that her instincts had been utterly wrong, and she’d somehow managed to break Theron even more.
Then, moving as if his joints didn’t quite fit together, he pulled out the chair they’d put at the table, and sat down. He didn’t speak. His eyes were vacant. He was like a fire that had gone out.
He sat there until Gavin could bear it no longer, and went to throw knives at the target on the terrace. Judah, too, fled.
* * *
“Busy weekend,” Darid said mildly as he dressed her arms the next day, and she was so tired of people speaking mildly to her when all inside her was upheaval that she almost screamed. “The House must be buzzing.”
“Like a hive of wasps.” The curlicue scars disappeared under the clean white bandages Darid used to wrap them. She was always glad when they were covered again. “At least the stables feel sort of normal.”
As soon as she spoke, she realized she was wrong. The stables didn’t feel normal. As usual, the stablehands had found somewhere else to be when she appeared, but unusually, she could still hear them: talking, laughing. Even whistling. Darid finished with her arms and she followed him into the storage barn to help arrange the tack that had come in with the courtiers’ teams. There was a lot of it already, splendid with brass and obnoxious with color even in the dim light from the open door. Farther back, she could see the vague shapes of carriages and phaetons. Outside the barn, somebody sang out. Just one line, something about a tavern, before they were quickly hushed—reminded that she was there, probably. “No,” she said. “Things don’t feel normal here. Why not?”
Darid grinned. “We’ll have a party, too, once the gates are closed and we’re not needed. The stablemen, some of the other grounds staff. The orchardkeepers. The dairymen.”
A party. For most of the House, that was all the betrothal ball would be. “Well, that’s nice, that you can do that.”
“The Seneschal turns a blind eye. Balls are a lot of extra work for us.”
“Lucky you have me to pick up the slack,” she said, and Darid laughed.
When she was finished with the tack, Judah still didn’t want to go back to the House. She stood with Darid by the paddock, watching the horses. Her favorite, the gleaming black colt, crept up behind one of his year-mates, nipped his flank and sprang away. She could almost hear him laughing.
Darid followed her gaze. “That one’s a troublemaker. His sire was, too.”
“Who’s his sire?” The stallions were kept in the cavalry stables—their war training made them vicious—but she knew them a little, by sight.
“Gone now. Elban’s last campaign.”
Judah remembered Elban’s speech, the night of the Wilmerian dinner. It seemed like years ago. Were lives lost? Yes. Such is the nature of war. “The Nali Strait?”
Darid nodded. “Lots of horses lost there.”
“How many is a lot?”
“The whole regiment.”
“I never knew that. Nobody ever told us that.” But why would they? “How does that happen? A whole regiment lost?”
“I only know what I hear. The ships landed—it’s only a day’s passage—and Elban split his forces, planned an ambush. But the Nali ambushed them first. No way to send a message. No way to warn the others what was coming.”
“I thought they used smoke. Or pigeons.”
“I don’t know. I only heard there was no time. It’s a shame.” His eyes were fixed on the colts, sad and resigned. “Men sign up for the army. Horses don’t.”
Judah was watching the colts, too, but her mind was racing. “If there were a way of sending messages, it wouldn’t have happened? Elban would have won?”
“Who can say?” Darid said. “Maybe.”
The rest of the day would be a blank to her: what she did, what she ate, any other conversation she had. Except for that one word.
Maybe.
* * *
She found Elban after breakfast the next day, in his council chamber. Not that there had ever been a council, not as long as she could remember. The guards outside the massive door eyed her distastefully, but didn’t stop her. Inside, Elban sat in his grand chair, the Seneschal standing at his side. One of the older courtiers stood before him, shoulders hunched and submissive. He was in the middle of a speech that sounded entreating. Judah didn’t recognize him. She wasn’t sure how to announce herself. Queasy with nerves, she hesitated.
The Seneschal saw her an instant before Elban did, his mouth tightening. Before he could say anything, Elban