Fabian — Sanctara
(Fabian.)
I lay there with the ceiling still swimming and considered my options.
I could pretend to be asleep. That had never once worked on Naomi. Not even the times I really was asleep.
(...Big Sis.)
(What was that?)
Before I could answer, the bond went off like a kicked henhouse.
(I CAN FEEL THAT!) Marika. (WHAT WAS THAT? WHO DID THAT?)
(Fabian? Fabian, blink twice if you can hear me!)
(He can't blink at us, Lady Hana,) said Liesel. Then, sharper: (Saint. Was that you?)
Every word of it was coming out of a pitcher with one splash left in it. I could feel it going, drop by drop.
(Quiet,) said Naomi.
It went quiet.
(Fabian. How much is left?)
(One splash. Less, now.)
(Then be quick.)
So I was quick. Mostly.
(I was draining,) I said. (And I got curious.)
(About what?)
(Whether I could cast 「Heal」 and 「Cure」 together. In one cast.) I hesitated. (Like Father's cups. Only the other way round.)
The bond went quiet again, but differently this time.
(...The cups,) said Marika, very softly.
(He used to do it when Marika wouldn't eat her peas,) said Hana.
(I ATE MY PEAS.)
(And?) said Naomi.
(The first time, only 「Heal」 came. The second time, both came, but they broke. Two splashes for nothing.)
(And the third?)
(The third time, it worked.)
(What did it look like?) Liesel, of course.
(Two White circles. One inside the other, turning opposite ways.)
(And the cost,) said Naomi. It wasn't a question.
(Four.)
(For two Whites.)
(...Yes.)
(How much did you have, before the third?)
I considered lying. Then I remembered who I was talking to.
(Five.)
Nobody said anything. Far away in Greymark, I felt Hana's candle go tight, like a held breath.
(And if it had cost six?) said Naomi.
(It didn't.)
(Fabian.)
I looked at the ceiling for a while. (...I know.)
(You didn't ask.)
That one landed harder than laps would have.
(No,) I said. (I didn't ask.)
(Why not?)
(Because you'd have said "not yet.")
(Yes.) A pause. (And?)
(...And you'd have been right.)
Another pause. I could almost hear her nod.
(New things on a full pitcher,) said Naomi. (With Liesel in the room. And you tell me first.)
(I'll bring my spear,) said Liesel.
(Yes, Big Sis.)
(Now. What's it for?)
That was the easy part. I'd been thinking about it since the circles locked.
(Cordelia,) I said. (On the field. Venom in her, and her light going orange, then red, in a breath. 「Cure」 first, then everything else. Two casts. Two breaths.) I swallowed. (Now it's one.)
Naomi had been on that field. She'd seen how fast it went.
(...Good,) she said quietly.
(For the record,) said Marika, (I wasn't worried. I was asleep. Something woke me up, and it was very rude.)
(Your heart's still going,) said Liesel helpfully. (I can feel it.)
(THAT'S BECAUSE IT WAS RUDE.)
(Four splashes,) said Hana. (I'm writing it down.)
(In the dark?)
(I lit a candle. A real one.)
(Last splash,) said Naomi. (Then sleep. All of you.)
(Yes, Big Sis.)
The bond went still, one candle at a time.
There was still a little left in the bottom of the pitcher. Not quite a splash anymore. Close enough.
I put my hand on my chest and cast 「Heal」 one last time. The little White circle took what was left, and a bit more besides. The ceiling swam, the edges of the room went soft, and I slid down into the warm, heavy dark of a properly empty pitcher.
Right before I went, I heard Liesel through the wall, very quietly.
"Go back to sleep, Wren. He's counting."
Three notes, very sleepy.
Then nothing.
Liesel — Sanctara
Mother's answer came the next day, the last day before term, just after lunch.
It came with a palace messenger in crimson, who looked as if she'd ridden to the Academy gate at a gallop and then been told to walk the rest of the way with dignity. She handed it to me with both hands, bowed, and left before I could ask her anything.
Which was how I knew it was going to be that kind of letter.
The seal was the whole lioness. Not the little crowned star Mother uses for notes about my boots. The full royal arms, in crimson wax: the maneless lioness with her sword, and the small gold star over her head.
On the outside, in a secretary's perfect hand: To Her Royal Highness Elisabeth, Second Princess of Octavia.
Elisabeth. On the outside. Where the messenger could read it.
I took it to my bed by the window and broke the seal.
Your letter has been received, and read.
Mother writes the way Lady Severine walks.
We are gladdened that Lord Fabian has arrived safely, and that his quarters are satisfactory. We note that they have a bath.
We have been informed of the events in the Academy dining hall by Lady Severine, by Dame Valeria, and by you, in that order.
In that order. Mother never wastes a word, and she'd spent three of them telling me I was last.
Your opinion on the matter of a room has been noted.
Noted. Somewhere in Greymark, there was a marchioness who said that word exactly the same way. On the day those two finally met, I wanted to be somewhere else. Possibly the stables.
We are pleased to learn that you have taken up training. Very hard. Recently. We look forward to seeing its results with Our own eyes.
Your sister asks who your instructor is.
I read that line four times. It didn't get any shorter.
Cordelia had watched "Beth" fight all night in the tide. She knew exactly how hard I'd hit things before. And Cordelia never asks a question unless she already knows half the answer and wants to watch you squirm for the other half.
You may tell Lord Fabian that Our invitations have been sent to Greymark. Marchioness Naomi Valcrest, Baroness Marika Valcrest and Baroness Hana Valcrest are invited to Sanctara, to receive from Our hand the titles granted for their service in the tide. They will be received at the palace upon their arrival. Lord Fabian is, naturally, invited also.
Invited. In my family, that word has never once meant you could say no.
I did the sums. A courier would need several days to reach Greymark, and the sisters would need nine more on the road. Fewer, if Marika had anything to do with it.
Marika would have everything to do with it.
Theodora, by the grace of the Eight, Queen of Octavia.
That should have been the end.
It wasn't.
Below the Queen's name, there was more. Different ink, darker. A smaller hand, a little less straight, as if it had been written later, by a different candle.
Liesel,
That was the Queen. This is your mother.
You wrote me a very good report. It was also a very strange one.
You told me in two lines that a man threw fire at you. Then you spent the rest of the page telling me that Lord Fabian thanks the servers. That he bows back. That he made your guard sit down to lunch. That he has never owned a purse, and offered to pay you in eggs.
I asked for none of that. All of it was written very carefully.
I have read a great many letters in my life, my dear. I know what it looks like when someone writes about a person far more than she needs to.
It looks like this.
So I will ask you once, as your mother, and you may answer or not, as you like.
Do you like him?
P.S. I will not send a gown. One will be waiting for you.
I read it again.
Then a third time, in case the words had moved. They hadn't.
Mother had asked me a thousand things in eighteen years. Where I'd been. What I'd broken. Why a stable girl was wearing my good boots. She had never once asked me what I liked.
My heart was going very fast. I noticed that.
Then I noticed something much worse.
The bond doesn't carry what you feel. It never has. But it carries your body. Your cuts, your fevers. Your heart.
And four people could feel mine.
I breathed in slowly. Out slowly. It didn't help in the slightest.
(Liesel?) Hana, of course. Hana always notices first. (Liesel, your heart. Are you hurt? Did something happen?)
I looked at the letter in my lap.
(Stairs,) I said.
A pause.
(What stairs?) said Marika.
(Very steep ones.)
In the sitting room, on the other side of the door, Fabian made a noise like someone trying very hard not to laugh. He thought I was making fun of him. Good. Let him think that.
Then I did the only sensible thing a princess can do in a crisis. I changed the subject to something bigger.
(Report from Sanctara,) I announced. (You're all invited to the capital.)
For one heartbeat, nobody said anything. Then everybody did.
(WHAT?) said Marika.
(The ceremony,) I said. (Your titles. Mother's invitation is already on the road to you.)
(I'm saddling my horse.)
(When the invitation arrives,) said Naomi.
(...I'm saddling it slowly.)
(Fabian, what size are your—) Hana stopped. (Never mind. I'll bring everything.)
And from the next room, very quietly: (All of you? Really?)
(All of us,) said Naomi. (Invited.)
From the way she said it, she knew exactly what that word meant too.
Nobody asked about the stairs again.
Mother would have been proud of me. Or she'd have seen straight through it. With Mother, it's usually both.
I folded the letter small, the way Hana writes, and tucked it behind Hana's page, inside my breastplate on the stand by my bed. Right over the crowned star, where nobody would read it but me.
Do you like him?
I'm very good at true. That was the problem.
For the first time in my life, I didn't know which true thing to write.
Fabian — Sanctara
On the first morning of term, I discovered I'd never actually seen a crowd.
I'd thought I had. Greymark's healing hour had lines down the road. The tide had a whole town on its wall. But the Royal Academy, gathered on its practice field in the early sun, was something else: row after row of girls, standing straight, all the way back to the long stone buildings, so many that the ones at the back were just a color.
And in front of them, on a low wooden stand with chairs, the young lords.
I counted. Of course I counted.
The older ones sat on the left. Lord Cassian Ardane was at the end of that row, in his black velvet, with Ilse and his other escort standing behind his chair. He was very carefully not looking at me.
I checked Ilse's light. White, all the way around.
The new ones sat on the right. Five of us. Me, and four others.
The tall, thin one beside me had ink on his fingers and read a book hidden in his sleeve all the way through the speeches. The round-faced one beyond him had brought four escorts instead of two and still looked frightened of his chair. The third had a perfect jaw and handed his gloves backward to his escort without looking, as if she were a hook on a wall.
The fourth was asleep. Upright. His escort kept one hand on his shoulder so he wouldn't tip over, with the face of someone who'd done it many times before.
Five of us, in that whole sea of girls. In Greymark, I'd been the only one. I'd always thought being one of five would feel less strange.
It didn't, especially.
Liesel and Wren stood behind my chair. Liesel was in her half-plate and crimson cape, every inch the Second Princess, except for the hairpin, which was already losing. Wren was humming so quietly that only I could hear it.
In the middle of the stand, there was one more chair. Tall, carved, and empty.
Lady Severine stood beside it.
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. She simply stepped forward, and the field, all of it, went still.
"Welcome to the Royal Academy," she said. "The headmistress sends her regrets. She has been detained."
That was all she said about it. I saw several girls exchange glances. I saw Lady Severine see them.
The rest of her speech was short and exact, with no wasted words in it at all. General studies in the mornings. The battle class in the afternoons, under Dame Valeria. Meals at the bells. And:
"No casting outside the battle yard." Her spectacles caught the sun. "The board does not say except."
She didn't look at me when she said it. She didn't look at Cassian, either. Everyone else did that for her.
"Eyes front," she finished, though every eye already was. "Term has begun."
After the speeches, everyone went to the notice boards.
Correction: every girl went to the notice boards, and then found herself, without quite knowing how, standing back to let the young lords through first. A path opened in front of me like a parted curtain. I hated it a little. I walked through it anyway, because the alternative was standing in the sun until lunch.
The boards hung on the wall of the nearest stone building, covered in lists.
General Studies, First Year. My name was on the third list, with one other Lord on it: the boy with the inky fingers. He found his name, nodded at it as if it had answered a question correctly, and wandered off, reading.
Battle Class. Dame Valeria. All years.
My name was on that one too.
So was his.
"Little Saint."
I knew the voice before I turned around. So did every girl within thirty paces. They found somewhere else to look, fast, the way the dining hall had looked at its plates.
Lord Cassian Ardane stood behind me, smiling his bored, handsome, storybook-prince smile. His escorts stood behind him. Ilse was looking at the ground.
"Four days," Cassian said pleasantly. "I said four days. I'm a man of my word."
"Good morning, Lord Cassian."
This time, I looked at him. Straight at him. I'd decided to, somewhere between the empty chair and the notice board.
It seemed to surprise him. For about a breath.
"A match," he said. "You and me. This afternoon, in the yard. No screens. No rules about where you're allowed to wave your pretty light." The smile widened. "Let's see what Elysia's little nurse does when someone's actually trying."
Here is the part I'm not proud of.
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted it so badly my hands went cold. It was the same feeling I'd had at the gate during the tide, right before I walked out through it. The feeling that has gotten me yelled at by every person who loves me.
Liesel's hand closed on my sleeve. Behind me, Wren had stopped humming.
I opened my mouth anyway.
"Lord Cassian."
Lady Severine was standing beside us. I hadn't seen her come. Nobody ever does. She never seems to hurry, and she always gets there first.
"A challenge," she said. "To a match."
"A friendly one, my lady."
"You are a fire mage of Blue rank, my lord, two years into your blessing." Her voice was perfectly level. "Lord Fabian is a healer. He has been a student of this Academy for less than an hour."
She pushed her spectacles up with one finger.
"Explain to me, precisely, in what sense that is a match."
Cassian's smile slipped.
"It is not a match," said Lady Severine. "It is a bonfire with an audience. This Academy does not hold those."
The color climbed Cassian's neck, the way it had in the dining hall. Around us, the girls had stopped pretending not to listen.
"However."
One word. The whole crowd leaned in.
"A lord of Octavia does not fight alone. He never has; the Queen's law sees to that." She looked from Cassian's escorts to mine. "If you want a match, my lord, you may have one as the law intends. A lord and his escorts. Three against three."
Cassian looked at me. At Liesel. At Wren. And slowly, the smile came back.
"Three against three," he said. "Done."
"Three days from today," said Lady Severine. "In the battle yard. Under Dame Valeria, and by her rules." She turned to me. "Lord Fabian. You may refuse. No one here would call it cowardice."
Something flickered behind her spectacles. I couldn't read it.
Once, I'd have said yes before she finished the sentence. Two nights ago, Naomi had asked me why I didn't ask.
So I turned around.
"It's your fight too," I said. "Both of you. Do you want it?"
Liesel didn't even blink. "Yes."
Wren looked at me for a long moment. Then she looked past me, at Ilse.
"My lady would want me close, Young Master."
That was a yes. I'd learned how Wren said yes.
I turned back.
"Yes," I said.
"Then it is settled." Lady Severine folded her hands. "Eyes front."
She said it to nobody in particular. Every girl within thirty paces suddenly found the notice board fascinating.
Cassian leaned in as he passed me, close enough that I could smell smoke on his velvet.
"Three days, little Saint," he murmured. "Bring your nurse's bag."
He walked away. His second escort followed. Ilse followed last, two steps behind, and looked at me once, very quickly, before she went. Her light was still white.
In three days, she'd be standing on the other side of the battle yard, with a sword she'd never once drawn against her lord.
She wouldn't be drawing it against him this time, either.
She'd be drawing it against me.
Beside me, Liesel was grinning like someone had announced lunch. Wren had started humming again, faster.
And I was doing sums. It's what I do when I'm frightened.
A Blue fire mage. Two escorts, either of whom could break me in half. Three days.
Eighteen splashes. And one new trick that cost four of them.