to be a mere country noble no one’s ever heard of before.
I mean, while I have to be wearing fancy dresses at all.
My nerves twitch as I spot the twenty or so noblemen and ladies gathered outside the stable, but the familiar smells take the edge off my anxiety.
Fresh hay and old wood and that distinct musky-sweet horsey smell that I welcomed into my lungs whenever I slipped out to my family’s much smaller stable to groom Dotty, our mare.
There could be one or two things I’d actually like about the Sovereign College. If they didn’t always come with a pack of rich snobs on the side.
As I stroll along the pathway with the smooth but not too swift strides that befit a lady, I pick out several familiar faces in the waiting group.
There’s Anya, who will never recover her missing earrings and whose flaxen locks currently look more like a sculpture than a hairdo.
And Esmae, Julita’s petite dormmate with the eye patch who came to my rescue.
The others, I haven’t had time to commit their names to memory yet, but I know I’ve crossed paths with them while walking the halls or perhaps in the dining hall this morning.
Oh, and Benedikt is with them—his golden hair catching the sunlight off to the side of the small crowd. He’s laughing with a few of the other men.
I jerk my gaze away. I’m not supposed to know him.
But he’s going to witness one of my first real attempts at noble subterfuge. All of which I’d imagine he’ll report back to Stavros—and Casimir and Alek—one way or another.
Wonderful.
Julita pipes up, falling into a hush as if there’s any chance of someone overhearing.
The girl with the red streak in her hair—keep a particular eye on her.
Wendos had a thing going with her for a few months.
And I’ve seen him act very friendly with the short fellow there in the dark blue tunic, so watch him carefully too.
I want to point out that I’m not sure how much those associations matter when we haven’t even proven that Wendos himself is still interested in scourge sorcery, but I’m too close to the other students to talk to Julita without looking insane.
Anya is standing with a couple of similarly haughty women. Her eyes narrow when she notices me arriving. “Julita’s friend. What are you doing here again?”
I offer my best ingratiating smile and stick to an appropriately refined tone.
“I happened to stumble into a conversation with one of the professors whose father was close colleagues with mine, and it turned out he was in need of an assistant. My family decided they could spare me for the opportunity.”
One of Anya’s friends lets out a laugh too short to be good-humored. “How intriguing. And you know Julita as well?”
I’ve prepared for this moment, knowing I’d likely run into someone who’d heard my initial story.
It’s fine—possibly even a good thing—if the conspirators find out I supposedly knew Julita. Their reactions to me could give their guilt away.
But I don’t want anyone believing that I was involved in whatever investigations they believed Julita was carrying out. That could be a faster death sentence than showing off my riven magic for Stavros.
“I suppose I knew her,” I say with a slight grimace. “We hadn’t seen each other in years. From what I’ve heard since arriving here, she’d changed quite a bit. I don’t even know where she’s wandered off to—she didn’t bother telling me that much.”
Anya hums to herself with a brief primp of her hair. I take a surreptitious glance toward the two classmates Julita pointed out to me, but I can’t see any change in their expressions if they noted me talking about her.
If they’re worried about anyone investigating her disappearance, they’re doing a good job of hiding it.
My gaze snags on another female student in a deep burgundy dress that compliments her olive-brown skin.
Unlike the rest of us, her straight black hair is only pulled back from her face in a gold clip but otherwise allowed to tumble down her back.
Even Esmae has her hair coiled into a bun for the outing.
The woman is standing at the edge of the group like many others, but something about her stance gives the sense that she’s more apart from us. Like there’s a short distance there she isn’t sure how to cross.
As I watch, she fidgets with the folds of her skirt. Her right hand is missing its smallest two fingers—the flesh smoothed over in the way of a typical dedication sacrifice.
I don’t even need to twitch my eyebrow for Julita to pick up on my curiosity. That’s Petra. She’s pretty quiet, mostly keeps to herself. Apparently she’s a niece twice removed of the queen’s family, or something like that. I don’t think it’s likely she attacked her own cousin.
Maybe not, but I’m not ruling anyone out just yet.
I smooth the skirt of my own dress and am about to push the conversation onward when a broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman with a face as pasty as a dumpling steps forward. She claps her hands. “All right, everyone. Select your steeds.”
Accidentally-on-purpose, I head through the stable entrance just behind Anya and her friends. Which gives me the opening to keep talking after all.
“It’s strange that Julita hasn’t been around for so long, isn’t it? Where could she have gone? Did it seem as if she’d been getting into anything… unsavory?”
The girl at Anya’s right scoffs.
Anya simply lifts her nose. “I can’t imagine Julita getting her hands particularly dirty.”
The girl who asked me about knowing Julita giggles. “No, if she wanted something unsavory done, she’d just wheedle someone else into doing it.”
I slant my mouth into a frown. “I hope she didn’t cause any resentments, then?”
“Oh, people generally don’t get angry with Julita,” Anya says in a bored tone. “She’s just ever so charming.”
She doesn’t say it like a compliment.
Before I can prod further, she motions toward the end of the row of stalls we’ve reached. “You should take Toast out. Stall 16. He’s the perfect horse for you to start with.”
If the cold glint in her eyes wasn’t enough to tip me off, Julita makes a sound of consternation. Toast is a gods-damned terror. She’s trying to make a fool out of you… or worse.
It seems to me I’ll look more like a fool if I act frightened by the suggestion. I can’t imagine a horse kept in the royal college’s stables could be that wild.
A terror to noblewomen could still be a piece of cake to someone who appreciates a little spirit.
I shoot Anya a quick smile. “Thank you for the suggestion.”
A titter ripples between the three women as I head toward the stall she indicated. Footsteps rap against the stone floor after me.
I recognize Esmae’s clear voice. “Anya’s just joking, Ivy. I can help you find a better mount.”
“Oh, Esmae, don’t be a spoilsport,” one of Anya’s friends mutters.
I glance over my shoulder. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Now I’m even more curious about this horse.”
Stopping in front of the stall, I find myself faced with a stallion whose dun hair holds a sprinkling of darker brown to match his mane. He’s got the coloring of a piece of toasted bread. Nothing particularly terrifying about that.
I reach over the low stall door slowly to give him a chance to sniff my hand. He gives a snort and a restless stomp of his hooves. He is a little testy.
The stable hands have already suited him up with saddle and bridle like they must have all the horses on offer for the hunt. All I’ve got to do is get on him.
I make a soft clucking sound under my breath as I ease into the stall, the way I have before when I’ve gotten the chance to commune with an unfamiliar horse. I haven’t ridden any horses since Dotty, but I know my way around them.
I’ve missed her. Being in a stable feels like coming home—to the one part of my old home I have nothing but fond memories of.
An unbidden heat pricks at the back of my eyes. I grimace against it.
I’m not really any more alone here than I was on the streets. But there I was surrounded by people with concerns I could relate to, whose lives I wanted to take some small part in.
I’ve never really been able to count on anyone except myself… but I feel that fact more in this place than I ever have before.
Toast stomps again. I pat his neck reassuringly and inhale the horsey smell, letting it soothe my brief spell of melancholy.
Benedikt’s breezy voice filters from the boards at the back of my stall from the one adjacent, low so no one farther away will hear. “You do like to live dangerously, huh, Knives?”
Knives? Is that what he’s going to be calling me now?
I guess I can think of less fitting nicknames.
“I seem to have a knack for it,” I retort in a similarly low tone. “I didn’t know hunting was your thing.”
He hasn’t really struck me as the aggressive type.
Benedikt chuckles. “When you’re a bastard’s bastard, all things can be your thing.”
My head swivels toward the back wall. “Pardon?”
Here we go, Julita remarks with amusement.
“I’m the bastard son of a royal bastard,” Benedikt says, sounding no less amused himself. “Part of the family but definitely not. It’s a very unique position—a certain amount of recognition with none of the responsibility. I try to make the most of it.”
Julita fills in one of the blanks in that story. Benny’s father is King Konram’s half-brother… who apparently picked up his father’s tastes for stepping outside his marriage.
That’s how Benedikt has connections in the palace. It doesn’t sound as if the situation bothers him.
Questions itch at me, but the hunt master hollers from outside the stables for us to get a move on. I grip Toast’s reins and push open the stall door.