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In the hall, the Lionguard waited, as did Erida’s ladies and handmaidens. All rose to her pleasure, ready to serve their young queen. In their many-colored gowns and flowing skirts, they looked like a school of fish moving as one. Toward food. Away from a predator. Both.
“Send word to Lady Trelland and her son,” Erida said to her maidens. “I would like to visit them and pay my respects for our lost knights.”
Harrsing nudged her shoulder. “After the petitions.”
“Of course.” Erida sighed, already tired.
Would that I could do away with this entire tradition, useless as it is.Petitions day meant hours upon the throne, hearing the complaints and demands of nobles, merchants, soldiers, and peasants alike. Mostly it meant keeping her eyes open, deflecting their troubles as best she could.
“How many present themselves as suitors?” she asked wearily, looping her arm into the old woman’s. The record currently stood at twelve in a day.
“Only one. I’m told he’s quite fetching.”
Erida scoffed low in her throat, unamused. “Tell me something of use.”
All thoughts of Andry Trelland faded, eclipsed by the demands of a crown.
“Well, let’s get on with it.”
8
UNDER THE BLUE STAR
Andry
The water steamed, hot over the fire in their small parlor. He could have called for servants to bring tea from the kitchens, but Andry preferred to make it himself. He knew what Lady Valeri preferred, and it was best served piping hot. Their apartments, lovely as they were, were far from the sprawling palace kitchens. Besides, Andry liked to watch the water and wait. It gave him something to think about besides blood and slaughter. Besides the cold, crackling whispers waiting in the corners of his mind.
He stared into the pot over the fire, the surface of the water rippling with slow bubbles. Herbs swirled with an inner current, peaceful and predictable. Andry tried to lose himself in the pattern. Even so, the cries of fallen heroes found him. He wrenched his gaze to the fire, willing their screams away. But the coals cracked and burned, split with flame and ash.
White hands, red eyes, skin like charred wood.
“Ambara-garay,”said a weak voice.Have faith in the gods.His mother put a hand on his shoulder and Andry turned, pulled from his waking nightmare.
She hovered over him, her smile thin but bright. Without thought, Andry took her fingers and kissed them. He jumped to stand.
“Sit, Mama,” he urged, all but lifting her into his chair by the hearth.
Valeri Trelland did not argue. She was a tall woman, but wispy, and she curled into herself when she took the seat. Andry tucked her shawl around her narrow shoulders, focused on keeping her covered and comfortable. Despite her illness, the cold that seemed to live in her chest, Lady Valeri was still striking in her beauty. She was not called the jewel of her kin for no reason. Andry saw it even on her worst days, the way a light seemed to glow in her skin, like a dark garnet filled with sunshine. Her hair was short now, braided tightly to her head, the ends set with gold rings. Her eyes seemed larger in her drawn face. They were the rare green of young wheat, hesitant to give over to gold. Andry envied her eyes. His own were a muddy brown.My father’s.But the rest of him looked like Valeri, with his black hair and high cheekbones.
“Here you are,” he said, preparing her cup of tea with sure, quick movements.Lemon, cinnamon, clove, sweetsalt, honey.The bounty of summer in the Gallish capital, when all the Ward seemed to cross from Rhashir to the Jydi snows.
Valeri took the cup and breathed in, smiling. The wet rattle in her chest loosened. Andry pulled another chair to the fire and sat, content to watch her sip her tea.
Andry and his family had never lived in a house of their own. His father had been a knight in the king’s service, his mother a lady to the old queen and then Erida. His home was these rooms, generously given to them to use even after his father was long dead and his mother too sick to serve. Sometimes he wondered if the Queen’s administrators had simply forgotten them. The New Palace of Ascal was a monstrous place, walled onto its own island, a city unto itself, where thousands lived and worked at the Queen’s pleasure. It would be easy to overlook a squire and his ailing mother. Before, when he’d served Sir Grandel, Andry slept in the barracks or the Lionguard quarters, close at hand should his lord have need of him.Not anymore.He did not lament leaving the narrow cot in a room crowded with boys of varying ages and odors. But the circumstances by which he had returned to tend his mother were a price he wished he did not have to pay.
The palace around them was two hundred years old, built of pale gray and yellow stone. They lived in the east wing, a long hall of apartments broken by courtyards, with the majority of the Queen’s courtiers. Their own were at the base of a tower, rounded slightly, its windows like narrowed eyes. Colorful tapestries decorated their walls, scenes of hunts and jousts and battles and feasts. They used to make Andry excited, eager to begin his life as a knight. Now the bright threads were dull, their scenes false.
There is no blood,he thought, his eyes lingering on a woven depiction of the Battle of the Lanterns. In it, the armored legions of Galland fell upon the cities of Larsia, their great green-and-gold flag held high. Though swords and spears glinted in silver thread, they were clean, and the Larsians fell to their knees in surrender.
We were never even given the chance. There was no mercy in that army, or that man.Andry squeezed his eyes shut and turned away even as the cursed image of Taristan rose in his mind.Corblood in his veins, a Spindleblade in his fist. Made of stone, made of flame, made of mortal flesh. Red blood, black armor, white hands, white ash, white-hot pain and anger and loss—
“How go your petitions?”
Andry blinked furiously, clearing his head. The hot sting in his eyes faded with his mother’s voice. “Sorry—what?”
She put a frail hand on his. Firelight danced on his mother’s face, brightening already brilliant eyes.
“Your petitions,madero,” Valeri said gently.My dear.“You have been petitioning lords and knights for service. You told me so last week.”
