For a while, nobody made any sense.
(Is this a trick?) Marika demanded. (Fabian. Is this one of your tricks?)
(Liesel? Liesel, dear, can you hear me?) That was Hana. (Blink twice if you can hear me!)
"She can't see you blink," I said.
Out loud. To the fire. Nobody in Greymark heard a word of it.
Right. Inside, then.
(Sis Hana, she can't see you blink.)
(Oh.) A pause. (Then blink anyway, Liesel. Just to be safe.)
Liesel blinked twice, very seriously, at nobody.
She had both hands pressed flat over her heart, and she was grinning so wide it looked like it hurt. I'd seen her grin before. Never like this. Not even after six honey cakes in a helmet.
(Hello?) she tried. Then, louder, though it wasn't louder in any way that made sense: (HELLO! Lady Marika! Say something rude!)
(I am not going to say something rude just because you—)
(That was a little rude!)
(THAT WASN'T—)
(Fabian, did you eat? Liesel, did he eat? Is it cold where you are? Did he put on the scarf? Fabian, did you put on the—)
It was like having a henhouse in my chest. A henhouse where every hen was someone I loved, and every one of them had just found out she could shout.
Every one but one.
Naomi's candle sat steady as a lantern by the door, saying nothing at all.
Then:
(Quiet.)
One word. The henhouse stopped.
I've watched Naomi stop a pack of Gloamwolves. I've watched her stop a tide. I'd never heard her stop Marika in the middle of a sentence from four days away.
(Fabian.) Her voice was calm. Her voice was always calm. (Check your skills.)
Of course. That was the first thing any sensible person would do. I hadn't, because I'd been busy nearly falling off a log.
I closed my eyes and looked inward.
「Heal」. 「Cure」. 「Covenant」, still Green, still threaded with gold, four of four. 「Mass Heal」. 「Vigor」.
And 「Blessing of Elysia」.
The first line, the one I'd read a hundred times. For every good deed you do, Elysia will grant you a reward.
The second. Reward granted: 「Eyes of Elysia」. See the light of life in others. The further it strays from white, the more they need you.
And under that, where there had only ever been question marks, a third line.
Reward granted: 「Voice of Elysia」. Speak with those you hold, however far they stand. Every word between you is carried by you.
Below it, the rest was still nothing but ?????.
(There's a new one,) I said. (Under 「Blessing of Elysia」.)
And I read it to them, word for word.
For a moment, nobody said anything. In my family, that's practically a miracle.
(Blessing of what?) said Liesel.
Right. She didn't know about that one either.
So I told her, quickly. The line that had been there since the blessing. The reward that turned out to be my eyes. The question marks I'd been staring at for weeks.
(So she rewards you,) Liesel said slowly. (For being good.)
(For good deeds.)
(Like a grandmother with sweets.)
(...Sort of like that, yes.)
(When did you get it?) Naomi asked.
(I don't know.)
(You don't know.)
(I haven't checked since I woke up.) I winced. (In my defense, I've been busy. Being asleep. Then being fed. Then being ambushed by a princess.)
(It was a very polite ambush,) said Liesel.
(It was the tide.) Hana's voice had gone soft. (It has to be. She rewards good deeds, and you... Fabian, nobody died. Nobody.)
(And then he slept through it for three weeks,) said Marika. (Like a mushroom.)
Nobody argued. It was hard to argue with that.
Six weeks, the reward had been sitting there, waiting for me to need it. At home, I never had. My sisters had always been one door away.
She'd lent me her eyes. Now she'd lent me her voice.
Naomi took over after that. Of course she did.
(Rules,) she said. (Fabian. Think something. Don't say it.)
So I looked at the fire and thought, very clearly, the rudest thing I've ever thought about Marika's twin tails.
Nothing happened.
Marika didn't explode. Liesel didn't laugh. Nobody said a word.
(Well?) said Naomi.
(I thought something.)
(What?)
(I'm not telling you. That's the whole point.)
Thoughts didn't travel through the bond. I'd checked, back home.
I checked again.
They still didn't. Only words did. Words you meant to say, to someone, on purpose.
(Good,) said Naomi. (Next. Marika. Say something to Fabian. Only to Fabian.)
(Why me?)
(You're the one with something to hide.)
There was a long, offended silence from Marika's candle. Then I felt her concentrate. I could practically see her scrunching up her face.
(...Fabian,) she said. (Only Fabian. Just you. Are you warm enough? Hana packed the scarf. Wear the scarf.)
Silence.
Then:
(Awww,) said Hana.
(She's so sweet,) said Liesel.
(...You all heard that.)
(Every word,) said Naomi.
(IT'S TACTICS. A COLD SAINT IS A SLOW SAINT. A SLOW SAINT IS A—)
Her candle moved. Fast. Down a hallway, up some stairs, and then very still, in a very small space.
(Linen closet,) said Liesel happily.
(STOP FINDING ME!)
So that was the second rule. Everyone hears everything. No whispers, no secrets, no private words.
Marika was going to have a very hard time.
There was one more thing. I'd noticed it back in the henhouse. Every time anyone spoke, the pitcher in my chest tipped. Just a drop. Not only when I talked. Whenever anyone did.
(It goes through me,) I said. (All of it. Whoever's talking.)
Naomi was quiet for a moment. (How much?)
I'd been counting drops since the henhouse. Counting runs in the family.
(Not much. Maybe a splash for every five talks.)
(Can it put you in fatigue?)
(Not unless we talk all night. Every night. For a week.)
(Hana,) said Naomi.
(I would never,) said Hana, who absolutely would.
(Then every night,) Naomi said. (After supper. Talk first. Then drain.)
I didn't ask why that order. Whatever this ran on, it ran on me. Naomi wasn't going to find out what happened when the pitcher was empty. Not by accident.
(And write,) she added.
(Big Sis. You can hear me.)
(Write.)
(Every day?)
(Every day.)
Liesel was laughing so hard she had to hold onto the log.
A while later, Wren came back from the horses to hand the watch to Liesel. She stopped at the edge of the firelight and looked at us. Me, staring into the fire with wet eyes and a stupid smile. The princess, holding her stomach and shaking with silent laughter.
"Young Master," Wren said carefully. "Are you all right?"
"Never better," I said.
Wren looked at us a moment longer. Then she hummed her three notes, very quietly, and went to bed.
Before I drained my pitcher that night, they said goodnight. One at a time.
(Goodnight, Fabian.) Hana.
(...Night.) Marika, from a linen closet.
(Goodnight, everyone!) Liesel, from the log, where she was supposed to be keeping watch.
And last, steady as a lantern:
(Sleep.)
The 「Covenant」 had meant I'd always know where they were. Now I'd hear them too. Every night. From anywhere.
The rest of the road went faster. Or it felt that way.
Every night after supper, the henhouse opened.
Hana wanted to know what I'd eaten, down to the last oatcake. Liesel reported on the day like a scout: two rivers, one bridge, and a farmer who'd dropped a whole cart of turnips when she saw me. Naomi mostly listened. Every so often she'd say one word, like (Good.) or (Sleep.), and somehow that was enough.
Marika claimed she was only there because her horse was bored.
(It's midnight,) Hana pointed out, on the sixth night.
(He's a very bored horse.)
On the ninth morning, we came over a low hill, and there it was.
Sanctara.
I'd heard about it my whole life. I still wasn't ready.
White walls, rising up the hills in rings like the layers of a cake. Towers flying crimson banners, every one carrying a gold lioness with a sword, and a little eight-pointed star above her head. And in the very center, on the highest hill, a great round dome that caught the morning sun and held it.
"That's the great shrine," Liesel said. "The altar the city's named after."
"And the palace?"
She pointed, without much enthusiasm, at a sprawl of white and gold off to the left. "That."
"We're not stopping there first?"
"If I go home first," Liesel said, "someone will put me in a gown."
Fair enough.
The city swallowed us at the gate. Streets wider than Greymark's square. More people in one street than in all of Greymark. And every one of them, sooner or later, turned and looked at me.
Not at the princess in silver half-plate and a crimson cape. At me.
"A man," someone whispered, somewhere to my left.
"With the princess—"
"Is that the Saint? The one from Greymark?"
It was Greymark all over again, except nobody here knew my name or that I sneezed when my feet got cold. Here, I was just a man. Rare. Strange. Something to stare at.
I put my thumb on the navy ribbon around my wrist, still in its double knot. So they know whose you are.
Wren closed from ten paces to five without anyone telling her to.
Liesel shifted her spear on her shoulder, so the crowned star on her breastplate caught the light.
The staring didn't stop. But it got a lot more polite.
The Royal Academy sat behind a wall of its own, a short ride from the palace. Its gate was taller than ours at home, and the two guards in front of it wore crimson tabards with the crowned star.
Liesel swung down from her horse, on the wrong side again, and handed the taller guard a folded letter sealed in crimson wax.
The guard looked at the seal. Then at Liesel's face. Then at me.
Then she ran.
Not walked fast. Ran, straight through the gate and across the yard beyond, armor clanking all the way.
"Is that normal?" I asked.
"It's my mother's seal," said Liesel. "People do that."
Wren hummed.
A few minutes later, the guard came back. Not alone.
The woman beside her was somewhere past thirty, in a dark gray gown buttoned all the way to the throat. Her hair was pulled back so tight it looked like it hurt. Thin silver spectacles sat on her nose, and behind them were the sharpest eyes I'd seen since Cordelia's.
She didn't hurry. She just arrived, somehow, faster than the guard who'd been running.
She stopped in front of Liesel and sank into a bow so precise you could have measured it.
"Your Highness."
Then she turned to me and did it again. Exactly the same depth. Not a hair deeper, not a hair less.
"Lord Fabian. Welcome to the Royal Academy. I am Severine, deputy headmistress."
"Lady Severine." I bowed back. It seemed like the thing to do.
Behind her spectacles, something flickered. Just for a moment. I didn't know her well enough to tell what it meant.
"The headmistress has been called away," she went on, "and will return before term begins. Until then, any questions you have, you will bring to me." She folded her hands. "Term begins in four days. General studies in the mornings. The battle class in the afternoons."
"The battle class," I repeated.
"You will find it instructive." Her eyes went, very briefly, to the sword at my hip. Then to the top of my head, which wasn't very far up.
She turned to the guard beside her. "See to Lord Fabian's enrollment for the new term. The roll, the class lists, passes for both his escorts. All of it before supper."
"Yes, Lady Severine." The guard didn't run this time. But she walked very fast.
"Your horses will be stabled," said Lady Severine. "Your things will be brought up. If you will follow me."
She turned and walked, and we followed, because she was the kind of person you followed.
The yard beyond the gate was huge. On one side stood long stone buildings with rows of identical windows. On the other was a practice field full of girls in training clothes, sparring with wooden swords.
Were sparring. Then they saw me.
Every sword stopped in midair. Every head turned. Somebody dropped a shield.
"Eyes front," said Lady Severine.
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't even look at them.
The entire field found something very interesting to look at in the opposite direction.
I made a note, right then, never to be late for anything she taught.
The building stood apart from everything else, behind a low wall and a small walled garden, with a guard of its own at the door.
"The young lords' residence," said Lady Severine, as if that explained it.
It did, sort of. The girls lived in the long buildings with the rows of windows. We lived here. Somewhere in between was a difference nobody had to say out loud.
She led us up one flight of stairs and opened a door with a brass key.
"Your quarters, Lord Fabian."
I'd expected a room.
It was not a room. It was a sitting room with a fireplace and two chairs that looked like nobody had ever sat in them. A small kitchen, with a stove and copper pots hanging in a row. A washroom with a real bath. And two doors on the far side.
"This bedroom is yours," said Lady Severine, opening the left one. A big bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a window over the garden. "And this one is for your escorts."
The right door opened on a smaller room with two narrow beds, one under the window and one against the wall.
Back home, I'd had one room and three sisters who walked into it whenever they felt like it. This place had a lock on every door. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.
Then I remembered who would be sleeping in that second room, and I turned to look at Liesel.
Second Princess of Octavia. Daughter of the Queen. A girl who'd grown up in that sprawl of white and gold on the hill, where I'd bet one of her closets was bigger than this whole floor.
And she'd just been handed half of a small room. Shared with a guard.
Lady Severine had clearly had the same thought.
"Your Highness," she said carefully. "Naturally, if these arrangements are unsuitable, rooms can be made ready at the palace—"
Liesel walked straight past her into the escorts' room and dropped her pack on the bed by the window.
"Window's mine."
Wren made a small, alarmed noise. "Your Highness, I can sleep in the sitting room—"
"Absolutely not." Liesel flopped onto the bed and bounced twice, testing it. "Who'd hum me to sleep?"
The tips of Wren's ears went pink. That was twice in two weeks. At this rate she'd catch up to Marika.
"Your Highness," Lady Severine tried again.
Liesel sat up. For a moment, she sounded exactly like a princess. Almost like her sister.
"My mother sent me to keep watch over Lord Fabian, Lady Severine. I can't keep watch over him from the palace."
Lady Severine looked at her for a long moment.
Then she pushed her spectacles up her nose with one finger.
"As Your Highness wishes."
In my chest, a candle spoke.
(Also,) said Liesel, perfectly straight-faced, not looking at me at all, (at the palace, someone would put me in a gown.)
I had to turn around and stare very hard at the copper pots.
(Is there a kitchen?) Hana asked instantly. (Fabian. Is there a kitchen? Who's cooking?)
(Not me,) said Liesel.
(Obviously,) said Marika.
Lady Severine handed me the brass key. "Supper is served at sundown. You will find the other residents are..." She paused, choosing the word as carefully as she'd chosen the depth of her bow. "Of a different temperament."
She was halfway to the door when it came through the wall.
A man's voice. Young. Loud. Bored in a way that made the back of my neck prickle.
"—call this tea? I said hot. Do you know what hot means? Should I show you?"
Then a woman's voice, very quiet. "No, my lord. Forgive me, my lord."
Out in the hall, through the gap under our door, the light flared orange for half a heartbeat. Like someone had struck a match. A very big match.
Wren had stopped humming.
Liesel wasn't smiling anymore.
Lady Severine didn't turn around. She stood very still with her hand on the door, and I watched the line of her shoulders go hard.
"As I said," she said quietly. "A different temperament."
She left.
I stood in the middle of my very nice sitting room, holding my very nice key, and listened to the silence next door.
I'd never even seen his face.
I already didn't like him.