Chapter I #3
Fia moved Miriel from one hip to the other.
It had not escaped her notice that the cloister was a power to be reckoned with.
She’d known before that it was famous and prosperous, and that all of inland Honoria ate through winter thanks to the wheat and saltfish that came from the Solis Plains—and by extension, from Raea’s halls.
What she had not known was the degree to which the cloister seemed to rest at the heart of every significant trade agreement made in Honoria, or how Dolenza served as a confidante and advisor to most of the country’s merchants, and a good half of those who came from elsewhere.
“Is it Raea people fear risking insult to, or is it you?” Fia asked mildly.
She had not learned true deference yet, or when to hold her tongue.
Neither skill had been needed to survive life in the mountains, and so she had not bothered cultivating them.
She’d tried, since coming to the cloister, but it was slow going.
Dolenza went back to her desk, frustration finally evident in the set of her shoulders.
“I will not hear your fidelity oath this morning. In fact, I’m sending you away,” she said abruptly. “But not for long. And not with your daughter—Miriel will stay here with us.”
Hot, unreasoning fury pooled in Fia’s belly, breathtaking in its intensity.
“Never. I go nowhere without my child,” she snapped.
She fought the urge to tighten her hold on Miriel, instead shifting her grip so that the baby rested with her chest against Fia’s own, her head up, wide bright eyes taking in the world that served as a constant source of wonder.
Fia could not help herself—she pressed her cheek to Miriel’s first, then her lips, drinking in the child.
Her sweet smell, her softness, her innocence, the way she looked first to Fia regardless of who else was present.
Miriel saw only good in her mother, as no one else had ever done.
It broke Fia’s heart and mended it all at once, setting a great, wild desire in her to be worthy of that perfect regard.
“If you wish to join this cloister, you will do as I say.” There was stone in Matria Dolenza’s voice, but at Fia’s stricken look, she relented.
“You’ll be back before you’re even missed.
A three-day errand, with Miriel safe among my sorias, doted on and as well cared for as if you were here yourself.
Then when you return, I’ll hear your fidelity oath with a glad heart. ”
“Miriel’s a nursling yet,” Fia protested. “How will you feed her, Matria?”
Dolenza smiled, the expression a calculated one. “What’s good for the goats is good for the goddess. She won’t go hungry with plenty of fresh goat’s milk on hand, and I won’t be swayed. If you wish to remain here, you’ll do as I ask.”
“A three-day errand?” There was bitterness in Fia’s grudging tone. She should have known things had been too simple since she left the mountains and crossed the expanse of the Solis Plains. Now her ill luck reared its head once more.
“A three-day errand,” Matria Dolenza assured her.
She took up the letter she’d been writing when Fia came in and held it out.
With considerable reluctance, Fia accepted it.
“A mule is already waiting for you. Soria Beatrice will take charge of Miriel. You’re to travel to Inverlyn and deliver this note into the hands of our little foster Celina’s mother, mistress of all Honoria. ”
Fia’s bitterness turned to disbelief. “I’m to deliver a letter to the queen?”
“Yes, Fia,” Matria Dolenza said firmly. “You are. And you’re to be swift about it.
While I keep the souls in my care safe from dire news as often as I may, trouble is brewing in Honoria, and no one will remain ignorant of it much longer.
Orden Inver has tired of toying with Caervallion and has declared his intention to overthrow their king and claim their capital come harvest time.
If he has his way, every last soul in Honoria will serve his lust for conquest before the end. ”
Once more, Fia pressed her face to Miriel’s, this time searching for some sense of reassurance.
Misgivings rose strongly in her—she’d fled the mountain village she was born to because it was a place of deprivation and cruelty.
The Inver capital might be known for its excess, but cruelty was the same anywhere, regardless of its trappings.
Even Fia’s backwater upbringing had not kept her ignorant of the viciousness of the Invers and their court.
And she knew all too well the ravages of war.
Before her, the cloister’s Corrinian fosters played.
They served as a living testament to the Invers’ brutality, for it was Honoria’s king who’d razed Corrin’s green fields seven years back, while clashing with Caervallion on land that belonged to neither of them.
Corrin had never recovered, and perhaps that was the source of Dolenza’s determination to aid the small country in every way possible: Whatever blame could be placed for Corrin’s agonizing decline, a great part of it lay at Honoria’s doorstep.
Or rather, at that of her Inver rulers, to whose capital Fia was now being sent.
“Three days,” Fia agreed. She could manage the errand, if it meant a soria’s appointment waited at the end. “And not a moment longer.”