Page 5 of A Court of Masks and Roses
Heat tingles my cheeks and I busy myself with checking my trunk’s hidden compartments. “Those aren’t the rules here.”
Leaf snorts. “I’m a researcher. I don’t follow scouts’ rules.”
“And what about the scouts getting your presents?” I slam my trunk closed, refusing to let memories surface. “You realize those little packages, your tokens of friendship, come with a beating from Gapral attached?”
Leaf turns from her table and manages to look down her nose at me, despite being smaller. “Who do you think obtained these little parcels for me, Kali?So long as no one gets stupid, the trainees will be just fine. People need other people. Gapral knows that.”
I don’t bother arguing, or pointing out that the weakest, most deadly opening in my armor is my love for Leaf. Needing others is a vulnerability.
You will protect you,I remind myself over and over as our departure approaches, and again as Leaf and I settle into the carriage.You will protect Leaf. You are your own fortress. You will be all right.
A snap of the reins, a click of the tongue, and we’re off, each bump of the wheel singeing my nerves. There will be no empty pastures and thoughtfully averted eyes in the palace. Only hordes of courtiers all staring at me, Lady Lianna, the king’s distant, beloved niece. No shadows. Nowhere to hide. No reprieve.
Beyond the curtain,as our first few days pass, the bouncing landscape changes slowly from countryside set against the backdrop of wild forest to small villages and farmland overflowing with unharvested corn stalks and apple trees. Raspberry bushes rise in predatory numbers, encroaching on the road and showing off sweet red berries amidst snaring thorns. The weather starts changing too as we slowly lose altitude, taking on Delta’s ethereal warmth.
“You could probably plant a rock in these parts nowadays and see it grow,” Leaf muses as we fight our way through the flowering bougainvillea that lines the path to what our driver assured us is the best travel inn to be found out here—a two-story, white stucco house with rooms for rent. In the past twenty years, Dansil’s soil has become the most fertile on the continent, while the combination of stillborn babes and soldiers killed in the Everett war has left us with no people to actually work the land. Leaf taps my arm. “Will you gather some soil samples for me to study? I’d like to evaluate the changes as we get closer to the capital. There must be something that makes plants thrive, but not people.”
I nod absently. Where Leaf sees soil samples and fertility analysis, I see graveyards. Half a day’s ride after our stop at the flowering inn, we pass a decrepit building with a crescent moon on its shingle, once the Whisperer Guild’s proud symbol. The wordsREPENT AND PAYare scrawled across its cracking planks in what looks like blood. As the anti-whisperer sentiment rises each day we’re closer to the capital, the target on Leaf’s back grows with it.
Glancing at her, I see her small hand wrapped around the blue healing stone she wears around her neck. “Stars, Leaf.Take that off. Aren’t you always going on about how dangerous healing crystals are?”
She blinks at me. “It is dangerous for a whisperer who is not trained as a healer to attempt tuning and using a healing crystal. A raw, out-of-tune healing crystal is inert. A talisman.”
“It attracts attention. Take it off.”
Leaf crosses her slender arms. “There are centuries of history and lore surrounding healing crystals. The most common stories hold that a healer is more likely to come to your aid if you have a crystal whose magic he can work with. Did you know that the magic inside a healing crystal is so highly concentrated that—”
“Stop.” I blow out a slow breath. “First, the healers secluded themselves in the Monastery of Qilar, so one won’t just happen to be around if you crack your skull. Second, if a healer were traveling, one would think he’d have his own crystal. And third, healers might be highly trained whisperers, but they are still whisperers. Let us not shout support for magic in a city of people who blame it for the deaths of their babies. We aren’t on Lord Gapral’s estate anymore, and here, few would think twice about grabbing you in the middle of the night to drop you at the doorstep of one of Bahir’s temples.”
Leaf tucks the stone beneath her blouse and raises her chin defiantly. “I will continue my research, Kali. It’s possible that magic can fix the Drought. That alone demands exploration.”
My jaw tightens, fear for her spreading through my chest. “Just do it quietly,” I say, turning my face away. Temples ask few questions when concerned family members show up to hand whisperers over to the priests—to help the poor souls repent, or cure the darkness, or whatever the family members say to soothe their minds. Either way, the priests’ coin soothes their pockets.
A week into our journey northeast, after we’ve changedcoachmen and carriages twice to better conceal our point of origin, the farmlands dissolve back into thick forest. These woods are thicker and lusher than what I grew used to near the estate, large leaves blocking out sunlight and the smell of sap and moist bark hanging heavy and wonderful in the air. Leaf, who never ventured even into the estate’s woods, manages to get herself lost when she steps away to relieve herself, and we lose half a day in our coachman’s attempt to find her. By the time they return, I am ready to strangle the man for his inability to read basic tracking signs, but royal Lady Lianna would have no reason to notice broken branches and bent grass.
Finally, two days later, the appearance of a large town signals our approach to Delta, the peaks of the palace and Temple of Dansil growing from the horizon. The carriage moves slowly enough that I can read bits of conversation on the lips of people we pass.
“... humidity. The laundry will never dry.”
“Mama! Jak called me a whisperer!”
“I will tell you right now, those Everett bastards have evil on their minds.”
Leaf kicks my shin, drawing my attention from the window to the plush inside of our carriage. “Do you ever stop eavesdropping, Kali?”
I shrug. Reading lips is habit, not something I think about. But Leaf isn’t really asking about tradecraft—she just wants to talk. If Delta’s approach makes me tenser by the second, it hypnotizes Leaf with wonder.
“Our summons coinciding with the Everett delegation’s presence at the palace is unlikely accidental,” says Leaf once my full attention on her is assured. She reaches across the bench to adjust my blond wig and scrutinize the layers of makeup that leave even me hard-pressed to recognize myselfin Lady Lianna’s reflection. “We are in the midst of history. The first diplomatic contact in the twenty years since Everett attacked Dansil and annexed the Sylthia territory. And now, a ceasefire between Dansil and Everett. An Everett envoy in the palace. Are you not curious to watch it unfold?”
“No.”
“You’ll be safer living in a palace than being beaten by Viva Sylthia terror mongers in the middle of the woods.”
My gut says that us living in the palace, right under the nose of Bishop Bahir and King Firehorn, is akin to mice seeking shelter beneath a cat’s tongue. Leaf seems happy, however, so I keep my thoughts to myself as more and more stones pave the way northeast through Delta’s outskirts, and then through the city toward the royal palace at the city’s northern edge.
Stone. People. Colors. After the vast, foggy tranquility of the estate, Delta’s brewing life hits me like an avalanche. Street vendors sell meat pies and raspberry tarts amidst the traffic of manure-filled carts and scurrying messenger boys. Red-clad Children of the Goddess disciples, who were lone nuisances in the countryside, are out in droves—some peddling carnations and living-crystal pebbles, others striking up conversations with anyone who looks their way too long. And the trees... My wonderful shadow-casting trees are reduced to nothing more than occasional decorations. As if someone carved a stone island in the midst of a forest to make room for Delta.
Which, of course, is exactly what happened.
