Sword and Verse (18 page)

Well, I was, wasn't I?

We finished dinner and lit the candles for evening invocations, and Laiyonea left soon after. I lit the lamp in my room, then checked on Jera.

She had kicked off the blanket, and lay curled up on her side, her mouth hanging open and her fine dark hair tangled on the pillow. I tucked the blanket in around her, then gathered those of my things that the servants hadn't already moved and slipped back into my new room.

Mati was waiting by the outer door.

That night, Sotia crept back to the valley while Gyotia's Lamp was veiled. She took the tablet from Belic and appeared to Iano. “Share this knowledge with all your people,” she told him, “and find wisdom in the sharing.”

Iano bowed low in gratitude. “I shall speak to my brother and help him understand your will, great one,” he said.

“I advise you to proceed carefully,” replied Sotia. “For I, too, have a brother.”

I STOPPED SHORT,
and two small boxes of hairpins and ties tumbled from the stack in my arms, spilling open on the rug. I followed Mati's gaze to the floor. My face grew hot when I saw the stone he had given me lying amid the jumble.

A crease appeared between his brows. Silently I went to the dressing table and deposited my load, then bent and gathered up the hairpins and ties and the stone, and shoved them back into the boxes. I took my time setting the boxes in place, to put off the moment when I'd have to face him.

Finally I turned around. Mati hadn't moved. The memory of the last time we'd been alone hung in the air between us.

“So,” Mati said at last, “are you going to tell me why I lied for you today?”

Of course—why else did I think he had come?

“I told you I wanted to find girls in bad situations,” I said. “All I can say is . . . it had to be Jera.”

He nodded slowly. The six feet between us felt like an uncrossable ocean.

He reached into his pocket and held something out to me—the burned and blackened ox bone from the ceremony. “I thought you'd want to destroy it,” he said, turning it over. The original lines had split again and again in the heat of the flames, but I could still see the triangles if I looked hard. When I made no move to take it, Mati laid the bone on the bed.

“That's twice in two days that I owe you thanks,” I said. “I am sorry if I've . . . caused difficulties for you, Your Majesty.”

He took three steps toward me, bridging half the distance, and held up a hand. “Don't . . . do that, please. I can't stand it, not from you.”

I stared at him. “I haven't forgotten who you are, or who I am.”

Mati groaned and sank onto the bed, his head in his hands. “But that's just it,” he said, his voice muffled. “I have. Forgotten who I am, that is.” He looked up, searching my face. “I was an ass yesterday. I . . . I'm not myself without you. I'm sorry. For . . . everything. Maybe you can't believe that, but it's the truth.”

I had to look away. “I can believe it,” I said softly. It had been so easy to storm out the day before, when his face had been haughty and so utterly foreign to me. But now my own sweet Mati was looking up at me, his expression begging me to forgive him, and my heart's desire to do so warred with the knowledge of the
lies I had told him. If he knew the truth about why I'd been in the scribe rooms, would he still be here?

Does it matter?
whispered my heart.
He's here now.

“You don't know how often I've stood out in that hallway,” said Mati. He studied his hands. “But I thought you wouldn't want to hear it.” He sighed. “I shouldn't have come. This only makes it harder. I miss you, Raisa, more than you can imagine. I just . . . thought you ought to know that.”

He pressed his hands down on the bed next to him and began to rise. Within an instant, I was beside him, my hand on his shoulder. My heart, so long tamped down, would not allow me to let him leave.

Mati took in my expression, and a moment later I was in his arms. His kisses washed over me like floodwater over parched earth. I clutched him helplessly, tears falling down my face and mingling with his as he whispered my name.

A small voice in the back of my mind warned of all the reasons why this was wrong, but it was quickly drowned out in the roar of emotion and desire, and the pounding of my long-denied heart. The kisses grew more insistent; our hands wandered, relearning each other's bodies. There were no more apologies, no explanations, only whispered words of love as we fell onto the bed and fell back into each other's hearts.

A sound made me look up from the letter, my quill suspended over the page. I sat at the desk in the Library of the Gods, and a dark-haired woman with a heart-shaped face stood nearby, one hand on the huge wooden case that housed the tablet of the gods.
She was sobbing. I looked around, bewildered, wondering how she'd slipped into the Library without me knowing it.

I opened my mouth to speak to her, but no words came out. I looked back down at the letter. Ink had spilled over the parchment, blotting out the symbols. Only one—
traitor—
was visible, still shining wet and dark.

I sighed and crumpled the paper in my hand; ink streamed like blood from my fist. Dropping the quill, I tossed the ruined letter into the firepit, where it flared with a dull orange glow. I stood and wiped my hands on my dress; they left long reddish-brown stains.

Distant laughter echoed. I started as a panel between the statues of Qora and Lanea opened. A young woman and man spilled into the room, giggling and holding hands.

The woman by the tablet noticed me for the first time. She nodded toward the young couple, smiling fondly, and pressed a finger to her lips. They had paused for a kiss, and the young man reached behind the young woman to free her hair from its braid. It shone, reddish and wavy, in the firelight, as he sighed and ran his fingers through it.

The young woman whispered something that I couldn't hear, and he lifted his lips from her neck and grinned. He took her hand and pulled her toward the couch. I caught a glimpse of an unadorned beige stone, irregular in shape, swinging from a thong around the young woman's neck.

The woman by the tablet case stared at the couple, her hands in fists at her sides, a mixture of longing and sad determination on her face.

As they passed the tablet case, the young woman paused—obviously not seeing me or the other woman at all—and her free hand touched the stone around her neck, her head tilted as if she'd heard some distant music and was trying to make out the tune. The young man spoke to her, and she tore her eyes away from the case, melting into his embrace.

The woman beside me sighed sadly. “It is all I can do,” she murmured. “Never enough.”

I woke slowly, with the sense that there was something important I was supposed to remember, but it fled as soon as my eyes opened. I blinked, taking in the unfamiliar angles of morning light in the room. When I recalled where I was and what had happened the night before, I sat up straight in bed.

I was alone, I registered with disappointment and relief. But on the pillow beside me lay the stone on its thong. I turned it over, tracing the faded carved lines. It was a question, I realized, like the one I'd carved in the bone. I could put it away, or destroy it—or I could wear it, as I had before. No one else would know what it meant, but Mati would. If I chose not to wear it, I knew he wouldn't seek me out again. He was giving the choice to me.

Only it wasn't a choice any longer. My heart had made its decision last night. Going back to being without Mati was simply too painful to contemplate. I was not foolish enough to think that the situation had changed; Mati would still marry Soraya Gamo in fifty-eight days. But
I
had changed. I knew how it felt for my heart to lie dormant, and now that it had been reawakened it would not go silent again.

So I hushed the doubting voices in my mind and slipped the thong over my head, gripping the stone like a long-lost friend.

I sang my mother's nonsense song as I dressed and straightened the room. I found the ox bone on the floor and slipped it into my pocket, deciding to take it to the firepit in the Adytum to destroy it.

Jera finally woke just after lunch. I had to send for three plates of eggs, fruit, and bread to satisfy her hunger. Not that she asked for more, of course; she was clearly used to accepting whatever she was given. But I remembered the effects of the potion and kept offering more until she shook her head.

That night a banquet was held to see the council members off for the Lilana break. I dressed with care, choosing a wide-necked gown that would show my necklace without emphasizing it. After helping Jera into a white gown with a green underskirt, I brushed out her straight black hair so that it gleamed upon her shoulders. Save for the green in her dress, she might have been a Qilarite princess.

When we walked into the dining room, conversations sagged as people saw us. Priasi Jin hailed us over and greeted Jera warmly.

“What is your name, little one?”

Jera looked at me. I nodded. “Jera,” she said, her voice timid but clear.

Jin smiled—I knew he was thinking of the new baby granddaughter he was always going on about—and asked her the next polite question. “And your mother's name?”

“I don't know,” she said matter-of-factly. “My mother died when I was a baby.”

Had Jonis rehearsed her?

“Well, here you are in a palace now,” said Jin, leaning forward. “Perhaps you will dance with me in the bell dance? Such a pretty partner you'd be.”

Jera looked to me. I cleared my throat. “Laiyonea feels it's not our place to join in the dancing, Minister.”

He waved this off. “Oh, goat piffle. Her predecessor adored the set dances. Laiyonea herself was a fine dancer in her younger days.”

I stifled a laugh at the image of Laiyonea mincing her way through one of the dances. “Perhaps another evening,” I said. “Jera is still recovering, after all.”

Minister Jin ruffled Jera's hair. “Another time, then. Jera, you work hard and be a good girl.”

“Oh, no doubt she will,” said another voice, and I turned to find Penta Rale settling into his seat next to the Trade Minister. A smile transformed his flabby features as he reached across the table and pinched out the candle at its center. He drew his fingers together, as if kneading the flame into them, and then held his flat palm out to Jera. A red kuri blossom lay there.

It was simple sleight of hand, but Jera laughed with delight. Rale tucked the blossom behind her ear. I realized that my mouth was hanging open, and I gathered my wits. “Say thank you, Jera,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said obediently, and giggled when Rale pulled a silly face at her. The Trade Minister laughed. I might have too, if the situation had not been so absurd. They had never treated me like that, when I had started as Tutor. But then, I
wasn't young and sweet—and I didn't look like a Qilarite.

The heralds announced the king's entrance, so I hurried Jera off to our seats, my palms suddenly sweaty. Mati entered the room, stopping here and there to greet various Scholars. His gaze swept over me as he passed, and only the joyous crinkling of his eyes told me he had seen the necklace.

Fortunately I was able to escape after dessert; the strain of not looking in Mati's direction was almost impossible to bear. I dared one glance as I led Jera out of the dining room, and saw by the subtle shift of his shoulders that he was aware of my presence, though his attention did not waver from his conversation companion. My heart thrilled with delicious intimacy. I knew he would come to me as soon as he could.

I settled Jera into bed and bolted the door in case she turned out to be prone to nighttime wanderings. This time, when Mati came just after seventh bell, we held each other and spoke of love. He told me how dull his days had been without me, and I told him how I'd longed to go to him after his father's death.

“When I opened that carriage door and saw you standing there,” he said, “it was as if the gods were providing just what I needed.” He paused, his fingers drifting over my stomach. “I thought things would change when I became king, that I'd finally be able to prove my father wrong about me, do what I wanted.” His mouth skimmed my neck. “It's not that easy though.”

I tensed. We were skirting dangerously close to reminders of our different stations, and though my head knew they wouldn't go away, my heart was reluctant to deal with them.

I touched his face. “You've looked tired ever since you took the crown.”

He smiled. “Half the councilors are like feuding children, and the other half are either imbeciles or are plotting against the others. I have new respect for the way my father managed them all.” He paused. “Rale . . . keeps bringing up a proposal to send raiders to the islands. But I won't let that happen, Raisa, I promise. No matter what they do.”

I traced the planes of his back with my hands, my throat too tight to speak for a moment. “But you have the final say,” I said at last.

“Not always. A king whose own council won't back him doesn't last long in Qilara. My father always said that. I'm learning that he was right. I can force decrees out, but unless I have the council's support they won't be enforced.”

“Have you?” I asked. “Forced decrees?”

Mati rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. He played with my hair as he spoke. “Well, I wanted to start with something small. I tried to reverse that ridiculous law about the Arnathim wearing green. I thought the merchants and farmers would support it—after all, kirit dye isn't cheap. Even Soraya thought it made financial sense.”

I stared at him, unable to shake the image of him closeted somewhere with Soraya Gamo, talking over council matters, maybe as intimately as we were now. . . .

Mati shook his head. “She said so in council,” he said, his tone a gentle reproof. “She may be annoying, but she knows money.”

I flushed, knowing I had no right to feel jealous. I knew I
ought to say something lighthearted or clever, to show that I had accepted the situation for what it was, but I couldn't.

Mati gave me an apologetic half smile and went on. “But it didn't work anyway. The high priests banded together and talked it down. It happened so quickly I didn't even know they'd taken over until Laiyonea explained it to me.” He laughed bitterly. “I'd hoped that repealing that law would lead into raising taxes on slave owners, but now . . . well. Maybe my father was right. Maybe I'm not cut out to be king.”