Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
AUDREY
Every person has a value, every action a reward.
—the Book of Bread and Salt
19th Day of Autumn’s Son Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 272
La’Angi Keep
I fell asleep thinking about Luca, and when I woke the first thought that floated through my mind was of him, too. Had I been doing him an injustice? Could he truly change?
The list of things I needed to do was right there, clear as expensive mageglass.
The day I’d taken away from the faire had done me good, and nothing horrendous had befallen them for my absence.
When I’d returned and found the perfume specialist in my rooms, I’d been irritated, but their pampering had been… lovely.
I had Luca to thank for that, and myself. Luca for listening and taking action, withdrawing his sale and offering an alternative to the merchant, and myself, I supposed, for speaking up.
My head still felt like it had a beehive in it.
I still felt the rush of battle-energy when I went through the mental list of meetings.
But I wasn’t being pulled from one thought to the next, focusing on details of various meetings, out of order and simultaneously drowned by information and possibilities.
The hive was there, but it wasn’t angry.
I lay in bed, breathing deeply, as I felt my heartbeat slow. Sleepy heaviness didn’t return to my body, but when I was calm, I stood. The movements made the scent of the massage oil the woman had used on me tickle my nose pleasantly.
“Funerary oil,” she’d chuckled. “What do they know?” Her big hands had rubbed the scented oil firmly into my shoulders, into my neck, down my back, into the backs of my thighs and my calves. I’d been a puddle of melted wax at the end.
Prior to that, the specialist craftsman had taken me through what felt like a million vials of samples, taking notes of my reactions.
I’d enjoyed the interactions between the specialist and the spokesperson and the care they’d given me between scented vials—the way they’d offered me a head-clearing, unscented substance, the way they’d given me time to think.
The spokesperson, the older woman who’d given me the massage, had obviously been sent because of her ability to put people at ease.
Luca had told them he’d made a grave mistake. He’d taken full ownership, publicly, not waiting until I was there to applaud but just because it was right.
I sighed and slid out from beneath the covers. Isolde’s door opened as my feet touched the cold rug that protected me from the icy stone beneath. Soon the fire would burn constantly, and the stones would never go cold.
The thought of feeding the fire, arranging the logs just so, the worry of it going out, made my heart beat faster once again.
“You look brighter,” said my mentor, her skin clear, her pupils their normal size, no veins visible beneath her skin.
She’s safe. No one is sick. And if they get sick, I’ll know what to do, and so do others. Nothing relied on me. I’d made it so.
“I feel brighter.” I wrinkled my nose at the inaccuracy of the statement. “I feel more in control.”
“If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose in control,” she offered.
I agreed with a nod, pulling on the clothes we’d train in before following after her up the stairs to where my mother had breathed her last breath.
When I’d been younger, I’d dreamed of closing the cycle. But it wasn’t that simple. I’d met half a dozen men who would all be lingering on the sidelines when my father fell, ready to claim his territory.
I was going to need to survive the fight with the man who’d seeded me myself. I’d need to do more to survive the backlash.
As I sat on the cold stone with Isolde and settled into the breathing exercises, thoughts of how that could go floated across my mind.
I’d worked hard not to try to predict the fight with my father.
I’d never accurately been able to guess what he did—not with any sort of consistency.
I’d never seen him training with the men.
The times I’d seen him in combat had been brief, brutal, and fatal.
Calling them fights would have been an exaggeration—really, they’d only ever been executions.
I had nothing to go on. Trying to plan would only risk me focusing too hard on my own strategy and not responding to him in the moment.
The sound of the door opening below rippled through my mind. I noticed it, breathed, then put it aside.
“Point,” Isolde said.
I arranged my body into a position like a dog pointing toward its quarry, holding it while I continued to breathe.
“Swap.”
I put one arm down, the other leg down. The familiar sound of Chay’s steps approached. I arranged my body again to extend the opposite limbs.
“Full moon,” she murmured, as I heard him come in.
On all fours, I arched my back, feeling less stretch than usual, my muscles already warm as my body after good knappchs. The massage really had helped.
“Big stretch,” Isolde instructed.
I moved to invert the pose. The sound of Isolde and Chay doing the same, their quiet breathing, the click of a joint and sigh of fabric, was familiar and comforting.
I couldn’t plan for the fight. I could plan for the aftermath.
I’d done so somewhat, but it had been ad hoc.
I acknowledged the thought and put it aside, focusing on the heat in my shoulders, the feel of my toes stretching against the stone.
The mild physical discomfort alongside the comfort of my friends and the deep, steady breaths was a special kind of balm for the poor kicked beehive in my head and the ache in my chest.
“You can be uncomfortable, and still be safe,” Isolde had told me when I’d been bold enough to ask why we replicated the positions of hunting dogs, trees, drawn bows, and everything in between. “Your body needs to know that.”
We breathed, and she guided us into more uncomfortable positions. I didn’t know if I could have managed what I had since the last tourney had it not been for my ability to be simultaneously uncomfortable and calm.
I wondered if Luca did something similar, then decided he had to. He never went red-faced like some. When his breathing sped up, he managed it, same as I, riding the surge of that battle-energy the way I did.
Chay passed me my sword. I drew it, focusing on the sound of the steel singing against the sheath as it slid free. A ripple of anticipation went up my spine.
I’d never seen Luca train. For a moment, it wasn’t my tall, broad, black-haired companion who stood before me—it was the slightly shorter man with brown hair worn fashionably long so it fell in waves, his eyes the color of steel and his expression calm.
We drilled. It was Chay, not Luca, who lifted a leg and slapped my calf lightly with the flat of his foot by way of silent correction. I shifted my stance, drawing my mind back to the present, adding two additional tasks to my list of things to get through over the next little while.
Plan for the aftermath of my father’s death—or for my failure—to minimize risk to those around me.
Talk to Luca.
“You’re bright this morning,” Isolde said to Chay, when we broke apart. “For a man out late drinking with his friends.”
Absently, I noted the way her observation echoed the earlier comment she’d made to me. I expected any massage Chay had enjoyed had been more intimate than the one I’d had last night, but I doubted he’d been drinking. That wasn’t how Chay relaxed.
“It’s good to see them,” he agreed, catching the skin of water she tossed him.
“Missed Luca, have you?” Isolde needled.
I gulped the water from my cup, ready to cut her off, but Chay said, mildly, “Actually, I was glad he was there.”
The water went down my throat like it had become a rock. I winced as it travelled down to my stomach, leaving an ache in the wake of its passage.
“Why’s that?” Isolde pressed. “He reminded you that your average is better than his excellent?”
“Let it be,” I said, the words coming out as a croak. I winced again, swallowing a little more water to no avail. If Chay was overcoming his irrational jealousy of Luca, so much the better. Why remind him of his dislike? “I’ve time for another round of drills, Chay.”
He stopped halfway to the scabbards, frowning at me. “You’re in recovery, though.”
I nodded, shrugged. “I’m feeling recovered.” His expression remained impassive, and I sighed. “I can take it, Chay. We’ll go slow.”
His throat bobbed as he tossed the skin of water back to Isolde. Mayhap there was something unusual in the water. I listened for his voice to croak as mine had done, but he said nothing, just rubbing one hand quickly across his jaw and taking a deep breath.
Satisfied I had a training partner, I set down my cup and settled back into the flow.
My morning meetings were all trade deals.
With the reduction in tariffs for things ratified in my province at this time, I was kept busy finalizing the things I’d been working on over the past few moons, and I wasn’t the only one.
Sandra had centralized those who had the most administration talks related to trade not by profit or importance but by volume.
Our efficiency was, I felt, quite impressive.
It did make noting what tariffs were owed simpler, too.
The foot traffic past the door to my meeting room was slow but constant, with folks wandering past to sneak a peek at me and plenty more glancing in to see if they could slip in between my booked meetings.
Sandra ran the room the way her father would’ve run a parade ground.
It left me with nothing to do but offer the occasional smile or respectful nod. .
Servants brought me food at some point, so I put down the Dayquill spelled by my Inker mage, no doubt busy making copies of notarized agreements as her assistants filed the documents away.
I was standing to eat the bowl of roast vegetables and still-warm meat when movement by the door made me glance over.
Luca smiled at the bowl in my hand. “You’ve been busy.”