Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,72

making me doubt I’d felt it at all.

“You can go inside,” he said, leading his steed to shelter. “It’s safe.”

I didn’t have the will to question his assurance, but my nerves hummed as I approached the door and stamped muddy snow from my boots. My thumb paused on the latch before I found the courage to enter.

The savory scent of a warm meal greeted me first, disarming me completely. An angry bear could have been waiting for me and I would have swooned heart-first into the warmth of that room.

It was a small cottage with a high vaulted ceiling and a loft. A wooden dining table bearing many a nick and score stretched toward a hearth and kitchen with pots and pans on pegs. Dark heads bobbed around the room. One of them belonged to Navara, who sat in the chair closest to the hearth with a hunk of bread and a bowl of what looked like hearty meat stew. A thin woman who I guessed to be Severo’s mother bent over the fire, stirring the contents of a heavy pot suspended over the flames.

The heads stopped bobbing for a moment to regard me. I realized I was letting a draft fill the room, and quickly shut the door behind me.

“I’m sorry,” I said in Perispi, wringing my damp sleeve in my fist.

The woman straightened and turned. “Oh,” she said, waving me inside. “Um, please, come in.”

Wary, I shuffled to an open seat at the table, absorbing the expressions of the children gathered around it. The smallest was a little girl, perhaps four or five years old. The oldest was a boy about Navara’s age.

“There’s plenty of stew,” the woman said, and turned to one of the younger girls. “Eleni, please get another bowl.”

Staring at me all the while, she did as her mother asked.

As I drew near the firelight, the woman’s eyes widened. She grasped the bowl with tense fingers and looked from Navara to me in perplexed awe. She must not have previously recognized the princess with her cropped hair and desperate hunger, but she did now. The huntsman had been correct that we were too easy to identify as a pair: the lovely, kind princess and the fair, imposing foreign queen.

The woman plunged into a curtsy. “Forgive me. Sev told us to expect company, but he did not extend the courtesy of telling me who. I would have”—she gestured, frazzled—“prepared more suitable accommodations.”

“This is far better than suitable,” Navara assured her. “We’ve been wandering in the wilderness. Your hospitality alone is a luxury, and this stew is as delicious as anything the palace cooks ever prepared for me.”

Gracious. Artful. This princess knew how to interact with her people.

The woman seemed near to tears. “My name is Melda Segona. I’m Severo’s mother, and these are his brothers and sisters.” She pointed to each of the children. “The girls from oldest to youngest are Stasi, Leda, Eleni, and Margala. The boys are Jeno, Lukas, and Narios.”

The children regarded us with a range of expressions, from awestruck to mistrustful. “Mama, is that the princess?” the youngest girl asked.

“Eat your dinner. It’s almost time for bed.”

“Are they sleeping here?”

Without looking at us, the mother said, “Yes, Margala. You’ll share a bed with Leda tonight.”

The door swung open. Severo came in and stamped the snow off his boots. His mother shot him a discreet look, as if to say you didn’t bother to tell me royalty was coming to stay the night? He cocked an eyebrow at her and tromped past me toward the fire.

“You don’t want to take that wet thing off?” he asked me over his shoulder as he warmed his hands.

“Oh.” I realized I was still wearing the fur, damp from snow. I shrugged it off and his mother hung it on a line of garments following the steep staircase to the loft.

Severo filled a bowl with stew and passed it to me before serving himself. The huntsman dropped into it with the familiarity of someone who belonged.

I began to devour the stew, savoring it bite by delicious bite. Melda bustled about while we ate, collecting and folding laundry.

Navara and I both started another helping. The mother sent the boys to bed and they trampled up to the loft like a herd of cattle. There, they whispered and chuckled until the eldest of the three boys chided them.

The two eldest girls, Stasi and Leda, were tasked with carrying a sloshing pail of hot water into their shared bedchamber for