Liesel — Sanctara
The trouble with sneaking into an escort is that, sooner or later, you have to sneak back out of it.
I'd had nine days on the road to plan it. The plan was simple, which is what made it good.
Ride through the palace gate in the middle of the column. Peel off at the stables. Return the borrowed armor to its owner, along with a sack of honey cakes and the most sincere apology of my life. Then stroll into dinner as if I'd spent the month at the southern stud farm, like my note said.
I always left a note. Nobody ever read past the first line.
The plan lasted until the stable yard.
"Beth."
I froze with one foot out of the stirrup.
Cordelia was already down from her horse, tugging off her gloves one finger at a time. She didn't look at me. She didn't have to.
"With me," she said.
"Your Highness, I was just going to see to my—"
"Your horse will survive. Her Majesty will want to hear from a rider who was there."
"Twenty other riders were there."
"Twenty other riders didn't follow the Saint past the gate."
I closed my mouth. It's hard to argue with a sentence you'd have been proud of if anyone else had said it.
She didn't say which side of the gate. I'd said that. Out loud. To a boy who was already running.
So I followed my sister through the palace in somebody else's armor, with my helmet on, past servants who bowed to Cordelia and didn't look at me at all.
Being nobody was wonderful. I was going to miss it.
Mother didn't hear reports in the throne room. The throne room was for people she wanted to impress. The study was for people she wanted to understand.
It was a tall room with tall windows, and a map of Octavia covered one whole wall. Mother sat beneath it, behind a desk with nothing on it but her folded hands.
Golden hair streaked with silver, pinned up under the slim crown. Crimson and gold. And that smile. The serene one that told you absolutely nothing, no matter how long you stared at it.
I'd been staring at it for eighteen years. I'd learned nothing.
"Cordelia."
"Your Majesty." My sister bowed.
I bowed too, the way I'd seen the guards do it. Probably too low. Mother's eyes rested on my helmet for exactly one breath. Then they went back to Cordelia.
My heart did something unwise against my breastplate.
"Greymark held," Cordelia said. "The tide was elite-led. A Gloamweaver Broodmother. Her brood laid silk across the open fields so she could run on it. Countess Valcrest burned the silk from the wall, and we killed her on the bare ground before dawn."
"We."
"The Countess and I." A small pause. "Mostly the Countess."
That wasn't true. I'd been holding one of the Broodmother's legs on the end of my spear at the time. I'd seen both swords go in. But Cor never claimed more than her share of anything, so I didn't say a word.
The helmet was very good for not saying words.
"And the Saint?" Mother asked.
"He was ordered behind the wall. He didn't stay there."
Neither did I.
"He healed Dame Hildegard's knee at the town gate," Cordelia went on. "A ten-year-old wound from the last tide. He did it with a Green circle."
"The Countess's report said White."
"It was White when she wrote it." Cordelia's voice didn't change at all. "He also cast two skills that weren't in her report. 「Mass Heal」, which closes the wounds of everyone inside the circle at once. And 「Vigor」, which takes the exhaustion out of a body. I received the second myself, in the middle of the fight."
So had I. I remembered it better than most of my birthdays. Hours of spear work, gone in a breath, like someone had lifted a sack of wet flour off my shoulders.
"And the Countess's explanation?" Mother said.
"Both skills came with the Green rank, about a week before the tide. There was no time to send word before the bell rang."
"Do you believe her?"
Cordelia paused.
I knew that pause. It was the one my sister made right before she said exactly as much as she meant to, and not one word more.
"I believe there was no time," she said.
She'd skipped something. I didn't know what. But I'd walked the streets of Greymark too, and I'd heard the town bragging about the Saint's count: eleven a day, then seventeen. Cor had heard it. I'd watched her hear it.
She didn't mention it now.
I filed that away with everything else I didn't understand about my sister. It was a very thick file.
And then there was my own file.
Covenant. Four. Regeneration. Not the princess.
Four scraps through a reading room door, before my helmet clonked against the wood and I ran like a thief. I still didn't know what all of them meant. I knew enough.
Lying about a blessing was treason. Every child in Octavia learned that, right after the law about escorts. Hiding a skill from the Crown was lying. And knowing about it, and standing in front of the Queen, and saying nothing...
I didn't know what that was called. I'd never needed to know.
I thought about a boy running the wrong way across a burning field, toward my sister, with blood running out of his nose.
I kept my mouth shut.
"He saved my life, Mother," Cordelia said.
It was the only time she said Mother in the whole report.
Our mother was quiet for a long moment. Then she unfolded her hands.
"Then the Crown owes Greymark twice."
She rose and turned to the map. Her finger found Greymark without searching, right where the green of the farmland ran into the dark smudge of the Gloamwood.
"House Valcrest has held that border for ten years," she said, "under a girl who was fifteen when she took it. A march ought to be held by a marchioness. Countess Valcrest will be raised."
Cordelia inclined her head. I tried not to grin inside my helmet. Somewhere in Greymark, a very tall woman was about to get a much heavier title, and I'd have paid real money to see her face.
"Lady Marika and Lady Hana will each be made a baroness. Their first titles. All three will receive them here in Sanctara, before the court, once the border can spare them." Mother's finger tapped the map once. "And Lord Fabian is invited to the Royal Academy."
"Invited," Cordelia said.
"Invited."
In our family, an invitation from Mother had exactly the same shape as an order. It just wore nicer clothes.
"He'll need someone near him." Mother was still looking at the map, as if Greymark might answer her. "Someone who can stand at his side without looking like a jailer. Someone who will write to me what a Saint does when he believes no one important is watching." She turned. "Cordelia, of the knights in your escort, who would—"
"Me."
The word came out of the helmet before my brain had finished voting on it.
"I'll go," I said.
Silence.
Mother looked at the helmet. Properly, this time.
"And you are?"
"Beth. Just—"
Cordelia smiled. It was a very small smile, and I hated it.
"Finally," she said.
"...Finally?"
"I wondered how long you'd keep it on." My sister folded her arms. "Did you really think I didn't see you climb into my escort the morning we left? You mounted from the wrong side. You've mounted from the wrong side since you were six."
"Lots of people mount from the wrong side."
"Lots of people don't introduce themselves to my captain as 'Beth' and then forget to answer to it for two days." She tilted her head. "Take it off, Liesel."
I took it off.
The air of the study felt cold on my sweaty head. My hair did whatever my hair does.
Mother's face didn't change. Not by a hair.
Whether she was shocked that her younger daughter had spent most of a month hidden inside her elder daughter's escort, or whether she'd known since the very first morning, I couldn't tell. I never could. That was the whole problem with Mother.
"Elisabeth," she said.
I winced. I couldn't help it. Nobody calls me that unless I'm in trouble, and Mother calls me that when I'm not, which is worse.
"You," she said, "who handed your sister three banquets, a harvest festival and the opening of a bridge this year alone. You, who would rather muck out a stall than sit through a ceremony."
"Especially a ceremony."
"Now you volunteer."
"He's interesting," I said. It came out more honest than I'd planned. "He heals strangers for free. He thanks the people who bring his food. When everyone was screaming at him to run, he ran toward Cor." I swallowed. "I want to see what he does next."
Mother waited. She was very good at waiting. It made people keep talking.
"And," I added, "it gets me out of the Harvest Ball."
"You weren't going to the Harvest Ball," Cordelia said.
"Then it gets me out of hearing about it."
"I'm going to the Harvest Ball."
"Exactly."
Somewhere behind her perfect face, I think Mother sighed.
"Very well."
I blinked. "...That's it?"
"You'll go as yourself, not as Beth. You'll carry my letters to the Countess and her sisters as well; a princess bringing news of their titles does the house honor. Your guards will ride back with the Countess's answer, and you will stay. My law requires two escorts for him. You'll be one; the Countess may choose the other." She sat down again and folded her hands. "Watch. Learn what he can do. Write to me. Often."
"I can do that."
"And if Lord Fabian should happen to grow fond of you—"
"Mother."
"—I would not count it as a loss."
My face went hot enough to cook on.
"From what I saw," Cordelia said, very neutrally, "he isn't the kind of man who expects to be served."
"So your report suggests." Mother's smile didn't move. "Which is precisely why it would not be a loss."
I looked from her to my sister and back again.
I couldn't tell if I'd just won something, or if I'd walked straight to the exact spot Mother had been planning to put me since before I opened my mouth.
With Mother, those were usually the same thing.
I rode out the next morning.
Two of Mother's guards rode behind me, because even a princess who isn't a knight isn't allowed to be quite that free. Mother's sealed letters sat in a pouch against my ribs. Four of them, one for each Valcrest, with a new title inside three. I touched the pouch every few minutes to make sure they were still there, which was stupid. Where would they go?
And this time, I was dressed like my sister.
Not exactly like her. The armorers had cut down one of Cor's old silver half-plates to fit me overnight, with a great deal of muttering about my shoulders. But it was polished and fitted and crimson-caped, with the crowned star on the breastplate where everyone could see it.
No helmet. No borrowed name.
I looked like Cordelia, if Cordelia had been left out in a high wind.
The new spear was from the armory too. Beth's had cracked on a spider leg the size of a fence post. I hadn't had the heart to throw it away. It was under my bed.
Cordelia came down to the gate to see me off. She didn't have to. She did anyway.
"Here," she said, and handed me a pair of riding gloves. Hers. "You lost yours in Greymark."
"I didn't lose them. I dropped them. On a spider."
"Wear these."
I pulled them on. They were too long in the fingers. I didn't say so.
"One more thing." Cordelia checked my saddle girth herself, which she only does when she's about to say something she means. "Beth called him Saint."
"How do you know what Beth called him?"
"I was there, Liesel." She stepped back. "If you'd rather he didn't know yet, call him Lord Fabian."
"And if I want him to know?"
"Then tell him yourself." Her green eyes met mine. "Don't let him find out from someone else. People don't like that."
I thought about that for longer than I wanted to.
"Cor."
"Hm."
"Why did you let me come? The first time. You saw me on the first morning. You could've sent me home."
My sister looked at me for a long moment with no expression at all. She'd learned that from Mother. I'd never forgiven her for it.
"Try to keep up, Liesel," she said, and walked back inside.
I rode out under the crimson banners with my two guards behind me and the city waking up around us.
Nine days to Greymark.
Nine days to work out what to say to a boy who'd never seen my face. And one question I'd been carrying ever since a door clonked against my helmet.
Fabian — Greymark
The first thing I felt was candles.
Three of them, in my chest, exactly where they'd always been.
Hana's, soft and warm, so close it was practically sitting on me. Marika's, bright and restless, out across the yard near the stables, moving back and forth like it was pacing. And Naomi's, steady as a lantern by a door, on the east side of the house.
The war room, then. Of course.
The second thing I felt was everything else.
My body was heavy. Not tired-heavy. Heavy like someone had poured me full of wet sand and forgotten to tell my arms. My head ached in a dull, faraway way, like the memory of a headache instead of the real thing.
I reached for the pitcher in my chest, out of habit.
A splash. Maybe. Rolling around the bottom like a single dried pea.
Huh.
I opened my eyes.
My own ceiling. My own room. Morning light through the curtains. And in the chair beside my bed, Hana, asleep sitting up, with her notebook open in her lap and the pen still in her hand. Her white ribbon had slid halfway down her hair.
Her light was white, edged with yellow. Not a cut. Not a cold. The kind of yellow that meant you'd slept in a chair for too many nights in a row.
I hadn't even decided to look. Apparently 「Eyes of Elysia」 just did that now, the moment I opened mine.
Then Hana's eyes opened too, all at once, the way they did when I sneezed two rooms away.
She stared at me.
"Morning," I said. It came out as a croak.
"Fabian."
"Hi."
"Fabian."
The notebook hit the floor. Then she was on the edge of the bed, both hands on my face, then my shoulders, then my face again, like she was counting my parts and kept getting a different number.
"You're awake. You're— don't move. Don't you dare move. Are you thirsty? Of course you're thirsty. Here. Small sips. Small, Fabian."
I took small sips. Hana watched every one like it might escape.
Her eyes were already wet. By the second sip, they weren't just wet anymore.
"Sis Hana."
"I'm fine." She wiped her face with her sleeve. "I'm fine. This is fine crying. It's the good kind."
"How long was I out?"
She didn't even glance at the notebook on the floor.
"Twenty-one days."
"Three weeks?"
"Twenty-one days."
"That's three weeks."
"It felt like more." She sniffed. "You sneezed four times."
"You counted my sneezes while I was unconscious?"
"Of course I did. And you said 'turnip' once, on the ninth day."
Terran. Even in my sleep.
I wanted to laugh, but my ribs objected. Then the rest of it caught up with me. The field. The silk. A shriek like a nail dragged across the whole sky. Lights going orange, then red, all over the dark.
"The tide," I said.
"Over."
"Everyone—"
Hana took my hand in both of hers.
"Nobody died," she said.
I just looked at her.
"Nobody?"
"Not one. Lots of cuts. Lots of bruises. A few broken bones. The menders were busy for days." She squeezed my hand. "But the ones who would have died... you got to them first. Every one."
Something in my chest let go. I hadn't even known it was holding on.
"Sigrid's all right?"
"Back on duty. Grumbling."
"Dame Hildegard?"
"Walks to the market every morning. On purpose. The long way. She says she's making up for ten years."
"The youngest guard? The one who hums?"
"She's fine. She's asked about you every single day." Hana smiled. "Sometimes twice."
"And the princess?"
"Her Highness rode home with her escort the day after the tide. She came up to see you before she left." Hana's voice softened. "She stood right there for a long time and didn't say anything. Then she asked if you were breathing, and I said yes, and she said, 'Good.'"
That sounded about right.
"And Beth?"
"Went with them."
"Huh."
I didn't know why that bothered me. She'd been a guard in a royal escort. Of course she'd gone home.
She never even took her helmet off.
I tried to sit up.
My body made a strong case against it. I made a strong case back. My body won. I got about halfway before Hana put one finger in the middle of my chest and pushed me down again.
One finger.
To be fair, I'd been in bed for three weeks, and my sister could swing a warhammer one-handed. It wasn't a fair fight. It had never once been a fair fight.
"Can't you just—" I waved vaguely at myself. "Salve?"
"I tried salve."
"On what?"
"On everything. Just to be safe."
"Did it help?"
Her face crumpled a little. "No. Nothing helps mana fatigue. Not salve, not the menders. Father's book says not even a Saint can heal it. You just have to wait." She looked down at our hands. "So we waited."
"We?"
"We felt you, Fabian. The whole time." She pressed her free hand flat over her own chest, right where my candle would be. "The first night, you were so dim I could barely find you. Then every day, a tiny bit brighter. That's how I knew you'd come back."
I didn't have anything clever to say to that. So I didn't say anything.
Her light was still edged with yellow.
"You haven't slept," I said.
"I slept."
"In the chair."
"It's a very good chair."
"Your light's yellow, Sis Hana."
"My light can mind its own business."
"When I can cast again, you're first."
"You're not casting anything for a week."
"A day."
"A week."
Somewhere across the yard, Marika's candle stopped pacing.
Then it started running.
It came across the yard like a thrown torch, up the back stairs and down the hall, and my door banged open hard enough to rattle the window.
Marika stood in the doorway, breathing hard. Her twin tails were windblown, and there was straw on her shoulder.
"I was," she said, "checking the stairs."
"From the stables?"
"They're long stairs."
"You've got straw on you."
She brushed it off without looking, which only moved the straw to her other shoulder. "The stairs are structurally—"
"Disappointing?"
"Very."
She marched to the foot of my bed, crossed her arms, and glared at a spot on the wall about a foot to the left of my head.
"Three weeks," she said. "Do you know how boring the east road is when—"
She stopped.
"The east road was boring," she finished.
"Sorry, Sis Marika."
"You should be. I rode it until I ran out of road. Then I rode it back. Then I ran out of road again." Her jaw worked. "Next time you pour yourself out like a bucket, warn me first. I felt all of it."
"We all did," Hana said quietly.
Marika's glare slid from the wall to me for exactly one second. It wasn't much of a glare. Then it went back to the wall.
Naomi's candle didn't run.
It never ran. It came along the east hall at a steady walk, the way a lantern comes down a corridor, and stopped outside my door. Then the door opened, and my eldest sister stepped in.
No armor. A plain tunic, a stack of papers under one arm, ink on two fingers. She looked like she'd been standing behind a chair in the war room for three weeks straight, which she probably had.
She looked at me.
"Awake," she said.
"Awake."
She crossed the room, set the papers down, and put her hand on my head.
It stayed there longer than usual.
I didn't look at her light. I looked at her face, which was the same face as always, calm and sharp, and somehow wasn't.
"You left the wall," she said.
"Yes."
"You left the gate."
"Yes."
"I said run."
"I ran."
"The wrong way."
"...Technically, I still ran."
Naomi's hand pressed down on my head, very gently. "Laps."
"How many?"
"When you can stand. I'll decide." Something in her voice wobbled, just once, and went still again. "A lot."
"Noted."
Marika made a noise that might have been a laugh if she'd let it out.
I swallowed. "Big Sis. The princess saw everything."
"So did twenty knights and half the town."
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth."
My stomach dropped through the mattress. "Which truth?"
"That 「Mass Heal」 and 「Vigor」 came with your Green rank, about a week before the tide. That there was no time to write." Naomi's gray-blue eyes held mine. "It's true."
"It's true," I agreed. "And—"
"Stays ours."
Three candles in my chest, steady. Ours.
"Then I should—" I started, and swung my legs toward the edge of the bed, because apparently I'd learned nothing in twenty-one days.
I got exactly as far as the swing.
Hana's finger landed on my chest. Naomi's hand pressed my head into the pillow. And Marika sat down on my feet.
"Sis Marika."
"It's tactics."
"You're sitting on my feet."
"Tactically."
"Bed," Naomi said. "Three days."
"I've been in bed for three weeks!"
"Then you've had practice."
"And soup," said Hana.
"And soup," Naomi agreed.
I stared at the ceiling. Three knights, one patient. The odds had never been worse.
"What about the town?" I asked. "Healing hour—"
"The town can wait," Hana said. "The town's been leaving things at the gate."
"Eggs?"
"So many eggs," said Marika darkly.
"Sigrid ran out of baskets," said Naomi.
"And a goat," said Hana.
"A goat?"
"A small one. It's in the stables." Hana's eyes slid toward Marika. "Sis Marika named it."
"I did not name it."
"She calls it General."
Marika's ears went from pink to red. "It has a commanding presence."
I laughed then. My ribs complained, and I didn't care.
Knock, knock.
Sigrid stood in the doorway in full armor. Her eyes went straight to me, and for one moment her face did something I'd never seen it do.
"Young Master." Her voice was polite, as always, and not quite steady. "Good to see your eyes open."
"Thanks, Sigrid. I hear you ran out of baskets."
"I'll find more." She turned to Naomi, and her voice went back to captain. "My lady. A rider at the town gate, under the crimson and gold. A royal envoy."
Naomi didn't move. "From Her Highness?"
"From Her Majesty. She carries sealed letters, my lady. One for you, and one each for Lady Marika and Lady Hana." Sigrid's eyes flicked to me. "And one for the Young Master."
The room went very quiet.
Marika got off my feet. Hana's hand tightened around mine. Naomi took her hand off my head, slowly, and looked toward the window. East, toward nothing in particular.
I bought us time, she'd told me, the night of my blessing. Not forever.
Forever, it turned out, had arrived on horseback.