Lucian turned to Lady Beatriss. “Maybe she woke up feeling lost and is trying to make her way home?”
Lady Beatriss shook her head, and he could see she was holding back tears.
“There is an explanation, Lady Beatriss. You know that. It’s what Trevanion would tell you if he were here.”
All morning, Vestie’s name rang throughout the mountain. Every cottage was searched, every footstep traced, every shrine to the goddess filled with garlands. Lucian knew of Vestie’s gift for walking the sleep, but he had never known anyone to become so lost in the dream that it took them from their bed.
And then, midmorning, Jory returned, his face pale, clutching a mitten in his hand. Lady Beatriss took it and held it to her face, weeping.
“She has to be in the valley, Lucian,” Jory said. “It’s the only explanation.”
Lucian caught his breath. It had been weeks since Phaedra’s death, and he had only made the journey to the valley twice. At night, in a panic, he would wake up afraid that he had abandoned Phaedra’s companions to the mercy of the cutthroat camp leader, Donashe, and his men. No matter how many times he reminded himself that the valley dwellers were not his people, Lucian felt a fierce sense of guilt.
“We should have had our sentinels down in the valley,” Tesadora said, her voice blunt and accusing.
“But we don’t,” Lucian argued. He had used the threat of the plague as a reason to stop sending down the lads, but he knew there was no such danger anymore. He looked around at those waiting for the next order. “Lady Beatriss, you wait —”
“Don’t ask me to do that, Lucian. I’m coming with you.”
He didn’t even attempt to instruct Tesadora. She was coming down to the valley whether Lucian liked it or not.
“Yata.” He sighed. “Go back to the house, in case Vestie returns. Jory and Yael, come with me. Everyone else, stay.”
When they reached the bottom of the mountain, Lucian did what he always did: asked his father for guidance. What would Saro do? Cross the stream and accuse the Charynites of taking a Lumateran child, after all the valley dwellers had endured with the death of five of their women and the slaughter of Rafuel’s men? Would Lucian ask for help from the murderous camp leaders, or would he accuse them of taking Vestie? Could he trust Rafuel, who now seemed a stranger to them? At the campsite on the Lumateran side of the valley where Tesadora had once camped with her girls, he dared to look through the trees in the hope of catching a glimpse of his wife crossing the stream.
That’s why you haven’t returned here, Lucian. Because you see her everywhere.
“Jory, you cross the stream and see what you can find out. They’ll trust you. Remember, no accusations. I don’t care what the camp leaders say — we cannot have Kasabian and the others thinking we believe that they hurt one of our own.
“Yael, you watch Jory from one of the trees and holler for me the moment there’s trouble. Lady Beatriss, Tesadora and I will continue down this side of the stream and see what we can find. We’ll meet you back here.”
As they traveled farther downstream, he could see Phaedra’s people in their caves through the copse of trees.
“She would never have come this far,” Beatriss said when they were deep within the woods. “Perhaps . . . perhaps she tried to cross the stream. The ice is beginning to melt on the mountain, and the force of it could have carried her away.”
“Beatriss,” Tesadora said firmly, “she swims better than any child we know.”
Lucian doubted greatly that Vestie had been swept away by the stream. Lucian knew that teaching Vestie to swim was the first thing Trevanion had done for Lady Beatriss and the child she bore during the curse, when they were reunited three years past. It had created a bond between the captain and his former lover’s child. Today, they were a family, and the union had been one of the most joyous occasions for Lumaterans.
Suddenly he saw a movement, heard the snap of a twig and the rustle of leaves and the strangest of giggles.
“Vestie!” he called out, racing toward the sound. Beatriss and Tesadora were with him, calling out her name. “Vestie!”
But there was nothing. They stood a moment to listen, hearing only the sound of a bird mocking. Then he saw the movement again and Lucian was running, leaping over half-fallen limbs, avoiding the tree shoots that caught at his ankle.
“Vestie!”
“Vestie!”
“Vestie, my love!”
Lucian continued his pursuit until he heard the sound of heavy breath, rasping for air. But it was not the breathing of a child. He stopped and held up a hand to Tesadora, who appeared close behind.
“Vestie, it’s Lucian! Are you hiding?”
Beatriss entered the clearing, and Tesadora placed a finger to her lips.
“I’ll not be angry,” Lucian said. “I promise, Vestie darlin’.”
He knew she was close, but not alone, and that alarmed Lucian more than he cared to admit. He took a step closer, and there he saw them. Huddled in the hollow of a tree trunk. A girl with crazed eyes held a hand over Vestie’s mouth. A bloody dagger was clasped in her other hand.
He heard Beatriss’s cry behind him, and he saw Vestie look up, startled to see them all. Startled, but not frightened. Beatriss rushed forward, but the strange girl snarled, and Lucian gripped Beatriss’s hand and dragged her gently behind him.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Beatriss begged the girl. “Please.”
Lucian moved toward the girl, a hand at the scabbard of his sword. He knew with certainty that he would slice this wretch’s hand clear off her body if she didn’t let go of Vestie at his command.
“Vestie, step away from her,” he ordered gently. Vestie stared at the sword and suddenly began to weep, confused. Was she waking from walking in her sleep? He moved closer and the most savage of sounds came from the girl, and she held the dagger out before her, waving it in Lucian’s face. He retrieved his sword from its scabbard slowly, not once losing eye contact with her.
“Lucian, come back,” Tesadora ordered. “You’re scaring them.”
But Lucian refused, and when he almost reached them, the savage girl clenched her teeth, dragging Vestie deeper into the hollow of the tree.
“Lucian, please stop,” Beatriss cried. “She’ll hurt her.”
Lucian shook his head, refusing to move away.
“Do not let me have to explain to Trevanion why I put my sword down while someone held a dagger to his daughter.”
Tesadora walked before him. His hand caught her arm to pull her backward, but she shrugged free.
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, her eyes fastened on the girl, who stared, almost transfixed. When Tesadora was only a step away from Vestie and the girl, Lucian heard a bloodcurdling snarl, but suddenly Tesadora’s hand snaked out and gripped the girl’s face.
“Oh, you savage beauty,” Tesadora said. “Where did you come from?”
Lucian wondered if Tesadora was bewitched. The girl stared, confused. Tesadora repeated the words in Charyn.
“We won’t hurt her,” Tesadora said, reaching out for Vestie.
Vestie gripped the girl’s hand that was pressed over her mouth and removed it. Lucian expected a scream, but instead Vestie leaned forward and whispered into the stranger’s ear.
The mad girl peered over Tesadora’s shoulder to where Beatriss stood with Lucian.
“I just want to hear the little person speak again,” the savage girl said coldly in Charyn. “I want to hear her voice.”
“We need to take her home,” Tesadora explained gently. “She’ll be safe. You must get back to your people in the valley.”
The girl shook her head emphatically.
“Tell no one, Serker Eyes,” she whispered. “Or else they’ll kill us all.”
Small crooked teeth showed through a snarl. Before anyone could speak another word, the girl scrambled to her feet and tore off. Lucian quickly gathered Vestie in his arms, his eyes meeting Tesadora’s.
r /> “What,” he asked, “was that?”
Later, when Vestie was being bathed by Beatriss and the women, they found not a single mark on her body. She had recovered quickly from her ordeal.
“Who was she, Vestie?” Lady Beatriss asked as Yata wrapped the little girl up in a blanket while Lucian’s aunts fussed.
“I don’t know. I think I walked and slept, Mama, and then I was in the woods crying and I saw her. It was as though I knew she’d be there. And I said, ‘Hello there. Hello there, I say.’ And she looked so frightened. It was just like that time we first met the valley dwellers and they stared at us in such a fashion.”
“They’re not used to seeing little girls,” Yata said.
“I spoke again and said, ‘My name is Vestie,’ and she wept and wept and she spoke in that funny way the camp dwellers speak.”
Vestie turned to Tesadora. “I want to learn, Tesadora. I want to speak just like them. I only know one word. It means friend. I said it in her ear. ‘Sora. Sora. Sora.’”
Tesadora chuckled and gathered Vestie to her.
“And who taught you this Charynite word for friend?”
“Phaedra of Alonso did. She said it was the prettiest word in Charyn.”
And Lucian ached to hear those words.
Vestie looked up at Lady Beatriss. “That time we crossed the stream together with you, Mama. Remember? Phaedra said not to be afraid because the camp dwellers only wanted to be my friend. My sora. I want to learn more.”
“I’ll teach you, Vestie,” Jory said from the entrance of the room, anger lacing his voice. “So that when you see her again you can tell the witch we’ll tear her limb —”
“Jory!” Lucian warned, while Beatriss covered Vestie’s ears. Jory looked away, shamefaced.
“Go out to the lads,” Lucian ordered, shoving his young cousin forward. “And calm them down. There will be no repeat of raids into the valley.”
“Not their side of the valley, Lucian,” Jory said. “Ours. She wasn’t a valley dweller. You said so yourself.”
“Go.”
Jory left, a stubborn set to his jaw.
“We’ll get supper started,” Yata said, following the aunts out of the room. Lucian bobbed down to Vestie’s height.
“Can you remember anything else, Vestie?” Lucian asked.
“Every time I spoke, she’d weep and weep with joy.”
“She liked your voice,” Beatriss said quietly.
“But whose blood was it?” Lucian asked. “It was the first thing we saw, and it frightened us all.”
Vestie laughed with glee. “She taught me to slaughter a hare.”
Vestie twisted her hands together as if breaking the neck of an animal and made the most gods-awful sound. “I’m going to show Father.”
“Yes, Father will be overjoyed to hear all about this when he returns,” Beatriss murmured, catching Lucian’s eye.
“We caught three,” Vestie exclaimed. “We caught them together.”
“You did not,” Lucian mocked, desperate to know more about their savage neighbor.
“I did, too,” she said indignantly. “Can I play with her again?”
“No, my love,” Beatriss said. “We’re going home to Fenton in a few days. You’ve given us quite a scare.”
“I told her about Millie and how I left her behind in my bed.”
Lucian was confused. “Millie?”
“Her doll,” Beatriss said. “I’ll go get her.” She pressed a kiss to her daughter’s brow. “Don’t do this to Mama again, Vestie. You scared me today.”
When Beatriss left the room, Vestie turned to Tesadora.
“Why can’t I take her home with us, Tesadora?”
“We know nothing about her, minx,” Tesadora said, picking her up and swinging her around. “We don’t even know her name.”
“I think I do,” Vestie said, indignant. “She’s just like Isaboe, you know. Just like her.”
“She’s nothing like Isaboe,” Lucian said.
Tesadora looked up at him. “How about you calm down the lads . . . and Vestie can tell me everything she knows about her new friend in the valley?”
I come close to our cave with hands drenched in hare’s blood. If they feast on fresh game for the first time in weeks, perhaps things may change and their hearts will be open. But the women are speaking, they’re fighting, they’re weeping, Froi. Their stone-hearted claws scratch at me whole. Though their voices are hushed, they scream with such hate. I hear them speak words, “We’ll kill in her sleep.” The little king kicks, a beat of great fear, and he begs me to run from these wretches of malice. The Mont’s wife, she sees me, her face speaks of shame, and the hares in my hand are hurled in my fury.
And I run and I run, and I think of the girl child, the one they call Visti, and the trust in her eyes. I think of her voice, so much like Regina, my sister beloved who’s left me behind. But Froi, have you joined her at the lake of the half dead? I fear that you have and she’s not sent you back. The last time I saw you, eight arrows were piercing. You couldn’t have lived; the gods aren’t that kind.
And I hide in the thistles that tear at my skin, but finally I see her, the white-headed Serker. She knows I am out here but pretends she’s not looking. I know she is looking and pretend it’s a game. And finally I’m closer and I grip at her strange hair, the white of its strands a shroud around my fist. And my blood beats a dance because I’ve found it a kindred. So I vow to return and my smile aches my face. I know her: Tesadora. Will she love me regardless?
She knows me, she knows me, but does not turn away.
Phaedra of Alonso was running. Stumbling over an upturned stone once, twice. Praying with all her being for a glimpse of their strange princess. Up in the distance the whistle of the wind sang to her from the mountain. From Lucian’s mountain. It beckoned and taunted, and she wanted to run toward it. To be enveloped in its coat of fleece and to hear its safe sounds.
And then she saw Quintana of Charyn and she stopped, almost crumbling from relief and fatigue and fear. It left room for anger, and Phaedra didn’t realize until that moment how much she disliked Princess Abomination for what she had brought into their lives.
“Your Highness,” she said quietly, fearful that Donashe and his men would travel downstream and cross their path. Despite the distance from both the camp and the road to her father’s province, there was always a chance that someone would stray and discover their secret. From what Rafuel had told them, the one time he had managed to slip away since their “deaths,” the Monts were no longer acting as sentinels on the Lumateran side of the stream. So there was nothing to stop Donashe and his murderers from hunting in the woodlands and crossing the stream to where Phaedra and the women hid. Worse still, Rafuel had advised that one of Donashe’s men was feeling threatened by Rafuel’s presence around his leader. The man followed Rafuel’s and Donashe’s every move, which had made it difficult for Rafuel to slip away. So here Phaedra and the women were, a mile downstream from the Charynite valley dwellers, not knowing what was happening to their people upstream except that Phaedra’s father had stopped sending grain from Alonso.
Despite Phaedra’s warnings to stay put, the Princess crossed the stream most days. It was as if she was drawn to the Lumateran side with its gullies and tall tree canopies. The girl had a tendency to disappear for hours upon end, which unnerved them all. And then they’d be unnerved again by her return.
Phaedra didn’t know what was worse. Quintana of Charyn’s absence or presence. This afternoon’s behavior was quite dramatic: she had tossed one of the hares at Florenza and run off like a wild savage.
“Her father’s daughter,” Jorja had muttered. Jorja and her husband, Harker, despised the dead king more than anyone Phaedra had ever met, except for the Lumaterans.
Phaedra caught up with the princess near a moss-covered stone.
“You can’t wander away, Your Highness.” Phaedra used a brisk tone, despite the fact that she was speaking to
the daughter of a king. “We must keep to the cave. We’ve been beside ourselves with worry.”
The stare that met hers was hard and cold. Cora and the other women believed an entity inhabited Quintana of Charyn, and that deep inside, she was not quite human. It made Phaedra despair even more. What hope did Charyn have if this creature carried the first?
“I’m the queen, Phaedra of Alonso. Did I not mention that?”
Oh, you’ve mentioned it many, many times, Phaedra wanted to say. Once with a hand around Jorja’s neck, squeezing tight because Jorja had dared to question what type of authority the princess had now that the king was dead.
“And I’m not going back,” announced the princess or queen or whoever she wanted to be. “They’ll kill me in my sleep. I heard them say.”
Phaedra sighed. “They said no such thing, Your Majesty.”
And there was the ice-cold stare again.
“I heard the words,” Quintana said with a curl to her lip that spoke of a threat. “Are you calling me a liar, Phaedra of Alonso?”
Phaedra hesitated, choosing her next words wisely. “You frighten them,” she finally said. “You snarl and rage and sometimes we believe that our sacrifice was for nothing. ‘She’ll kill us in our sleep.’ That’s what you heard. Their fear is that you will kill us all.”
With as much courage as she could muster, Phaedra walked to the princess, pulled her to her feet, and dragged her along in much the same way she had seen a Mont mother drag her protesting boy toward the bathhouse. She was sick and tired of being the one to keep the peace among the women. It was about time everyone else did their duty. When they reached the stream, Phaedra tore a strip from Quintana’s dress and soaked it in the water, then cleaned the girl’s bloodied hands and face with it. If Quintana of Charyn knew anything, it was how to hunt. A frightening thought in itself, but Phaedra had to admit that the hares had filled their empty stomachs for the first time in days. And there was the satisfaction of seeing one of the hares lobbed at Florenza’s nose. Jorja believed that she and her precious daughter were above everyone else, despite their journey through the sewers. “She was the most sought-after girl in our province,” Jorja had boasted just the night before.