The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,113
they want — well, at least, bold men who don't try to take her. Maybe, if I'm bold enough to snag her precious cousin, I could be her next favourite, and Sythuthan take Shan and Quen and her other pets!
My uncle said I was to call on him if I need help.
I don't dare wait. Summer goes quick as the wind in Dancruan, and Jak's a fast worker.
His mind made up, Fin sat down at his desk, found his ink bottle, paper, and pen, and began to write.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
The 8th - 22nd days of Rose Moon, 1043 K.F.
The Imperial Palace
Dancruan, Namorn
The party was not going the way Briar had expected it to. He'd certainly come with the intention of luring Caidy into a shadowed corner of the garden for a bit of fun, but Caidy had chosen to torment him first. She snubbed him three times as he approached to ask her to dance, walking off with someone else as he approached. The first two times he simply grinned and asked another girl to dance. The third time, when Caidy smirked at him over Fin's shoulder as he whirled her away, Briar stopped to reconsider.
This is stupid, he thought. All these people with their jewels on, watching to see who envies them and who doesn't, who favours who, it's all a waste of time. What do they accomplish by it? Why do I waste my time on this silly game?
An image of the dead of Gyonxe blotted out the gaudy dancers. Briar could smell rotting flesh. For a moment he heard not music and laughter, but the whistle of the wind blowing over rock. He shook his head to banish the image and pinched his nose to drive out the stench. I left all that back there, he thought fiercely. All I wanted to do was go home and remember what fun is like!
Weary, sweating, Briar looked at the thronged room. All these nice clothes, all these jokes and drinks and food, what good does it do? he wondered tiredly. Tomorrow, folk will be poor and starving and dying with a soldier's pike in them, and these people will have another celebration, more nice clothes, more jokes, more gems. The suffering is forgotten, or ignored — why sorrow? The war victims aren't our people. And the wheel turns and suddenly they are our people.
I have better things to do with my time, he realized. Important things.
He eased himself out onto the terrace, ignored by the couples who had picked a strip of shadow in which to kiss, and trotted down the stairs to the gardens. He instantly felt better on the Rhododendron Walk, surrounded by the dark-leaved plants. Even the blossoms looked shadowy in the scant moonlight that reached them. He walked past them, mending a damaged leaf here, making another unpleasant for the insects who tried to gnaw on it.
Somewhere nearby he sensed Tris. He didn't even bother to check their reformed bond. He didn't have to. If Tris was close, she was at the highest point close by. There she stood, atop the outer palace wall. The wind off the Syth made her skirts flap. What does she hear up there? wondered Briar. If what I suspect is so, what does she see? How did she learn to see it? And that's got to be how she knows Zhegorz is seeing things, right? She knew to get Daj' to make him spectacles. So why won't she just tell us she can do it?
He grinned. Shoulda known she wouldn't stay in the ballroom any longer than it would be polite. He hesitated, then silently called up to her, Want to come see the empress's shakkans? She won't mind I took you there. She gave me a note saying I had an open pass to the greenhouses.
Tris didn't even seem surprised to hear from him. Too much up here, she replied. Shaggy white bears, lights in the sky . . . Not tonight, Briar.
He was about to walk on when she added, It is a waste of time and money. The dancing and the expensive foods.
Briar flinched. How'd you know? he demanded sharply. How can you eavesdrop and me not know it?
I didn't eavesdrop, she replied. You've just gotten a little more like me since you went away.
I'm not sure that's a compliment, he grumbled.
Neither am I, replied Tris. Oh, look! An old ship trapped in ice!