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And stopped, his mouth inches from hers. With a muttered exclamation, he spun around and dropped the sword to the floor. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly.
He threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. He was breathing hard, trembling, too. “Nothing. No, I am wrong. Different. I can’t—” His voice broke. “I cannot tell who or what I am. He won, Ilse. Yes, he died, but he won.”
“No,” she said. Then in a louder voice, “You are wrong, my love. Markus Khandarr is dead. You killed him in Anderswar. We lost the king but not the kingdom. As for you … You will survive.”
“You cannot know.”
“I do know,” she said. “You, of all my friends, you ought to understand how much I appreciate your situation.”
She had caught his attention at last. “How?”
“How?” Her voice ticked upward. “How could I not? I gave myself to Alarik Brandt, just as you gave yourself to Baerne of Angersee. I thought I understood the trade. I did not. Nor did you, you poor child, scarcely fourteen years old. You thought you comprehended the world, or if not that, the world of Veraene’s Court. I thought I comprehended my own body. Whatever our beliefs, whatever our expectations, you must admit we both made a bad trade. And we both…” Her voice edged into tears, which she brutally suppressed. “We both struggled through, my love. We both survived.”
She said that last word in a breath, nothing more.
“We survived,” she repeated. “You transformed yourself. You fitted your body, your manners, everything to act as though you did not care that you had sacrificed your manhood, only to find that sacrifice discarded. I sacrificed myself to gain freedom only to find that Alarik Brandt had lied to me. Eventually, I discovered that his lies didn’t matter. I had myself. I had my life, my desires, my soul restored.
“The same is true for you. Baerne of Angersee and Markus Khandarr no longer matter. Your future is yours. Choose well, my love.”
She had no more words to speak. She could only stare at him, terrified and shaking with all the admissions she had never dared to speak before. Not even to him.
Raul remained with his back to her. “And you? What will you do now, Lady Ilse?”
“I will serve my kingdom,” she said. “However my kingdom wishes me to serve.”
Raul bowed his head but did not turn around. When he continued to be silent, she laid the wooden sword on the floor and silently left the room.
* * *
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, as she sat alone in her quarters, gazing over the sun-drenched rooftops of Duenne, a runner brought her a message.
No wax. Magic alone sealed the edges of paper.
Ilse touched her fingertips to the envelope. A fleeting glimpse of dark blue silk, rippling through the night, Raul’s magical signature, then the sheet of paper unfolded, and she was reading the message within:
I failed to give you a proper answer before you left me this morning. I did not have the words then, I am not certain I have them now. I can only say that once more you are the one friend I can trust to tell me the truth. For that I am grateful. I will take my place in council tomorrow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THRO
UGHOUT HER YEARS in Lord Kosenmark’s pleasure house, Nadine had never once considered what Duenne’s Court and Council might be like. Oh, she knew about the dangerous game Kosenmark conducted, and she spied on others herself whenever possible. All that was a personal matter, for her own preservation. In her mind, the thing called politics was merely an excuse for ambition or outright murder, and she wanted no part of it. Even those who claimed to serve a noble cause, Kosenmark among them, had committed several unspeakable acts in the name of government.
Today, however, she was in the heart of it all.
It was Heloïse Kosenmark’s fault. They had retired late, after an extended and useless conference with certain members of Duenne’s Court. Nadine had not paid much attention to the conversation itself. She only knew that Heloïse had wanted a great deal of soothing afterward before they could both sleep.
She was in the midst of a sensuous dream from past lives and lovers when her instincts woke her. She blinked and rolled over to see the lamplight dancing over the ceiling above. Sunlight glittered through the half-open shutters, a cascade of white and pale yellow. Heloïse bent over a cushioned bench, sorting through a pile of clothing.
Nadine watched from under the blankets, unwilling to emerge from her nest. Winter in Duenne was nothing like the hill country where her family lived, but she had come to love warmth and comfort during her time in Tiralien. She watched Heloïse pick up one gown, then set it aside in favor of another, and another—wisps of cloth and robes and trousers—as though mere clothing made a difference to one’s life.
“What is it?” Nadine asked. “What are you doing?”
Heloïse paused. With the sunlight at her back, her face was invisible in the shadows, but it was easy to read the tension in her sudden stillness. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
“Not until you tell me. What is wrong?”
