The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,3

said, nudging her horse into motion. The sky remained cloudless, but now the day felt grey. Her eagerness to go back had faded.

"Daja, please talk to me," Frostpine said. "You can stay with me or with Sandry. Frankly, I had expected you would want a house, perhaps even a forge, of your own, since you're of age. Certainly you can afford it. You haven't taken vows of poverty."

He's smiling at me — I can hear it in his voice, she thought. I should smile back, not worry him. But I feel empty. Lost, like when the Traders declared me outcast because I was the only survivor of that shipwreck. Why didn't Sandry warn me, all those letters she's been writing? She babbled of the duke's health and something or other Lark wove or she embroidered, but wrote no word of not being able to return to Discipline. Of course not. She has family. The duke, and her cousins in Namorn. But me ... I'm cast out of my home. If I don't have Winding Circle, what do I have?

Briar and Tris will be in the same basket when they come home, Daja realized. They'll be outcasts, too.

I suppose my lady Sandrilene thought we'd be happy to live as poor relatives. She doesn't know what it's like, always being on the edge of homelessness. She'll expect us to be one cozy little family again, only living on her money, until she marries, or His Grace dies... And I'll be left with no home again.

Daja shook her head. It was all a mess, one she didn't want to discuss.

She forced herself to smile at Frostpine. "Where do we stop tonight?" she asked. "Let's worry about the other business when we're closer to Emelan, all right?"

*

The 26th day of Blood Moon

The year 1041 K.F.

Summersea, Emelan

The first visitor to the house and forge at Number 6 Cheeseman Street was Sandry. Daja could feel her nearness through the magical connection they shared, though Daja's heart had been in such turmoil that she had refused to open that connection to speak to her foster-sister. Now, feeling both apprehensive and angry, she waited for the housemaid to show Sandry into her study.

Sandry thanked the maid and waited for her to leave before she turned on Daja. "I have to learn from your teacher that not only have you been in Emelan two weeks, but you went and bought a house of your own?"

Daja scowled at the shorter girl. "Spare me the ballads," she replied. "You knew very well I was close. I could hardly sleep for you bothering me to open my mind."

"Why didn't you let me in? Why didn't you tell me anything?" cried Sandry.

Daja had bottled up her feelings since Frostpine had said that the home she looked forward to was home no longer. During the ride to Winding Circle and her reunion with her foster-mother Lark and her temple friends, Daja had shown a smooth and smiling face. She had quietly found a Summersea house with a smith's forge already attached, then picked out furnishings so she could move in as soon as possible. To everyone — merchants, dedicates, the old smith whose home she had bought, her new servants — she had pretended that setting up her own household was just what she had in mind.

She was tired of pretending. "Tell you that I was being cast out of Winding Circle because I no longer fit?" she asked quietly. "Tell you so you might offer me charity, or so His Grace might offer me charity? How long until that charity ran out, and I was left on my own again, Sandry? First I lose my family, then the Traders, then Winding Circle. I need my own place. A home no one can take from me."

Sandry's lips trembled. "So you cast me out. You said I was your saati." A saati was a true friend of the heart, someone who was trusted without reserve. "I thought the friendship of saatis lasted forever."

"But first I need to heal. I can't have you picking and prying and worrying inside my mind," Daja said, her face and voice still under control. "I need to tend to myself." Her voice rose slightly. "You didn't even warn me. You've been to Discipline. Did anyone ever say, well, you're sixteen, you can't move back here even if you wish?"

Sandry's chin trembled. "I thought you'd want to live with Uncle and me. I thought we'd all be happy to live at