Over soup and tea, Linna did her best to condense ten years of activity into a few minutes’ explanation. Prince Darien and Princess Adela – although Linna mostly referred to the latter as “Del” – were wintering at Lord M’Tongliss’s manor. When Tasia asked why they had arrived so early, given that it was just barely autumn, Linna explained that the Princess was pregnant with their fourth child, and given the challenges of the previous two pregnancies, Darien had encouraged her to make their annual trip to Paratheen early so that she could give birth there.
“He said his father employs the best physicians the Empire has to offer,” Linna concluded, “but by that I think he really meant that Lord M’Tongliss still has access to a few healers within the Brotherhood. And since any mention of the shadow arts these days can pretty much get you thrown into a dungeon, Darien decided he wanted Del to have the baby here, in Terinto.” Linna smiled. “She swears up and down she will not get pregnant again. Says four children is already three more than enough, especially if it’s another boy.”
But then Linna’s smile faltered and she turned her gaze into the depths of her tea.
“What?” Tasia asked. The anxiety was in her voice again, which pained Joslyn. All these years of peace, but panic still seized both of them sometimes, usually without warning. Tasia wrapped an urgent hand around Linna’s forearm. “Are the children healthy? Is Adela?”
“Del …” Linna shifted uneasily in her chair. “When I mentioned her troubles with the last two pregnancies, I didn’t mean when she was pregnant with Maya and Andreth. Del’s last two pregnancies miscarried, and the Wise Men cautioned her against getting pregnant again after the last one. That’s why Darien wants a healer close at hand.”
“I… see.” Tasia let go of Linna’s arm. Joslyn reached under the table and placed a steadying hand upon her knee. “Well. Access to the Brotherhood. I suppose I should be glad she married a Terintan, after all.” She glanced at Joslyn. “Runs in the family, maybe.”
Linna looked back up. “I think you should come see them. Disguised, of course,” she added hastily. “With me as Del’s personal guard and Quinn – Brick – as the Commander of the Palace Guard, it’s not as if anyone would give you away. Or – your illusions are so powerful, perhaps you could just –”
“No.” Tasia’s tone brooked no argument. The tone of an Empress, Joslyn thought, not that of a simple country woman who spent her days tending hens and gathering water and firewood. “I’m sorry, Linna, but as much as I’d like to see Adela, as much as I’d like to meet my nieces and nephews, it’s better this way. For everyone. If too many people come to know I’m alive … it just would make things complicated. And dangerous.”
Linna hesitated. “Things are already complicated and dangerous. That’s … that’s why I came.”
Joslyn raised an eyebrow. Linna wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“There are rumblings amongst some of the lords,” Linna said. “There are those who say that Mace’s sons do not have the House of Dorsa’s blood running through their veins, or at least not enough of it, since House Dorsa and House Gifford’s last shared marriage was generations ago. Some say the Empire would be better served by a true blood heir. By a second Empress Adela. And eventually Adela’s children, even if they are … well, salvik.”
Tasia cocked a head in confusion.
“It’s Terintan for half-blood,” Joslyn supplied. “Half-Terintan blood, that is. It’s…” She glanced at Linna apologetically. “It’s not a compliment.”
Tasia let out a long sigh and rolled her eyes. “Ah, so there it is. The lords must choose between a child who is only House of Dorsa in name, or a child who carries both the blood of the House of Dorsa but also that of nomads. Oh, the crisis,” she said sardonically. “Whatever shall the noble families of the Empire decide?”
“Empress – ”
“It’s just Tasia now.”
“Tas …” Linna started, but she couldn’t seem to get the nickname through her mouth. When she spoke again, she was pleading. “You don’t understand. It’s going to come to bloodshed.”
“It often does.” Tasia sounded as if the weight of the world had suddenly and unexpectedly landed upon her shoulders. Joslyn hadn’t heard her sound like that in many years. “Regardless of what comes,” Tasia said to Linna, “protect my sister. And her children.”
“I will,” Linna said, lifting her chin. “Of course I will, but if you –”
“No more,” Tasia said sharply. “No more talk of Castles and Knights, Linna. How old are you now? Twenty-nine summers? Thirty? By now you have surely learned that there will always be lords who grumble; there will always be talk of who most deserves to wear a crown; there will always be plots and schemes and coups and wars.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Joslyn and I played our part in that game. Now we rest. Let others have their turn.”
Linna looked dejected, but this time she did not offer a counterargument. A few tense seconds passed.
“Now,” Tasia said with a smile, clapping her hands together as if to dispel the tension. “I know this sounds as though I’ve fallen into yet another fantastical dream world, but it just so happens that Joslyn has an unbelievable talent for baking. Would you like to try her sweetbread? I believe we have enough left that we could all have a piece.”
#
Joslyn and Tasia saw Linna off at dawn the following morning, watching from the doorway of their cabin as she descended back down the mountain. The threshold was in the same place where the door to Ku-sai’s hut used to be, except the cabin they’d built was larger than the former hut. Joslyn had constructed it for two instead of one.
Linna glanced back over her shoulder one last time before disappearing, lifting a hand in a half-hearted wave. Joslyn and Tasia lifted their own hands automatically in return.
Tasia turned back to Joslyn, smile disappearing from her face. “Tell me we’ve done the right thing. Tell me we are not cowards to live out our days in this luxury while we leave Mace to do what is hard.”
Joslyn put an arm around Tasia’s shoulders and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I believe that’s the first time you’ve ever used the word ‘luxury’ to describe this place.”
Tasia’s shoulders shook momentarily with silent laughter. “No stuffy Wise Men bustling about telling me the next great disaster is around the corner, no smarmy lords trying to gain favor, no merchants or jugglers or Adessian diplomats –”
“No Adessian pirates, either,” Joslyn put in.
“No, no pirates,” Tasia said. “I must admit I miss her sometimes. Anyway, how is it not luxury?” She leaned into Joslyn’s side. “Being here with you, that’s all the luxury I could have ever wished for.”
They stood in silence for a minute, each lost in their own private thoughts, each gazing in the direction Linna had headed.
Joslyn couldn’t pretend she didn’t miss Linna. She missed them all – Linna, Milo, the Princess, Brick – occasionally she even found herself nostalgic for the palace itself. Not that she wanted to return to Port Lorsin; she wanted to be wherever Tasia was. And for right now, that was here: a little hut nestled into the foothills of the Zaris Mountains, with only each other and the hens for company.
Perhaps one day there would be reason to leave here, to travel to Port Lorsin or to Paratheen, to meet Adela’s children, to play a role in the politics of the Empire once more.
But she hoped not.
Joslyn kissed Tasia’s cheek, then turned to head inside. “I’ll put on some tea.”
Tasia didn’t answer. She stayed in the little cabin’s threshold, arms around her middle, gazing out at the yard. Thinking of the palace, maybe. Or Adela. Or the nieces and nephews she never planned to meet. It saddened Joslyn somewhat, imagining that Tasia would never see her family again. But perhaps that was the payment they had to make – letting go of what they’d known, to live in a world free from the deathless king, the Shadowlands, the undatais. Joslyn and Tasia had played their roles. Now it was time for others to play theirs.