“Look at you,” Jorja said.
“You’ve a bit more weight,” Cora joined in.
“Well, there’s a bit more food to be had in the palace.” Phaedra laughed, looking back to search for Grijio.
“How is she?” Jorja asked. “How are they both? Is he as beautiful as they say?”
Phaedra held a hand to her chest. More tears because there would never be words to describe the little king.
“Enough of the crying,” Cora snapped, but she hugged Phaedra all the same.
Grijio reached them as Harker and Kasabian approached and Phaedra completed the introductions.
“We’ve met, sir,” Grijio said to Harker, shaking his hand. “On the day you took this valley.”
“How are things in the Citavita?” Harker asked.
“Hopeful, sir.”
Grijio searched through his pack and handed Harker the mail. “These are for the Lumaterans. Is there a chance they can reach the palace soon? Gargarin of Abroi was very insistent.”
Harker shook his head. “When it comes to messages and mail, we have to wait for the Monts to visit, and then it’s up to chance when they next visit their palace. Sometimes a week passes. But we’ll do our best.”
“I’m presuming that I’d be expecting too much if Froi of Lumatere was here in the valley?” Grij said.
Harker shook his head again with a grimace. “He’s on his way to Charyn, the way we’ve heard it.”
Phaedra turned to Grijio, understanding his disappointment.
“Rest first and then go,” she urged, knowing he’d want to see his friend. “You may catch him in the Citavita if you’re lucky.”
“And which of you is Cora?” Grijio asked.
“Me,” Cora snapped. “Why?”
He retrieved a tiny purse from his pocket and held it out to her. Everyone crowded around Cora, curious to see what it was.
“She’s rewarded you with gold,” someone murmured.
“Perhaps a trinket.”
They waited as Cora emptied the contents into the palm of her hand, and soon there were sighs of disappointment. But Cora looked up and caught her brother’s eye, and Phaedra saw a smile on both their faces as they studied the seeds.
“Where would she have found herself a pair of klin tree seeds?” Kasabian asked as Cora placed them in his hand. He clenched a fist and pressed a kiss to it. “These seeds grow hope,” he said.
“I have one more letter,” Grijio said. “Quintana said I had to deliver it by hand. To Florenza of Nebia.”
“My daughter?” Harker asked, perplexed.
“By hand, you say. Why?” Jorja asked.
Grijio shrugged. “Quintana said I could not leave until the letter was read out loud, and then I had to wait for Florenza of Nebia’s response. So then Her Highness would be sure it was delivered.”
“I’ll go find her,” Harker said
More of the valley dwellers came to greet Phaedra, and she introduced them to Grijio, who seemed fascinated by the way they lived.
“For now, every family is assigned to their own cave, with ample privacy,” Jorja said. “It was difficult for us during the time of Donashe and his friends. Families were separated.”
“But still a blessing that our Quintana found herself in a cave with you women,” Grijio said.
“Phaedra!” they heard Florenza cry, and, the next moment, they were in each other’s arms, laughing and crying.
“I was with the Mont girls when we heard the news,” Florenza said. “Are you back for good?”
“I am indeed.”
“And how is she?” Florenza asked solemnly. “I dream of them both. All the time, I do. Is she happy?”
Phaedra didn’t know how to answer that truthfully.
“The little king is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said. “Is that not true, Grij?”
Grij was staring at Florenza, who was now staring at Grij with a hand held to her face to hide her nose, which had survived its ordeal in the caves with quite a large bump.
“Yes . . . yes, of course,” he said, flustered, clearing his throat.
“Father said you have something,” Florenza said, and Phaedra watched as Jorja’s hand brushed a leaf from Florenza’s hair surreptitiously. Cora exchanged a look with Phaedra.
Grijio removed a letter from his pack and handed it to Florenza.
“She requested that you read it aloud before me,” he said. “So then she’d be sure that it was read.”
“Why?” Cora asked bluntly.
“Hurry up and read it, Florenza,” Jorja said.
Florenza broke the seal of the letter.
“Dear Florenza,
“I hope all is fine with you. Phaedra will tell you more about life here. The weather is quite unspectacular and so are most of those who live in the palace —”
“They are,” Phaedra agreed.
“Of course, I’m yet to meet a girl such as you, Florenza, who crawled through the sewers of Nebia to save the life of those Serkers and whose nose was broken as she fearlessly fought a man who was a threat to myself and the future king of Charyn. . . .”
Florenza touched her nose again self-consciously.
“You crawled through the sewers?” Grij asked in awe. “To save the Serkers?”
“And broke her nose as she fearlessly fought a man who was a threat to Quintana and the future king of Charyn,” Jorja reminded him.
Florenza removed her hand from her nose and continued reading.
“Anyway, enough of all that. I was wondering if you’d like to come and visit sometime. You can give your response to Grijio, the brilliant scholarly son of the provincaro of Paladozza and one of the heroic masterminds of my rescue in the Citavita.”
Phaedra burst out a laugh and stared at Cora. This time it was Florenza who looked up in awe.
“You were the mastermind?” Florenza asked Grijio.
He waved a hand in embarrassment. “One of them, anyway,” he murmured.
“Our little savage has turned matchmaker,” Cora muttered. “What have they done to her?”
Lucian finished helping Orly with the fence post, and they both stood back to assess the work. Lotte joined them soon after and handed Lucian a hot brew. There wasn’t much talk among them, although he could sense that Lotte was dying to say something and Lucian knew exactly what that was.
“Lady Zarah,” Lotte said politely. “She seems a fine girl.”
“Yes, indeed,” Lucian said curtly. He was sick and tired of being asked at every turn if it was true that he was betrothed. No, he wanted to shout. Fabrications from an overzealous lord who wants a cut in our fleece market!
But he held his tongue.
“Some are saying she’ll be your new wife, Lucian.”
Orly muttered something rude, and Lucian had to agree.
Lotte peered beyond him toward the path that ran through the mountain.
“Is that one of your aunts?” she asked, somewhat alarmed. “Is she running? Sweet goddess, Lucian. Something’s happened.”
Lucian leaped over Orly’s post to reach his aunt.
“Lucian, Lucian,” she called out, her face lit with excitement. “Phaedra’s returned to the valley!”
His mouth was suddenly dry. His heart was pounding too fast, his face felt aflame. Lotte and Orly caught up with them, Lotte trilling with excitement. He had to get away from them all to think clearly. He had to work out what to do and how not to ruin things. But he couldn’t do it here, and it was clear to Lucian that there’d be no more work done with Lotte and Orly, so he gently steered his aunt back home.
“Too much work to be done around here to be wasting time,” he said to her calmly. They passed Jory and the lads, who were rounding up the sheep on Yael’s spread.
“See?” he said, pointing. “The lads have got the right idea. Work and no talk.”
“Lucian,” Jory hollered, jumping from his mount and running toward them. “Phaedra’s back.”
>
“Be quick! You’ll lose her again!” another cousin shouted.
In the Mont market square, Lucian was surrounded instantly. By everyone. He hadn’t seen such a gathering since Isaboe had returned for the first time since the death of her child. The mountain had celebrated that day. Finnikin had begged Lucian, “Tell them that their sorrow will break her. She’s come for their joy.” And the Monts had tried.
Today, he saw a truer version of that joy.
“I’m going down to Lumatere,” he muttered, and there was a collective sigh of annoyance.
“Lucian, don’t be ridiculous,” his cousin Alda snapped. “If you’re going to betroth yourself to that useless Tascan’s daughter, you’ll be insulting the women of this mountain and the memory of your poor mother.”
“Don’t know what was wrong with the first wife,” Pitts the cobbler said.
“Yes, yes,” most agreed.
“I always said that if Phaedra of Alonso’s people weren’t cursed, those hips of hers were made for childbearing,” Ettore the blacksmith piped up.
Lucian caught his yata’s eye, and he could see she was seething about something. She turned to them all, fire blazing in her eyes.
“When Lady Zarah visited last, the little miss turned up her nose at the food on our table! I jest you not!” she said.
There were gasps of outrage all around.
“A good riddance to her now that Phaedra’s back!”
There was a cheer at Yata’s words.
Goddess forbid, Lucian had to get off this mountain.
Most things had changed.
At the bridge leading to the Citavita was a guard station. No one was permitted to cross without dismounting. A garrison was camped on a piece of land by the road, swarming with soldiers asking questions and allowing entry onto the bridge, one person at a time.
“What’s your business?” Froi was asked. He recognized no one among the guards.
“I’m from Lumatere,” he replied. Lies only created problems. Even so, the man looked at him suspiciously. He indicated that Froi was to raise his arms.
“Shoulder, ankle, and here,” Froi said, patting the sword in its scabbard at his side. “All weapons revealed. Is there a rule about being armed?”
“No, but there’s a rule about having a smart mouth.”
And some things stayed the same.
Unlike every other person before and after him, Froi found himself escorted across the bridge. Beast was just as disgusted. Halfway across, Froi stopped, daring to look down the gravina and then ahead through the mist at the splendor of the Citavita’s stone piled high.
How could he have imagined that Gargarin’s sigh that first time they arrived here was of anything but pleasure?
He continued walking, his heart thumping with anticipation. Home, it sang. You’re home. But he argued back with that part of his heart that couldn’t let go of the Flatlands. Until he stepped onto the Citavita. Home, his heart sang.
He steered Beast off the bridge and looked around. There were no street lords demanding a coin for use of the bridge. There was no wretched line of Citavitans desperate to leave the carnage behind. Instead, a marketplace was set up at the base of the rock and there was haggling and shouting. And laughter. Froi had never heard laughter in the Citavita.
He saw the sentinels instantly, guarding the roof of the Crow’s Inn. He imagined Scarpo’s men would be swarming the capital now that most of its people were returning to their homes. As he was led toward the walls of the city, a dozen or so soldiers came striding toward him.
“Now, that doesn’t surprise me,” the guard escorting him said. “A welcoming party.”
“My favorite type of party in the world,” Froi muttered.
Could he expect less, leading a Serker horse?
“I’m actually on my way to the godshouse to see the priestling Arjuro,” Froi explained. He wasn’t much in the mood for being interrogated by a group of soldiers who didn’t know him and wouldn’t believe a word he said.
“The priestling’s a busy man.”
Before they could exchange another word, one of the approaching soldiers broke free and lifted Froi off the ground in an embrace.
Mort.
“Where you been, Froi?”
Mort was shoved out of the way, and Florik was there.
“We’ve been taking odds to see whether you’d return,” the Lasconian said.
Froi looked from one to the other, laughing. “You’re both on the same duty?”
Mort and Florik placed arms around each other’s shoulders. They looked strange in uniform, but it suited them.
“I’m teaching him a thing or two,” Mort said. “Lasconian lads know nothing.”
“Except how to speak better than Turlan lads,” Florik said. “So I’m teaching him a thing or two.”
Within moments, more of the fortress lads were surrounding him, and Froi embraced and shook hands with as many as he recognized.
“We take things from here,” Mort told Froi’s guard. Mort moved in closer. “I got rank,” he whispered. “Turlans outrank everyone on this rock.”
“Who says?” Froi asked.
“She say. She don’t get much power, but she picks whoever protects Citavita, and our Quintana pick the Turlans.”
Smart girl. No one would protect Quintana and Tariq better than her kin.
“How are things here?” Froi asked.
How are Quintana and Gargarin and Lirah and Arjuro and my son? he meant.
“Gettin’ there slow-wise,” Mort said. “But gettin’ there all the same.”
“What you doin’ here, Froi?” another Turlan asked. “You here for the —”
The lad was nudged into silence. Froi saw their unease, so he held up his pack. “Palace business from Lumatere,” he said.
Mort shoved Froi playfully. “Told you lads this one no soldier boy. He’s a palace big man.”
Froi laughed at the description.
“We’d take you up there, but Scarpo would skin us if we left our post,” Florik said.
Mort pointed up to the roof of the Crow’s Inn. “That’s where I aim from, and if there a problem, fastest lad in Charyn here races to the castle and let ’em know,” he said, shoving at Florik’s head.
Florik looked slightly sheepish. “Second fastest.”
“Did you see Grij on your travels?” one of the lads from Lascow asked. “He was on his way to Lumatere to deliver Phaedra of Alonso back to the valley.”
Froi shook his head, annoyed to think he missed seeing Grij in Lumatere of all places.
“He would have traveled another path,” he said. “I came through Osteria.”
“He’ll be back soon,” Florik said. “So you wait for him, Froi. He’ll not like missing you twice.”
“And come see us at our post.”
Froi promised to return to the inn and made his way up the city wall to the road that led to the godshouse. He couldn’t avoid seeing the castle battlements, but he forced himself to look away.
On the path above the caves, toward the godshouse, he was bewildered to see a cluster of women coming and going.
The priestling’s a busy man, the soldier had said. Busy doing what?
Inside the godshouse, it was stranger still. More women, as well as the collegiati Froi recognized from his days in the caves under Sebastabol. The entire lower level of the godshouse was bustling with activity. Questions were being asked; orders were being given. And then Froi noticed the swollen bellies and understood why.
He gently pushed past the women, up the steps, and at each floor, Froi glimpsed well-lit rooms and once-empty cells now decorated with a sense of home. He thought of these steps. Where he had first discovered that Gargarin was his father. The cells where he had found out for certain that Lirah was his mother. Each flight he climbed was a memory, and the closer he got to the top, the more hurried his steps became. Because he had missed them all with an ache that had never gone away, and he was desperate to s
ee them. That was it, he convinced himself. Just one glance at them all. The higher he climbed, the less noise he heard, and by the time he reached the Hall of Illumination, the godshouse had returned to its quiet self.
Inside the room, he could see through the windows out onto the Citavita, and from the balconette out onto the palace.
Arjuro sat at a long bench, head bent over his books; plants and stems spread across the space before him. Froi caught his breath.
“If you’re here about the Jidian invitation, tell them I’d rather swive a goat,” Arjuro murmured, not looking up.
Froi stepped closer.
“Must I, blessed Arjuro?”
Arjuro looked up in shock.
Froi grinned. “For those of us at the godshouse are well known for swiving goats, and I’d prefer not to give them weapons of ridicule.”
Arjuro stood and grabbed Froi into an embrace, his arms trembling. Froi pushed him away, unable to get rid of the grin on his face.
“Sentimental, Arjuro? You of all people.”
Arjuro studied his face. “Me of all people can be as sentimental as he pleases.”
And then he was taking Froi’s hand, leading him to the steps of the roof garden.
“Lirah,” Arjuro called out. “Come down and greet our guest.”
Froi caught his breath again.
“If it’s about the Jidian invitation, I said no,” she shouted back.
“The Jidian provincara’s in town, I’m supposing,” Froi said quietly.
“They’re all coming to town,” Arjuro said with a grimace. “And everyone wants to visit the godshouse.”
Froi nodded, and suddenly he understood. It’s what Mort and Florik stopped the lad from saying outside the inn.
“They’re here for her betrothment?” Froi asked.
Arjuro nodded. “Five days from now, they decide who he is.”
“Lirah!” Arjuro bellowed again. He pointed up, rolling his eyes. “They say the ambassador of Nebia’s wife has taken over Lirah’s roof garden in the palace.”