Page 69

The Agnephus dynasty had begun with Ospret Far-Eyes, who was said to have come from the stars.

History was unclear whether he made this claim himself or if it was only a legend that had grown up around him. It was true that his knowledge was greater than any other man of his time. His visions had shaped the Empire for centuries to come, as if he had been watching the world for a long time and from a great distance before he had condescended to come down to it. Every painting and sculpture of Ospret depicted a tall and elegant god with silver-white hair, so light and gleaming, it might have been spun from starlight.

There were some that held this as proof of how diluted the Imperial bloodline had become. There was no sign of that silvery hair in the House of Agnephus. House Melun did not dare to say aloud that their bloodline was purer, but it was a matter given much study by the Imperial Healers, and at this year’s Feast of the Departed, even the Melun men flaunted long, pale manes. They were a tall and lovely contingent under the Dome of Stars, dressed in a shade of purple that was perilously close to the Imperial blue.

The only silver in Emperor Bastin Agnephus’s hair came from age. But none could deny he had Ospret Agnephus’s eyes, an unearthly blue that shone with stars .

Crown Princess Selenne had both starry blue eyes and silver-blonde hair, a long and shining veil that fell nearly to her knees, cultivated at her mother’s command since she was a small child. At sixteen, she was tall for a maiden; eight inches taller than Ophele, the half-sister she had never met. Seated at the high table in the Hall of Radiance, she was the figure to whom all eyes turned, an Empress-to-be in whom rested the hopes of two dynasties.

She should have been contemplating the many ancestors ranged in the empty seats opposite her. At the high table, the entire row facing the Emperor was empty to ensure a place for all the dead Emperors and Empresses. Every place was set with ivory plates inlaid with silver, sapphires, and diamonds, with silver goblets and crystal wineglasses. Succulent cuts of meat, exotic greens, and rich sauces were carefully portioned onto every plate, course after course of exquisite dishes. The wine was of such a rare vintage, even the Emperor only sipped at half a glass.

“You will attend in the Hall of Marbles after the feast,” the Emperor murmured as soon as he had lifted his glass to welcome the spirits.

“Yes, Father.” Selenne arranged her skirts and hair carefully before she sat down, with her father on her right and her mother on her left. The Emperor and Empress did not like to sit next to each other.

“Your grandparents and I will be in the Tower of Ylesse Liet,” the Empress added, as serenely as if the Emperor hadn’t spoken. “I hope you will come to visit your Melun ancestors, my daughter.”

“Yes, Mother.” Selenne sat stiffly under her mother’s caress, a touch of cool fingertips on her cheek. Empress Esmene could not prevail over the authority of the Emperor, so instead she appealed to blood and sentiment.

“We welcome the divine spirit of Ospret Agnephus, the first Emperor, father of the nation of Argence…” Prior Dardinne Rumes, a somber and dignified fellow in light blue robes, began the list of names and accomplishments of every Agnephus from Ospret onward. “…and beloved husband of Ambrosie Star-Daughter…”

In the stories, this was further evidence of the divine lineage of the House of Agnephus; not only had Ospret come from the stars, but his bride was the child of one, as if the stuff in Selenne’s veins was silver rather than red. Selenne had heard these stories for as long as she could remember, but had never been able to make up her mind if she believed it. Did it really matter? Everyone else behaved as if it were true .

As the Prior droned on, the hall was silent but for the clinking of utensils and cups as course after course was brought out, a symphony of complimentary and contrasting tastes, textures, and colors. It was a signal honor to be invited to the Emperor’s Feast of the Departed. It was fairly intimate, for an official function; only two hundred people were permitted into the Hall of Radiance, and at the high table sat representatives from the ducal Houses, related to the House of Agnephus by blood or marriage. Only House Ereguil and House Andelin were absent.

There were a few maidens of Selenne’s age at the high table, most of them her own ladies-in-waiting. But otherwise, it was somber-faced men and women of middle age and their sons, aged from thirteen to thirty-three.

“At the Divinity’s pleasure,” said the Duke of Sangevin, rising from his seat to lay down an opening gambit. “We would remember to you Lexaun Agnephus, the victor of Dulcia. Glory to the Empire.”

An echoed glory to the Empire rippled around the table. The Emperor acknowledged this with the slightest nod, and Selenne chewed thoughtfully at a tidbit of something that might have been beef before the palace chefs got hold of it. Her father, mother, and tutors had all warned her repeatedly to ask why people said the things they said.

Sangevin was probably flattering. The conquest of Dulcia had given them the leverage to arrange an Imperial marriage and won them their duchy.

“Glory to the Empire,” said Duke Berebet, a tidy man in his mid-forties with clever eyes. “We drink to Empress Sabette Agnephus, if it pleases the Divinity.”

This one was more difficult; Sabette Agnephus had no particular accomplishments but a largely peaceful reign, but Duke Berebet was notoriously subtle. House Melun was next, and as soon as their representative rose, Selenne knew it would be trouble.

In the first place, it was not her grandfather, who ruled the family with an iron fist. It was Ceneric, one of her Melun cousins, six years her senior and her mother’s obvious choice for Prince Consort. He and Selenne had often played together when they were children, and the Empress had been salting information about him into their conversations all Selenne’s life. He was making a name for himself as a swordsman in the Court of War, a skilled courtier, and had enough scholarly and noble accomplishments to win her grandfather’s patronage .

“If it pleases the Divinity, we would lift our cup to the heavens, and Empress Ambrosie Agnephus, Star-Daughter.” Ceneric inclined his head to Selenne. There was no denying he was a handsome man, tall and well-favored, with waist-length blond hair twisted back from his face with silk cords. “We may only dream to see her likeness in this world again.”

The intentions behind this offering were not a mystery. And that opened the floodgates for similar compliments from House Sangevin, Pomeret, and several lesser Houses who did not have ties to the Imperial family yet. The Empress-to-be needed a Prince Consort, after all, and the younger she married, the more power he would wield.

It was only thanks to her father that she was not already wed. He had steadfastly refused all offers.

“They are calling her Selenne Star-Daughter in the city,” the Empress remarked, with an approving glance at Selenne’s silvery-blond hair. “It would be the glory of the House of Agnephus if all her children looked like the stars. No lesser House would dare to offer such meager compliments.”

“They can call her that even if Ceneric is not Prince Consort.” The Emperor was not fooled by this sally.

“Ceneric is a direct descendent of Issme, the first daughter of Ospret and Ambrosie,” replied the Empress. “To join such scions together—”

“The Tower does not recommend marriage between cousins.” The Emperor’s expression didn’t alter, but Selenne knew he had laid out the bait to issue exactly this insult. “It breeds idiots and degenerates.”

House Melun was well known for the frequent marriage of cousins.

“The purity of the lineage of the stars must be protected carefully,” the Empress replied without so much as a flicker of an eyelash. “Lest it become diluted, and degraded by bastards.”

The Empress never missed an opportunity to reference the bastard princess, who no one knew existed until ten months ago. But if she was hoping to shame him with his infidelity, she failed. If anything, the Emperor seemed pleased every time Princess Ophele was mentioned.

Selenne would have liked to mentally exit the conversation at this point. The poison barbs her parents flung at each other always seemed to slice her on the way, and their words often echoed in her ears when she was trying to sleep. But lately things seemed to be escalating, and she thought it behooved her to keep an eye on them. There was no doubt that both of them were scheming .

It was no accident that when the time for dancing came, Ceneric found her first, all other aspirants being intercepted by the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting. She kept a small army of them, ready at a moment’s notice to conduct their business on her behalf.

“Divinity.” Ceneric bowed elegantly. “Might I ask the favor of the Crown Princess?”

The Emperor eyed him with dislike.

“Melun,” he said. He bristled at every man that approached Selenne, but he reserved a special hatred for House Melun. “You are twenty-two this year?”

“Yes, Divinity.”

“The bonds of blood are many and close between House Melun and the House of Agnephus,” her father observed acidly. “To a man of twenty-two the princess must seem a child. You will regard her as a beloved little sister.”

“Of course, Divinity.” Ceneric never lost his polite smile, and his blue eyes flicked to Selenne. “Your Highness, will you honor me?”

“Older brother,” Selenne said, which would please her father, and gave Ceneric her hand, which would please her mother.

She had a reputation for obedience among the nobility. For filial piety and exquisitely correct behavior, which only encouraged her suitors, who thought they might have a puppet Empress. Indeed, every item she was wearing tonight had been chosen by someone else. Her mother had selected her tiara and jewels, and her father had chosen her dress for this occasion so long ago, it had had to be altered twice as she grew taller and curvier.

“Are you sure you are not Ambrosie come again?” Ceneric bent his head to murmur the compliment as he escorted her to the dance floor.

“I am Selenne,” she said, standing a little straighter and trying not to blush at the tickle of his breath on her ear. She had only been permitted to dance with men other than her father or grandfather once she turned sixteen, and Ceneric delighted in discomfiting her. “Is there anyone of your family that you would wish to call to the feast?”

“All of them.” One of his hands rested lightly on the small of her back, the fingers of the other closing on hers, warm and firm as he moved her smoothly into the dance. “They would burn with envy if they saw me dancing with you. ”

That wasn’t the sort of thing one ought to say to a little sister.

“Tonight, we are dancing for their pleasure,” Selenne observed. “So they might see and hear only things of beauty while they visit us.”

“Then they should have no complaint,” he returned lightly. “Surely there is no more beautiful sight in the Empire than the one before me. You look made of starlight.”

Selenne turned her face away. “Please stop that. I don’t like it.”

“It is only the truth. But I will desist. You dance well, cousin.”

“I like dancing. I am told my Grandfather Agnephus did as well. You must be as skillful as you can, to please him.”

Ceneric glanced down at her with a flicker of genuine interest in his eyes. It was rare that she saw anything but his smiling courtier’s mask.

“Can you keep up, I wonder?”

“I will rely on you to take care of me well, like a good older brother,” she said demurely, following him through a complicated figure as Ceneric led her to the center of the floor. He was not shy. The other dancers immediately moved aside to give them space, and his eyes flashed a challenge as he moved into the lively, leaping forms of the Imperial galliard. He was a very good dancer. Selenne couldn’t help laughing as he lifted her, her feet flying.

“Very good,” he murmured. He played fair; his hand shifted on her lower back to warn her where he would move next, and he knew how to manage her long skirts, flying hair, and fluttering sleeves. More than one of her partners had gotten rather lost between them before, but Ceneric made them part of the music.

If it was a ploy to intrigue her, she had to admit it worked. Selenne was pink and breathless when he landed her perfectly at the end of the song, to a round of applause from observers.

“Have I pleased Grandfather Agnephus, Your Highness?” Ceneric inquired, inclining his head in a gesture that looked like a bow but also brought his handsome face disconcertingly close.

“It is a fine beginning,” she said, snapping her fan open an inch from his nose. “Pray, go and please him some more.”

“Anything for my cute little sister,” he said drolly, and handed her to her next partner, one of the Pomeret sons who had elbowed his way to the front of the pack.

Every noble House had brought a few sons to shove her way, even if they were red-faced and sweating, barely able to look her in the eyes. Selenne danced with young men from the riverlands and the desert, with sons of Tries with salt in their veins and even one fellow named Julot from some House she had never heard of. She smiled to set them at ease, remembering her father’s admonishment that the men she refused would one day be lords of their own Houses. And then she halted, her smile dropping in surprise as her next partner held out his hand.

“Surely you have not come to press your suit,” she told Duke Ghislain Berebet, a lean man an inch shorter than herself with neat salt-and-pepper hair. His wife was thirty paces away.

“There are many kinds of allies, Your Highness,” he observed, leading her into the next dance. “And many reasons for an alliance.”

“Then what sort do you want?” Selenne was growing tired of indulging everyone else’s games. “You are already married.”

“True, you need not fear on that account,” he replied, amused. “Would you believe I have come to spare you everyone else’s machinations for a dance?”

“What, no machinations of your own, Your Grace?” Duke Berebet did not have a reputation for charity.

“Out of sympathy for your choices, perhaps,” he said, with an expressive roll of his eyes toward the young men ringing the dance floor. “I am ashamed that the Empire could not offer you something more compelling. But how else would Pomeret and Firkane keep your Prince Consort under their thumbs?”

“Is that what they are doing?” Selenne glanced at that corner of the dance floor, startled. The young men from those duchies were very young indeed, striplings who had scarcely tasted the sands of the Court of War. And she had only thought that they would pose no challenge to her, without recognizing the challenge of their families.

“We have a riddle, in Berebet,” Duke Berebet was saying. “About the Mazes of Oleron. Have you heard of them?”

“The marshes, you mean?”

“Marshes beyond anything you will ever see, Your Highness,” he agreed. “High reeds and a humid mist that lingers even to midday, with a sucking mud to pull you down on one side and islands of matted roots that seem solid, until they swallow you whole. And so you might imagine that we pose this question to our children, to bring them safe through the mire. You have come to a place where the road splits left and right, and both paths lead to an unhappy end. Which way do you go?”

Selenne waited, but that was the end of the riddle.

“How could you choose without knowing more?” she asked.

She was still frowning over his answer when he escorted her from the dance floor a few minutes later, fortunately in the direction of her guardsman. Lucan was waiting with some urgency, intercepting the noble sons of Pomeret and Firkane before they could ask for the next dance.

“Your divine father sent me to fetch you, Your Highness,” he said, bowing. “The invocation will begin soon.”

“Very well.” Selenne nodded at Duke Berebet, who bowed and took his leave. Lucan was the only one of her guards who she thought was hers, rather than her mother’s creature or her father’s. He had been her guard since she was twelve and he was eighteen, and as they approached the doors at the entrance of the Hall of Radiance, he abruptly pivoted, turning his body to block her from view.

“Francot?” she whispered, moving closer to the wall.

“Fricon,” he murmured, pretending an absorbing interest in the tapestry nearby. “The Empress, I expect. Would you rather go there? I will say I have not seen you.”

“No.” If her mother caught her, she would be trapped there until dawn. But Selenne still felt a familiar twisting in her belly as Lucan smuggled her out of the hall. It hadn’t been bad, when it had just been herself and her mother speaking to her ancestors in the smoke. But Grandfather Melun was there now, and if she went to them, Ceneric was sure to be summoned as well. And then she might very well end up like her Grandfather Onsetin Agnephus, all but a prisoner until she agreed to be betrothed to Ceneric. When they spoke of a Melun Proposal in Segoile, it was not at all romantic.

The Chamber of Marbles was only a marginal improvement. That room had frightened the wits out of her when she was a child, until her father finally realized what the trouble was and brought her to see the statues of her ancestors by day, without the befuddling incense. Her father would not tolerate weakness, even in his seven year-old daughter.

The Emperor was concluding his own bit of business outside the doors as she approached, speaking with a tall blonde noblewoman and a rather froggy-looking gentleman that she didn’t recognize. The Emperor caught her eye, silently granting permission to approach, and so she heard their final murmurs. The blonde woman included both Emperor and Princess in her curtsy.

“Faithful unto death, Divinity,” she murmured, and Selenne searched her automatically, looking for some badge or device to indicate her House. There were none. Strange.

“We will speak more later. Enjoy the feast,” the Emperor said, dismissing them. “Daughter.”

“Father.” Selenne accepted a cloak from Lucan as the doors opened and smoke billowed forth. It was always disorienting, but more than that, it was cold in there, as if they really were about to step into the void between the stars.

Wrapping her cloak closer about her, Selenne went to commune with her celestial ancestors.

* * *

“Over the saddle horn. Like that,” said Remin approvingly, one bright October afternoon a few days after the Feast of the Departed. Ophele looked steady enough, perched atop the tall bay gelding with one knee hooked over the saddle horn and her other foot in the stirrup. “In time we’ll get you a proper sidesaddle,” he said, reminding himself not to frown as he looked her over. “Tounot said his mother and sister ride like this sometimes. Do you feel steady?”

“I think so,” Ophele replied, looking down at herself as if to confirm it visually. “Can I try to ride now?”

He wanted to say no. She looked so ridiculously small atop the horse, even if the stablemaster swore to the stars that the beast was placid as a cow. Until last week, he had been a plow horse, which meant he responded to vocal commands and was unlikely to be stirred out of a trudge unless a bear was chasing him.

Ophele had named him Brambles.

“Slowly,” Remin made himself say. “And sit up straight. Your spine should be right over the center of the saddle. Try to move with his motion.”

He was barking commands. Remin bit his tongue, though his eyes never left her as Brambles trudged up and down the stable yard, his platter- sized hooves clopping. He had an entire separate mental to-do list for Ophele, to ensure she was safe and content while he was gone, but now he was wondering whether the horse riding lessons could have waited.

“I suppose we can try the road,” he said, once she had gone back and forth half a dozen times. “Do you want to?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind,” she said, brightening.

“All right. Come here.” He held out his hands to lift her down from the saddle, loathe to leave her up there even for the minutes it would take to saddle his horse. “You can make friends with him while I get my horse. He should be safe to pet and so forth, he was never a war horse. All right?”

“Yes.” Ophele’s hands squeezed his when they lingered on her waist, but Remin wasn’t fooled by her reassuring smile. That watchful look was back in her eyes again.

Ever since he had asked about her mother, things had been…off.

Not all the time. That would almost have been easier. No, this vague sense of unease was elusive and frustrating, a ripple of discord like clouds passing over the sun. Sometimes her smiles felt forced. Sometimes, when she didn’t know he was watching, there was a look in her eyes that made him worry. But how was he supposed to ask her about that? Every sentence he constructed in his head sounded like the complaints of a vaporous auntie.

For the dozenth time, he went over their conversation as he saddled his horse. He had said, what did your mother have to do with the fall of my House? Maybe that had been too blunt. But Ophele herself had said her mother regretted it, hadn’t she?

In any case, she had stiffened up like a board, stuttering and stumbling and repeating herself until Remin could do nothing but tell her it didn’t matter, he had only been curious. He was sorry that he had asked. He had reassured her over and over since then, promising that he didn’t hold her responsible for anything her mother or father had done. And then he had stopped bringing it up at all, because even his reassurances only seemed to distress her more.

Maybe she sensed he hadn’t been entirely truthful.

It did bother him. Even he didn’t know why his family had been slain. The official charge against Remin’s House was grave insult against the line of the stars, which at the time had consisted solely of the Emperor. Crown Princess Selenne had not yet even been conceived, and the pregnant Rache Pavot had been exiled to Aldeburke. Remin had never heard of an attack on the Emperor, but what else could the charge mean?

Slinging the saddle onto his horse’s back, Remin reached for the girth strap and cinched it tight. He wondered if it had ever occurred to Ophele that her mother’s death might have been the final note of the Conspiracy. Lady Pavot might have been spared for the sake of the sacred celestial child in her belly, but once Ophele had been born, she was nothing but a liability. There were dozens of slow-acting poisons that mimicked natural illness, most of them administered via food. Had someone killed her mother? Wouldn’t Ophele want to know?

Maybe she didn’t. Maybe he would only upset her to no purpose by asking.

“Getting along with him?” he asked as he led his horse into the stable yard.

“Yes, all he wants to do is eat,” she replied as he boosted her up into the saddle. She took her place on his back easily, sitting very straight, as if to show Remin how carefully she was following his instructions.

Or maybe it was all in his mind, and he was the one overthinking things. Remin huffed internally and shoved the whole problem away.

“We’ll go slow,” he said, swinging up into his own saddle. “If you feel like you’re slipping, say something and we’ll stop.”

“I will.” The smile she flashed looked more or less real. Together they turned down Eugene Street, with Remin explaining how to hold and tug the reins and Brambles gradually angling like a huge ship slowly coming about.

“He’s not listening, he’s just following your horse,” Ophele said, tugging fruitlessly on the reins. “Brambles, gee. Why do I have to say gee? Why can’t I just say go right?”

“I don’t know,” Remin said, blinking. Draft animals were always trained to obey haw and gee. His own horse was scarcely more cooperative; the black brute kept tossing his head and bouncing his hindquarters, irked by the slow pace and the presence of the other horse, with Remin clinging like a burr to his back.

“He’s mad that you won’t let him run,” Ophele observed. “Usually, you gallop everywhere you go.”

“We are not galloping now.” Remin dug in his heels to prompt a full buck from the horse, and the beast subsided, blowing.

“Charger,” Ophele offered, watching the exercise with admiration. “I should have named this one Ambles.”

That made him laugh, and Remin relaxed.

“He doesn’t look like he’s going any faster, does he?” he said, giving her a half-smile. “But it’s still faster than going on your own feet, wife.”

“What about Dash? For yours.”

“That sounds like a foal’s name,” he replied, though he had no idea why.

“Dancer?” Ophele chewed her lower lip thoughtfully and then her eyes lit up. “No! Oh, I know, I know. Lancer!”

“Lancer…” Remin echoed. It was pure coincidence that the horse’s ears flicked at that moment, but Ophele gave a muffled squeal of delight. Part of him wanted to please her and part of him wanted to tease her, drag it out some more, but there was no way he could resist that look in her eyes.

“I guess that’s his name,” he agreed, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. “It’s a good name.”

“Even for a noble warhorse?” she teased, and it seemed a fine day indeed when they came to the eastward curve of the road and she managed to prod Brambles into something like a trot, her hair flying. He watched her because he couldn’t help watching her when she had that glow in her bright eyes, and together they rode all the way to the bridge gate and turned around before Brambles decided he had worked enough for one day and dropped back to a trudge.

Should he say something now? She looked happy. Maybe this was the right moment to dispel any lingering misunderstandings. He would never inquire about her mother again, if it hurt her so. The thoughtful look in her eyes as they passed the distant mason’s camp gave him an opening.

“What are you thinking about, wife?” he asked in his gentlest voice, drawing Lancer up beside her. Maybe she was even thinking about whatever was bothering her.

“Prostitutes,” she said, and only then remembered to look around to make sure there was no one nearby to overhear.

“I—you are?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, since that day,” she explained. “Remember, when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know more about such things? And I have questions, but I can’t ask Sir Justenin or Sir Edemir…”

“You can ask me,” he suggested, floundering. This was not at all what he had expected her to say.

“Well, I thought they must be doing a bad thing, if I shouldn’t even talk about it,” she began. “But I don’t understand exactly why it’s bad. Is it only because they’re not married? Or is it because they want money for it? Is it only bad because it’s gold, or is it bad if they take anything at all in exchange for doing…that? Because that made me think of dowries, and political marriages, and I don’t see how it’s much different except for the…service provided and the duration. And if it’s bad to accept barter for it, then…well, we were strangers when we got married and you married me for my blood even though you love me now and I love you, but as a practical matter, does that mean—”

“No,” interrupted a thunderstruck Remin, with no logic whatsoever. “Marriage is different. Marriage is sacred. You said you had no cleric in Aldeburke?”

“We did when I was little, I think,” Ophele said, completely oblivious to the outrageousness of her comments and apparently unaware that she had implied one of them had prostituted themselves, and Remin had the uncomfortable suspicion that by her logic, it was him. “Do they teach about…this sort of thing?”

“Yes,” he said vehemently. He himself was not overly pious, but he still knew the basics; the sanctity of marriage was something he couldn’t even remember how he had learned. He had just absorbed it, like air. How did she not know this? What the hell was wrong with the Hurrells?

“Oh,” Ophele said, small. “I do know…that marriage is different,” she said anxiously, looking away from him with color rising in her cheeks. “I just wondered, on philosophical principles…why do you think that it’s bad? What they do?”

The flick of her eyes toward the mason’s camp identified the they. Remin let himself frown as he thought it over. He had never been one to deeply ponder such things, but he had been listening to Ophele, Juste, Edemir, and Bram at supper for months and was willing to stretch himself.

“Marriage is like a treaty,” he said slowly. It was an analogy that made sense to him. “I guess that’s what our wedding was, wasn’t it? If two sides agree that a patch of land belongs to someone, and they get up in front of everyone and announce that it does, and give everyone a chance to object if they have a problem with it, then it’s settled. That’s why it’s grounds for war if someone tries to take it afterward.”

“We did do that,” Ophele agreed, looking intrigued. “I didn’t think about the objection part.”

“And prostitutes are poachers. Or can be, if the man’s married.”

“But men choose to go to them,” she pointed out.

“It takes two to break a marriage oath.” Remin waved this away. He had no strong opinion on the issue; his view of prostitutes was utilitarian, but he reserved a special loathing for oath-breakers. “But that’s why they’re looked down on, generally. I’m your patch of land, wife. You don’t want anyone poaching me.”

“Well, I don’t,” she said, with a slow curving of her lips. This kind of idea entertained her. “I think you’d be a mountainous patch of land.”

“Oh?”

“Tall. Inaccessible,” she said, a pretty flush coloring her cheeks. “And…a beautiful view.”

Against his will, Remin felt his neck heat.

“You’ve been listening to Tounot too much,” he grumbled, nudging his horse over to her. There was no one nearby as he caught her, tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling her face to his. “I am yours, though,” he said, willing her to believe it. “Forever. And you’re a garden to me. I would go to war, if anyone tried to take you away.”

“I love you,” she whispered, her soft lips moving against his, and it was only the irritated sidling of Remin’s horse that broke them apart.

But the shadow was still there in her eyes as they rode back to the stable, lingering like a malign spell.

* * *