Chapter 4
I barely sleep, but morning comes anyway.
Everyone shuffles onto the deck in the pale light, just as the ferry pulls back out into the river’s flow.
The boat creaks as it cuts through the slow-moving water, its surface a bright mirror beneath the cloudless sky.
The air smells of fish and wet wood, and my unwashed skin itches beneath my cloak.
The women huddle on the deck in clusters, their murmurs a constant hum around me.
Now that I look like I stuck my head up a chimney and all my clothes are tattered, I’m less worried about sticking out and more interested in what I can learn.
I edge closer to a group. One woman glances up, then scoots aside to make space.
I keep my eyes low, flicking from passenger to passenger. Just like me, their clothes are patched and ill-fitting. And the conversation tells me what most of them are here for: work.
“My uncle has a job waiting for me in Strenza. An apprenticeship.”
“I’m going to the kitchens in House Buldra. They’re looking for a blacksmith too, if one of you knows someone qualified.”
“My lord’s children are too old for a governess now, so I’m searching for another family,” an older woman says. “If you’ve heard of any, please, I need to send my daughter money.”
They speak of lords both cruel and kind, of good places to earn, of cities and towns to avoid.
Most of the threadbare, mismatched figures have no destination, just the hope of finding work on the river.
A smaller group have employment waiting for them, their journeys paid for by lords seeking more hands to work in their manors.
Inquiring eyes eventually turn toward me.
“I’m looking for work in one of the manors of Delvos,” I decide quickly. “I’ll take any job I can do there. I’m not picky.”
They nod, accepting the story easily, then fall back into their chatter.
It’s not a bad plan. I’ve collected a few things, but unless I step off the river and meet my willing delvarian, I’ll need the protection of walls, food, and shelter.
Work will give me a cover to hide my identity; no one would think to look for me among servants.
I expect to hear some rumors about me, some whispers from the palace about a missing princess, but the women don’t mention a thing.
While Emperor Belzas resolves many matters with immediate violence and bursts of flame, things that could reflect badly on the throne are handled quietly.
Maybe he’s trying to bring me back without anyone ever knowing he ever lost me.
The ferry makes short stops at small ports, but stays over an hour at larger ones, lingering in the harbor as cargo and passengers load and unload.
I fidget and pace the entire time, keeping an eye out for guards and soldiers on the shore.
Those with employers don’t return, while the ones seeking work come back to the boat when no door opens for them.
I breathe a sigh of relief every time we pull back into the river.
The landscape changes around us. The sunbaked stones of Ignos, bleached white and shimmering with heat, give way to greenery.
The ports grow lusher, vines crawling over dock posts and market stalls.
Trees lean over the water with broad dark leaves.
Even before the ferryman calls it, I can tell we’ve reached Delvos.
I step off with the job-seekers, one soot-haired woman among a dozen strangers shuffling to the large houses along the river. I try to blend in as I follow them through the gates of manor after manor, asking about work. A few are taken in. Most are not.
It’s hard to tell which of these households might belong to a lord or lady with strong enough delvarian blood to give me a reading themselves. At first, I hang back and try to guess. But the hollowness in my stomach inspires me to put my hand up for positions.
I get as far as one interview to become a maid.
The housekeeper asks me to wring a sheet.
I take it in both hands and twist it the way I have seen servants do.
Water barely drips. She watches me struggle for ten seconds, takes the sheet back, and wrenches it in a single motion that sends water splattering across the stone.
A woman with ink-stained fingers asks who can read and hires the first woman who raises her hand.
My education was extensive, and is possibly my only advantage, but speaking up is a skill I was never rewarded for.
The door is already closing by the time I work up the courage to insist I be given a chance.
By the third day in Delvos, I don’t like the way I smell, my stomach is hollow with hunger, and my hope is dwindling.
Maybe that’s why, on the fourth day, when I arrive at a manor with gates designed to look like curling branches, I resolve to step forward immediately, no matter what type of work they need.
Meek, mild-mannered Lysandra was my strategy at court, but no longer.
I will become whoever I need to be to survive.
The woman in the doorway with keys hanging from her waist announces: “We need a governess.”
My hand shoots up. The older woman I met on the first day is only a second behind me.
The keys jingle. “I’m Malda, the housekeeper. Come with me. We’ll interview you inside.”
We follow her across the lush grounds and into the manor.
This house is nothing compared to the scale and grandeur of the Citadel, but it is beautiful.
The vine motif winds inside across tapestries and glass mosaics.
Malda leads us down a long hallway. Tall, narrow windows stripe the walls with light and set the colored glass sparkling.
She pauses and lifts the chain of keys from her hip to unlock two doors. She gestures for my competition to go through one and beckons me through the other.
I trail her into a simple den. Her keys clink as she takes a seat. I do the same.
I am not qualified to be anyone’s governess. But with my life and sanity depending on it, I must lie.
Malda has light eyes with pinprick pupils that don’t hold any warmth.
The neat, tight coil of her gray hair makes me even more conscious of the choppy, soot-stained locks I scraped back into a tail this morning.
I keep my posture straight, which isn’t difficult—the muscles of my shoulders seem to be perpetually tense.
“Our last governess disappeared on us. I need someone who can manage the children without oversight. The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy for the household as we prepare for our Somnus ball. You’ve worked with children before?”
I nod. “I have many siblings.”
“Ages?”
“All ages.” That sounds too vague, but admitting I have thirteen siblings ranging from decades to centuries old won’t help. “They’re three through seventeen.”
“But have you been employed as a governess?”
If I say yes, she might ask for the household. I dip my chin, heat creeping into my cheeks. “I cared for my little cousins as well.”
I can tell by the twist of her lips that she is about to dismiss me.
“I can read,” I blurt. “I’ve been tutored extensively—language, arithmetic, history. I can help the children get ahead in their lessons.”
“That would be an advantage,” a voice says from behind me.
I look over my shoulder. A finely dressed man stands in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back.
“Apologies for interrupting,” he says, entering the office. “Curiosity about the candidates got the better of me.”
“Of course, my lord,” Malda says, rising and moving away from her seat.
He is dressed in deep green, his light brown hair coiffed high, with just a bit of silver streaking through it. When his eyes lock on me, I struggle not to gasp.
They are a deep, unnatural violet. Unlike the blond hair of Vernalia, or the fiery hair of Ignar, this trait of Delvara isn’t shared by pure mortals. It marks him clearly as a delvarian.
I catch myself staring and curtsy. “Apologies, my lord…”
“Please. Norville.” He lifts a hand, waving away my concern. “You say you are educated?”
I nod, keeping my eyes down.
“Then, are you familiar with Lord Radna Tevis?”
The question is so simple, I think there must be a trick. Tevis isn’t a name you would need a tutor to tell you. His statue is in a major square in Illios.
This lord doesn’t expect much from me. Norville probably thinks I learned my letters and had a map at home.
While I was lying about being experienced with children, I wasn’t lying about my education.
It was only for the benefit of the emperor’s pride and a future husband, but I was taught the same facts as my brothers regardless.
“Tevis recorded the history of the Incarnial Wars and the three factions: those who believed mortals should rule themselves, those who believed divine blood had the right to rule shared equally among the lines, and those who believed Ignar’s blood should rule above all.”
He nods with a polite smile, clearly expecting this. I can’t stick to obvious answers.
“But I prefer to supplement Tevis with Deft, who focused more on how the factions formed. Deft recorded that Delvara’s incarnial was the first to break with the other divinial lines, and support Emperor Illio’s claim.”
I don’t mention the report said she didn’t join my grandfather’s side out of true belief or loyalty. Delvara’s incarnial turned two sides into three out of a simple love of chaos.
His brows rise. “You’ve read Deft?”
“About her and from her. Reproductions of her records and correspondence.”
For a moment, I worry I’ve revealed access to documents a servant wouldn’t have. But he doesn’t react. He goes to the bookshelf and tugs out a tome. The embossed red leather is familiar. “What about Satchee?”
“Satchee documented facts about incarnials themselves. What it meant to be an incarnate vessel of the gods’ power, what’s known about each of their lives, and how each of them died.”
Illio, my grandfather, was the only incarnial to survive the wars.
Flame flying from every step, sunlight spilling from his eyes and fingertips, he insisted Ignar’s blood gave him the divine right to a crown.
The fighting only stopped when he and the part-mortal descendants of the other incarnials signed treaties granting each divinial line a province and powers to self-govern, while giving him supreme authority as the first emperor.
Only the thanovarians, divinials of death and decay, received no lands.
They murdered Illio as he chased them out of his newly formed empire, and my father’s rule began.
“My, my. You are well read.” Norville snaps the book shut. “Where are you from? Miss…?”
The name of Rinalda’s maid is the first that comes to mind: “Portia, my lord.” I pick a port city. “From Trellis.”
“What a wonderful education they have so close to the capital,” he muses.
“Lucky for us that you made it this far without some other family scooping you up.” He smiles, the curve of his lips and his white straight teeth instantly making him more handsome.
“I must speak with our other candidate, but don’t go far. Malda?”
The housekeeper stands and follows him out, leaving me alone.
Those purple eyes. Norville might be just the delvarian I need.
With a few strands of silver in his hair, and creases at the corner of his mouth, he appears about forty.
If he was really born forty years ago, he probably has too little divine blood to deliver a prophecy.
But with divinials, appearances can be deceiving. He could be much, much older.
My father has lived three thousand five hundred years and still looks like a man in his mid-thirties. My oldest brother looks about the same at seven hundred.
I cannot know the age of this lord based on a little gray. He might be exactly as old as he appears. Or his violet eyes might be a hint that his divinial blood runs rich and threads of the future are only a shuttered-eye away.
I wait ten minutes. Then twenty with my knee bouncing. I stand and pace. If they are going to turn me away, I need to hear it soon. The ferry will leave without me. I cross to the narrow window and search for the sun.
Through the glass, I see the front garden and the river glimmering in the distance. A figure walks along the path toward the gates—it takes me a moment to recognize the ex-governess I came with. She holds her head high, one hand clutched around her shawl, her travel bag in the other.
She’s leaving. That means I was chosen. I do not have to go back on the river. I press my hand flat against my chest. I can stay. I can stay and try to get my prophecy.
Still, I know the other would-be governess was desperate too. I touch my own travel bag, wondering if I can catch up to her and give her a piece of my jewelry. The glass of the window is sealed around all the edges, so I can’t call out to her…
The door creaks open, startling me, revealing a stern-faced Malda.
“Lord Norville and his wife, Lady Rodania, are happy to welcome you to their home.” She says it like she doesn’t share the sentiment. “You’ll care for the children starting tomorrow. I’ll show you to your rooms.”
She turns and leaves, expecting me to follow. I won’t be able to catch up to the other woman headed back on the river now. If I found work, she will. Besides, every piece of gold risks attracting attention, a gleaming trail leading my father right to me.
The next piece of gold I reveal will be in exchange for a prophecy.