they paid him as much attention as they would have paid any member of her House that they considered trustworthy.
They should not consider any members of your House trustworthy, the Winter King said, amused. But these are, for the most part, lesser times. Even I would have found it difficult to remain suspicious of your friends.
“Yes, but you would have found it hard because you consider them helpless. Or harmless.”
I do not consider them harmless within the context of your life. They hold too much of it. However, they are all but oathsworn; they will not raise hand against you. Those who I required in such close quarters on a continual basis were all oathsworn, when I ruled my lands.
“Taking an oath would make them more trustworthy?” Jewel, thinking of her den—of Duster, in particular—snorted.
In my time, yes. Such oaths were made in the presence of the Priests of Bredan, and to break them was death.
“I can think of a lot of people who’d swear oaths that would lead to death if it allowed them to fulfill their goals.”
The Winter King nodded. It is why the Priests were used. They would not accept an oath that had no meaning for the man—or woman—who swore it. The oath would not be consecrated. Any who came to the oathhalls with intent to betray were turned away in the final moment. They died, he added, but not because of the failure to keep their oath.
Jewel was profoundly grateful not to be living at a time when the Winter King ruled.
He snorted.
* * *
Her personal rooms were not, as she suspected they would be, barren: there were two closets, both small rooms in their own right, one armoire that appeared to be there, judging by the craftsmanship, for display, a small desk—the larger one was in a different room—and two cabinets with long, beveled windows in their doors. The windows shone orange to her eyes; in fact, almost everything in the room did. The bed, the small bedstands that bracketed the bed to the left and right, the rug. She thought the latter was overdoing it.
She was aware, however, that she would never have had that thought if Amarais were still Terafin and closeted in these very fine rooms. If it was good enough for her, she told herself grimly, it’s good enough for me. But the thought, though vehement, lacked conviction. She had the creeping sense of certainty that she, born Jewel Markess, wasn’t worthy of this much effort; the magi, after all, did not work for free.
Well, not most of them at any rate, and Meralonne was contrary enough she’d be unlikely to get simple carpet enchantments out of him.
The closets, as she suspected they would be, were half full. No one had expected that she would refuse to take up residence in these rooms. She wondered if it were Gabriel or Barston who had seen to the contents of these closets; she suspected that Ellerson would have left the dresses in her own rooms until he knew for certain she was leaving.
The first closet contained dresses, in what were presumably her size, in various shades of blue. The cloths used also differed; some were silk, some raw silk (which she disliked; it was scratchy), some were a very fine wool. In the sister closet were dresses in colors other than House blues. They were also made from very fine cloth, and they differed in depth of neckline, height of collar, and length of sleeve. Not many immediately suggested the very full skirts that made running possible.
In this closet there were also shoes and boots. A lot of them. They ranged in color from black to white, with shades of almost everything in between. She closed the door and headed toward the standing dresser, where she was most likely to find something simple, like a nightshirt.
She did. She also found an army’s worth of brushes and combs, more proof that the room had been repopulated with items meant to be useful to whomever was charged with maintaining her public appearance. She changed, although it took longer than it should have because the dress was a complicated affair. All dresses were, these days.
And then: bed.
Avandar came into the room with the stand into which a magestone was laid. The room didn’t need it; there were magestones in the corners of the ceilings, and along the tops of the walls at regularly spaced intervals; they were similar in illumination to those that sat in