is.”
And so it was that magic came to Avantine.
It is said that mages came from the Oylahn, a land beyond the Montrician Mountains, an impassable landscape no Avantinian had ever crossed; however, the girl queen never asked of Omin’s origins, or if she did, that knowledge was never recorded.
The women of the clans soon returned and agreed that they were tired of the way things were. Omin trained the group Alphonia had assembled and taught them the ways of Deia, which were already ancient even in the ancient time. As the years wore on, the Deian order served the kingdom well. The greatest scribes collected the wisdom of Omin and Alphonia and spent years handwriting the Sacred Texts of Deia, and the greatest artists illustrated them, and the greatest philosophers studied them, and the greatest teachers taught them, and the greatest students learned them.
In time the queen and Omin married, and had a daughter, and that daughter was named Dellafiore, and Dellafiore had a son, and that son took his mother’s name in her honor, as the first of their new house.
Thus began the story of the Dellafiore dynasty.
— II —
MONTRICE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Caledon
BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS, MONT, THE capital city of the Kingdom of Montrice, rises to greet them. In the sun’s glare the city’s harsh gray structures look like part of the natural landscape, jutting up aggressively behind an intimidating stone wall that stretches miles in each direction. But as they ride closer, they can see the carved-out details in the buildings, deep-set windows, arrow loops and battlements on every roof in case of attack.
“Not very welcoming, is it?” Shadow says.
Cal nods. “Mont is a city accustomed to war.” Most windows that he can see, especially near the edges of the city, are gated with iron bars—decorative, but also functional. Armed guards patrol the perimeter, on horseback and on foot. A wide gated entrance at the north side of the city, usually open, is shut tight. Cal frowns. They’re not going to be able to walk right in after all.
“What should we do? Find another way in?”
“No,” Cal says. “Stealth is too risky at the moment.”
Shadow looks down at her clothes and then at Cal. She’s still wearing her stable-hand uniform, except the shirt no longer has sleeves thanks to the incident with the Aphrasians, and Cal has been wearing the same clothes since he left to see the queen. They have been washed in the river, but are ragged and worn from their journey out of Deersia and into the black woods. “Except we don’t look like we belong here. We look like nothing but trouble.”
“We look as well as we are going to look,” says Cal.
“Do I still look like a boy?” she asks.
He shakes his head emphatically. “No one would mistake you as male. Your deception was successful at Deersia only because people see what they expect to see.”
They approach the gate. A man stands inside the guard tower. Cal clears his throat. “Gates were open last time I was here,” Cal says to him, using the neutral dialect of Avantine.
The man replies, “Times have changed, especially concerning Renovians. Beware of them, shady folk.”
Cal nods. “Horrible city, Serrone, full of barbarians,” he says.
“From where do you hail?”
“My sister and I are from Argonia,” he tells the guard. “Just passing through Mont on the way to our grandfather’s estate in Stavin.”
The guard narrows his eyes.
“Of course, we have coin to spare,” adds Cal, and Shadow takes her cue to bring out the pouch full of gold.
“Much coin,” Shadow says, smiling slyly.
* * *
THEIR PASSAGE INTO THE city secured, they ride into town. People everywhere stop to stare at them, even pausing mid-conversation to watch them go by. Their dirty, plain clothes mark them as poor or foreign or both, especially compared with the elaborate dress around them. Behind Mont’s impenetrable fortress walls lies a city of vanity and finery.
Mont’s women, and some of the men, wear dramatic, garish makeup and huge hooped gowns of ornately embroidered fabrics with headdresses so large that the streets feel even more crowded than they