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26
The matrons and chaperones were all a bit ruffled, and Mother’s face looked carved from the same granite as the high table at which they sat, but the Keep in general seemed easier and livelier as the promised ball unfolded in the great hall. The young ladies, too, seemed greatly relieved to not be marketing themselves as brides tonight, but merely enjoying the food and wine and the small band of musicians in the corner that filled the hall with sound.
Náli was dressed for the occasion in a dove-gray velvet tunic stitched at the shoulders with diamonds. His boots had been polished and Mattias had braided his hair elaborately, the ends clinking softly against his chest and shoulders with lover’s beads that had been noted with startled looks, but not yet remarked upon by anyone.
Out on the floor, the trestles had been cleared and the young ladies had put together a sequence of stiff and complicated group dances usually performed by couples. They kept giggling and losing their seriousness, much to their chaperones’ displeasure, judging by the looks on their faces.
Náli perked up in his seat when he saw Klemens step away from the foot of the dais and stride with purpose across the floor. Brigida stood at the edge of the dance floor, talking with one of her friends, lovely in pale wool and fox fur. She glanced up with a start as Klemens approached, and a blush stained her cheeks like two ripe apples. She passed her cup over to her friend, though, who was goggle-eyed, and placed her hand in Klemens’ palm.
Náli smiled to himself.
He’d thought his mother was staring into the middle distance, rather than paying attention, but she made a little shocked, angry noise as Klemens led Brigida out to dance, and he knew that she’d missed nothing.
“Mother.” He stood and offered a hand down to Serafina. “Would you care to go and have a look at the stars with me?”
She stared at him a long, long moment, her gaze savage, before finally placing her small, papery hand in his grip and rising stiff-backed and pinch-faced.
At the back of the hall, tucked away behind the dais and its tall, granite-edged chairs, was a narrow door meant for private use. It let out onto a balcony big enough for half the party inside, if they’d only known about it. Fire had been lit in the braziers, pushing back the early spring cold, and beyond the granite handrail, the base of the mountain fell away in a dramatic, black waterfall of old magma. Far below, candles glowed in cottage windows, beneath a sky smudged phosphorescent yellow.
Serafina walked to the farthest edge, and rested her hands on the rail, diamonds on her rings glimmering faintly. “There are no stars,” she observed, head tilted toward the sky. “There never have been.” Quietly: “It’s one of the things I’ve always hated about this place.”
Patience, Náli reminded himself, with a deep breath. Mattias had been right last night – about several things. Chiefly that he’d never stopped to consider the fear and misery of his mother’s life, in relation to his own; hadn’t considered that she’d carried his burden once, herself. And that making an enemy of her served no one…especially now that he’d achieved what he’d set out to.
“I’m sorry you hate it,” he said. “I hate it, too.”
She turned to look at him – not with the whipping action he’d come to expect, but with exhausted slowness. Her gaze wasn’t so much angry, now, as defeated. “There was a boy I wanted to marry, back in Norbury. Not a lord, but a plain old gentleman. He had the warmest brown eyes.” She turned away, again, to look out across the lava field, but not before he saw the flash of pain in her eyes. An old wound, but one not forgotten; one that had healed poorly. “And your father offered my parents their house’s weight in diamonds, so I went North instead. And when I got here, to this ugly, starless place, I found out that he didn’t want me at all, but that he’d needed me. For an heir. A little Southern blood to keep the old Northern stock from getting too inbred.”
She sniffed. “I didn’t want that life for me, or for you: but that’s the life you were born to. I thought saying I felt sorry for you would make you soft.” She shook her head, and wiped quickly at her eyes. “All it did was make you hate me, and you did what you damn well pleased, despite its risks to your people.”
He swallowed down his automatic retort, and let the weight of her words sink heavy in his belly. He’d explained tonight, at the start of the festivities, how he’d come across the means to reclaim his magic, and his reasons for weighing the risk as worthwhile. He didn’t repeat them now; didn’t point out that if the kingdom fell to invaders, none of his people would be safe here, on this mountain, when the Sels came to pillage and subjugate. She knew that…but it didn’t change the hurt she felt.
“You’ve uprooted tradition,” she accused.
“I have.”
“One of your men is inside dancing with one of your potential brides.”
“Yes. I encouraged that, actually. Did you know that this magic can be passed down from any wielder, and not just me?”
She turned again, gaze watery in the strange, ambient glow that kept the Fault Lands from ever being truly dark. “He gave you those beads in your hair, didn’t he? Your captain.”
There were a dozen things he could have said in his own defense, justifications and reasonings and impassioned vows. But all he said was, “Yes.”
Serafina studied him a long moment, nodded, and turned away. Her slippers moved near-soundlessly over the granite slabs of the balcony. “Tell him to come out of the shadows, then, and quit lurking,” she said over her shoulder.
Náli turned to watch her slip back inside, and then saw a shadow detach itself and step forward as Mattias came to take her place at the rail. He looked a little stunned. “That sounded almost like getting her approval.”
Náli snorted. “Best to focus on the almost rather than the approval.”
“That was very good of you, the way you handled things with her. I’m proud.”
“Oh, ugh. Just because I don’t have a father doesn’t mean I want you taking the role.”
“Well, when you consider our history, I have been rather–”
Náli slapped a hand over his mouth. “No. Don’t muddy those waters. I forbid it.”
Náli could feel the shape of his smile against his hand, see the laughter in his eyes. The softest brown eyes, his mother had said of the boy she’d wanted to marry instead, and maybe the two of them had that in common, too.
