An Accident of Stars (12 page)

“I won't be able to tell her the truth, though,” Saffron whispered. “About all of this. I'll have to make up some horrible lie about being kidnapped and having my fingers cut off. How can I do that to her? To any of them?”

“Are you whole?” Trishka asked, suddenly.

“What? You mean my hand? You know it's not.”

“Not your hand.” Trishka shook her head. “Your
heart
, child. That's what matters. That's what your family will see, no matter what lies you tell them. Are you whole inside?”

“I…” Saffron stared, surprising herself the answer. “I am. At least, I think I am.” She licked her lips, and knew it to be true. “I'm whole.”

Trishka smiled. “Then hold to that, and hope.”

I
viyat ore Leoden ki Hawy
, Cuivexa of Kena, was running away.

Not literally running, of course, which would have attracted too much attention, but walking as quickly as she dared, head bowed with pride and fear. Battling nervous energy, she smoothed her hands down her skirt. Though she'd dressed in clothes that gave no hint as to her true station – a dark riding skirt and boots, green scarves at head and waist, a stained cream blouse and a knotted silk vest – they would still have stood out if she'd taken the servants' stairs. Instead, she walked in the open, trusting to the preoccupation of any passersby to shield her from notice. So far it was working, but the wing of the palace in which she lived was, with the exception of those servants and guards set to care for her, uninhabited. Under Vex Ralan, it had been where the royal children slept, and as those boys and girls were now either dead, fled or grown, she had the place to herself. She clenched her teeth, shivering with adrenaline and anger. For neither the first nor last time since her wedding day, she cursed Hawy's stubborn blindness, her blank refusal to see the danger in Leoden that had split their clan in two. Only now, with her bloodmother's promises shown to be empty as cicada shells, did Viya truly understand why Leoden had chosen her: not to flatter Hawy, but to threaten Rixevet.
Your daughter is my hostage. Stay your tongue.
Leoden would never bend to Viya as a husband should, not even if she were beautiful as thirdmother Sava and older to boot; not when his heart was so tightly coiled in Kadeja's fist that the blood of it stained her fingers.

Reaching the junction that separated her wing from the palace proper, she hesitated. The doors to the next hallway were closed, which was usual, but what if they were locked too? With her guards elsewhere, it would have been a simple thing for Leoden or Kadeja to imprison her here; a more expedient means of keeping her out from underfoot than trusting to Viya's usual spoiled disinterest. Heart in mouth, she tried the handle and crowed to feel it turn, peering through the crack into the next hall. Distant footsteps echoed, accompanied by a ringing shout that could only have come from Javet, the majordomo. But of actual bodies, the hall remained mercifully clear, and so Viya slipped through, being careful to close the doors again behind her.

She'd slept late that morning on purpose, not knowing when she'd next have a chance to rest. No servants had rushed to attend her: in preparation for her planned escape, she'd feigned a tantrum the previous evening, banishing them all on the pretext of some imagined slight and declaring that none were to return save at her express command. The lie had been believed, Viya's temper being as well-known to the servants as it was to the Vex and Vex'Mara. Ordinarily, such a dramatic fit would have earned her a royal reprimand, but as she'd hoped, both Leoden and Kadeja had been too busy to bother, instead content to let her stew in self-imposed isolation. Now, as she navigated the twists and turns of the central palace – hiding behind columns or in doorways when she heard someone coming, slowing her pace and dropping her gaze when a servant went by – she found herself touching the bag of jewels she wore around her neck like she would a favoured talisman. When the habit proved distracting, she forced herself to stop. As though the meagre wealth might somehow bring her luck! Viya tossed her head. She didn't need luck – not when she was driven by the will of Ke and Na, the Heavenly Parents.

The further she went, the more Viya became aware of the size of the palace. How scantly she'd explored! Much of it was still unknown territory, and with every sudden detour necessitated by the approach of boots or the skirl of voices, she became increasingly fearful of getting lost. This ignorance, too, could be laid at Leoden's door – even the lowest servants were granted more freedom of movement than Viya, and at least
they
weren't constantly shadowed by guards.

As she rounded a corner, two servant girls with their heads together hurried past. It took all her willpower not to react when one of them looked directly at her and smiled. Instead, she just kept walking, her breath kept tight in her throat until they were out of earshot.
Rixevet could do this,
she told herself firmly,
and so can I. Would you shame your secondmother, Iviyat? No? Then keep walking.

Chin held high, she reached a broad flight of stone steps and rested her hand on the banister. Now came the hardest part of all: leaving the domestic levels and descending to where Leoden and Kadeja would soon be feasting their most important guests and allies in the Hall of High Moons. Not, of course, that Viya had any plans to pass the Hall itself – both it and the smaller Gold Room, where the council was taking place, were at the opposite end of the floor from where she needed to go – but there would be guards, more servants and possibly even guests she'd have to dodge. All at once, she wanted to give up.
Treason. I'm committing treason.
She let the word fill her like poison smoke, expanding through her heart and lungs until her whole body clenched around the threat of death.
He wouldn't kill me
, part of her pleaded, but a colder voice, the one that sounded like Rixevet, said,
Yes, he would. In a heartbeat, if he truly thought you threatened him
. Viya gripped the banister, her fingers hard against the stone.
It's all the same choice, no matter what I do.
The realisation was oddly freeing. Licking her lips, Viya placed one foot on the stairs, and then another, and slowly began to descend.

P
redictably
, Jeiden was still in the stables, tending to Matu's horses – the last expensive legacy of Pix's former status. Zech watched him for almost a minute before making her presence known. When she knocked on the open door, Jeiden turned and glared at her, his expression changing instantly from attentiveness to rancour.

“You again?” he grumbled.

“Me again,” Zech agreed. “How are the horses?”

“Fine. They don't like being near the roa, though. There were hardly any up north.” Putting down a currycomb he'd only just picked up, Jeiden crossed his arms. “What do you want anyway? Come to gloat about how you're better at helping Matu than I am?”

Yes,
thought Zech, but remembering her promise, said, “No. I just… well, Matu said I should come and apologise, seeing as how we'll be going north together, and that we should try and be friends, because it would make things easier for everyone.”

Jeiden made a face. “Did he really say that?”

“Would I be talking to you if he hadn't?”

“Good point.” Jeiden scuffed a foot on the stable floor. “I guess we could have a truce then. If Matu says so.”

In a spontaneous show of good faith, he put his right hand over his heart and kissed the back of his left, a gesture which Zech, awkwardly and with some surprise, copied. Their usual hostilities thus suspended, they stared at each other, each one visibly uncertain as to what happened next. Jeiden even blushed. He was, Zech thought resentfully, a very beautiful boy. It was understandable, of course, given that he was Pix and Matu's blood-cousin, and yet also frustrating, because in Kena girls were meant to be the beautiful ones, and by the standards of her adoptive nation, Zech wasn't. Certainly, no one except Matu had ever told her otherwise, and as he said the same thing to all women, most men and his beloved horses, it clearly didn't count. If she was honest, Jeiden's prettiness was a significant factor in her mistrust of him – but then, she was equally certain that her greater skill with animals, staff proficiency and possession of the zuymet were part of why he disliked her in turn. Thinking about it, she supposed that of the two of them, he had the greater cause for complaint, because while he would have traded his beauty for competence in a heartbeat, Zech would never have swapped her talents for prettiness, no matter how she envied his.

“Who was that girl today?” Jeiden asked suddenly. “The one who helped you pull Matu up? I don't remember her.”

“Oh, that's Safi,” said Zech, feeling pathetically grateful for the change in topic. “She's a worldwalker, like Gwen, only she came through by accident and got lost in the Square of Gods, but her hair was still long then, and Vex'Mara Kadeja cut off her fingers and threw them in the fountain.”

Jeiden blinked, impressed. “Really?”

“Really,” said Zech – and then, much to her astonishment, she found herself telling an enthralled Jeiden the whole story in detail, beginning with Gwen's arrival at the compound and ending with the events of that morning. By the time she'd finished, her mouth was dry and Jeiden, for the first time in his life, was looking at her with an expression that approached respect.

“You know,” he said, glancing around as though they were suddenly in danger of being overheard, “I'll bet everyone in Karavos is gossiping about yesterday. If we went out, we could find out what people are saying about the Vex'Mara, then come back and tell it to Yasha. Just like her little friends do.”

Zech felt a sudden tingle of excitement. Technically, neither of them was allowed out into the city unaccompanied, but that had never stopped her before, and nor, apparently, had it stopped Jeiden. But then she remembered Kadeja's face as she cut off Safi's fingers, and the sharp, hot anger of Gwen and Pix and Yasha. She wanted to go, but maybe it was a bad idea; maybe the adults had plans of their own afoot, and she and Jeiden would mess them up without even knowing it.

When she hesitated, Jeiden flashed her a mocking grin. “Too scared, are you?”

“I never was!” Zech shot back. But then, because she could all too well imagine Yasha's fury if something went wrong, “Only, what if we make things worse?”

Jeiden snorted. “Worse? You slugwit, what could we possibly do? We don't know anything.” And then, more bitterly, “Nobody ever
tells us what's going on.”

Zech bit her lip at that, because whether he knew it or not, she
did
get told more than Jeiden. It wasn't his fault he'd been born a boy, and if Pix and Matu had only left him with the rest of their Kenan kin, it wouldn't have mattered. But in the compound, Yasha's word was law, and her law was always that of Veksh and Ashasa – and neither that nation nor goddess had much use for boys. Men, at least, were useful: they could sire daughters and fight and be put to trades, travel as messengers and even provide companionship (though Yasha tended to be dismissive of this last, to the point where Zech had grown doubtful of it too). But boys were useless – little more than stripling men, without even the grace of a blood-day or the budding of breasts to mark the point at which Ashasa deemed them adult.
No wonder he wants to spy things out,
Zech thought.

It was this realisation as much as the sting of Jeiden's challenge that swayed her.

“All right,” she said. “But we have to go now, before anyone sees us.”

“Really?” Jeiden made a belated attempt to look nonchalant, but his tone betrayed him. “Which way should we take?”

Zech didn't hesitate. “Over the rear wall behind the little kitchen. There's no windows on that part of the house, and you can use the wood-box for a boost.”

“You've done this before.” He glared at her, but the expression was more impressed than accusing.

Zech only grinned. “I won't tell if you won't. Come on – race you!”

And then they were off together, sprinting from the stables.

T
he stairs had
a twist in them, turning onto a landing midway up. If you stood at the bottom of the first long flight, as Viya did now, you were invisible to anyone coming up from the level below. She dithered, hidden and hovering for no real reason she could name, suddenly afraid to move. It must have been the guidance of gods: the sound of someone ascending came seconds later, and when they spoke, she felt the words like a slap.

It was Leoden.

Viya shoved back from the banister, barely daring to breathe. He was with someone else – another man, by the sound of it – but she couldn't tell who.

“…deal with the worldwalker,” Leoden was saying. “She's meddled enough, her and the Vekshi crone both.”

The unknown man spoke carefully. “And how will the Vex'Mara feel, should you take such action against her kinswomen?”

Leoden gave a hard laugh. “She has no kin. Not anymore.”

Viya's pulse leapt urgently in her throat, and not just because the voices were so close.
Leoden knows a worldwalker?
It was impossible, of course – or at least, it should have been. Worldwalkers existed in moon-tales, not the real world.

Didn't they?

The footsteps had stopped. She squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the scene: Leoden and his companion standing little more than a horse's length from where she hid. Once they climbed the last few steps, they'd see her, shoulder blades pressed hard to the wall, as if she could burrow through backwards.

“As you say,” the stranger said. “At whose feet will the deaths be laid?”

Viya could almost hear Leoden's smile. “Why, mine, of course.”

The other man sounded startled. “Truly?”

“Well, what other choice do I have? Even as we speak, a Vekshi spy is creeping her way through the halls of this palace, slipping poison into the Uyun ambassador's favourite wine. Doubtless, he'll call for a jug of it at the feast, though for the sake of his table-neighbours, I only hope he won't offer to share. Though tragically too late to save the ambassador, the spy will, of course, be caught and killed – but not before divulging the name and location of her mistress and fellow co-conspirators.”

“And justice will be swift,” the other man murmured. “I'll admit I'm surprised that you'd take no care to capture the woman who actually wields the jahudemet. Surely she'd be an asset?”