Page 4

NO SOONER HAD SKEDI SPOKEN THAN INARA ’ S HEART thrummed with unease. The warm feeling as she had held on to Elo and Kissen turned harder, twisted. Mother. King. Allies. Enemies.

Why would the king come? He and her mother had reached a tentative truce, his ability to unite Middren against the threat of Hseth against the certain knowledge that Lessa had almost overthrown him once, and could do it again if he failed.

Inara had hated it, but unlike her mother, she had seen Hseth as she had once been, huge and terrifying.

She had seen the distant fires of the first attack on Daesmouth.

She had seen the way the army in Lesscia had glowed with faith in Arren, faith in his power.

But Inara did not want him here. Not on her mother’s ship, even if she could barely bring herself to speak to the woman who had lied to her. Who had hidden her away, lost her and never found her again.

And now Inara didn’t know where she belonged any more.

She was tangled up in the clothes of an heir to a great House, the cloth heavy on her shoulders, her shorn hair light on her head.

She strangely missed the sour smell of her waxwool cloak, the feel of a bow in her hands and fire in her belly.

Was she a lady’s heir? A child or a rebel? A god or a human?

Inara glanced back towards the ship, to the shrine of Yusef. Restish, the homeland of her father, the source of his great shrines, had supplied Talicia with ships and weapons. They were the enemies of Middren, and the source of her heritage.

I can see the dimness in your colours, Inara, Skedi said softly into her mind through the link between them that no one else could overhear. She blinked, and turned to look at him, his familiar face, long ears, and wise, bird-like eyes. His horns looked brighter lately: he was more like himself.

Why is the king coming?

I do not know.

I wish never to see his face again.

Want to make that a prayer? His tone turned wry with humour. I could make a good lie.

Inara laughed.

‘What’s funny?’ said Elo, straightening his jacket.

At the mention of the king his colours had churned into potent medleys of blues and golds, silvers and reds.

A storm in his heart that softened when he was around Kissen, but didn’t disappear.

The seed of it was still there, even at his most serene.

They shared a look now, an understanding, and touched their blades for reassurance, despite the truce.

Inara had toyed with the idea that Kissen and Elo might run away together. Maybe she would run with them and hide in secret again for the rest of their lives, baking and hunting and fighting. It didn’t fit, that dream. Not now. Maybe it never would.

‘Skedi said something,’ said Inara.

‘Does Skedi want to share with the rest of us?’ Kissen asked drily, and the hare-god flicked his wings.

‘Skedi doesn’t share anything with veiga if they don’t have something nice to say back,’ he returned pertly.

‘You little—’

A rattle of hooves on cobbles silenced her retort, and Skedi flew to Inara’s shoulder. His presence was known now, among the docks, on the ship, but he still went to her.

A horse rounded one of the narrow alleys that threaded to the harbour from the city centre, sparks kicking out from its hooves. On its back was Captain Tarin, her short hair flicking out behind her, dark against her green tabard.

She thundered to a halt by them, her face flushed. For all her childhood, Inara had never known Tarin to lose her calm. She had been so jealous of her as a younger child; her mother’s steadiest shadow, her closest counsel, a cousin of a lesser House on the Craier lands.

That jealousy had faded with time. The captain brought her little gifts from their travels, and, when her mother was holding meetings in her study, she would cut Inara apricots from the tall waving branches that she couldn’t reach.

She would even let her sit with her and Tethis, the similarly stoic steward of the manor, while they picked nettle leaves for tea and told each other of their lives apart, themselves mother and daughter.

Inara had dreamed that one day she and Lessa would be so close.

But Tethis had died on the night Tarin and Lessa had left the manor, warned that the king knew of their rebellion, but not thinking that he would attack their home. They had been halfway to Sakre when the message had found them, and had returned to ruin and ash. By then, Inara had been long gone.

And this Tarin who dismounted was not the calm and quiet guard Inara remembered. ‘Veiga, make yourself useful and get back aboard,’ she said. ‘You’ll be acting as Lady Craier’s guard.’

Kissen spluttered. ‘I’ll what?’

‘You too, Ser Elogast,’ Tarin spoke over her. If she was surprised at seeing him here, she didn’t show it in her face or her colours. Perhaps it didn’t matter. ‘We may need your sword.’

‘I’m sorry, when did I say you could give me orders?’ said Kissen. Tarin narrowed her eyes and shook a stray dark hair out of her face.

‘Either you protect the Craiers,’ she said, ‘or you leave the ship. The choice is yours.’

Kissen tongued her gold tooth, glanced at Inara, then sniffed. ‘Fine.’

Inara tried not to smirk. Kissen had once been furious at the idea of even pretending to be her bodyguard, but Tarin was commanding when she wanted to be, dragging everything into her wake. Even, it seemed, the obstinate godkiller.

‘Good,’ said Tarin. ‘The king decided he wanted to parade with Lady Craier to the ship in a show of unity, but the crowd that’s gathered looks more likely to riot. I don’t know if they’ll turn.’ She turned to Inara. ‘Ina, stay out of sight.’

Before she could protest a voice came from above.

‘Battle stations, Tarin?’ said Aleda, the first mate and the captain’s wife. Tarin shook her head.

‘I hope not, just have the crew go below, we don’t need to remind them who smuggled in the blackfire that blew up the palace walls.’

Aleda grinned, then moved back on deck and began barking orders. Tarin looked back at Inara. ‘Now, Ina. I won’t tell you again.’

‘She doesn’t have to hide from him,’ said Elo, his voice dark.

‘I didn’t ask your opinion.’

‘Nor mine,’ said Inara. Jealousy aside, Tarin had no right to tell her what to do. She had forfeited that right when she had helped Lessa lie to her for years. When she had left the manor, and let it burn.

‘If I’m to protect the Craiers, then I protect Inara,’ said Kissen. ‘And she’s spent enough of her life hiding from the world.’ Inara felt a rush of warmth. Kissen and Elo, they were both on her side. ‘Go get your bow, liln .’

Inara turned on her heel and ran up the gangplank, Skedi flying up from her shoulder and onto Elo’s before Tarin could say another word.

As she raced across the deck to her cabin, the crew were dropping down from the masts, heading below as they had been told.

They appeared at ease, joking, sweaty with the summer heat.

Inara didn’t like that they were being sent away.

She wanted an army at her back. She wanted the king to see her unafraid.

She grabbed her stolen bow, her arrows, and came back out to see even the captain, Lertes, standing without a care in the world with Aleda’s arm on his shoulder, while Kissen, Elo and Tarin had come back onto the deck, hands on their pommels.

Lertes grinned as the first mate leaned over, kissing his ear beneath the salt-and-pepper plaits that he wore in western-style braids: three, thick woven and laced through with glass-green ribbon the same colour as his eyes.

Aleda wore matching colours wrapped around her wrist as her marriage band.

Her smile was like Kissen’s, broken with gold.

However, unlike Kissen, neither of them hid their emotions: their colours were bright, gaudy, and changeable, amber, grey, amethyst, indigo, shifting between them as if they were one person.

Elo and Kissen, at least, seemed prepared for anything. Kissen, because she always had the air of someone ready for a fight, but Elo was tense, eyes on the harbour.

Inara, said Skedi into her mind, look to the city.

Inara tore her gaze away from the ship and looked instead towards the Sakrean hills.

The winding cobbles disappeared between the customs houses, the stores, the weighing rooms, the harbour watch and the seagulls that wheeled over the covered market.

The colours were cacophonous, clashing, shifting, bright and overwhelming.

But beyond, further into Sakre, she could see flickers of shades of blue and gold glimmering between the walls.

Kings’ colours. Many of them. Growing. The sound of the city was changing too, as the colours encroached, voices raised in rhythm and shouting.

Inara had seen such a wave of emotions in Lesscia, before it turned violent.

Her heart hammered faster in her chest, clawing upwards to her throat.

‘Steady,’ said Elo, perhaps sensing the rush of her terror, or feeling it too. The glimmers of gold in his shades had turned sharper with his fear.

‘Looks like common folk,’ said Aleda. ‘Let them have their song and dance.’

‘I’ve seen enough riots begin with marching,’ muttered Kissen.

‘I’ve seen plenty of marches in favour of peace,’ said Lertes scornfully.

‘Then I suggest you pray for it,’ said Elo. He added something in a whisper to Skedi, who flew up towards the crow’s nest to give them a better vantage. Inara felt the tug of their bond on her heart. Taut again. Once they had been parted over half a city; now he could barely climb a mainmast.

‘Ina, keep your arrows in the quiver,’ said Kissen. ‘Some people don’t need much of an excuse to start a fight.’ How many faith-riots had she and Elo seen in Blenraden? Inara nodded, but kept her hands poised, her eyes on the colours slowly spreading down the hills.