Liesel — Sanctara
The trouble with writing only true things is that, sooner or later, something true happens.
Mine happened in a dining hall. It was on fire.
I'd been putting this letter off for two days, which was a record even for me. Mother had said Write to me. Often. In my family, "often" means "before Cordelia rides over to ask why you haven't."
So on our third morning in Sanctara, I sat cross-legged on my narrow bed by the window, with a board on my knees, a sheet of paper on the board, and a pen I'd already chewed.
Below the window was the young lords' little walled garden. In the middle of it, Fabian was doing his swings.
Five hundred, every morning. He counted them under his breath, and by now, so did I. Wren stood by the garden gate with her arms folded, humming her three notes in time.
Mother, I wrote.
Then I crossed it out and wrote Your Majesty, because this was a report.
Then I crossed that out too, because she'd know I was being difficult on purpose, and wrote Mother again.
Good start.
Lord Fabian has arrived safely at the Royal Academy, with Wren of House Valcrest and me. He has rooms in the young lords' residence. They have a bath.
All true. A very strong opening.
On our first day, Lord Cassian Ardane burned his own escort's arm at lunch, because she spilled stew on his coat.
The pen went back in my mouth for a while.
Lord Fabian healed her. He knelt in the stew to do it. The circle was Green.
Mother already knew about the Green. Cordelia had stood in front of the throne and listed every circle she'd seen in Greymark, like a quartermaster counting spears. So that part was easy.
The next part wasn't.
Then Lord Cassian threw a fireball at Lord Fabian. It was Blue.
I hit it with my spear.
I looked at that line for a long time.
Half the dining hall had seen it. The other half had heard about it by supper. Somewhere in the palace, right now, a maid was telling another maid, and that maid had a cousin, and that cousin did my mother's hair.
Mother was going to hear about it. Better she heard it from me. Better she heard it the way I said it.
And she'd want to know how. How the daughter who dodged every banquet in the kingdom had knocked Blue fire out of the air with one swing.
I have been training, I wrote.
That was true. On the road, I'd thrown a spear through a buck and into an oak so deep Wren couldn't pull it out. That counted as training. Probably.
I added: Very hard.
Then, after some thought: Recently.
I could still hear Wren asking it on the walk back, very politely. Very hard, Your Highness? And somewhere around there, I noticed I was smiling at my inkpot.
I made myself stop. A princess writing to the Queen does not grin at her inkpot.
Dame Valeria, the battle mistress, stopped Lord Cassian and scolded him. Then she scolded Lord Fabian too, for healing. There is a rule here: no casting outside the battle yard. Healing counts.
I chewed the pen. Then I wrote what I actually thought.
So a Saint may only heal in a battle yard. Dame Valeria says that makes him no use to anyone. I agree with her. Lady Severine says a room for healing is "under consideration."
Things get considered faster when someone asks.
I didn't write please. Mother would hear it anyway. She always does.
Yesterday I showed him the city. He was given an apple, two buns, ribbons, blue flowers and a very small cheese. He was proposed to three times. I answered for him.
He has never owned a purse. When the bill came at the Gilded Lark, he looked for one anyway. Then he offered to pay me back in eggs.
That one got me. I laughed into my sleeve so he wouldn't hear it through the glass. Down in the garden, the count went on without me. Three hundred and six. Three hundred and seven.
Mother had told me to watch him and learn what he could do. But Mother never only wants to know what someone can do. She wants to know what they're like.
So I wrote that too.
He thanks the servers. He bows back to Lady Severine, and I watched her not know what to do about it. He made Wren sit at our table at the Gilded Lark, and she ate a pheasant that costs more than her mother's house.
He never once looked at Lord Cassian. Not when Lord Cassian insulted him, and not when he threw the fire.
He eats when someone makes him. I have a page from his sister about it.
Then I stopped, because the rest of what I knew wasn't for Mother.
I didn't write that I could find him anywhere in this city with my eyes shut. That there was a candle in my chest that was his, and three more that were his sisters'.
I didn't write that every night after supper, three women in Greymark argued about socks inside my ribs.
I didn't write seventeen.
I didn't write that I could break a fence rail by leaning on it.
And I didn't write that, up on the inner wall, his face had gone red, and he'd said stairs.
Stairs. The boy does five hundred swings every morning. I'd watched him do four hundred of them already today without breathing hard.
I was smiling again. I gave up on stopping.
Mother had said something, back at the palace, about Lord Fabian growing fond of me. She wouldn't count it as a loss, she'd said. At the time, I'd filed that under Mother's business. Not mine.
I filed it there again, very firmly, and wrote the last part.
Lord Cassian says he will meet Lord Fabian in the battle yard when term begins. I will be there.
Your daughter,
Liesel
I read it over. Then I added one more line.
P.S. Please don't send a gown.
Every word of it was true. I'm very good at true.
Down in the garden, Fabian finished his five hundredth swing, looked up, and caught me watching. He waved with his sword. I waved with my pen.
Then I sealed the letter, fast, before I could think of anything else true to put in it.
Fabian — Sanctara
I owed a princess one gold coin.
I owned one egg.
I'd done the sums during my swings, and they hadn't gotten any better around swing four hundred.
My letter to Big Sis that morning said: Ate. Slept. Swung. Still owe Liesel. She'd said every day. She hadn't said long.
Liesel went off to take her own letter to the Academy gate, where the guards in crimson would carry it to the palace. "Back by lunch," she said. "Don't do anything interesting."
The door shut behind her.
"Wren," I said. "How do people get money?"
Wren looked up from oiling her sword. "They work, Young Master."
"Can I work?"
Wren looked at me for a very long time.
"...No, Young Master."
"Why not?"
She thought about it carefully. "My lady would ask who let you."
That was fair. I'd been asking Naomi for things my whole life, and "Who let you?" was always her second question. The first was usually "Why are you bleeding?"
I could write to Hana. Hana kept the accounts. She'd send a coin by the next courier, wrapped in three layers of cloth, with a note about scarves.
But then Hana would be paying Liesel back. Technically, the house would. Technically, that meant Naomi. And then I'd owe Naomi, and Naomi charges in laps.
No. This one had to be mine.
The trouble was, nothing in Octavia was mine. My sword came from Marika. My gloves came from Marika too, after they shrank. My socks came from Hana, all six pairs. Even yesterday's apple had been pressed into my hand by a stranger who wouldn't take it back.
Then I looked at the kitchen.
Our quarters had one. A small one, with a row of copper pots so shiny that nobody had ever used them. Every meal we'd eaten so far had come from the dining hall.
And in Greymark, on rainy days, Hana used to make honey cakes.
I used to sit on the counter and be in the way. If I stayed out from under her elbows, she let me lick the spoon. I'd watched her make them more times than I could count, which, in my family, is saying something.
I went to the basket by the door and took out my egg.
It had come all the way from Greymark. I held it up to the window. It looked like an egg. I chose to trust it.
My entire fortune.
"Wren," I said. "I need flour. And honey. And butter."
Wren's cloth stopped halfway down her sword. "...Young Master?"
"From the kitchens."
"Why, Young Master?"
"I'm going to cook."
Wren's face went through several things at once. "Young Master. Men don't—"
"This one does."
She hummed three notes, very fast. Then she went as far as the residence door and sent the guard there instead. She wasn't leaving me alone with a kitchen.
The guard came back with a basket.
"The cook wouldn't take any coin, Young Master," Wren reported. "She said it was for the Saint."
"So I still haven't paid for anything."
"No, Young Master."
"Not even the flour."
"No, Young Master." A pause. "She also sent a cabbage."
I didn't ask why. In my experience, there's always a cabbage.
So. The flour was free. The honey was free. The cabbage, for reasons nobody would explain, was free. Everything in Octavia is free, if you're a man.
Except one thing. Nobody could make it for me.
That would have to be the part I paid with.
I rolled up my sleeves.
Wren hovered. She hovered the way Hana hovers, except silently, which was somehow worse. Every time I reached for something, her hands twitched toward it.
"Wren. If you touch that bowl, I'll tell Big Sis you made me cook alone."
She put her hands behind her back and hummed at the ceiling.
I cracked the egg. A piece of shell went in with it. I fished it out with a spoon, then with my finger, then with a different spoon. My fortune had a crunchy bit.
Flour. Butter. Honey, a lot of honey, probably more than Hana used.
I could've asked her. One drop from the pitcher, and Hana would have told me the whole recipe down to the pinch, with a warning about hot pans. But everyone bound hears every word. And one of everyone was the person I was trying to surprise.
So I guessed.
Then I stirred.
Not like that, said Hana, years ago, in my memory. Don't stir it like it owes you money, Fabian. Fold.
I folded.
Fold until it's one thing, she used to say. Not egg and flour and honey sitting in a bowl together, being polite. One thing.
The stove was the hard part. I'd never lit one. Wren lit it before I could ask, and for once I let her. I'd seen enough fire this week.
Six cakes. Six, because some things are traditions.
They came out of the oven a little lopsided and a little dark at the edges, and one of them was black on the bottom. I put that one at the back of the plate, where nobody would see it.
Wren looked at the plate. Then at me. There was flour on my sleeves, my doublet and, apparently, my face.
"Young Master," she said quietly. "My lady would ask who let you."
"Nobody let me. That's the point."
She hummed. I think it was a very proud hum. It's hard to tell with three notes.
Liesel came back just before lunch. She stopped in the sitting room doorway and sniffed.
"What's that?"
"Lunch," I said. "Paid back."
She looked at the plate on the table. At me. At the flour. At Wren, who was looking very hard at the far wall.
"You made these."
"With my own hands. And my egg."
"Your egg."
"My last egg. It was my entire fortune."
"The cook gave the flour, Your Highness," said Wren.
"Wren."
"Sorry, Young Master."
Liesel sat down. She picked up the most lopsided one and turned it over, studying it from every side, the way Dame Valeria had studied her scorched spear.
Then she bit into it.
She chewed. For a long time. I'd fought a monster tide and slept for three weeks after it, and somehow this was worse.
"Well?"
"It's lopsided."
"It's rustic."
"It's good," said Liesel, and took another bite before she'd finished the first.
She ate two before she said anything else. Then she sat back and looked at the four left on the plate, and something in her face went quiet.
"There are more cooks at the palace than Greymark has guards," she said. "They make me things every day."
"I know. That's why I was worried."
"They're paid to." She picked up a third and turned it over in her fingers. "Nobody's ever made me anything."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I said, "There's a burnt one at the back."
"I saw." She slid it across the table to me. "You made it. You eat the burnt one."
It tasted like charcoal and honey and bad decisions. I ate the whole thing. A deal's a deal.
Liesel pushed one toward Wren, who tried to refuse, lost, and ate it in tiny careful bites. Then Liesel finished the third and the last, and looked at the empty plate.
"Six," she said.
"It's a very common appetite," I said. "In the capital."
She laughed. A real one, the kind from the Gilded Lark, with her forehead down on the table.
"So," I said, when she'd stopped. "Are we even?"
"It was a gold coin."
"It was my last egg."
She thought about it. She licked honey off her thumb and thought about it some more.
"Paid," said Liesel. "With interest."
I decided to count that one as a win.
Next door stayed quiet all afternoon. No voices, no breaking plates. I'd started to wish he'd just shout. At least shouting, you can hear coming.
(Report from Sanctara,) Liesel announced after supper. (He cooked.)
The bond went very still.
(He WHAT?) said Marika.
(Honey cakes. Six.)
(Did he use the oven?) That was Hana, already halfway to panic. (Did he burn himself? Fabian, did you burn yourself? Show Liesel your hands—)
(I didn't burn myself, Sis Hana.)
(He burned a cake,) said Liesel. (Just one. He ate it.)
A pause.
(...Did you fold?) Hana asked. (Or did you stir?)
(I folded.)
(Good.) Her voice did something small and complicated. (You used to lick the spoon.)
(I was nine.)
(There was honey on his ear when I came in,) said Liesel.
(Save me one,) said Marika. (For tactical reasons.)
(They're gone.)
(ALL SIX?)
(I had four,) said Liesel, with deep satisfaction. (Wren had one. He ate the burnt one.)
(Paid?) said Naomi.
(Paid,) said Liesel. (With interest.)
(Good.)
Then Liesel, a little more carefully: (And I wrote to my mother.)
The bond went quiet in a different way.
(What did you tell her?) said Naomi.
(Only true things. The fireball. The rule. The eggs.) A pause. (Nothing else.)
A long breath, nine days away.
(Noted,) said Naomi.
This time it didn't sound like a sword being drawn. It sounded like one being put away, carefully, somewhere she could still reach it.
(Sleep.)
Later, with the door shut and the residence quiet, I lay back on my bed and started emptying the pitcher.
Eighteen, minus about one for the henhouse. Seventeen splashes to go.
One splash. 「Heal」, into my own chest. A small White circle over my hand, a little warmth, gone.
Another.
Another.
Draining isn't hard. It's just long. And when something is long and not hard, your head wanders off without asking.
Mine went back to the Gloamwood. To the spiderling bites. I'd closed them all with 「Mass Heal」, then gone back down the line with 「Cure」, one by one, darkest first.
Then it went to the burned field, and Cordelia, with venom in her and her light going orange, then red, in a breath.
Always two casts. Always one after the other.
And in between, the light got darker.
I stopped, with eight splashes still in the pitcher, and looked at the ceiling.
Father could double cast. I remembered that. At dinner, to make Marika laugh, he used to fill two cups with water at once, from nothing, without looking up from his plate. One skill, two cups.
Nobody had ever said anything about the other way round.
Two skills. One cup.
One new skill a day, Naomi had said.
This wasn't a new skill. I checked. It was two old ones.
And I had eight splashes to throw away anyway.
I held my hand over my chest and reached for 「Heal」 and 「Cure」 at the same time.
「Heal」 came. 「Cure」 slipped away like a fish.
One plain White circle. A little warmth. Gone.
That was just 「Heal」. I'd cast it so many times that Hana had run out of notebook.
Seven left.
I'd tried to pick up two cups with one hand. Fine. Two hands, then.
This time I took hold of 「Cure」 first and kept it there, the way you hold a door open with your foot. Then I reached for 「Heal」 with everything else I had.
Both came.
Two White circles bloomed over my hand, side by side, overlapping at the edges. For one breath, they held.
Then the edges began to grind against each other. They shivered. And both circles burst, like two soap bubbles that had each wanted to be the middle.
A spike of pain went through the backs of my eyes. Nothing else happened. No warmth. Nothing at all.
I counted. Five left.
Two splashes, for absolutely nothing. A cast costs its full mana even when it doesn't hold; I knew that. I'd just never paid it for nothing before. Hana would have written it down with a frowning face next to it.
I lay there and thought about bowls.
This afternoon, I hadn't put the egg in one bowl and the flour in another and hoped they'd find each other. I'd folded them until they stopped being egg and flour. Until they were one thing.
And I'd been reaching for two skills.
But nobody on a battlefield needs 「Heal」. Nobody needs 「Cure」. Cordelia hadn't needed either of them. She'd needed to be well. The wound and the venom were just two halves of what was wrong with her.
Five splashes left. One and one is two. Even if putting them together cost a little extra, five was plenty.
Probably.
So, the third time, I didn't reach for 「Heal」.
I didn't reach for 「Cure」.
I reached for well. For a body with nothing torn in it and nothing poisoned in it. One thing.
And both of them came, together.
Two White circles opened over my hand, and this time they didn't fight. They slid into each other and locked, with a click I felt more than heard, like a key turning. One ring inside the other, turning opposite ways. White on white, so bright the ceiling showed every crack.
The light sank into my chest, warm and cool at once. Sun on your back and cold water in your mouth.
Then the pitcher tipped.
Not a splash. Not a pour. It was as if someone had taken it in both hands and turned it over.
The ceiling swung. My heart kicked once, hard, like a horse kicking its stall, and then kept going much too fast.
I lay very still until the room stopped moving. Then I counted, because of course I counted.
Five before. One after.
Four splashes.
One for 「Heal」. One for 「Cure」. And the same again, all over, just for the privilege of doing them together.
It was the Gilded Lark of spells. A very, very expensive soup.
And if I'd tried it with three left instead of five...
I decided not to think about that. Then I thought about it anyway, for a while, staring at the ceiling.
But I thought about Cordelia's light, too. Orange, then red, in a breath. Two casts, two breaths.
Now it was one.
Four splashes, for one breath. I'd pay that every time.
I was still grinning at the ceiling like an idiot when the bed on the other side of the wall creaked, hard, like someone sitting up very fast.
"Saint?"
Liesel. Not sleepy at all.
And in my chest, very far away, three candles jumped at once, like a door had banged open on all of them.
(Fabian.)
Big Sis. Wide awake, nine days away.
Just my name. Nothing else. She was waiting.
One new skill a day, she'd said.
This wasn't a new skill, I told myself. It was two old ones, holding hands.
Somehow, I didn't think that was going to help.