Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,72
ribs.
“None of that,” the princess said with a laugh. “They’ll charge us extra if we have a pillow fight.”
Savedra chuckled. She’d never shared a bed with anyone but Nikos, not since she was too old to sleep with her mother or her nurse after a bad dream. Lovers, yes, but not the quiet—or in this case creaking with every shifted arm—warmth of another body. Ashlin had no sisters, and Savedra wondered if she’d ever had to share. After a drowsing moment, she asked.
“My brother used to crawl into bed with me when he was scared, in case monsters snuck into the room,” said the princess. “I had more weapons at hand than our nurse.” The bed frame creaked as she rolled over and her breath brushed warm across Savedra’s shoulder. “On cold nights my riders and I would sleep like puppies, as many in the tent as would fit. Cahal, by the way, snores like a pig and steals the blankets besides. You smell nicer than any of them. And there was one season—” Her voice broke. “I had a lover.”
Savedra had known it, of course, but the words were so soft and rushed, so stripped of all Ashlin’s usual prickles and armor, that her breath caught in her throat.
“Only for the autumn. Then I was called back to Yselin, and the betrothal moved forward, and…. Well, you know the rest of that.” She sighed. “It was nice while it lasted.”
Fabric rustled and Savedra felt a gentle tug on her hair—Ashlin’s fingers twining in her braids. The sensation prickled her skin. When Savedra raised her face from the pillow she smelled her: garlic and wine from supper, herbal soap and weapon oil, and under that the sweeter musk of her skin.
“I envy you, you know. The bond, if not the man.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Bedding rustled and she imagined Ashlin’s shrug. “It’s not your fault. I could have run away and become a mercenary. It isn’t all bad—I do like Erisinian food.” She tugged gently on one braid. “How did you end up with hair like this, anyway? I’ve seen your parents.”
Savedra accepted the graceless change of subject gladly. “My mother likes to blame the Iskari on my father’s side of the family.” She smiled into the dark, remembering her mother’s quiet profanity as yet another delicate sandalwood comb broke in her hair. “My father always reminds her of her own Assari grandmother.”
They lay in silence while wind whispered around the eaves and the inn creaked and sighed softly to itself. Finally Ashlin’s breath roughened and her hands rested, still tangled in Savedra’s hair. By the time Savedra slept, the princess was curled warm against her back.
She woke the next morning huddled in a ball and stinging with gooseflesh. Ashlin stood before the open window, silhouetted against a lead-and-rose sky. She turned when Savedra stirred, grinning like a child. “Get up,” she said. “It’s snowing.”
They left for the castle at daybreak. No one warned them away or tried to stop them, though from the way the innkeeper shook his head he thought the mission was folly. He pressed charms on them as they left—cords strung with beads of wood and tarnished silver—and a small pouch that settled like sand against Savedra’s palm. Salt, from the smell, and anise or fennel. She thanked the man in mangled Sarken.
Folly or not, their mission was certainly trespass, and on foreign soil no less. Ashlin might be used to such things, but Savedra’s head was crowded with visions of Sarken warlords riding down on them and demanding explanations. The hills were empty, though, save for the usual skitter and scurry of wildlife and birds wheeling overhead.
Snow fell in slow fat flakes that melted when they hit the ground. The sky hung low against the mountains, clouds shredding on their peaks, while sunrise pink and gold cooled to grey. The snow was soft but the wind cut like a razor, mocking Savedra’s autumn clothing.
The road became overgrown the closer they rode to the castle. In better light Savedra saw grey crystals glittering amid dirt and pebbles only a few yards past where they had turned back the night before; the salt of the villagers’ wards. She touched the bag of herbs and salt in her coat pocket. Despite the fabled mystic senses of the hijra, all she felt was cloth and rasping grains. Likewise the cord around her neck felt no more powerful than the pearls she wore at court.
At the foot of the steep, tree-choked