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CHAPTER ONE
IN THE GAME of word links, a large vocabulary was not always an advantage. Words indeed were necessary—the game consisted entirely of words given back and forth, and each response had to connect to the previous one. The good players possessed a quick mind and the ability to recognize patterns. Those who could see the unexpected connections, however, inevitably won.
A simple game with endless strategies and unexpected side effects.
Therez Zhalina watched Klara’s face intently, waiting for her friend to turn the miniature sand glass and start the next round of their game. It was a late summer’s afternoon. The two girls sat in a seldom-used parlor on the third floor of Maester Zhalina’s house. The maids had opened the windows, letting in the warm salt breeze from the harbor, less than a mile away, and a hint of pine tang from the hills and mountains that circled the city to the north.
Klara held the sand glass lightly between her fingers, tilting it one way, then another. She appeared bored, but the look did not deceive Therez. She knew Klara’s style. Her friend would start with something innocuous, like chair or book. Then, at the crucial moment, she would throw out a word guaranteed to fluster her opponent.
I shall have to use her own strategy upon her first.
“Lir,” Klara said, and flipped the glass over.
“Toc,” Therez answered at once.
“Stars.”
“Eye socket.”
Klara choked. “Therez! That is not fair. You deliberately chose a horrible image.”
Though she wanted to laugh at Klara’s expression, Therez did not let her attention lapse. “No more horrible than yours, the last round,” she said. “Besides, the link is perfect: And Toc plucked out his eyes to make the sun and moon for his sister-goddess, Lir. Come, the round is not over. A word. Give me a word, Klara.”
“I’m thinking. I’m thinking. What about— Ah, love-of-the-ocean, the sands have run out. Are you certain this wretched device runs true?”
“The glass came with a guild certificate from the artisan.”
“Damp,” Klara said grumpily. “Just like everything else in Melnek.”
“If the sands were damp, they would run slower not faster.” Therez poured a fresh cup of chilled water and stirred in a few spoonfuls of crushed mint. “Here,” she said, handing it to her friend. “You sound like a marsh frog—a very thirsty one.”
“Oh, thank you.” Klara drank down the water. “How delightful to know that my voice is like that of some slithery bog creature. Do you think the young men will appreciate me more, or less, for that virtue?”
Therez smothered another laugh. “Oh, much more. Think what money you could save them on entertainment. No more fees to musicians when you are about.”
“Hah. There speaks a true merchant girl.”
“No more a merchant girl than you,” Therez said. “Here. We’ll play one more round. Unless you’re tired of losing.”
“Make it a double round,” her friend said. “And promise me you’ll turn the glass without delay.”
“Agreed.” Therez reversed the timer. “Duenne.”
“Empire.”
“War.”
“Treaty.”
They each rapped out answers as quickly as the other spoke, the words connecting through all the facets of life in a trade city on the border between Veraene and Károví. Guild. Taxes. Caravan. Freight. Scales. Fish.
“Lev Bartov.”
“Klara! He’s not a fish.”
“He looks like one. Come, give me a word or make a challenge.”
“Very well. No challenge. My word is shipping.”
“Port.”
“Melnek.”
“Home.”
“Hurt. No, wait. I meant to say winter.”
The sands ran out in the silence that followed. Unwilling to meet her friend’s gaze, Therez turned the sand glass over in her hands. Its graceful wooden frame, carved from rare blackwood, made a swirling pattern against the luminescent sand, and the artisan had painted fine gold lines along its edges, reminding her of sunlight reflecting off running water.
“When do you go?” Klara said at last.
“Next summer.”
“That late? I thought it was—”
“Next spring? It was. My father changed his mind.”
And he might again, Therez thought. After a long tedious lecture about expenses, Petr Zhalina had agreed that Therez’s brother, Ehren, would resume his studies at Duenne’s University. After longer discussions and several invitations, he gave permission for Therez to spend a year with their cousin’s family, who also lived in the capital. But so many ifs and maybes lay between now and next summer. Their grandmother’s illness. Their father’s uncertain health and the state of his business …
“Do you want to play another round?” she said.
Her voice was not as steady as she would have liked, and Klara’s eyes narrowed, making them appear like quick, narrow brushstrokes against her dark complexion. But her friend only said, “No. Thank you. May I have another cup of water?”
A welcome deflection, Therez thought as she poured chilled water for them both into porcelain cups. Her father paid extra to have ice blocks transported from the nearby mountains, and stored in his cellars. Her brother said the ice reminded their father of the far north, and Duszranjo, where he’d once lived. Therez didn’t know if that were true. She only knew that her father’s whims on what he spent and what he saved made little sense to her.
“He must have been so very hungry,” she murmured, half to herself. “Sta
rving, for more than one life.”
“What was that?” Klara said.
Therez roused herself. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of … past lives.”
“Ah, those.” Klara’s black eyes glinted with curiosity. “I must have been a marsh frog at least once. Though marsh frogs seldom care to become humans. What about you?”
