12
Ilinca
Dobrin arrived at Castle Ironmoor on a supply cart he had, by his own cheerful admission, talked his way onto through methods he refused to fully explain, and announced himself to the gate guards with enough noise that I heard him from the archive wing before anyone thought to send word ahead.
"You look ridiculous," I told him, meeting him in the courtyard where he stood turning slowly in place to take in the black stone and the towers and the general scale of a building that could have swallowed the entire Sorrowmarket without much effort.
"I look like a man appropriately impressed by his surroundings, which is different from ridiculous.
" He grinned at me, the same easy, unbothered grin he'd worn every single day of the six years I'd known him, and something in my chest loosened at the sight of it in a way I hadn't expected.
"You look like you've been eating properly, at least. Castle food better than market food? "
"Castle food is unreasonably complicated. There were four forks at supper my first night."
"Four forks." He shook his head with theatrical despair. "I always knew you'd abandon me for a better class of cutlery eventually."
I laughed, easier than I'd laughed in days, and looped my arm through his the way I had a hundred times before, walking him toward the kitchens where I knew the staff would feed him properly before anyone thought to ask why a fisherman from a border market was wandering the royal grounds uninvited.
"How's Marta's wager going?" I asked, once we'd settled at a corner table with bread and cheese Dobrin was already demolishing with more enthusiasm than the meal strictly warranted.
"Badly for Marta. The Larkhollow messenger's stopped inventing excuses to visit and started simply visiting, which I've decided means something, though she still won't confirm it outright.
" Something in his easy expression softened, just slightly, in a way I'd rarely seen from him.
"Her name's Petra, by the way. In case you were wondering whether I'd bothered learning it before six months in. "
"I'm proud of you."
"Don't sound so surprised." He nudged my shoulder with his, familiar and warm. "I came up here for a reason beyond gossip, though. I wanted to see for myself that you're actually all right. Letters only tell a person so much."
"I'm all right." That was true enough, in the way most things I told people were true enough without being the whole of it, and Dobrin, who'd known me six years and had never once been fooled by that particular tone, studied me with the careful attention he reserved for moments he suspected I was managing rather than answering.
"You're not telling me something."
"There's a great deal I'm not telling you, currently, because I don't fully understand it myself yet.
" I kept my voice low, mindful of the kitchen staff moving around us.
"I found something. In the old archive. A name — Frostmark — and a mark that matches the one under my hair, and I think, Dobrin, I think it might mean I'm not who either of us has spent six years assuming I was. "
He went very still, the bread forgotten in his hand. "What does that mean, practically."
"I don't fully know yet. I know the prince has known something for weeks and hasn't told me.
I know Katra died protecting whatever it is.
I know the Unbound have been scouting near the Sorrowmarket, which the letters suggest isn't coincidence.
" I forced my voice to stay level, the wardsmith's precision I'd learned to apply to anything that threatened to become too large to hold steady.
"I'm frightened, if I'm honest with you.
More than I've let myself be since I was twelve. "
Dobrin reached across the table and took my hand, the same steady, unhesitating gesture he'd offered a hundred times over six years, and I felt, for the first time since arriving at Castle Ironmoor, the relief of being fully known by someone who asked nothing of me in return for it.
"Whatever it is," he said, "you're not facing it alone.
Not the way you were twelve. You have me.
You apparently have an entire castle full of people who seem genuinely fond of you, against all my expectations.
And you have a prince who claimed you in front of his own Council rather than let a magistrate touch you.
That's not nothing, Ilinca, whatever else it turns out to mean. "
"He's also the one keeping something from me."
"People can do both at once. Protect you badly, and still be worth trusting eventually.
" He squeezed my hand once and let go, returning to his bread with the easy shift back to lightness that had always been one of his particular gifts.
"Now. Are you going to introduce me to this princess I've heard so much about, or am I going to have to find her myself and embarrass you properly? "
Yeva found us within the hour, drawn by the distinct chaos Dobrin seemed to generate wherever he went, and took an immediate, delighted liking to him that I'd half expected and still found entertaining to watch unfold.
"You're the fisherman," she said, sizing him up the way she'd sized me up in my own stall six weeks before. "Ilinca's told me almost nothing about you, which I've decided means you're either deeply boring or significantly more interesting than she's willing to admit."
"Deeply interesting. She's simply modest about the company she keeps.
" Dobrin bowed with theatrical flourish that had Yeva laughing within seconds, and I watched the two of them fall into easy, bantering conversation with the particular speed of two people who recognized, instantly, a kindred sense of humor.
"Is it true you once sold a wolf noble a fish you'd already sold twice that same morning?" Yeva asked, settling onto the bench across from him with open delight, clearly having heard some fragment of market gossip that had traveled considerably further than either Dobrin or I had realized.
"That's a gross exaggeration of an entirely reasonable business practice.
" Dobrin didn't even attempt to look ashamed.
"I sold him a fish. He simply didn't ask whether it was the same fish two other customers had also, technically, purchased and returned within the hour on account of it being slightly less fresh than advertised.
I consider that his oversight, not my dishonesty. "
"That's magnificent. I want to hear every version of this story you have."
"I have several versions, Your Highness, and none of them are strictly compatible with each other."
"Even better." Yeva leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, already thoroughly charmed. "Ilinca, why did you never tell me your fisherman was this entertaining? I feel personally cheated by weeks of insufficient gossip."
"Because if I'd told you, you'd have found an excuse to visit the Sorrowmarket yourself within the week, and I wasn't prepared to explain that particular chaos to the Council on top of everything else currently requiring explanation.
" I said it lightly, though something warm settled in my chest watching the two of them fall so easily into each other's company — two entirely different worlds I'd spent six weeks holding carefully apart, finding, without any effort from me at all, that they fit together noticeably better than I'd expected.
"Next time," Yeva said, pointing a finger at Dobrin with mock severity, "I'm coming with the convoy myself. I want to see this fish scheme in its natural habitat."
"I'll clear my schedule, Your Highness. Though I make no promises about the freshness of anything you're offered."
Later, once Dobrin had been fed and toured and sent back down the mountain with promises to visit again before the season turned, Yeva found me in the archive wing and settled onto the floor beside my workbench with an expression I recognized as the prelude to a request.
"Teach me something," she said. "Properly. Not the way you showed me that first day, turning a folio over politely and pretending I understood what I was looking at. I want to actually carve something."
I considered her for a long moment, weighing the vulnerability of teaching a craft that had cost me so much, and found, somewhat to my own surprise, that I wanted to give it to her anyway.
"Small work first," I said, handing her a scrap of soft pine and my second-best knife. "Everyone starts small. Even Katra started small, apparently, though she never told that story the same way twice."
I walked her through the first cuts slowly, correcting her grip, showing her how to read the wood's own grain before imposing a line onto it, and found, teaching, a singular satisfaction I hadn't expected — not the private, careful satisfaction of my own work, but something warmer, watching someone else's hands slowly find a confidence they hadn't carried into the room.
"You're a good teacher," Yeva said, an hour in, her own small charm taking rough, uneven shape under her unpracticed hands.
"Katra was better. I'm working from memory of someone who made it look considerably easier than it actually is."
"That's most good teaching, I think. Someone making something difficult look simple enough that you believe you can do it too." She held up her charm, lopsided and earnest, clearly pleased with it regardless of its rough edges. "Will it actually work? Even carved this badly?"
"It'll work. Badly carved wards still hold, mostly. They just don't hold as long, or as strongly, as they would in better hands." I turned it over, checking her line with genuine approval. "This is good, for a first attempt. Better than mine was, if I'm honest."
She beamed at that, unguarded in a way that reminded me, briefly and painfully, of exactly how young nineteen actually was, underneath all her careful court composure.