Chapter 26
Orsan
Later that afternoon I return to my chambers, still carrying the quiet satisfaction of the luncheon with me. The table near the window remains cluttered with the tools I left there days ago. Wood shavings curl across the surface and the faint scent of maple still clings to the air.
Maridale has done exactly what I asked. A basket waits beside the table, lined neatly with cloth. Inside rest the small toys I carved earlier in the week during those quiet hours when the palace finally sleeps and no one is watching what a princess chooses to do with her hands.
A wheeled horse, two painted boats, and a small orange carriage I shaped from scrap maple after midnight two nights ago. I lift the cloth and turn the carriage once between my fingers, checking the wheels.
A voice from the doorway says, “If that basket contains a corpse, I would prefer advance warning.”
I turn. Nyara stands there as though she belongs in the palace corridors, though the dust along her boots suggests she did not arrive through any door meant for guests.
“I thought you were not welcome here,” I say.
“I am not,” she replies pleasantly. “But the palace is distracted today by the Queen Dowager’s arrival.”
“You snuck into the royal residence?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nyara lifts one shoulder. “I thought I might surprise you for luncheon,” she says. “And offer comfort after what I hear was a deliciously dreadful breakfast with Lady Esmeraldis. But apparently you were dining with my Aunt and Cousin.”
She sighs dramatically. “So I was forced to walk to the stables to find good company. Your friend Torsin was there. The ale he keeps on his person is rancid but effective.”
I raise my eyes to the ceiling. “He is not supposed to drink while caring for the horses.”
“Why not?”
“Because last time he did it his singing was so terrible it spooked half the stable.”
She stared at me. “That is not true.”
“It absolutely is.” I pressed my hand to my chest. “Poor Daisy has been skittish ever since.”
We both burst into laughter. Her eyes drop to the basket. “What are you carrying?”
“Toys.”
Her brow lifts.
“I carved them,” I add. “And you are now responsible for helping deliver them.”
Nyara’s grin spreads slowly. “Well,” she says, pushing away from the doorframe, “that sounds significantly more entertaining than luncheon.”
The orphanage sits at the edge of the lower gardens where the paths give way to grass and crooked apple trees. The building itself is small. Children’s voices spill from the yard before we even reach the gate.
Nyara slows beside me, eyeing the basket on my arm. “You have been suspiciously secretive during our walk,” she says. “If this is some dreadful act of charity meant to improve my character, I should warn you now that it will fail.”
“It is not meant to improve anything,” I reply.
I push the gate open. The moment the hinges creak, three children look up from the yard. For half an instant they stare, then the smallest of them shrieks. “Asharin!”
They come running, and the impact of small bodies nearly knocks the basket from my arm. One clings to my skirt, another grabs my hand, and a boy with dust streaked across his cheeks simply beams up at me as though I have delivered a miracle rather than a wooden toy.
“You came back,” he says.
“I promised I would.” I kneel and lift the basket to the grass. The smell of wood shavings escapes when I pull back the cloth. Inside are the toys I have been working on: a small horse on wheels, two painted boats, and the orange carriage I carved from scrap maple.
“Orsan,” I call. The boy steps forward slowly, suddenly solemn. “This one is yours.”
His hands close around the carriage with reverence. For a moment he simply holds it, turning the wheels with careful fingers.
Nyara crouches beside him. “Does it go fast?” she asks.
He looks up at her, startled by the question, then pushes it through the grass with great seriousness. The wheels rattle softly. “Very fast,” he declares.
Nyara watches the carriage roll past her boot. “Well,” she says thoughtfully, “it seems Orsan has already won. There is clearly no point in racing against something that fast.”
Before I can ask what she means, she produces a marble from her pocket and digs a shallow groove into the dirt with her heel. “New rule,” she announces to the children gathering around us. “If you can knock this marble out of the circle, you win.”
“With what?” one girl asks.
Nyara picks up a small stick and demonstrates with unnecessary flourish. “With style.”
Within moments the yard dissolves into chaos. Children shriek with laughter as Nyara cheats shamelessly, nudging marbles with her foot when she thinks no one is looking. The moment she is caught, she insists the rules were poorly written.
I sit back in the grass, watching. For a little while the world shrinks to sunlight, dust, and the delighted noise of children who have forgotten every rule except joy.
Eventually the game collapses in favor of a chase around the apple trees.
Nyara allows herself to be caught only once before collapsing dramatically into the grass beside me.
“That,” she says, breathing hard, “was far more entertaining than court.”
I laugh. “It usually is.”
We lie there for a while, the grass warm beneath our shoulders, watching clouds drift between the branches overhead.
“It is strange,” Nyara says after a moment. “I do not remember doing things like that when I was young.”
“Neither do I.”
She turns her head toward me. “Our father grew tired of our mother,” she says matter-of-factly. “Once that happened, she was sent away to the countryside. Junis and I remained at court.”
“With nannies?”
“With nannies,” she confirms. “Efficient ones. Loyal ones. None of whom particularly enjoyed children.”
I picture the marble floors of the palace corridors, the endless quiet of rooms meant for adults and their ambitions. “I imagine court was lonely,” I say.
Nyara snorts softly. “Court is always lonely.” A breeze lifts a strand of her hair across her cheek. She pushes it away and glances toward the orphanage doors. “I am rarely welcome there anymore anyway,” she adds. “Ever since I decided to sing.”
“Does that bother you?”
She smiles, bright and entirely unapologetic. “Not in the slightest.” She folds her hands behind her head and stretches out in the grass.“It is actually quite freeing,” she says. “When no one expects you to behave, you can do whatever you like.”
I consider that. “What would you do,” I ask, “if you truly could do anything?”
“Travel,” she answers immediately. “Everywhere.” She gestures vaguely toward the horizon as though the entire world lies just beyond the apple trees.
“Junis says he will sail to Alarna one day,” she continues. “And when that ship leaves, I will be on it.”
“Alarna?” I lift my head. “Isn’t it surrounded by undead?”
Nyara grins. “Exactly.”
“That seems like a questionable attraction.”
“Oh, the undead are only part of the appeal,” she says lightly. “I hear the wine there tastes like sugar, and no one faints if a woman behaves badly in public.”
I laugh. “That sounds dangerous.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she corrects.
She glances at me. “And you? If you could go anywhere?”
I think about it longer than she did. “I would like to taste the fruit of every country,” I say at last.
“Fruit?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
Nyara studies me for a moment, then shakes her head. “You are a very strange person.”
“So are you.”
She grins.
The children race past us again, Orsan pushing the orange carriage through the grass with fierce concentration.
Nyara watches him go, then looks back at me. “Well,” she says thoughtfully, “if I ever find myself on that ship to Alarna, I suppose I will bring you along.”
“Even if the undead object?”
“Especially then.” She closes her eyes against the sun. “For the record,” she adds lazily, “I think you would like the world outside this kingdom.”
I lie beside her, watching the clouds drift across the sky, and for the first time in a long while the thought does not feel impossible.
It feels like a promise.