Chapter Forty-Two
Aspen owns a small three-room cottage only a few blocks away. “It’s not much, but it’s paid for, thanks to my market stall.”
He leads me into a walled courtyard surrounded by flowering trellises and through an arched doorway trimmed in colorful tiles.
“Brook, I brought us some company!”
I’m dizzy with pain and tiredness, and I try to make all the appropriate sounds as Aspen introduces me to a stout Dhakaran
woman with deep smile lines and coppery hair turning gray.
“Oh, little bird, you’re about to fall over,” Brook says. She fusses, pulling out a chair for me to sit, plopping a bowl of
rice in front of me, as Aspen tells her about the day.
While I eat with my right hand, she unwraps the bandages on the left and examines my fingers. I focus on the rice, bite after
bite after bite, refusing to look, while she gently bathes and rewraps them.
“That’s some good work,” she says. “Nice stitching. No sign of infection.”
“I went to Eliset’s Elixirs,” I tell her.
“Ah, yes, Eliset is very good, for an unmagicked healer. Expensive, though.”
When I don’t offer any more information, she takes away my empty bowl and returns with a sticky gel-like salve, which she slathers all over my face.
I can’t help the little groan that escapes, because the salve feels so cool and wet, and for the first time since I awakened in the preserve, I can move the muscles in my face without pain.
“Thank you both so much,” I say, tearing up a little. These two would make very good innkeepers.
“It’s a bit early still, but let’s get you to bed,” Brook says.
The next few days are a blur as I work for Aspen in his ice-making stall. He feeds me and rests me often enough that I feel
a little better every day. And at the end of each day, he divvies up the coins we earned and gives me a full third. At the
end of the week, I have enough money that I could buy supplies for a journey back to Grimsvold—if that’s what I want.
Brook welcomes us home every night with some variation of a rice bowl—sometimes with lamb, sometimes just vegetables. “Whatever
is cheap at the market today,” she says. It turns out Aspen is only half Suratian, and a closer look reveals an amber glint
in his eyes that I didn’t notice the first time we met, though I should have realized, given his Dhakaran name. Their house
is decorated with wall hangings and pottery crafted by Dhakaran artisans, using Dhakaran patterns in soft pastel colors—a
lovely homage to a long-lost country and a scattered people.
After a week, Aspen increases my pay to forty percent.
After three weeks, he asks if I’m interested in a permanent arrangement and offers fifty. I tell him I’ll stay through the winter, but I can’t make any promises after that.
The bandages come off, and as I resume use of my left hand, I begin to accept this new me. The stubs seem monstrous to look
at, at first, and I keep trying to make fingers move that don’t exist. But I gradually adapt, even developing some skin that
turns out to be much tougher than fingertips.
In Suratia, the punishment for thieving is to lose a finger, and I get a lot of sideways glances from our customers. Maybe
they assume my rings are fraudulent, stolen from someone truly deserving. My Diamond Household ring in particular draws skepticism.
But I refuse to take them off.
I also refuse to talk about them, much to the consternation of Aspen and Brook. I’ve quickly come to enjoy their company.
During our evenings together, Aspen tells me of his military adventures in the Cathiran outland patrol, as well as his and
Brook’s bureaucratic adventures acquiring a merchant’s license in a city with such ferocious competition. In turn, I describe
life in the Grimsvolder Mountains and regale them with stories of our inn’s most interesting or difficult guests. But for
some reason, I can’t make myself tell them what brought me to Cathira or how I came to wear these rings.
If they press too hard, I change the subject by asking a question. It turns out that sometimes the best way to get someone
to talk is to truly listen.
The seasonal rains come, and the city shuts down in annual celebration.
Aspen and I are forced to take a few days off while the canals overflow, turning the streets into creeks.
Much of the rainwater escapes over the Edge, and when the clouds break, the city is awash in the scents of soaked sandstone and blooming flowers.
Cathira fills to bulging with tourists, come for the annual spring bloom, and business at the ice-maker stand explodes.
Aspen asks again if I’d consider staying on permanently. I tell him I haven’t made up my mind.
One afternoon, when the sun is beating especially hard, promising a harsh—and profitable—summer, we get a new customer. She
wears a frock of plain, undyed linen with a hood that shades her face. Something about the cut alerts me, or maybe the way
the fabric falls just so. It may be a plain frock, but it’s the finest item of clothing I’ve seen since I donned Mehuda’s
mantle of monsters.
She reaches the front of the line and pushes back her hood. Everyone around me gasps. Several fall to their knees.
It’s Herself, the high potentat of Cathira.
“Bria Angarsold. I’ve been looking for you,” she says, her voice soft and maybe a little bit shy. She is beautiful, with black
skin that shimmers with health. She wears no kohl, no rouge. Her strong and perfect features need neither. No hint of persuasion
remains in her deep brown eyes.
“It seems you’ve found me,” I say. Has she come to arrest me for stealing her prince? Does she understand what really happened
at the Sundereve Ball?
“Why didn’t you come to me?” she asks. “After they left?”
Do I imagine the hurt in her voice? “I didn’t know if it was safe. Last I saw you . . .”
Her lips press together. Then: “Yes, I suppose I was not at my best that night, was I?”
“You were strong and brave.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“My horse—”
“Blackwind. We’ve been taking good care of him.”
Relief hits me like a mule kick, and I nearly double over. It also hits me how much I miss that giant, sweet, carrot-loving
boy.
“Your Excellency,” Aspen says, finally finding his voice. “If there’s anything we can—”
The potentat silences him with a wave of her finger.
“Come home,” she says to me. “The palace is so empty without . . .” Her words trail off.
My voice is like that of a small child when I say, “We’re never going to see them again, are we?”
Tears fill her eyes, and she wipes at one before it can dribble down her cheek. “I thought I was all cried out,” she says.
“But I guess I have a few tears left after all.”
My own eyes are suddenly blurry. I did not expect this. Someone with whom to share my grief.
“I searched everywhere for references to the godsmoot,” she explains softly. “Once Sylabet was chosen, I became obsessed with
it. There’s not much. It’s such a big secret, you know. But what little there is gives no indication that anyone returns.
Not once in thousands of years.”
Tears are flowing freely now. She reaches out her hand, and I take it.
We stay like this a long moment, each taking comfort in the other.
The people around us are recovering from their surprise and have started rumbling quietly to each other.
No one rises to their feet, which is good.
It’s probably best they don’t hear our conversation.
No one will cast accusing glances at my rings after this.
She says, “You have done so much for us. I would give you a gift.”
I shake my head. “Master Mehuda deserves your reward, not me. I wouldn’t have been able to . . . do what I did, if not for
him. Or the legatat. Or even the permanancer who escaped. So many of your staff helped us. The least important people in the
city saved it, I think.”
She laughs. “You’ve just discovered the secret to ruling.”
“I have?”
“It’s always the little people who get things done. We royals get the credit, but we are not the ones who change the world.
Bad rulers don’t understand this. Good rulers never forget.”
It sounds like something Titus would say.
She leans closer, whispers, “I know exactly what you did, humble ice maker. We found his body, you know. A lot of people helped,
but you saved my city.”
It’s just that I don’t feel like I deserve a reward.
“There’s a girl at the Edge Jump Inn,” I say. “Dahlia. An indentured servant. If you want to reward me, buy out her indenture
and set her free.”
The potentat smiles. “Done.”
“And if you need a royal ice maker, Aspen here is a hard worker and an honest man who has treated me with respect and fairness
all winter.”
“Also, done.”
Aspen gasps.
The potentat squeezes my hand. “Now will you come home?” Her face is yearning, her voice plaintive. She is a grieving mother
who sees in me a way to hold on to a bit of her family. I understand why Titus loved her.
“My mother is waiting for me in Grimsvold,” I tell her. My inn, my mountains, my memories, my life. “It’s time for me to go
to her.” It’s not until I say the words that I know them to be true. I’m ready.
Her face is awash in disappointment, but she reaches up to cup my cheek and says, “I understand. I would not rob another mother
of her daughter.”
“I wouldn’t mind returning for a visit someday, though, if that’s all right with you.”
“I would love that very much.” Her hand drops, and she lifts her hood back over her head. “Come fetch your stallion when you’re
ready. I’ll make sure you’re supplied for your journey. Oh, and one more thing.”
She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a ring. It’s an exact copy of my Diamond Household ring, except instead of an abalone
chip, an actual diamond reflects shards of sunlight.
The potentat says, “I hope you’ll consent to wear this. Return to me any time.”
I’m blinking away tears all over again as I slip off my old ring and replace it with the new. She’s marking me as not just
a member of her household, but a member of her family.
I move to hand the old one to her, but she says, “Keep it. Someday you might have a partner or servant you deem an appropriate
recipient.”
“If so, I’ll make sure they wear your ring with pride,” I tell her.
I stay three more days to help Aspen transition from street vendor to royal staff. This includes telling all his customers
on day one, disassembling his stall on day two, and packing up half of his belongings on day three so he and Brook can live
at least part-time in the new apartment provided by the potentat in the royal palace.
At the end of day three, I head to the stables, and even before I see him, he sniffs me out. I hear the distinctive rumble
of Blackwind working himself up, a few kicks against a stall door, the sound of a bucket being overturned. When I let him
out, he headbutts me in the chest so hard I nearly fall. I stroke his neck and kiss him between the eyes and tell him what
a good and perfect boy he is.
“I thought I’d find you here,” says a voice at my back.
I whirl to find Dahlia glaring at me.
“Dahlia! It’s good to see—”
“You bought out my indenture,” she accuses.
“No, the potentat did.”
“But you made it happen.”
She seems so angry, and I have no idea why. Blackwind nuzzles my hair as Dahlia and I stare each other down.
Finally she says, “I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to sleep. Nothing to eat.” She clenches her eyes tight to keep from crying.
“You’re a spark maiden! Surely someone would be glad to—”
“Do you know how hard it is for a Dhakaran girl to find a job?”
I guess I hadn’t thought about it. The words are out of my mouth before I recognize them as right. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“I’m going home. To Grimsvold. It’s better that I don’t travel alone. I’ll pay you to keep our campfires lit. When we get
to my inn, there’ll be a job for you, if you want it.” My mother will kill me if I keep handing out jobs left and right. Our
inn isn’t prosperous enough to support more than a small staff. But I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Dahlia stares at me through narrowed eyes. “A real job? Not an indenture?”
“Indenture is illegal in Grimsvold. You’ll be paid a fair wage, for as long as the inn can afford it.”
“Will I have to . . . I don’t know. Be grateful to you all the time and constantly express my indebtedness?”
I laugh. “Of course not. That would be so boring.”
She tries to hide her smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“I’m leaving at first light. Meet me here if you decide to come.”
She storms off, still very much not smiling.
I make my goodbyes to Aspen and Brook, to the potentat and even Master Mehuda. It feels strange to get hugs from so many people
I’ve barely met. Stranger still to know I return their affection. In fact, my heart is overflowing. How lucky am I, to have
found love and family so far from home?
I purchase a sturdy mountain pony for Dahlia from the stable master, along with appropriate tack and a saddlebag. After a glance at my rings, she gives me such an incredible bargain that I feel like a thief, but she refuses to accept more.
In the morning, Blackwind is so excited to see the saddle that I struggle to buckle it around his giant, wriggling girth.
When I finish, I turn to find Dahlia gazing at me, a small bag in her hands—barely larger than a lady’s purse. It likely contains
everything she owns.
“Have you ever ridden a horse?” I ask.
She nods. “A long time ago.”
“We’ll take it easy at first, so you get used to it.” I introduce her to her new pony—a gray gelding who reminds me a little
of Apple.
“What’s his name?” Dahlia asks.
“I have no idea. I guess you’ll have to name him.”
“Lilac,” she says firmly.