“Not like these.” Only fences made of wood or pretty, piled rocks to mark the borders between farms. Easily jumped by a horse, or by a person with enough of a running start. “When we rode into Indrid Down to save Mirabella from Katharine in the duel, we passed what was left of the wall that once enclosed the capital. It was overgrown with grasses and weeds. Half-buried. There’s nothing else on the island like this. Not even the ramparts that protect the Volroy fortress.”
“I have heard they still have a fine border wall in Sunpool.” Emilia sighs. “Oracles. They are a paranoid lot. Are you going to do what you came out here to do or what?”
“Can we go down to the beach?”
“Not today. I did not send scouts. There could be others down there in the dunes. Others to recognize you and your cat and send word back to the Volroy. The longer the poisoner queen thinks you left on that boat with her sisters, the better.”
“The longer the better.” Jules takes the pair of silver shears from her back pocket. “How about forever?”
“Nothing lasts forever. Why do you want to go down to the beach?”
Jules pulls her long brown braid over her shoulder.
“I don’t know. To cast it out into the water, I guess.”
Emilia laughs.
“Are all naturalists so sentimental?” She gestures toward the shore full of red and white stones. “Throw it anywhere. The terns will tear strands of it to line their nests. That should please you. Though you don’t have to do it at all. That braid is the last thing that will give you away. More likely are those two-colored eyes of yours.” She nods at Camden. “Or that.”
“I’m never going to put Camden aside, so you can stop hinting about it,” Jules snaps.
“I’m not hinting about anything. I like her. Only a war-gifted naturalist would have a familiar so fierce. Now get on with it.”
Jules touches the end of her braid. She wonders how long Emilia’s dark hair is. She always wears it pinned to her nape in two small rolled buns.
She sets the braid between the open blades of the shears, just below her chin. Arsinoe used to do this. Every season, she would hack off what had grown, anything to avoid the sleek, groomed beauty expected of the queens. One year she left it cut so crooked that it looked like her head was perpetually cocked. Her Arsinoe. She would be so proud.
Jules takes a deep breath and then cuts off her braid. She throws it out as far as she can, out toward the water her friend sailed away on.
The family house of the Vatros clan is tucked into the southeast quadrant of the city, along the wall. It is a large house, with many floors and rows of brown-shuttered windows. The shingles of the pitched roofs are deep red. And it is old, some parts older than others and made of the same gray stone as the wall. The newer additions have been constructed in white. It is one of the finest houses in Bastian City, but all houses seem quite fine to Jules, who is used to clapboard and paint faded by damp, salty breezes. The war gift may have diminished over the centuries, but they have done what they can to not let it show; it is only visible upon much closer inspection, in the patched masonry in the walls and the stitches over stitches in their clothing.
“Attack at half speed.”
Emilia turns the sparring stick over in her hands. It is a clever weapon: sturdy, oiled wood joined in the center as a long pole and able to be twisted apart quickly into two shorter staffs for dual striking.
Jules does as she is told, though her own sparring stick feels heavy and clumsy. She sweeps low for the legs twice, then blocks Emilia’s attacks and dodges an attempt to pop her in the chest. Emilia nods, the only encouragement she ever gives.
“You never ask me to use my war gift,” Jules says. “You never tell me when to use it.”
“You’ll use it when you use it.” Emilia twists her pole into separate staffs. “And you will know when.” She comes forward, still at half speed, but even so, Jules’s arms cannot keep up. The poles crack against each other.
“Though it would come easier if we could get your mother to lift the binding.”
Jules lowers her staff. She flexes her fingers and tucks her hair behind her ear. When she cut it, she cut too short, and now it escapes from its ribbon. She does not like it. Camden does not either. The mountain cat licks it every night when they go to sleep as if she is trying to slick it back into a braid.
“Stop asking that,” Jules growls.
“I am only teasing.”
Except that she is not. At least not entirely. Jules rubs the ache in her poison-damaged legs. Bound gift or no, she might never be the warrior Emilia hopes she will be, thanks to that.
“Come on,” Emilia says. “We don’t have all day.”
They square off again. They do not have all day, but they have most of it; the afternoon sun burns bright and hot against the top of Jules’s head. Emilia’s dark hair shines like a mirror, and knowing how skilled Emilia is at combat she will probably figure out how to blind Jules with it.
As they circle, Jules’s eye wanders to the tree. One lone tree in the private, walled-in courtyard of uneven bricks, not as full as it could be, as it should be, in the height of summer. She could make that happen. Make it bloom with leaves that instant. They would have shade, and Emilia might be distracted enough that Jules could land a decent hit.
“I never ask you to use your war gift,” Emilia says, and Jules looks away from the tree. “But you never use your naturalist gift either. Why? Do you think the other gifts offend us?”
She strikes twice, and Jules blocks them.
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe not,” Emilia repeats. “Maybe not normally, you mean. But in you it would, with your legion curse.” She moves in quick and effortlessly smacks Jules right between the eyes. Behind her, Camden begins to growl.
“Can you blame me?” Jules scowls. “My own family feared the curse. My own town turned their backs on me for it. I still don’t understand why you—and the warriors—don’t.”
“We look past it because of what you have done. The great things that you will do. It was you who boosted the weak queen. Arsinoe,” Emilia adds when Jules’s eyes narrow. “And even bound, your war gift is as strong as mine. You could use it now. Push my staffs off course, if you wanted to. If you would.”
Something sharpens in Emilia’s eyes, and she comes for Jules in a flurry. No longer fighting at half speed or half strength, she drives Jules back, using her advantage in skill to push Jules until her knees bend. And as her heel slides in against the gravel path, Jules feels a spark of familiar temper.
She dodges and pivots as Emilia keeps coming on. Jules waits until she is positioned just right. Until Emilia has allowed herself to put Camden in a blind spot.
Jules strikes out hard with her staff and Camden leaps. She had been crouched, waiting, to knock Emilia down and pin her to the grass.
“Oof!” Emilia says, and rolls faceup as Jules and the cougar look at her. For a moment, her jaw clenches and her face reddens even beneath her deep tan skin. Then she laughs. “All right.” She grasps Camden fondly by the fur and pats her ribs. “No need of a war gift when you have her.”
Emilia tosses Jules a light red cloak, like the ones the servants wear.
“Where are we going?” Jules asks. After a long afternoon of training, she is in no mood to go anywhere; she craves a hot bowl of stew and the softness of her pillow.
“There is a bard staying at the inn. Father told me she knows the song of Queen Aethiel, and I would hear it.”
“Can’t you go without us? I’m likely to fall asleep in my ale, and I don’t want to insult the bard.”
“No,” Emilia replies, “I can’t go without you. Camden will have to stay here, of course. Too many people not in our trust. We’ll bring her back a nice fat leg of lamb.”
Camden lifts her head from her paws but only long enough to yawn. A leg of lamb and a quiet room suit her just fine.
As Jules walks beside Emilia through the city, she pulls the
hood of the cloak down to shadow her eyes. Nearly everyone they pass acknowledges Emilia somehow, with a nod or a lowered gaze. The whole city knows the oldest daughter of Vatros by the jut of her chin and the bounce in her stride. They revere her, almost like the people of Wolf Spring used to revere Jules before they knew about the curse. Now if she were to return, they would march her to Indrid Down with her hands tied behind her back.
When they arrive at the inn, there is already a crowd and the bard has already started. Emilia frowns slightly, but the long spoken songs are known to go far into the night, with listeners coming and going as they hear their favorite parts.
“This isn’t even the song of Aethiel,” Emilia says. “It is the arming verse for the song of Queen Philomene. And it goes on forever. I’ll get us some ale and food.”
Jules lets the hood slip back in the heat of the inn. No one is paying attention to her anyway. All eyes are on the bard, standing near the fireplace in a lovely tunic edged in gold thread. She is one of the youngest bards that Jules has seen, though she has not seen many. So few pass through Wolf Spring, tired perhaps of night after night of the song of Queen Bernadine and her wolf. This bard wears a light hood, not unlike the red one that Jules wears, and her voice is melodious even as she recites the arming passages: greaves and knives and leather to be buckled, on and on, dressing the long-dead war queen in her battle finery.
Jules finds an empty table along the rear wall and sits. By the time Emilia returns with two mugs, the bard has moved on to tell of the fierceness of the queen’s army.
“What is there to eat?” Jules asks.
“A leg of lamb, like I told you. And boiled greens. We will eat what we can and bring the rest back to the cat.” Emilia’s eyes dart around the inn and back to the bard. “She will never get to Aethiel at this rate. Perhaps we can bring her to the table when she stops for food and get a few lines then.”
“Or you can wait. She’ll be here for as many nights as people have coin to pay her. Besides, I don’t want her so close. Bards travel all over the island. She could recognize me.”
“Even if she did, she would not say anything. For a people who speak so much, bards have very tight tongues.”
“How do you know?”
Emilia raises her eyebrows.
“Well, I’ve never had to cut one out, for a start.”
The food arrives, a great platter of it, a whole roasted lamb leg on a bed of greens and roasted potatoes besides.
“Thanks, Benji,” Emilia says to the server, a yellow-haired lad who will run the inn one day.
“An entire leg for two,” Benji remarks. “I wouldn’t think such a small thing would have such a large appetite.”
Jules looks up and finds him smiling at her. She lowers her eyes quickly.
“Nothing small about my stomach,” she says.
“Well, I hope you enjoy. I’ll bring another jug of ale.”
“He is curious about you,” says Emilia.
Jules does not respond. She is bad company, pretending to listen to the bard and speaking only when she must. She supposes that she has been bad company since she came to Bastian City. But it is hard not to be, when every dish of food makes her think of Arsinoe and her famous appetite, and every boy with a crooked smile could be Joseph, for just one instant before she remembers that he is dead.
She forces herself to look back toward the bard and finds her staring directly at her, eyes fixed as her lips move over the words of the raid on the burned city. Jules stares right back, angry, though she cannot say why, and the woman turns her head just slightly so Jules can see the stark white streak running through her hair. The white strands have been gathered together into a braid that falls through the gold like an icicle.
Such white streaks are common marks amongst the seers.
“That is no mere bard,” Jules whispers. “Emilia, what are you up to?”
Emilia does not deny it. She does not even look guilty.
“The warriors and the oracles have always had a strong bond. It is how we knew to come to your aid during the Queens’ Duel. And now we would know what the Goddess has in store for you. What? Did you think we would just hide you here forever, like a prisoner?”
Jules watches as the bard bows to the crowd, taking a break for a meal and some wine. “You said I was welcome for as long as was needed,” she mutters.
The bard stops before their table.
“Emilia Vatros. It is good to see you.”
“And you, Mathilde. Please, sit. Take some ale with us and food. There’s plenty, as you can see.”
“You even know each other,” Jules says as Mathilde takes a seat. She is striking, up close. Not more than twenty years old perhaps, and the braid of white stands out so starkly against her bright blond waves that it is a wonder Jules did not notice it right off.
Emilia takes her knife from her belt and carves a thick slice of meat from the leg, piling it onto a plate along with the greens and potatoes. Benji arrives with a fresh jug of ale and a third cup.
“I would take some wine, also,” Mathilde says, and he nods before going to fetch it. “It is an honor to meet you, Juillenne Milone.”
“Is it?” Jules asks suspiciously.
“Yes. But why are you looking at me like you hate me? We have not yet spoken.”
“I don’t trust many these days. It’s been a bad year.” She looks at Emilia. “And she’s saying my name awfully loud.”
Emilia and Mathilde share a pacifying look. If only Camden were there to swat both of their faces.
“I am aware of the need for discretion,” Mathilde says. “Just as I am aware that your dislike of oracles stems from the prophecy surrounding your birth. That you were legion cursed. But that has turned out to be true, hasn’t it?”
“That I was cursed, yes. Though I’ve heard that the oracle also said that I should be drowned. That is not true.”
Mathilde raises her eyebrows and tilts her head as if to say, Maybe not. Or just not yet. “And is that all that you have heard?”
“What else is there?”
“We never knew the specifics of the portent. We see through another seer’s eyes only that murky curse.”
“You never knew her, then?” Emilia asks. “The oracle who threw the bones when Jules was born?”
“I was still a child when Jules was born. If I knew her in Sunpool, I do not remember. And nor would many, anymore. For that oracle never returned.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Jules snaps.
“That your family covered the truth of you well.”
That they killed the oracle is what Mathilde means. But seer or not, she does not know for sure. It is only conjecture. Accusation. And Jules will not imagine Grandma Cait or Ellis or even Madrigal putting a rock to an old oracle’s head.
“And what is the truth of me now? Isn’t that what you’re here to tell us?”
Mathilde tears a sliver of meat off her plate. The lamb is succulent; there is no need for cutting. Even so, she takes forever to chew. Waiting, Jules vows that she will not believe a word out of the seer’s mouth. And at the same time, she hopes to hear some other vision, some news about Arsinoe and Billy and how they fare on the mainland. Is Arsinoe happy there? Is she safe? Did they give Joseph a fine funeral? It seems an age since she left them that day, bobbing before the mainland. That day that the mist of Fennbirn swallowed her up again and brought her and Camden home.
She would even settle for news about Mirabella.
“The truth of you is yet to come,” Mathilde says finally. “I know only that you were once a queen and may be again. Those words came into my head like a chant the moment that I looked at you.”
THE MAINLAND
At the sound of the bell, the horses take off from the starting line, hooves and tails flying. Arsinoe grips the rail in front of her seat and pulls herself nearly up and over it to watch as they thunder past, every horse shining and beautiful, and each with a tiny man clinging onto its back for
dear life.
“There they go!” she shouts. “They’re rounding the . . . that turn that you said. . . .”
“The clubhouse turn.” Billy grasps her by the back of her dress, laughing. “Now get down from there before you fall into the next row.”
With a sigh, she puts her feet back on solid ground. But she is not the only one out of her seat; plenty of others have stood to clap or hold clever little magnifying glasses up to their eyes. Even Mirabella has risen on the other side of Billy, crowding so close in her excitement that he can hardly breathe between the two sisters.
“Fun as this is,” Arsinoe says, “it would be even more fun to be down there beside the track.” She takes a deep breath, smells roasted nuts, and her stomach growls.
“The view might not be as good,” says Mirabella, and Billy nods. His father paid good money every year for these fine seats, or so Billy had told them on the way to the track.
“How about from the back of a horse, then?”
“They don’t allow girls to ride,” Billy says, and Arsinoe frowns. They would change their minds soon enough if only they could see Jules. Small, wiry Jules, who could weave her horse in and out of a herd as though the two were of one body.
On the racetrack, the horses cross the finish line to a chorus of mixed cheers and groans. The last race of the day, and none of the horses they had bet upon had won, but the three of them stand up, smiling. Arsinoe takes Billy’s hand in her left, and pulls Mirabella along with her right as they make their way down from their seats, her ill-fitting gray dress riding up over the legs of the trousers she insists on always wearing underneath. By contrast, Mirabella looks lovely in white, full sleeves and lace to her throat. Before they left the island, neither had worn any color besides black, and Mirabella, a few colored jewels. But Mirabella, with her beauty, manages to look at home in anything.