Traitor (A Crown of Lilies Book 1) Page 4

“Want?”

  “In life.”

  I blinked at her, unsure what had spurred this strange line of inquiry. She cocked her head and continued to press.

  “Love? Children? Wealth?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve not given it much thought.”

  She barreled on as though she’d not heard me, her words nipping closely at the heels of my own. “Power, perhaps? Or renown? You always did enjoy your father’s stories.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “What is it you thought you’d find at the garrison?”

  “I don’t know-”

  “Must be something important to you, to ask when you must have known he would refuse.”

  “Strength, I suppose,” I finally blurted, if only to cease her incessant prodding. Aloud, the confession sounded childish and ridiculous, and I immediately regretted it.

  She peered long and hard at my face with that half-focused look she sometimes got, as though she was staring through me and reading my thoughts.

  “Weapons,” she clarified firmly at the conclusion of her brief assessment. “A way to guard yourself, to ensure that you remain your own master.”

  I failed to see the difference, but gave her a reluctant shrug of agreement anyway. Her face took on a sudden solemnity, shadows flickering in her eyes.

  “You have much to learn if you think the only weapons in this world are made of steel.” She set aside her forgotten tea, the porcelain chiming on the wooden table, and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I know you are your father’s child, but you will always be a woman, Elivya. And in case you’ve somehow confused the two, that is not the same as being helpless.”

  I had, in fact, inextricably linked them in my mind, but I held my tongue and waited as she continued in earnest.

  “In the War, I saw women rule cities from the back rooms of brothels. Flower shops more lethal than any battlefield. Girls barely older than you brought entire legions to their knees. This world is ruled by those with the wit to claim it, regardless of sex.”

  “The War is long over.”

  “True, but King Amenon’s Court remains much the same as it was in those days, and that is the arena in which you will soon compete.”

  “A flock of preened peacocks,” I scoffed.

  Her gaze immediately sharpened, one delicate finger raising in a pointed gesture. “A nest of vipers. One you’d do well not venture into unarmed.”

  “Last I checked, you can’t remove a snake’s head by reciting poetry.”

  “Nor can you enter Crofter’s Castle bearing steel,” she bit back.

  Chastened, I closed my mouth and dropped my sullen gaze to the cup in my hands. A small, steadying breath whispered through her nostrils across from me.

  “A sword is a formidable weapon,” she added after a long moment, “but it is the head that controls where it swings. Your mind is your greatest strength, Elivya, and I would teach you to use it.”

  She offered me claws made of whispers. Razor-sharp teeth forged from shadows and wit. Weapons of a different kind.

  What my Bronnadh had failed to mature in me, those lessons surely did. I left the girl behind to embrace the woman I needed to become. I learned the most effective way to move silently and disappear into a crowd. I learned how to listen beneath words, read behind masks, and draw out information. She taught me to observe, to calculate intent, to commit details quickly to memory. Above all, she taught me to think. It was the barest foundation of what I would spend years studying at her side.

  In the hours that weren’t committed to the subtle arts of intrigue, I dedicated myself to bonding with my new mount. Though Stephan and the stable hands did eventually manage to break him to the saddle, Valor retained a good portion of his fiery temper. My silver tempest earned a reputation around the estate, particularly among the hands who had helped break him, and I saw not a few of them nursing bite marks now and again.

  He made to bite me once, early on – just once. Still bitter from the ordeal of being saddle-broken, he whipped his head round as I made to mount, baring those bright white teeth. I’m still not sure how I managed to anticipate it, but the moment he reached for me, my fist shot out in reflex and knocked him square on the nose. He jerked back with a squeal of surprise, wide-eyed and wild. I abandoned the stirrup to face him fully, puffing up my chest and jabbing an angry finger at him.

  “I stood up for you, you ungrateful brute!” I snarled. “Bite me and see how long it takes to have you gelded!”

  He glowered at me. I glared back. And somehow, in that moment, we came to an unspoken truce. Though he remained unsettled and broody for several years thereafter, his volatile temperament gradually eased into one of limited deference, and he never tried to harm me again.

  That formative summer quickly came to an end, and as fall surrendered to the first frosts of winter, we packed our trunks and headed for Litheria. I’d not seen the White City, so nicknamed for its generous use of white marble, since I was a child. Seated on the eastern banks of the Septim – that broad, slow river that bisects Alesia from the northern coast to the southern – the capital remains the largest and most populous city in our nation. High stone walls surround the sprawling hive of over two hundred thousand residents, encircled by endless grassy plains dotted with trees and flanked in the northeast by the vast, lush Kingswood.

  Our carriage jostled up the cobblestone streets, curtains thrown wide to accommodate my curiosity. Our team of matched bays clopped in synchrony, row after row of tightly-packed wood-and-daub buildings gradually giving way to more refined structures. At one point, the roads vanished altogether, opening on a massive stone square. At one end, the Temple of Adulil overlooked the quad from atop a small rise, its white dome glowing in the late afternoon sun. Priests and supplicants filed in and out of the open-air structure, vendors outside hawking various offerings of incense and late-blooming flowers.

  Towering in the distance behind it stood Crofter’s Castle, a modest name for a resplendent structure of dazzling white stone. Expanded at various times throughout history, it bristled with a variety of turrets and balconies, its patchwork edifice surrounded by high walls and gates well-guarded.

  Before long, the carriage turned onto a vaguely familiar street in the noble quarter. Mansions lined the broad thoroughfare, their façades adorned with the emblems of various Greater and Lesser Houses. At last, we turned up a quiet drive lined with low shrubbery and creaked to a halt in a sizeable courtyard before a large, two-story house of red stone. A deep green banner fluttered proudly over the entryway, the rearing Lazerin stallion emblazoned upon it in gold thread.

  I spilled out of the stifling carriage and sucked in a gratuitous breath of fresh air, stretching the three days of travel from my stiff limbs. My father climbed out after me, offering his hand to my mother, who stepped delicately down in her miraculously wrinkle-free gown. My own looked like it had been heaped in a corner for a week, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just thrilled to be free from the teeth-rattling tedium of the journey.

  “Look how you’ve grown!” crowed a familiar voice with unrestrained glee. I turned to see a short, round woman with wiry gray hair tottering down the front steps, arms thrown wide and a bleary-eyed look of joy on her face.

  “Greta!” I greeted with a broad grin, surrendering myself to her soft embrace. Last time I’d seen her, that hug would have left me smothered in her ample bosom, but now I had a good two inches on her. After a series of firm squeezes and a hasty assault of questions to which she waited for no answer, she shooed me toward the house and went to welcome my parents.

  Her husband Emmett held the door, a rather reserved older man with perfect posture in his immaculate green livery. I hurried up the steps and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before sweeping past into the foyer. Beyond, the massive stone hearth remained unlit in the common room, the day wondrously mild despite the lateness of the season. All of the windows had been thrown wide t
o the warm evening air, the curtains tied and wall sconces ablaze. To one side of the generously-appointed space, a dark wooden staircase spiraled up toward the living quarters above. To the other, large double doors opened onto the dining room.

  “I hope there’s food,” James groaned as he fetched up beside me. The glass chandelier high above clinked in the breeze that followed him in. “I’m starving.”

  Seth stumbled in behind us, struggling with one of the heavy trunks. “Maybe if you bothered to earn your keep, Lord Damien might be more inclined to feed you.” My friend flashed me his contagious smile before rushing to help his brother and the other servants unload our luggage.

  After a hearty supper, I made my way gratefully up the steps to my chambers, unaccountably exhausted from the journey. To my surprise, a familiar face was already bustling about my bedroom when I slipped through the door.

  “…Shera?”

  The mousy girl snapped to attention, her brown braid a bit tidier than I’d ever seen it. She smoothed her dress nervously, the garment clearly new and much finer than anything she’d ever worn working with her father in the kitchens.

  She bobbed a neat curtsy. “At your service, my lady.”

  I blinked at her in utter bewilderment.

  “Lady Nefira… er, your mother… no, that’s not proper…” she mumbled almost to herself, struggling to find the words. At length, she fixed those dark, nervous eyes on me and settled on the simple truth of the thing. “I’m to be your handmaiden.”

  After a brief, shocked silence, a grin split my face. “But that’s wonderful!” I exclaimed with a laugh.

  A lady’s maid is a coveted position among almost any staff, and not only broadened her marriage prospects but also her income and general station. Though she’d never been as close a friend as James, we’d spent a good portion of our childhoods in Laezon together and she’d been the only other girl at the estate who preferred climbing trees to playing with dolls. I’d known the assignment of such an attendant was inevitable, but I had assumed my mother would choose one of the more feminine girls of our household in an attempt to sway my nature by influence. To have Shera instead was a welcome surprise.

  Her face brightened with relief at my obvious delight. “Thank you, my lady.”

  “You needn’t call me that,” I dismissed with a wave, crossing to the vanity.

  She paled, her pretty smile immediately vanishing. “It’s only proper-”

  “You’ve not called me that once in fifteen years. No point in starting now.”

  “I must call you something.”

  I glanced her way, working the studs from my ears. “‘Elivya’ has worked well enough thus far.”

  She looked scandalized, which I found utterly ridiculous, given that we’d had our backsides blistered in tandem on more than one occasion. Still, it was clear she’d not accept anything less than a compromise, so I rolled my eyes and tossed my earrings into the small tray on the vanity.

  “Fine. ‘Miss’, if you must. But not ‘my lady’.”

  It seemed to satisfy her. Even though I found the sudden shift in our dynamic awkward, she appeared almost reassured by it, going about her new duties with confidence and purpose. In the end, I realized it was less about decorum as it was about her own sense of pride in her newly-achieved position, and I was more than happy to oblige.

  Having a handmaiden took some getting used to, but I quickly found myself glad for her presence. Shera was clever and kind and easy to talk to, and the new fashions my mother had seen made for me proved far more complex than the simple day gowns I’d always worn. Petticoats and corsets, buttons and hooks and laces; a gratuitous labyrinth of trappings that left me feeling strangled more often than not, and required skilled assistance to don and remove each day.

  A few weeks after our arrival in the White City, we received an invitation to the King’s birthday celebration. The grand gala arrived quickly and I suffered Greta’s fussing attentions for hours, looming over my shoulder while Shera transformed my tangled heap of sable hair into an elegant updo. After extensive discussion, my parents had decided that this was as good an opportunity as any to debut me to the Court, so I was dressed in a modest gown of off-white chiffon with delicate, lace-capped sleeves. Green ribbons were woven through my hair, small emerald studs fixed in my ears.

  A noblewoman’s debut is considered by most to be a momentous occasion, though for my own part, I largely dreaded the whole affair. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d make it through the evening without committing some heinous social blunder or another, and the fact that I might do so at the King’s birthday gala only turned my stomach all the more.

  My mother joined us just as I was slipping into my shoes, casting a judicious eye over my ensemble.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked, glancing down at my debut white. For all that her reasons were sound, to be introduced to the Court at the King’s own birthday seemed unnecessarily brash. She gripped my shoulders, meeting my gaze with firm resolve.

  “Trust me. If you do well tonight, your prospects will widen tenfold. Amenon will not take offense.” She gave my arms a brisk rub. “You look lovely. How do you feel?”

  “Nervous.”

  She nodded in sympathy and lifted my chin with one finger. “Confidence is a cloak,” she reminded gently.

  One you can don at will, when you have need of it.

  The servants waited in the foyer to send us off. Greta cried, kissed me, and wished me luck a hundred times, fidgeting with my hair until I managed to convince her it was perfect. Shera watched with a satisfied grin as our other two maids, Ellen and Poppy, squealed with delight over my dress. Emmett helped me into my cloak with a smile and sent the three of us out into the night.

  The carriage waited in the courtyard, our two men-at-arms mounted alongside.

  “Elivya!”

  I stopped halfway down the steps to see James jog over from the stables. He halted abruptly before me, sizing me up as he shook his head with a low whistle. Just as I was about to thank him for the admittedly crude compliment, a mischievous grin flashed across his freckled face.

  “Don’t trip.”

  With a withering scowl, I moved to throttle him, but my father’s voice sounded in warning and instead I climbed obediently into the carriage.

  Litheria is well known as the White City, but it goes by another moniker as well and the reason behind it was on full display that night. As we clattered through the noble quarter toward Crofter’s Castle, I gazed at the high-hung lanterns lining every street, lighting our way with a dim, warm glow. From the castle to the docks, every major thoroughfare boasts rows of the same simple lanterns, lit by proud residents in honor of Adulil. Not year round, surely, as most in the city cannot afford the extra expense in candles or oil, but on holidays and other nights of note, that collective spirit surges to the fore.

  The King’s birthday proved to be such a night. I caught a glimpse of the city as a whole when we passed through an open square, sprawled out below us like a field of fireflies. The spray of stars above mirrored the warm scatter of lights below, a quiet sliver of moon keeping watch over both.

  Litheria, the City of Light. She earned her name, that cold winter night.

  CHAPTER 4

  Crofter’s Castle awaited in all its mismatched glory, front doors thrown wide and halls already buzzing with mirth. Lively music trailed out into the night, inviting us up the pristine marble steps to join the revelry within.

  When we finally reached it, I caught my breath in sheer wonder at the opulence of the grand ballroom. Gold-dipped garlands and sprays of cypress and holly festooned every surface, the impossibly high ceiling dripping with crystal. At one end of the immense marble chamber stood a dais with a massive gilded throne. Two others flanked it, smaller and less ornate but just as striking. All three sat empty. At the end far opposite, rows of tables had been loaded to bursting with heaping trays of delicacies cleverly displayed among p
ine boughs dusted with gold.

  Atop the grand staircase, we paused for the herald to announce our arrival, a solicitous squire in crisp white livery stepping up unasked to escort me. A nervous tremor shuddered down my spine when I heard my name announced to the Court, but I clung to the squire and forced myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  The polite applause that followed reeked of hesitation, and the bulk of those assembled were already whispering behind their hands by the time I reached the bottom step. My mother spared me a bracing glance, to which I offered a tiny nod of reassurance, and we pressed our way through the crowd.

  I’d never seen so many high-born in one place. Children are not permitted at most social functions until their debut, so even in our brief visits to the city throughout my youth, I’d never attended more than the occasional supper party in our own home. Now, I found myself surrounded by the perfumed press of finery, a rainbow of dyed, appliqued, and embroidered pageantry adorning the perfectly-pressed scions of the Seven. They hardly bothered to hide their stares, peering down their powdered noses and ducking behind gloved hands to speculate at the brazenness of my debut.

  They made way, though. That, I noticed quite clearly. Despite all their whispers and predatory stares, they made way for my parents in their deep Lazerin green, my mother’s hand resting lightly on my father’s arm. Their stiff, proud postures matched as closely as their garb, confidence and ease radiating from them both. I followed in their wake, doing my best to mimic that immovable countenance.

  We soon came upon a long table heaped high with ornately-wrapped gifts and attended by a pair of watchful servants. A titter of excited chatter rose nearby, the deep and thoroughly pleasant tenor of a man at its center. As we drew closer to its source, a flash of polished plate caught my eye. A swordsman in full regalia stood at loose attention, eyeing the crowd with poorly-masked suspicion. His belt bristled with a longsword and two daggers, breastplate adorned with the golden blaze of Adulil.