The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,110

Tris. "Hello, Red. You'd like Imperial Service," Quen said abruptly, his eyes smiling at her. "Her Imperial Majesty understands the value of research."

"Does everyone know she's asked me?" Tris inquired. "Let me think about it!"

"Just Isha and I know. Very well, I won't pester you. Do you know why Shan waited till now to ask Clehame Sandry to dance? Berenene left the room to attend to some reports." When Tris glanced at the empty throne, then looked at him, Quen shrugged. "She wouldn't be at all happy to see her current lover paying court to Sandry."

Tris fingered one of her free braids. "So that's how things stand," she murmured.

"For now," Quen replied. He reached out a long arm and snagged a glass of wine for himself and a cup of cherry juice for Tris. He handed her the juice, saying, "I noticed that you four are the kind of mages who don't drink spirits. As for Shan — Berenene's moods change. Her lovers change."

"And I suppose you'll tell her, to help her mood change?" Tris asked, sipping her juice.

Quen chuckled. "No. She doesn't like tattletales, either." He grimaced and drained his glass. "She really doesn't like them. But she's no fool. She'll learn about Shan's little game soon enough." He handed his glass to another servant. "So tell me, what's Niklaren Goldeye like outside a classroom? I took one of his courses when I was at Lightsbridge. Every day I came out of one of his lectures, I felt like my brain was overstuffed."

Tris cackled with glee. "That's Niko, all right," she told him. "I thought my brain would explode for that first year."

As Tris and Quen talked about Niko, and then Lightsbridge, Daja watched the dancing from a seat next to Rizu. Sooner or later all of the younger courtiers came to sit around them, leaving and returning to dance or to nibble and drink as servants loaded the tables at the far end of the silver-gilded room. Daja relaxed, feeling more comfortable in this gathering than she had expected to. She wasn't hungry, and limited her drinking to the fruit juice that was served along with the wine.

Finally Rizu patted her face with a lace-edged handkerchief. "I am suffocating," she whispered to Daja. "Let's go cool off."

Daja was happy to go. The room was full of people who danced and sweated, while the many candles that lit the room made it even hotter. Though heat didn't bother her, she would welcome a breath of fresher air. She followed Rizu out, winding through clusters of courtiers, until they passed through one of the double doors to the terrace. There they leaned against a broad stone rail in the shadows. Daja lifted her heavy weight of beaded braids to let the cool night breeze flow across her neck.

"Are all the parties here so, so populated?" she asked Rizu.

Her companion laughed. "This is an intimate gathering," she informed Daja. "Wait till two weeks from now, with the banquet and ball for the ambassador from Lairan. Then all the old nobility will totter in, and the people who don't really approve of the way Her Imperial Majesty lives her life, though they do approve of the peace and prosperity she brings. And then there will be all the other ambassadors . . ." Her full mouth widened in a brilliant smile. "Except perhaps the Yanjing ambassador, who may be feeling ill by then."

Daja smiled, briefly remembering Sandry's first manoeuvre before the empress. At the same time, seeing the way the light struck Rizu's curly lashes, casting their shadow over her eyes, she thought, She's so beautiful. The question burst out of her before she realized it: "Why aren't you dancing? You haven't danced all night. And nobody's asked you, even though you're almost as beautiful as the empress."

Rizu smiled. "You think so, truly?"

Daja opened her lips to say that of course she thought so, but she didn't get to speak. Instead, Rizu leaned over and kissed her softly, gently, on the mouth.

After a moment, she pulled away. There was a look of worry in her eyes. Her hands were fisted in her skirts.

"Oh," said Daja when she remembered how to talk. She felt as if the sun had just catapulted into her mind. Dazzled with what it showed her, she realized also, Rizu's afraid. She's had enough people tell her no that she's not sure....

Strictly to make Rizu feel better, certainly not because she wanted more of that sunlight spilling into her