But then, maybe all of that was part of the turning of the stars. Because Remin had learned to ask, over and over again, and she had learned that he was a man that gave with both hands.
Her hand squeezed his, and Remin glanced down at her.
“Reshim, star of learning…” he said, and she said it with him, her voice joining his. How she loved him. She wished she could say so now, but maybe something of it showed in her face, because his black eyes softened and his fingers squeezed hers.
Was it the work of the year to earn his love? Or would it be the work of a lifetime to deserve it?
She had tried. But even the valuable things she had done had been undermined by her fear: the maps to the devil’s dens, and all her work on the devils themselves, when she had been so afraid of being wrong that she had almost missed the chance to prove she was right. So often, she had been afraid to tell him the truth, and again and again he had proved that he would listen, if she could only find the courage to speak.
Really, Azelma had had the right of it from the beginning.Be brave, and don’t tell lies.
“Solstice night is the longest night of the year.” Brother Oleare paused the litany to let them all sip a little, their mouths dry from the prayer. “On a winter’s night, the sky is often clearest, and the devoted will have long hours to view the heavens. Yet it is not only the stars that we must contemplate. Between them stretches the void.”
He drew a breath.
“The celestial divine makes all things. All things have a purpose under the stars. The darknessis.And on solstice night, we may find we are lost. Often, to reflect is to regret. All of you gathered here have suffered. You have struggled. Sometimestogether, sometimes alone, sometimes only in the secrecy of your hearts. You may feel yourself small in the sight of the stars.”
His voice was so kind. Ophele had struggled in her heart. For months. She had struggled with her own self-doubt, her knowledge that she was not what Remin needed her to be. Her weakness, her ignorance, thesmallnessof her life, compared to the heroes that surrounded her.
“The dark is inescapable,” Brother Oleare said quietly. “Suffering and death are inevitable. But it may not always be evil, to look around and find you are lost in the dark. That is the moment you should stop and seek out the stars. It is a mercy of the dark to make the stars shine brighter, so we might choose our way anew.”
Like the mercy of an imperfect world. Wasn’t that the same thing? It was a cold comfort, to think that she had been given an imperfect world so she could become strong enough to survive it, as if the divine stars required that she pass through a crucible before she could find paradise. But maybe that was exactly what it was.
The prayers went on until midnight, and Brother Oleare reached for the last pouch of incense, a yellow powder with flecks of gold. It sent up another shower of sparks, crackling as it went, the signal that the vigil was at an end.
“Any other year, the litany would last until dawn,” he explained. “But the stars know there are sick and injured here, and that it is good for people to offer their personal prayers in their own way.”
“Thank you, Brother.” Remin rose, offering a hand. “It was well done. And thank you all,” he added, turning to look at the assembled household. “I don’t know what the stars will make of our work or our hearts, but I could not have asked more from any of you. It has been…hard,” he admitted. “But I will never forget what you have endured with us.”
“Your Grace,” they said. There were bows and curtsies, and a few murmured blessings as they moved their chairs out of the way. It was late; everyone was tired, and they did not linger. Bundling up against the cold, Justenin led them out with a lantern, and Miche had a sledge waiting to take Brother Oleare home.
That left Ophele and Remin alone by the fire, and Remin sank back down in his chair, holding out an arm to her.
“I liked those prayers,” she said, coming obediently to stand before him. His arm went around her waist and he buried his face in her belly with a deep sigh. Something had been bothering him for days, and it wasn’t so much that he was trying to hide it as that there were too many possibilities to guess which it might be. Gently, she ran her fingers through his hair. “Remin, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer. His arm only wrapped tighter. The fire sparked and crackled and she stroked him, her fingers sliding back and forth over his neck, over the powerful cords of his trapezius, bared by the loose opening of his shirt.
“The year’s work,” he said at last. “I don’t know that I’d like the stars to look too closely at the work of my hands.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked softly.
“Wife, we were just visiting the survivors from Isigne and Selgin again this morning.”
“But there was nothing anyone could do,” she reminded him. She had thought about it herself, again and again, unable to reconcile herself to the cruelty of the situation. “You tried, and Huber and Jinmin went, you said thirty men died and that was only a mile awa—”
“It’s not just that.” He lifted his head, and though he always seemed so strong, so sure, his eyes were filled with guilt and uncertainty she had never seen before.
“Tell me.” She made room for herself in his lap. “I can listen.”
“It’s Huber. Huber was always the one that reminded me of the…cost. He knew all the names. And then the numbers, when it got to be too many names. And then, somehow, even the numbers were so big, we couldn’t be sure…” He trailed off, his eyes flicking to meet hers with guilt and shame. “The numbers of the people who died. Juste always says it doesn’t matter, it can’t be changed, and if I were put back there, I would do the same things all over again. But I don’t know. I don’t know.”
His arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on her head as he sighed.
“Sometimes I think I should have just left the Empire. If I’d just accepted that my family had lost, and gone somewhere else, maybe he would have left me alone.” Ophele did not need to ask whohewas. “But I thought…I thought it was right, to try to take it back. That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? If someone takes something that’s yours? And to do that, I had to be a knight, and I had to learn to fight anyway, or I would have died…”
“But so many got hurt, because of me. I can never repay the old man, you don’t know how much he and Duchess Ereguil have suffered. And their people, they got hurt protecting me. Two tasters died. And I killed…Merrienne. I wonder sometimes if she really wanted to do it. I thought she liked me. When I gave her flowers, she put them in her hair.”
“That’s not your fault,” Ophele whispered. It was all she could do to keep from screaming it.
