The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,16
it comes, Arabella. Don’t be in such a hurry. After that I only cautiously brought up the gift. I was ashamed, thinking she’d had a vision of my shortcomings. It hadn’t occurred to me that she was the cause of them. “I think my mother is somehow part of all this, but I’m not sure how.”
“Part of what?”
Other than the kavah on my shoulder, I didn’t know what to say. “She wanted to send me off to Dalbreck.”
“Only after my father proposed it. Remember, it was his idea.”
“She went along easily enough,” I said. “My signature on the contracts hadn’t dried before she was calling for dressmakers.”
A flash of surprise suddenly brightened his face, and he laughed. “I forgot to tell you. I found your wedding gown.”
I stopped my horse. “You what?”
“I plucked it out of the brambles when I was tracking you down. It was torn and dirty, but it didn’t take up much room, so I shoved it in my pack.”
“My dress?” I said in disbelief. “You still have it?”
“No, not here. It was too risky to carry around in Terravin. I was afraid someone would see it, so when I got the chance, I stuffed it behind a manger stored up in the loft. Enzo’s probably found it and thrown it out by now.”
Berdi maybe, but not Enzo. He never did any more tidying up than he had to.
“Why in the gods’ names would you keep it?” I asked.
A smile played behind his eyes. “I’m not really sure. Maybe I wanted something to burn in case I never caught up with you.” A disapproving brow shot up. “Or to strangle you with if I did.”
I suppressed a grin.
“Or maybe the dress made me wonder about the girl who had worn it,” he said. “The one brave enough to thumb her nose at two kingdoms.”
I laughed. “Brave? I’m afraid no one in my kingdom would see it that way, nor likely yours.”
“Then they’re all wrong. You were brave, Lia. Trust me.” He started to lean over to kiss me, but was interrupted by the whinny of Jeb’s horse not far behind us.
“I’m afraid we’re holding everyone up,” I said.
He scowled, jerking his reins, and we moved on.
Brave enough to thumb her nose at two kingdoms. I think that was how my brothers saw it too, but certainly not my parents—nor the cabinet.
“Rafe, have you ever wondered why I was the one who had to go to Dalbreck to secure the alliance? Couldn’t it have been accomplished just as well by you coming to Morrighan? Why is it always the girl who must give up everything? My mother had to leave her homeland. Greta had to leave hers. Princess Hazelle of Eilandia was shipped off to Candora to create an alliance. Why can’t a man adopt his wife’s homeland?”
“I couldn’t because I am going to rule Dalbreck one day. I can’t do that from your kingdom.”
“You aren’t king yet. Were your duties as a prince any more important than mine as a princess?”
“I’m also a soldier in Dalbreck’s army.”
I remembered my mother’s claim that I was a soldier in my father’s army, an angle of duty she had never used before. “As I am in Morrighan’s,” I said.
“Really,” he replied, his tone dubious. “You may have had to leave your homeland, but did you consider everything you would have gained as my queen?”
“Did you consider everything you might have gained as my king?”
“You were planning to depose your brothers?”
I sighed. “No. Walther would have made a fine king.”
He asked me about my brother, and I managed to talk about him without tears in my eyes for the first time, recalling his kindness, his patience, and all the ways he encouraged me. “He was the one who had taught me how to throw a knife. It was one of his last requests to me, that I keep up my practice.”
“Was that the same knife you used to kill the Komizar?”
“Yes. Fitting, don’t you think? And after I stabbed him, I used it to kill Jorik. That’s where I left it, stuck in the middle of his throat. It’s probably for sale in the jehendra by now. Or Malich is wearing it at his side as a memento of his undying fondness for me.”
“You’re so certain that Malich is the next Komizar?”
I shrugged. No, I wasn’t certain, but of the Rahtan, he seemed the most ruthless and hungry for power—at least of those who were left alive. Worry burrowed through me.