Returning to the sitting room, I found a servant at the doorway. He jumped when he saw the bird on my shoulder, eyes wide. “Prince Airón!”
“I’m going to take a walk. Do I need a chaperone?” I asked, unsure what the rules were for themalebetrothed of the emperor.
Lord Fuyii had been detailed in how demure Eonaî’s behavior would have to be. It had been one reason we’d been sure the plan would work. I would be allowed to stay as her chaperone, to guard her purity until marriage. But did the same rules apply to a man?
“No, of course not,” the servant said. “But I can ask Nohe if she can give you a tour of the palace…”
He ended on a hopeful note, and I waved him off. “No, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
Awkwardly, the servant opened the door for me, and I headed down the hallway to the stairs and back to the main floor. Looking around, I tried to gauge where I was. Turtle House seemed divided into two parts. Upstairs, Turtle House was living quarters for guests. Of which, as far as I could tell, I was the only one in residence.
Downstairs were the large rooms where Eonaî and I had been left waiting. It was linked to the throne room and audience chambers by a long hallway. They were likely in an entirely different building.
The emperor’s living quarters were in a separate building, but Fuyii said it was next to the more public areas of the palace. I needed a better map than the rough one I’d been able to sketch out based on his ramblings.
I was able to exit Turtle House through one of the sliding doors, hastily opened by another servant who had been dusting a nearby sculpture. Then I was outside, breathing in fresh air, gravel crunching under my feet.
While the front of Turtle House opened to a path that connected it with the other palace buildings, the back opened into a private courtyard. In the center was a pond with two large, colorful fish swimming lazily around lily pads.
“These will do,” Terror said, pushing off my shoulder and launching into the air.
“No,” I said sharply.
The bird circled above me, and I wasn’t sure it heard.
“Not these. These are decorative. Not bred with fat and meat in mind. Let me get you ones designed for dinner.” I looked up and saw Terror staring down at me.
With an annoyed cry, the bird landed on a branch of a nearby tree. I walked the edges of the garden, glancing in the windows and seeing rooms of luxury that existed for such strange purposes asmusicorsitting.
The tree outside my window stretched upward, its branches easily cresting the roof. That would be an escape, if I needed to make one.
When I walked back into the house, through the same door I’d entered the courtyard, there was a strange man waitingfor me. Imperial clothes tended toward colorful, a rainbow in shades that even the gods had never seen.
But this man wore a shift of pale white, the color of a cloud on a sunny morning. It was so translucent I could see his toned legs and firm body underneath. He wore none of the undergarments in the imperial style, although he’d wrapped a dark cloth around his groin for modesty.
He bowed to me without the triangle of his fingers. Instead, he put two fists together, touching in front of his chest.
When he looked up, his bright green eyes met mine thoughtfully. With his long beard and no hair, he did not fit the mold of an imperial. He didn’t fit the mold of a northerner either.
Terror had stopped his pouting and flew through the open door, startling the servant before landing on my shoulder again.
“Who is that?” the raven croaked.
“An air mage?” I had spoken in Northern automatically, and the air mage smiled at me.
“Yes, I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Prince Airón. I am Velethuil.” He bowed again, fists pressing together over his chest. “Although, if you say simply, ‘the air mage,’ everyone will know who I am.”
“I didn’t know any citizens of Ristorium still spoke Northern,” I said.
“We must keep in practice for ourclose allies, the Northern Kingdom. Even if I haven’t had cause to speak Northern for decades. One never knows when one might meet a friend.” He smiled at me, the meaning under his words so clear he might as well have spoken it aloud.
“Your accent is good,” I said.
“A compliment to my teachers,” he said. “I didn’t have the opportunity to speak with any northerners when it was possible. I fear both my Northern and my Risto have degraded greatly.”
Looking at him, I tried to gauge his age, but his face was unwrinkled. He must have been barely out of childhood when the Imperium had crashed through the Blood Mountains, killing all the blood mages and leaving Ristorium open to invasion. The air mages had fled to their sky islands, beyond the reach of the Imperium and its ground forces.
My mother had told me that only those in Ristorium who still had fairy in their blood were able to make the journey to the islands. The rest had not been so lucky.
