Troubled Waters (36 page)

“Tell me.”

“Take whatever gold you would give me and build a fountain on the west side of the city, where it is difficult to find clean water, because it is so far from the river. Put my name on it, or Josetta’s. That would make me happy.”

Vernon stared at her for a moment with his sad blue eyes. She thought he might exclaim,
Zoe Lalindar, you are the strangest girl.
It was what any of his wives might say. “I will do it,” he said at last, “and gladly.”

“Then I am rewarded,” she said.

T
he king had not been gone more than ten minutes when other visitors began to show up at her door, staying only a few moments, never overlapping. Zoe supposed they all had spies in the corridors, gauging the flow of traffic to her room.

The queens were first, arriving in order. Elidon was elegant and gracious, praising Zoe’s strength and steadfastness. “Your grandmother would have been so proud of you,” she said softly. “I can offer no higher tribute.”

Seterre was fighting back tears, though she instantly lost the battle. “What can I say?” she sobbed, and actually flung herself into Zoe’s arms. Zoe murmured comforting phrases, awkwardly patting Seterre’s shoulder, but the whole time she was automatically cataloguing the precise composition of the queen’s blood. She might never have another chance to touch the fastidious
hunti
woman. “I owe you my daughter’s life—I owe you everything—”

“I am only glad I was able to summon such ability.”

Seterre pulled back and tried to regain her poise. “Thanks are inadequate,” she said. “I must do something to show my appreciation.”

She told Seterre about the request she had made of the king. Seterre liked the idea, Zoe could see; the
hunti
were nothing if not practical. “I will have an orchard planted around the fountain,” she decided, “and anyone can pick fruit from the trees.”

“That would be generous. That would please me,” Zoe said.

“Then I will do it.”

Alys came flouncing into Zoe’s suite, glancing around quickly to assess the furnishings, clearly trying to gauge Zoe’s wealth as well as her taste. “You are quite the marvel,” she said, not bothering to sit for what was clearly going to be a brief visit. “Everyone is talking about you.”

“Not an honor I aspire to,” Zoe said gravely.

Alys gave her that rogue’s smile. “There is so little
sweela
in you, isn’t there?” she said. “Your father or your cousin would be basking in the court’s attention, but you just sit in your room and pretend you have a headache.”

“I do have a headache,” Zoe said. “I developed it just as you walked in.”

Alys flicked a spiteful look at her, interpreting that remark exactly as it had been intended. “Let me give you some advice,” she said. “
None
of us gets more than one or two grand opportunities in our lives. Chances to remake ourselves, to accumulate prestige and other assets. You’ll be sorry if you let this one slip away from you without making it pay off in some spectacular manner.”

Zoe wanted to laugh. By Alys’s reckoning, that really
was
good advice, and most generously offered. “I will bear that in mind,” she said.

Alys laughed and headed for the door. “You won’t,” she said. “A year from now, you will be gone and no one will remember your name.”

Romelle was distracted throughout her short visit, chasing after Natalie the whole time, trying to keep the princess from knocking over pieces of décor. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I just wanted to tell you in person—Natalie, stop that!—how very wonderful it was that you were able to save Josetta’s life. All I could think about was how awful it would have been for me to see
Natalie
in such a terrible situation, and how grateful I would be if you had saved
her
.”

Once again, Zoe thought it was utterly impossible that Romelle would willingly put anyone else’s child at risk. Alys, she realized, had not said anything along these lines.
I hope you would have saved Corene if she had been the one in danger.
But the first thing Romelle had thought of was her own child.

Natalie knocked a metal vase to the floor, where it spilled water and blossoms in all directions. The little girl started wailing. “I’m so sorry—we’ll leave right now,” Romelle said. “But—thank you. It was an incredible thing to see.”

After the last queen had departed, other visitors began knocking on Zoe’s door. Mirti Serlast, Keeli and Sarone, a half dozen others, everyone eager to be associated with the most celebrated woman in the city. Rhan and Kurtis arrived together, Rhan catching her up in a hug and spinning her around, Kurtis more soberly clasping her hands.

“That was an astonishing thing to witness,” Kurtis said. “Until my life ends I will not forget the sight of the river refusing to flow because Zoe Lalindar ordered it to pause.”

“
I
will not forget trying to persuade Zoe Lalindar herself to climb out of harm’s way,” Rhan exclaimed. “Did you know she almost
drowned
because the Marisi was rising so fast but she refused to move?”

She laughed. “I don’t think it would have harmed me,” she said. “Even if I had been swept off the bank, I think I would have survived.” She patted his cheek. “But I am very grateful that you watched out for me when I was too absorbed to watch out for myself.”

“And we must do more than commend you on your strength and power,” Kurtis said with a grin. “We must thank you for most dramatically bringing us back into fashion, since you were in our boat when we won the race.”

She smiled. “I’m glad to hear you are popular again, but I’m sure it’s because you and your father were in the boat that rescued the princess,” she said. “
That
would have rehabilitated you even if I had never reclaimed my Ardelay relatives.”

“Perhaps,” Kurtis agreed. “And yet, I can honestly say that was not the thought foremost in my mind when I followed Darien Serlast down the riverbank. All I could think about was saving that little girl.”

“And that,” she said, “is the reason you deserve your newfound respectability.”

Well after sunset, at least an hour past the time Zoe had decided that she would see no more visitors for the day, there was a timid knock on the door. Zoe had just sunk to a chair at the dining table, wearied by all the attention, while Annova prepared to serve dinner for the three of them. It would be moderately scandalous for Zoe to be caught sharing a meal with her servants.

“Shall I answer it?” Annova said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Or pretend we didn’t hear it?”

Indeed, the knock had been so soft that Zoe suspected the visitor half hoped that no one was home. Which made her curious. “Let’s see who’s on the other side,” she said.

Calvin whisked the plates out of view, while Zoe came to her feet and assumed an expression of saintliness. Annova opened the door.

“Is Zoe Lalindar still receiving visitors?” someone asked in a quiet voice. A girl. “I know it is very late.”

Annova stepped aside. “She is. Please come in.”

Josetta stepped through the door. Today she looked even more fragile and tense than she usually did—not surprising, Zoe thought, given her harrowing adventure. Her ashy hair was piled sloppily on top of her head and her clothes were decidedly casual. She might almost have spent the entire day sleeping, drugged by exhaustion or some more potent medicine, and just now climbed out of bed to come thank her rescuer.

Calvin and Annova disappeared into their room, though it didn’t matter; Josetta had eyes only for Zoe. The princess crossed the room slowly, as if she had just recently relearned how to walk. Her face was pale, completely innocent of cosmetics; her eyes were huge and haunted.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” the girl said in a raw voice barely above a whisper. Zoe wondered if she had screamed herself hoarse two days ago as she careened down the river. “I was certain I was going to die. I was so afraid. I could not imagine how anyone could save me. And then when the river stopped flowing—I didn’t understand. I didn’t know how it had happened. But
you
did it.
You
took the water into your own hands. For me. I can’t—I have no words. Except thank you.”

Zoe was so touched that she wanted to take the girl in a comforting embrace, but she wasn’t sure the extremely breakable Josetta would welcome the gesture. Instead she said solemnly, “I was glad to discover that I had the power to still the Marisi. But others worked to rescue you from the river—three brave men who went into the water to snatch you back from the falls.”

“I have thanked them and will thank them again,” Josetta said, still in that half whisper. “But it was you who gave them the chance to save my life.” The princess extended her arms, thin and shaking. “Please allow me to express my gratitude, once more, with all my heart.”

“And with all my heart, I can only say, again, I was glad to be able to play a part,” Zoe said. She reached out and took both of Josetta’s hands in hers.

Then stood there, stunned immobile, as Josetta bent her head to press her lips to Zoe’s fingers.

It wasn’t that humble kiss that unnerved her, that sent flame, then shock, then fury through her veins. It wasn’t Josetta’s mumbled repeat of her thanks that left her completely speechless. It wasn’t the princess’s quick glance over her shoulder toward some noise in the hallway, her low exclamation of “I must go!” that made Zoe nod dumbly and pull her hands free and stare after the girl as Josetta dashed for the door and vanished.

No—it was the fact that Zoe recognized the blood in Josetta’s body.
Sweela
blood, fiery and familiar. Ardelay blood, even closer to Zoe’s own than that of Rhan or Kurtis.

Josetta was Navarr Ardelay’s daughter.

TWENTY-TWO

I
t was barely light when Zoe headed down the mountain in a horse-drawn cart that Calvin had coaxed from a royal groom by the payment of a couple quint-golds. She had wanted to leave last night, but it was full dark, she was exhausted, and Annova flatly refused to let her out of the room “no matter what that girl told you that’s got you so upset.” Zoe didn’t confide in her friends; she couldn’t bring herself to speak the words out loud. She did consent to eat the meal and stay the night, since Annova made it clear she had no choice, but Zoe made it equally clear that she was leaving the palace the minute she could get free in the morning.

Calvin drove her toward the city down the well-used track that saw a surprising amount of traffic at this unholy hour of the day. Most of it, of course, was headed toward the palace instead of away from it. He didn’t bother attempting to make conversation. He merely took her directly to the high-priced hotel she had patronized before she had taken up residence at the palace.

“When do you want me to come back for you?” he asked. He hauled down the single well-stuffed bag she had filled with a few changes of clothes and set it down on the street. She stood beside him, shivering in the cold.

“I don’t know. I might not want you to
ever
come back for me.”

His wide grin displayed the gap between his front teeth. He had been, on the whole, less anxious than Annova at her sudden and mysterious distress; obviously he believed whatever had unnerved her would eventually be set to rights. “Well, I don’t know how long they’ll let Annova and me stay in your suite without you, but we’ll enjoy it while they do. Then it’s back to the river for us!”

“I might—I don’t know—it could be time for me to find my own place—here in the city,” Zoe said, her speech jerky. “Of course, I will need you both to help me—set up my own household.”

He tilted his head, considering her. “I don’t think you have any idea
what
you want,” he said, his voice so genial it was impossible to take offense. “But we’ll be ready when you figure it out.”

The excellent hotel servants had already stepped out of the wide glass door to welcome Zoe, bowing low, snatching up her luggage, gesturing for her to come inside. She turned to follow them and then pivoted back to Calvin. “Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone,” she ordered. “Unless—I mean—if someone were to
interrogate
you about my whereabouts, you should not put yourself at risk—”

He gave her a real hug, holding her tightly against his thin chest for long enough that her racing thoughts started, just a little, to slow down. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “Whatever it is, worse things have happened.”

He made her laugh, and that gave her the strength to draw back and somewhat pull herself together. “Perhaps they have,” she said. “I’ll have to think that over.”

She followed the servants to the
kierten
, a huge echoing space of icy marble and luscious malachite. Twenty minutes later, she was ensconced in a luxurious room decorated all in white. She flung herself onto the bed, which was so plush that she thought she might suffocate. She had lain awake most of last night; a nap now might help her develop perspective on her new reality.

But, of course, she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking. She couldn’t stop picturing her father’s smiling face, hearing his deep laugh. He had been so
alive
, so overflowing with vitality; the few times he had been confined to a place for too long, by illness or winter or unavoidable circumstance, he had become so restless he had seemed capable of bringing down the walls by his sheer longing to be free. “Do you know why people dislike you sometimes?” Alieta had said to him once, very dryly. “Because you’re uncontainable.”

Oh, but there had been other reasons Alieta had disliked her husband—or, at least, had been so furious with him she didn’t care if a child could overhear their arguments.
Another one, Navarr? Another lovely
sweela
girl with flashing eyes and racing blood? Why didn’t you marry a girl of fire and mind, then, if you were going to spend the rest of your life chasing after them, panting with infatuation?

Her father’s reply:
No
sweela
girl can satisfy me like my beautiful
coru
bride. They mean nothing to me. They are moments of passion and desire. It is you I live for, you I love, you I cannot exist without . . .