Family wasn’t discussed in the manor. The Lady had no immediate family, at least none who took the time to visit her. Wren had told me she didn’t have a family. I’d told her I’d had afather, but he was gone. That was all there’d been to say, and we hadn’t speculated. We’d occasionally see or hear children in the neighborhood, but we weren’t allowed to talk to them, and they certainly hadn’t been allowed to play with us. Not when their parents or nannies had hurried them away when they saw us, as if our bonds were catching. A burden they might accidentally be shouldered with if they got too close.
Maybe that had been cruel. But it had been our normal.
Why, after having no past for ten years, had memories suddenly returned? Maybe that’s what the Aetheric practitioner had cracked—the ice that had frozen all my memories away. Had I locked them away because they’d been too painful to remember? My mother dead, my father dead, the Lady cold and cunning. If I had no past, I had nothing to miss. I could only move forward.
I scrubbed tears from my face, sat up, and found another tray waiting. Roasted meat, potatoes, vegetables I didn’t recognize, and a bowl of some sort of sweet jelly.
I wasn’t hungry. I’d eaten more at dawn than I usually did in a day working for the Lady. But the dream had sapped my appetite, and the dull, hot pain in my chest took away the rest.
I was sick of pain, of whining about the Aetheric practitioner, bloody nightmares, sleeping in unfamiliar rooms. I was sick of all of it.
I pulled on my boots. Maybe a walk in the sunshine would burn away the sadness and the pain, and I could feel like myself again.
I opened the door and found Pax in his usual position. “I’m going for a walk.”
He said nothing, so I pulled the door closed.
“There’s a courtyard behind the palace,” I said. “It leads to the ponds. Which way is it?”
He rattled off directions; fortunately, I was good at following them, or I might have gotten lost in a shadowed passageway in a rarely visited part of the palace, never to be seen again. It took a bit of walking before I reached the pair of heavy wooden doors Pax had mentioned. I opened one and was nearly blinded by sunshine after the darkness of the candlelit hallway. Two guards flanked the door, and they blinked at me.
“I’m the visitor,” I said, not entirely sure what he’d told them about my presence in the palace. It would have been pretty obvious I wasn’t royal. “Just going for a walk.”
They looked at me, then each other, and returned their gazes to the grounds.
A stone eagle perched above the doors, wings spread and gaze narrowed at anyone who might dare to approach with ill intent. Probably didn’t care much for thieves.
I crossed the courtyard that curved out from the doors, then followed the path I’d seen from the balcony. The boardwalk was bounded by hyacinths and violets, the first blooms of spring. There hadn’t been a garden in the Lady’s manor, but she’d demanded flowers from the market as soon as they began to blossom. The manor would probably be brimming with blooms now, even though the scent would send Nheve into fits of sneezing.
I skirted the edge of the first pond, its indigo water sparkling in the sunlight, a family of blueneck ducks paddling in a line in the middle among enormous water lilies. On the other side, steps led to a round wooden gazebo bordered with more flowers and, along one side, a trickling stream that connected the first and second ponds. The second was larger, with clusters of boulders and reeds here and there, a large stone fish that gurgled water into the pond, and the stone bridge that arched across it.The top of the bridge was situated to give a view of the palace gleaming behind the greenery. It was pretty, and probably served as a reminder that this place, this beauty, existed because the Lys’Careths allowed it. Because the Emperor Eternal allowed it.
I looked around. Winter’s scouring wind and several feet of snow had taken a toll on the stronghold, but this place was already beautiful. Last year’s dead plants cleared away, paths tidied, pavilions swept and scrubbed. Someone had cared for this place while the palace had been empty.
I crossed the bridge, the boardwalk now leading out of manicured gardens and ponds and into meadowlands, where wild grasses were already as high as my knees. The path made wide curves before leading to a small hill topped by a single pangan tree, its spreading branches just beginning to reveal small butter-yellow flowers.
I could smell the blossoms on the breeze—soft and floral at first, but then slightly overripe. It reminded me of the Lady’s manor, of the nights Wren and I had spent in our tree, seeing who could toss the tiny buds farther.
By the time I reached the crest of the hill, my breathing was fast but my mind was clear. Sunlight and a warm breeze had washed away the dream’s smudges.
I heard the clang of metal striking metal to the east, and my heart thumped hard. Surely not an attack on the palace in broad daylight. Still merited a look, so I moved closer.
Twenty feet below, in a flat spot beside the sparkling river, two men fought with short swords. They wore loose tunics in some fine, fluid material, trousers, and tall boots. I recognized Galen’s curly hair first, his moves quick and efficient. And it took another long moment—too long—for me to realize who he was fighting.
The Prince of the Western Gate fought as fluidly as the water flowing behind him, dodging Galen’s thrusts. The blades weren’t wooden practice swords but real weapons, and the movements weren’t playacting. This was training.
I should have kept walking. Instead, I sat down in the grass.
His gaze was focused unless he was feinting to catch Galen unawares. But Galen had learned the prince’s tricks and wasn’t easily foiled. They struck, dodged, pivoted, ducked, sweat gleaming on their faces.
There was no crown here. No coat with silver embellishments. No sweetwine. The prince moved like the guard I’d fought with in the market, in the grasslands. It was one similarity, at least, between the man I’d met that first night and the royal he’d turned out to be.
With a final clang of sound, the prince managed to strip Galen’s sword out of his hand. The weapon went flying, landing in the dirt a few strides away. But Galen didn’t stop. Even disarmed, he fought with hands and feet, neatly dodging the prince’s strikes.
The prince had more tricks. He hooked a foot behind Galen’s ankle, sending him off balance. Galen hit the ground, and the prince had the sword at his neck in a heartbeat.
The battle won, the prince offered his free hand to Galen. The guard took it and rose again. They talked for a moment, pointing and gesturing as they dissected their moves while servants approached with trays. One held a silver bowl, the other stacks of fabric.
The prince clapped Galen on the back, then moved to the servants, offering them each a nod and smile. He washed his hands, then his face, and dried off with a large square of linen.
