“Don’t you want to join them?” Excited flutters danced in Jahna’s belly. Did he prefer to keep her company instead?
He tucked her arm in his and set a leisurely stroll in the opposite direction. “For the past three years, your brother has spent nearly all of his time with me. I think it a good thing if I make myself scarce this one night so that father and son might celebrate this victory together without me.”
“Very perceptive of you, sir.” Jahna was even more glad now that she declined to accompany them. Her stomach transformed itself into a trapped butterfly, wings beating frantically against her abdomen when Radimar raised her hand to his lips and dropped a light kiss on her knuckles.
“Besides,” he said. “I’m a little tired of looking at Sodrin’s face, handsome as it is. I’d rather spend time with his lovely sister and maybe convince her that a dance or two with me in the forgotten garden is a good idea, especially since she still refuses to dance with others.”
Had she wings, she would have flown at that moment from pure joy. Instead, she adopted what she hoped was a friendly but poised expression. “Promise not to step on my feet?” As agile as he was, the chance of that happening was almost non-existent, but she couldn’t resist teasing him.
He gave a mock sigh of frustration. “You ask much of me, Lady Uhlfrida.”
The forgotten garden grew ever more weedy and wild each year. The square of space where the verge still held some vague hint of an orderly pattern had shrunk considerably. Fortunately, a level blanket of snow covered the tangle of dead vines and runners that normally choked the garden’s paths, leaving it a pristine expanse of white.
Radimar hummed in accompaniment to the distant music as he clasped Jahna’s hand to lead her through the steps. Jahna’s insides trembled at the soft look in his eyes, the way his gaze never wavered from her as they circled each other, leaving prints in the snow. His body brushed close against her with each twirl, teasing her senses with the perfumes of woodsmoke and incense and hints of strength hidden under layers of wool.
Her heart beat so hard in her chest, she feared it might break free, and she groped frantically for something to say that would restore her equilibrium. “Sodrin has made our father a happy man thanks to you.”
A small frown line appeared between Radimar’s eyebrows before it smoothed away. He continued to sweep her along with the music’s rhythm. “You give me undeserved credit. Your brother has trained hard these three years, especially this last year. He’s learned many skills to help him win.”
“Like how to listen?”
She loved his thin-lipped smile. “The most useful skill of all.”
“He still couldn’t have done without your teachings. Trained by an Ilinfan swordmaster, he’s proven his ability. The king will likely want him in his personal guard now. A true honor.”
He swept behind her, only to pivot until he stood beside her, his feet moving in time with hers. “How does your father feel about that? Both of you leaving Hollowfell to live here in the capital?”
She had wondered the same thing at first until Uhlfrida assured her it just gave him an excuse to visit more often. “He’ll miss us, but he’s ambitious and very aware of our standing and status. Sodrin in the royal guard would only help the family name.” A sudden thought occurred to her, and she frowned a little. “Don’t you have one more year with us to teach him? What will you and Father do so that Sodrin may continue to train with you?”
The excited flutters in her stomach turned to anxious ones when Radimar halted their dance and faced her. The somber cast to his features alarmed her.
“There aren’t any plans, Jahna. I received a message two days ago from Ilinfan. The leader of the Brotherhood, the Ghan, is on his deathbed. All swordmasters have been recalled and are to return to Ilinfan as soon as possible. Our students will be reassigned as the teachers take new places within the Brotherhood. I would have already left by now were it not for the Exhibition.”
Her throat was so tight, it hurt to speak, and her eyes stung with the threat of tears. “You can’t just come back to us when all has settled at Ilinfan? Sodrin is used to your methods.”
He shook his head, and she didn’t imagine the regret darkening his eyes. “It doesn’t work that way, my lady.”
They gazed at each in silence until Jahna could force more words past the constriction in her throat. “We’ll miss you. You’ve been a part of our family for three years now.”
His hard face softened with an unspoken regret. “And you, Sodrin and your father have made me feel welcomed in your home. I will think of Hollowfell and all of you often.” He captured her hand once more, fingers laced with his as he drew her into another dance. “Come, Jahna. No sadness here. We will dance as we have before in the garden no one remembers and carry with us this moment when we’re far from each other.”
For all that Radimar spoke the words as ones of reassurance, they sounded like those of a lover. Jahna inwardly chastised herself for such silly, fanciful thoughts, forced down her tears and pasted on a smile for his sake, and if she was honest with herself, hers as well. The expression might make her face ache with its insincerity, but at least she wouldn’t break down with sobs.
The faint strains of music changed tempo, slowing, and the two of them slowed with it. The silence, thick with unspoken sentiments, settled between them, and for one fleeting moment, Radimar’s hands settled on her back to draw her closer to him. Just as quickly he pulled away, and his movements lost their fluidity, as if something invisible now stood between them, solid as a stone wall and just as impenetrable.
At the end of the tune, Radimar stepped back, his face shuttered, eyes half closed to hide any telltale emotion there. His bow to Jahna was both formal and stiff. “Come, my lady. I think it best if we rejoin the others.”
She almost begged him to stay—stay in the garden, stay at Hollowfell, but she held her tongue and only nodded. The world outside the garden gates seemed a strange and desolate place to her, despite the laughter and revelry. They didn’t speak as he guided her through the crowd that swirled around them.
Sodrin found them near one of the blessing trees where people hung or tied bits of cloth, dried flowers, and handmade beads as small tributes to the gods of winter. Those deities who held sway through the dark cold would reach the pinnacle of their power the following night before giving way to the gods of spring. The snows would linger, but the nights would shorten as the sun grew in its power once more.
“There you are.” Sodrin wove toward them, a tipsy smile plastered across his slack features. His words slurred a little, and Radimar steadied him with a hand on his elbow as he listed sideways. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. There’s ale and wine to drink and beautiful women to woo.” He waved a clumsy hand at Jahna. “You’re welcome to join us too, Jahna.”
The strong fumes of someone’s home brew wafting off him made her wrinkle her nose. “I don’t think so, and since when did you learn how to properly woo a woman?”
He patted Radimar’s shoulder before leaning on it for support. “Sir Radimar here teaches other things besides sword fighting.”
Her eyebrows rose. Did he? A flare of jealousy burned itself out in her chest. He was a circumspect man, private and reserved. Whatever relationships he sought or nurtured during his stay at Hollowfell never became the subject of village or estate gossip, and Jahna was glad for it. She really didn’t want to know what lucky woman managed to inspire his affections.
Radimar propped Sodrin up a little straighter. “Already deep into your cups, aren’t you?” Sodrin hiccuped in answer, and the swordmaster sighed. “Come on. We’ll take a walk.” He gave Jahna an apologetic look. “Jahna, can you find your father and let him know your brother is with me and will be courting a soft pillow very soon?”
“Of course, and good luck.” She winced as they staggered toward the palace, Sodrin singing a bawdy song at the top of his lungs and begging Radimar to join him. She hoped he had left th
eir father in a more sober state.
She found Uhlfrida in the great hall, amidst the clamor of good-natured argument with a circle of his friends. He raised his goblet to Jahna when he saw her and motioned for her to join him. He guided her to a spot at the hall’s perimeter where fewer people stood, and they didn’t have to shout to be heard.
“I didn’t expect to see you until morning, Jahna,” he said.
She set aside Radimar’s message for a moment. “Father, did you know Sir Radimar was leaving us?”
His cheerful visage sombered and he nodded. “I did. He came to me as soon as he received the message from Ilinfan. He asked me to wait in sharing the news because he didn’t want Sodrin distracted before the Exhibition.”
“You could have told me.” Whether or not he did wasn’t truly important and wouldn’t change a thing, but Jahna felt somehow betrayed by both Uhlfrida’s and Radimar’s silence.
He eyed her a long time, a myriad of puzzling emotions flashing across his features, including some unnamed revelation that sharpened his gaze as he continued to stare at her. “I intended to tell you both together. How did you find out?”
“Sir Radimar told me, after you took Sodrin to celebrate.”
“Then Sodrin doesn’t know yet?
“No.” Even if Radimar told him tonight, she doubted Sodrin would remember by morning. “Sir Radimar is with him now. Sodrin is so drunk, he can hardly stand. They’ve gone to our chambers so he can sleep it off. I was sent to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”
Uhlfrida patted her hand. “I’m glad you found me. Sodrin will pay for that overindulgence tomorrow. I warned him to slow down on the ale and wine. I’ll be up soon to check on him. Are you going there as well?”
Jahna doubted she’d find any sleep tonight, and the rest of the evening’s festivities didn’t hold any interest for her, especially now with the knowledge of Radimar’s upcoming departure. “Dame Stalt left a scroll in one of the Archives’ repositories. It describes the fading of the Gullperi from the world. She thought I might enjoy it. I’ll stop there first to pick it up before joining Sodrin. I suspect I’ll find him him either asleep or hunched over a basin tossing up the contents of his stomach.”
She went on tiptoe to kiss her father’s cheek and bid him goodnight. She headed for the door, stopping when he called her name. An inscrutable look had settled over Uhlfrida’s face. “Jahna, it may not seem so, but it’s probably a good thing that Radimar is returning to Ilinfan now.”
Good for whom, Father? She wanted to ask him but stayed silent, only nodding before turning away to escape the hall with its roar of noise and sea of people.
Except for a few scribes who greeted her with a wave or quick “Happy Delyalda, Lady Uhlfrida,” the Archives were deserted. Jahna found the scroll Dame Stalt had left for her on one of the writing tables, a card bearing her name tied to a ribbon that held the scroll shut. It was a heavy thing, promising several hours of reading that Jahna hoped would either engross her in its contents or help her fall asleep so she didn’t succumb to the sadness purling just under the surface of her serene demeanor.
The palace corridors were almost as quiet as the Archives except for the strains of music drifting through the cloisters’ open archways from the bailey below. Jahna had almost reached the doors to their chambers when she found herself suddenly blocked and cast back to three years earlier and the terror of the hunt when she was the prey.
Evaline Lacramor stood in the hallway, flanked by Nadel, Tefila and three others Jahna didn’t recognize—all women except for one man who seemed puzzled as to why they all decided to stop here. They spanned the hall’s width, cutting off Jahna’s access to her rooms and the safety they offered.
Still pretty, still petty, still driven by some strange need to seek out Jahna simply for the pleasure of tormenting her, Evaline took a few steps closer and eyed Jahna as if she were some particularly gruesome specimen someone had unearthed from a forgotten midden.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Fireface, roaming about the palace all alone.” The cruel smile blossoming across her full lips diminished her beauty. “Searching for something, Jahna? Lose your friends?” She tilted her head to one side and tittered. “Oh wait. You don’t have any.” Her brittle trill of laughter was echoed by the other women. The man, recognizing he was clearly out of his element, looked even more baffled.
“Too busy writing on parchment all day with those shriveled up prunes in the Archives,” Nadel added.
Evaline’s lip curled, her disdain obvious. “They’re probably the only ones who can stand to look at her.” Her eyes narrowed at her quarry’s continued silence and impassive face.
Three years ago, Jahna had huddled in terror within the shadows of an alcove, praying she’d remain invisible to those who tracked her. Things were different now. She was different. Evaline seemed far less monstrous to her and far more petty, a shallow creature made of sharp-edged sparkle and little substance, and Jahna had no patience for her.
She strode forward, straight through their little group. Their surprise at her forceful action was no less than hers when they parted to let her through. A tiny part of her cheered. This might end without trouble.
That spark of hope died a quick death when Evaline’s hand wrapped around her arm, sharp nails digging into her sleeve. Her voice was the hiss of a viper that snaked through the corridor and scraped across Jahna’s ear. “Don’t you walk away from me, you haughty cunt! I’m talking to you.”
“I will teach you how to save yourself.” Radimar’s declaration when she first met him, echoed in Jahna’s mind, and something inside her snapped.
She pivoted so fast, the movement jerked Evaline forward before she lost her grip on Jahna’s arm. Jahna’s hand swung up, then down again, striking Evaline so hard across the face, it slammed her into the adjacent wall. She ricocheted off the stone and fell, clutching the side of her face with one hand while screeching in pain. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, and both her cheek and bottom lip were already swelling. She scuttled back on her haunches with a shriek when Jahna advanced a step toward her. Evaline’s cadre of lickspittles did nothing to help, their own faces open-mouthed with shock and a new fear.
“Don’t touch me. Ever.” Jahna warned her fallen tormenter in a voice she hardly recognized as hers. She raised the scroll as if it were a club. “Anyone else?” As one, the rest took several steps back. Jahna pinned them all with her gaze before settling back on the cowering Evaline who had stopped screeching when she realized no one was leaping to her defense.
“I owe no one an apology for my appearance, least of all you and your toadies. You don’t like it?” Jahna shrugged. “I don’t care. Go look at something else. Come near me again, and I’ll make sure the next time you won’t be able to stand up, even with help.”
The first rush of bracing fury was fading, and Jahna’s calves flexed with the urge to sprint to the chamber doors so very close and oh so far away, but she didn’t dare turn her back. The voice that spoke behind her her couldn’t have been more welcome.
“Is there a problem here?” Radimar’s green gaze swept Jahna from head to toe first before turning to Evaline and her group, who finally decided to help her off the floor. “Something I need to take to Lord Uhlfrida and Lord Lacramor?” he continued. “I have excellent sight and even better hearing, but there might be a detail or two I missed, and you’re all more than welcome to accompany me to fill in the gaps when we tell our version of events.”
Whether it was the scroll Jahna still held like a mace or Radimar’s implacable expression, none of Evaline’s followers put up a protest or accepted Radimar’s offer. They backed away slowly before turning to scurry back the way they came, Nadel and Tefila dragging a slumped Evaline along with them.
“You should have called for help, Jahna.”
She dragged her gaze away from the fleeing group to find Radimar scowling at her. “Who would hear me? You heard Evaline screeching there. No one came to s
ee what all that racket was about.” She looked past him to the hallway from which he appeared. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“I wasn’t until right before you landed that blow on…”
“Evaline.” He always managed to coax at least a lip twitch from her with his purposeful absentmindedness regarding Evaline’s name.
“The whelp’s face,” he continued. “That wasn’t the wisest decision to face her down with you outnumbered six to one and no help in sight.” He paused. “Though I believe you managed to shift the balance of power permanently in your favor.”
Jahna wasn’t so sure, and in the aftermath of that rush of fury which had buoyed her courage, shivers began a slow ratchet down her spine and up her arms. “She’ll probably be out for revenge.” Her hand throbbed, a reminder of just how hard she’d struck her enemy.
Radimar’s assessing gaze lingered on her face. “Maybe, maybe not. That type is usually cowardly. Their best skill is sniffing out an easy target. You’ve just proven you are no longer one of those targets. I suspect she’ll avoid you in the future. Once you feared her. Now she fears you.”
There was a certain cold comfort to the idea, and Jahna pushed it to the back of her mind to take out and analyze later when she was alone and more contemplative. She reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear and hissed at the pain that sizzled down her fingers.
Pale ribbons of dried blood streaked her knuckles, and the middle one was starting to swell a little. Either her blow was harder than she thought or Evaline possessed one very sturdy cheekbone.
Radimar caught her palm in his in a gentle clasp. “Let me see.” He turned her palm this way and that, his own callused fingers sliding lightly over hers. “Nothing broken. Just some bruising. The whelp, on the other hand, will look a little worse for wear by morning. You probably knocked a few of her teeth loose.”
Jahna had never considered herself either temperamental or violent before. She suffered remorse over killing a spider, but somehow that ready guilt refused to surface to plague her when she recalled the image of Evaline’s shock as Jahna’s hand connected with her cheek. “I’m not sorry if I did,” she said. Some small remnant of that white-hot anger flared to life. “In fact I wish I’d hit her harder.”