you tell him?” Ayla leaned forward, heart thumping. “Crier, what did you do?” Because of me?
“What I gave him wasn’t information. It was power.” Crier almost smiled, thin and humorless, and let go of the armband. Folded her hands back in her lap, and just like that she looked like a painting, a portrait, light and color and perfection captured, if only for a moment. “Power over me. His mark on my arm. My endorsement. But—only in show.”
Ayla let out a breath. “So you didn’t actually join him.”
“No,” said Crier, surprised. Like it had never even occurred to her that Ayla might be confused, might doubt her motives or beliefs. “I would never. But please understand. I didn’t know what he was going to do to you. I was . . . concerned. I wanted to get you—away from him.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Ayla said fiercely.
“Was I supposed to let you rot away down there? Or worse?”
“No, but you shouldn’t have given him that. He’s always three steps ahead. You can bet that he’s already planning how he’s going to use this, use your fake support—”
“I know that,” said Crier.
“So why? Why would you risk that?”
Again, surprise. “Because I knew it was the only way he would let you stay. With me.”
Ayla flopped back against the velvet seat of the carriage, furious all over again. “You shouldn’t have,” she hissed. “It was reckless, it was dangerous, it was—”
“Worth it,” said Crier. Her eyes, out of the direct sunlight and both that deep, human brown, were fixed on Ayla’s face. She looked calm everywhere except her hands, which were clenched tight in her lap.
In the tiny space of the carriage, it was too much.
Ayla curled up in a ball in the corner of the seat so that not even her knees could touch Crier, and she spent the rest of the journey staring sightlessly out the window, watching the dead yellow hills slide by, not even trying to not think about Crier, and the ache yawning wide inside her chest.
19
Foer’s estate was smaller than the sovereign’s, nestled in the dip of a valley. As was common in the South, the buildings were made from granite and dark, shining wood, the wooden rooftops curving up sharply toward the sky. The grounds were composed mainly of fields and horse pastures, a few orchards. No gardens—that was always the first thing Crier missed whenever she’d visited Rosi here over the years. The gardens and the sea air.
Their party descended slowly into the valley, the sun sinking behind them. Crier drew back the velvet curtains and peered out at the landscape: the hillsides were grass and rough outcroppings of gray stone, furred with brambles.
“Have you been here before?” said Ayla, breaking the silence so abruptly that Crier startled a little.
“Yes,” she said, refusing to acknowledge the slight amusement on Ayla’s face. “A few times. Rosi is my closest companion. Has always been.”
“Really?”
“Well.” Crier thought about it. “Yes. Comparatively.”
Ayla seemed to mull that over. “You don’t have very many companions.”
“No. Not many.”
Somewhere in the distance, horns sounded. One of her men announcing their arrival. Crier smoothed her skirts, her hair. She tried to fix her expression into something appropriately somber. It wasn’t hard—she was not exactly in high spirits—but she always felt extra self-conscious around Rosi, extra performative. “Does my face look all right?” she found herself asking Ayla.
Ayla raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean, all right?”
“I don’t know,” Crier muttered. “Never mind. It was a foolish thing to ask.”
She felt Ayla’s eyes on her and refused to look up. She stared at her own hands in her lap, light brown against the midnight black of her dress.
“It does,” said Ayla almost begrudgingly. “Look all right, I mean.”
Crier’s eyes widened in surprise, but before she got a chance to reply, the carriage was rattling to a stop. She heard the sound of her driver leaping from his seat, his bootsteps in the scrubby grass, the horses whuffing softly to each other. They had arrived.
“Lady Crier,” said the driver; a moment later the carriage door opened and she was helped down. She blinked, eyes adjusting instantly to the half-light of evening in the valley. Behind her, Ayla hopped down to the ground and cursed under her breath when she landed hard. Crier bit back a completely inappropriate smile.
“Lady Crier!” Rosi’s voice cut through the evening like a knife through velvet. She was standing at the main entrance of the manor, flanked by servants and her