Chapter XII
XII
Flame burns timber
And fire shatters stone
But water drowns flame
Even one wave alone
—AN HONORIAN DESERTER’S PASSCODE
As the morning light grew thick and golden the following day, the castle came alive with servants and courtiers and guards, all preparing for the prince’s naming ceremony at the heart of the mountain.
Fia fed the child, laid him in Ariana’s arms, and stood looking down at the two of them.
Worry gnawed at her—although the queen’s bleeding had slowed somewhat, it still seemed far too much to Fia.
Ari was pale as glass, with a persistent grayish cast around her mouth and nail beds.
Though Fia had once again begun to work the queen’s middle as she’d been taught, she wished desperately that there was more she could do and cursed her lack of learning.
They sat out on the balcony, for Ariana’s dressers hadn’t arrived yet. The air was warm and still, but not hot or oppressive as it would surely be farther down the mountain, and out on the plains.
“Are you certain you don’t want me to stay for the ceremony?” Fia asked. Since she’d allowed it to take root, the protectiveness she felt toward Ariana had grown into an aggressive thing—a strong-limbed vine, twining around her heart. “I can manage my errand tomorrow just as easily as today.”
“No, better to get it done as quickly as you can.” Ariana rested her head against the high back of her wicker chair and glanced up at Fia.
“You’ll never have a chance as good as this, to move around the city without being noticed.
Half of Inverlyn will be belowground at the mountain’s heart.
There are probably crowds down there already, just waiting. ”
“Well, all right.” Fia drew the single strap of a plain linen bag over her shoulder.
It looked to contain nothing more than old rags, but hidden within was a fortune, not in gold or silver, which were too heavy and conspicuous, but in jewels.
The two women had passed a congenial hour that morning, painstakingly prying gemstones from bracelets and rings and coronets.
They’d left the gaudier, more distinctive pieces, and chosen only the smaller, unrecognizable gems—emeralds and sapphires the size of quails’ eggs, pearls that gleamed like Silith herself, little diamonds that sparked with white fire.
Everything was set in the Vesperin style, and Fia had no idea of the jewels’ worth. Monumental, she assumed.
So she stood on the queen’s balcony, laden with more riches than she’d ever carried before or likely would again.
Ariana’s face, tilted up toward her, had nothing of suspicion in it, and Fia wondered at that.
She’d left Inverlyn once already without a word of warning, even knowing her departure would cause trouble, and today Ariana had given her an untraceable fortune and her blessing to temporarily vanish.
The light of that trust was like the noon sun to Fia, a force which could just as easily give life or burn.
As if she knew it, Ariana smiled. It was a haunted smile, beneath which the queen’s constant fear lurked.
“Come back to me quickly,” she said, with an attempt at easiness. “I want to know how you fare. And the naming ceremony will be… difficult, in a number of ways. I need someone on my side, Fia. I need your help.”
For a moment, Fia said nothing. She wanted to tell Ariana not to depend on her.
Not to expect her presence. But a small, anguished part of her was beginning to want to stay, as well.
To be the bulwark this troubled daughter of stars required.
It felt like treason of the soul even to acknowledge it.
As if the slightest hint of conflict was a betrayal of Miriel, and the freedom Fia had spent the most difficult days of her pregnancy walking toward.
“I’ll do what I can,” she answered, and though the words came out a little terse, Ariana seemed not to notice.
“Good,” the queen said. “That’s all any of us have to offer. May the sun guide you on your errand, Fiametta Raeana.”
“May Lyria light your path,” Fia replied mechanically, before realizing that she ought not to have said it.
According to tradition, Ariana was unable to receive the star goddess’s notice, but Fia couldn’t help feeling that was wrong.
Never had she sensed the presence of gentle, luminous Lyria so strongly as in the Inver queen.
Ariana did not seem to notice the slip, and Fia suspected old habits, bred in Ari by a lifetime at the cloister of the stars, died very hard.
Beyond the quiet sanctuary of Ariana’s rooms, the Invers’ castle swarmed with people—courtiers lazily fanning themselves and gossiping in the corridors, staff appearing and disappearing through unmarked servants’ doorways.
The atmosphere was giddy, the air thick with anticipation, and from what Fia could hear, the Invers were as eager to see Afon again as they were to view their newborn prince.
She strode carelessly through the clusters and knots of celebrants, heart beating faster in her chest at the thought of the jewels tucked away in her shoulder bag, but no one paid her any mind, bent as they were on discussing the warrior king and how he’d clashed with their star-bred queen.
At last, Fia was out into the courtyard before the front gate, with trills of courtiers’ laughter washing over her like water over rock.
Then through the gate, where the city by contrast seemed unnaturally quiet.
Even the common folk of Inverlyn were welcome to attend the little prince’s naming ceremony, or so Ariana had told Fia.
The better-attended the festivities and more lavish the celebration, the greater the display of Inver might, and Orden especially wanted to make a show of power just now.
The result was that the hairpin streets and looming buildings beyond the castle proper seemed all but abandoned, with only an occasional city resident or guard passing Fia as she went on her way.
It was a stark contrast to the flurried life within the castle itself, and Fia couldn’t help but shiver and stick a little more closely to the shadows cast by the low afternoon sun.
Her path led past the castle laundry and into a ramshackle, out-at-the-elbows section of Inverlyn, where the alleyways smelled of manure and there were more stragglers out in the streets than in the better-kept parts of town.
Still, their talk was of Afon—his armor, his posture, his temperament, his resemblance to the Invers who ruled of old.
It was clear to Fia now why Afon had answered Ariana’s invitation.
The man obviously had no interest in peace, but he must have understood with his animal cunning that the Invers would be impressed by him, and that he could make inroads in the public’s opinion, even if the council ended in a stalemate.
Orden, Fia thought grimly, had better watch his back and his throne even more carefully than usual.
As she neared her destination, she cast about for a public privy.
You were never far from one in Inverlyn, though they were stinking and unpleasant places.
At last, a narrow, cramped shed caught Fia’s eye.
There were cracks in the loose boards it was built of, but it would afford the scant privacy she needed.
Ducking inside, she slipped off her shoulder bag.
Bundled above the clandestine wealth of gems was an old riding habit of Ariana’s.
Skinning out of her kirtle, Fia wrestled the garment on, muttering a breathless curse at the tight fit of it.
The separate bodice was too small in the chest and the waist, and wouldn’t lace properly up the front, besides which the split skirt was a good six inches too short.
The thing had wrinkled terribly in Fia’s bag, and there were loose threads where she’d torn off the gold-braided trim and buttons earlier.
All in all, it gave the effect she wanted—of being nothing, and no one, a luckless young woman clad in someone else’s castoffs.
When she’d finished, Fia stuffed her kirtle into the shoulder bag, removing the metal tool she and Ariana had used to pry gemstones from the queen’s treasures.
This time, the clamps served a more utilitarian purpose—Fia pulled the nails from two loose boards at the back of the privy, leaving just enough room for her to slip through the gap and ghost down a narrow, overshadowed alley.
If anyone had been following her, they’d be left looking at the resolutely locked door of an empty privy.
Mussing her sleek braid for good measure as she continued on her way, Fia felt suddenly invisible—of a piece with the city around her. That pleased her, and she smiled a small, hungry smile.
By and by, she came to a part of Inverlyn that wasn’t so much seedy as near abandoned.
Old chandleries and apothecaries and wheelwright shops stood empty, ivy growing in their glassless windows and dust drifting thick over the interiors, which were all in disarray.
The stones in the roadway had been pried up in places, presumably to be put to use elsewhere, and grass waved green and uncut in the gaps.
Fia had first heard of Inverlyn’s faithful district back in the mountains.
She’d been told how the Invers, when they conquered Silith’s cloister, confined everyone who refused to swear fealty to their gods to a single city district.
Rather than killing its residents, they kept them set apart, shunning and making life difficult for them in a hundred small ways.
Extra taxes. Restrictions on business hours.
On what they could or could not sell. Where they could or could not go.
The condition for returning to the life the rest of the city led was simple: abandon Silith or Lyria and swear loyalty to Raea or the Inver gods.