a powdered pastry. She said the king of Morrighan was thirty-four and had still not found a proper match when a noble First Daughter of a kingdom under siege had caught a Lord’s eye on a diplomatic trip to Gastineux.
Confluence—a coming together by chance, like meandering brooks that join up in a distant unseen gorge. Together they become something greater, but it isn’t delicate or sweet. Like a raging river, a confluence can lead to something impossible to predict or control. My aunt Cloris deserved more credit for her astuteness than I had given her. Yet sometimes the coming together, the confluence of destinies, seemed not to be by chance at all.
Today the Komizar had matters that needed his attention in the Tomack quarter, but he’d learned from Calantha that Rafe’s family had bred horses that supplied the Dalbreck army. He asked Eben and Governor Yanos to take Rafe to the eastern paddock and stables just outside the city to assess some of his studs and mares.
I had insisted on exercising some of my newly earned freedoms, even if it came with the escort of two well-armed guards, and I went to the Capswam quarter to seek out Yvet’s bapa. I gave him half the winnings from my card game with Malich and asked three things of him—that he seek out a healer for Yvet to make sure her hand didn’t blacken with infection, to use the remaining coins to buy the cheese she had so dearly paid for already, and to never shame her for the heinous deeds of another. He tried to refuse the money, but I made him take it. And then he cried, and I thought my heart would wrench from my chest.
The guards, two young men who were no more than twenty, witnessed the exchange, and after we left I warned them not to tell Malich where his winnings had gone.
“We’re Meurasi,” one of them said. “Yvet is our cousin.” And though they extended me no promises, I knew they wouldn’t tell.
It was midday, and I had just entered the stable yard from the south Sanctum gate, and Rafe from the western gate. My heart lifted as it always did when I saw him, for a brief moment forgetting about the danger he faced and the lies I had to guard. I only saw the scruff of his unshaven face, his hair tied back, the confidence of his posture in the saddle, the same sureness as when he had walked into the tavern the first time. There was an engaging power about him, and I wondered how no one else saw it. He wasn’t a conniving lackey to a prince. He was the prince. Maybe we all see what we want to see. I had fallen in love with the idea of a farmer, and it hadn’t taken much nudging for me to believe it was so.
He was eating an apple, and its red skin shone bright against the drab stable yard. I had seen the treasured fruit arrive this morning with a Previzi caravan and watched Calantha throw him two of the sweet prizes. I hadn’t had any fruit since I left the vagabond camp. The closest thing to it here was the root vegetables—carrots and turnips—sometimes served with the Sanctum chickens or wild game. I knew an apple was another reserved luxury delivered to the Council quarters, and I wondered at Calantha’s generosity with Rafe.
He swayed easily in his saddle as he approached, biting off another chunk of apple, and our paths met in the middle of the yard. We exchanged a quick glance and dismounted, waiting for teams of horses that were being hitched to wagons to move out of the way. Even though we had an idle moment together and the guards surrounding us were loud with jesting, telling the Previzi drivers to hurry up about their work, there were still too many within earshot. I couldn’t take a chance trying to explain last night and how my refusing the Komizar might hasten Rafe’s death sentence. He was left to wonder what I was up to. He knew I despised the Komizar. He chewed his apple, his eyes inspecting my dress and the long trails of bones that rattled at my side. I could see every syllable in his eyes: She’s becoming more Vendan every day.
“If my friend Jeb were here,” he said, “he’d commend your accessories, Princess. His tastes run on the savage side.”
“As do the Komizar’s,” a guard interjected,