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But maybe not the rest of our family.
I was hungrier than I thought when the palace servants brought platters of eggs, meat, pastries, porridge, and potatoes around to the tables. Something about the companionable chatter of important men and women digging into the meal set me at ease as well. It felt normal, almost like a banquet from back in the old days. I filled Genny’s plate before my own, making certain he had a little of all the things I knew he liked.
As I did, I noticed Vera and Taisiya watching us from across the table. I could hear the question on Vera’s lips as she stared at Genny, then me, but I wasn’t about to explain to my little sister all the reasons why Genny wasn’t allowed to serve his own food. Or why he was required to eat everything on his plate once I gave it to him. It was fairly new in our repertoire of dominant and submissive activities—we were just trying it out to see if it would work for us—but I couldn’t imagine that Vera would understand.
I deflected her obvious curiosity by saying, “I’m impressed with the amount of food being served. Have the shortages been made up for?”
I had a feeling Sai caught the entire non-verbal exchange. He hesitated, watching Genny for a moment as Genny picked up his fork and started eating, then said, “Things are much better. Of course, we’re aiming to impress all you wolves with the bounty of the Kostya Kingdom while you’re here, but everyone has worked hard to ensure that the food shortages of the winter don’t happen again.”
Once again, Mother’s expression tightened when Sai referred to me as a wolf. “You will see for yourself,” she said, a hint of desperation in her voice. “You will see how clever your brother is this winter, and you will admire his foresight and his planning.”
I smiled and nodded as I chewed the piece of bacon I’d just taken from my plate. I couldn’t tell her I wouldn’t be here this winter yet. She would only argue with me. I didn’t want to start our precious time together with an argument.
Instead, I smiled across the table at Taisiya. “So, little sister, do you have a line of beaux who follow you around wherever you go now?” I teased her with a wink.
Taisiya surprised me by going pale again and putting her fork down. She lowered her eyes and said, “I am never going to marry.”
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. “I thought you were dying to get married,” I said, moving again. I chewed my eggs, then went on with, “That was all you used to talk about before—what color gown you would wear to your wedding, which of your friends would be your attendants, what kind of flowers you wanted.” I grinned at her again, still trying to tease, and added, “How many children you wanted.”
Taisiya shuddered, and I noticed her hands shaking as she lay them on the table. “I have the children in the orphanage to care for. That is enough for me. I don’t want a…husband.”
I blinked over the way she choked on the word.
Genny subtly rested a hand on my thigh under the table and when I turned to him, he shook his head with a look of deadly seriousness.
Then it hit me. The last time I’d seen my sisters was when Gomez had ordered his sons to rape them, and then marry them. Obviously, those marriages hadn’t lasted, or even been considered legal, I would imagine. But I knew from Genny that the memory of being raped never faded.
I sent a look of deepest apology across the table to Taisiya, but my throat had closed up. How did you apologize to your younger sister for the brutality she had been subjected to? Of course she wouldn’t want to marry after that. I still considered it a small miracle that Genny wanted me to touch him at all, after what he’d been through, let alone wanted me to do all the other things we did.
Sai seemed desperate for a way to untangle the tension that had fallen over our table. He sat straighter, glanced around, anxiety in his eyes as he searched for…something. He finally noticed Sebald talking to Magnus, Peter, and Neil at the table behind us, then nearly cried out in relief.
“Your friend Sebald has a surprise for you,” he said, glancing to me with an almost manic light in his eyes.
I could tell he wanted me to help him steer the conversation away from where it had been heading. “Oh? I think Sebald has more than one surprise for us all.” I peeked back at his pup, Avenel.
Sai’s mouth pulled into an awkward grin. “He can explain that. I wouldn’t even know where to start. But that’s not it.” He focused his attention on cutting a piece of sausage on his plate and said, “I had originally thought to have you all stay here at the palace, but after the welcome you and your friends had this winter, I thought you might prefer to stay somewhere else.”
Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about everything that had happened in the palace that winter. Not in the context of us staying here. Now that I thought about it, a shiver of distaste went down my spine.
“I’ve given Sebald and Avenel a cottage in a quiet neighborhood near the wall,” Sai went on. “The neighborhood has been mostly abandoned, so your friend came up with the idea of preparing the cottages there for you and the rest of the men attending these meetings.”
My brow went up. “Cottages? Instead of staying in the palace?”
“It is what is best for…those men. To keep them away from…others,” Mother said, not quite meeting my eyes at first. When she did manage to bring herself to look at me, she added a deeply uncertain, “But you should stay here regardless, where you belong, with your family.”
I knew the invitation did not extend to Genny.
“My place is with my king,” I said in a quiet—I refused to think of it as defeated—voice. I went one step further by resting a hand on the back of Genny’s neck and smiling at him, even though I didn’t feel like smiling. “Our place is with our king.”
Mother looked as though she would say something, but instead of opening her mouth, she pursed her lips and frowned. She practically vibrated with bitterness.
“The cottages aren’t far from the palace,” Sai said with a little too much force, as if his words were a shield he was placing between me and Mother. “It’s quiet there.”
Quiet meaning segregated.
Actually, I loved that idea. Being away from the palace would mean being away from the aching sense of wrongness that being back with my family brought on.
As soon as I had that thought, I writhed with guilt. Hadn’t I just been champing at the bit to be with Mother and my sisters again?
