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Chapter Text

The page's wing of the royal palace was deserted; the first, second and third years had gone to their summer camp with the training master, and the fourth years, having all passed the Big Examinations, had either moved into the squire's wing or left with their knight master.

All save for one, who frowned at his reflection in the mirror as he reached a hand up to gingerly touch his sun burnt cheek. He’d overslept, and in his rush to make it to the training yards where most knights looked to assess potential squires, he’d missed not just his breakfast but the balm that protected his skin. The ruddy color he’d obtained as a result certainly did not compliment his blond hair, bleached white by the summer sun. And it hadn’t even been worth it; the hours he spent outside practicing Shang katas, archery, and titling at the quintain might just as well have been spent in a library, since he was likely to find himself serving Master Oakbridge — or worse, another page year — come September. 

He’d been trying to deny it for weeks, but the facts of the matter remained hard and clear. After the scandal his brother had caused four years before, no knight wanted to take Aubrey of Stone Mountain as his squire. 

He poked at the bridge of his nose with a healing salve. It wasn’t fair. Whenever any of his sisters spent time in the sun they came away with a healthy flush and a smattering of freckles. Aubrey just looked like a tomato. 

Maybe an extra year in palace service wouldn’t be so bad. He’d started his page training the fall after Joren had failed his Ordeal, and he’d been a year younger than the other first year pages. This would only give him a chance to catch up. And maybe they wouldn’t make him take the examinations again, so he could focus entirely on building up his strength and stamina. 

It sounded ridiculous even in his own head. Almost as ridiculous as pitting underweight, weak-ankled, frequently ill Aubrey against boys at least a year older and in some cases two, and asking him to live up to the best of his elder brother’s career. Aubrey sighed. No wonder his father didn’t even write to him anymore. He was supposed to bring honor back to the Stone Mountain name. Instead he’d only brought more shame.

“The Bazhir make the best sun cream I’ve ever seen,” a voice commented mildly from his doorway. “I’d be happy to bring you some, if you’d like. Qasim always enjoys showing off how well it works on us northerners.”

Aubrey turned toward the speaker— and promptly backed into his dresser in surprise. After a moment, he remembered to bow and invite her in. Regardless of her history with Stone Mountain, Keladry of Mindelan was still a knight of the realm, and the code of chivalry demanded that he show her respect. 

“I’m sorry,” she continued, taking a seat at the end of his bed, “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that I’ve been meaning to talk to you, and you always seem to be running off to some practice of another, so when I saw you in here, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”

“I do try to keep busy, Lady,” Aubrey replied, unsure what else to say. “I should practice while I can. I should be starting my squire duties soon.” He said the last hoping, praying to any listening God—

In vain.

“About that,” Keladry said. “I know you’ve probably got other offers to consider, but if you didn’t,” (and her tone made him sure that she knew very well that he didn’t and was merely being polite), “I could use a squire’s help when I head back to New Hope. Seems every missive we get there’s more work to do.” She gave him an encouraging smile. Aubrey did his best to keep his voice and face emotionless. 

“I’m honored to consider your offer, Lady.” It was as polite as he could manage to be. 

“Well, I’ll let you consider then.” She stood to leave, and Aubrey bowed again, falling back on formality while he puzzled over the encounter. 

Aubrey was running late again the next morning. Before breakfast he had dressed for riding, but then he’d heard a second year squire saying that Jerel of Nenan was going to be in the indoor archery salles settling a bet with his knight master, so then Aubrey had run back to change. He was barreling out of his room again, trying to mentally tally whether Jerel’s last squire had finished last winter or the year before, when he ran full-body into a palace servant coming to deliver him a letter from Stone Mountain. 

His mother was calling him home.

“Not permanently,” Gael, the man at arms who had come to escort him, said as they rode through the Corus gates and turned north. “Hey, buck up, kiddo, more knights will be returning in the fall, too.”

Aubrey nodded, miserable. 

Rumors ran rampant in the palace. By the time they reached the pages, they were usually more fiction than fact, but Aubrey couldn’t ignore what he could see with his own eyes. His parents hadn’t come to their Corus properties for Midwinter festivities or summer cotillions for the last three years, even though he was at the palace and they had two daughters of marrying age. Word was that his father didn’t even leave their manor house anymore, never mind the fiefdom. Aubrey hated the thought of his father, who had always been loud, ruddy, and boisterous, who had loved hunting and jousting and dancing with his wife, languishing inside his study. 

It was a long, tense, and altogether boring trip, that ended with getting caught in a summer rainstorm just as the fief was coming into view. Lady Eleonora, Aubrey’s mother, met them in the entryway and immediately whisked both away to hot baths and meals. He had dinner with his sisters, who peppered him with questions about Corus and page service. Lord Buchard summoned Annalena, his eldest daughter, up to see him first, a pattern that the other three assured Aubrey had become routine. Then Noella went, then Dagney and Mirien. The cook came in to welcome Aubrey home and sneak him a marzipan biscuit. When Lady Eleonora finally came down to tell him that his father had asked to see him, she found Aubrey struggling through pushups; he’d given up pacing the small room as a bad cause, but he couldn’t sit still, either.

Lord Burchard was in his chair next to the fire. The flickering light accentuated the lines that had become etched over his face, and lent an unnatural yellow pallor to his pale skin. 

"My son," he said, so softly that Aubrey had to move closer to hear. "You've come home to me." 

"Yes, father." Aubrey laid his hand gently over Buchard's. "I'm here."

They both started at the contact. His father’s hands were cold despite the fire, and Aubrey noticed that he no longer wore the jeweled ring that had been given to the family by Roger III; it was probably too heavy to be comfortable. Then Burchard suddenly turned and gripped Aubrey’s hand with an unnatural strength for his bony fingers, and stared wildly up into his face.

"There is something I must say to you,” he said, speaking very fast, as though afraid he would run out of time to do so. “You must hear me."

Aubrey tried not to let his unease show in his voice. "Of course, father."

“No matter what I have said to you, no matter what I have done, you must know that I am not ashamed of you, Joren.”

For a moment, Aubrey’s heart had leapt, only to fall into the pit of his stomach and be replaced by an awful, hollow feeling. He doesn't even know me anymore, he realized. And he wanted to scream at his father, tell him that Joren was dead, that he was sorry he couldn't be as perfect a son as Joren had been... but he couldn't. His father was still holding his gaze with that haunted, pleading look, and Aubrey could only blink his tears back furiously and pretend.

"I know, father. Thank you."

Buchard seemed content. He gave Aubrey’s hand another, meant-to-be-reassuring squeeze, and told him to sit in the chair opposite him while they talked. 

Aubrey was barely listening to his father, though. He was thinking, and he made a decision. When he went back for his shield, he would make sure that no one else in his family ever forgot him again.

He stayed a month at the fief, while more extended family arrived and Lord Burchard slowly deteriorated further. For all that he loved his family, Aubrey spent as much time as he could outside of the house, away from his aunts who softly suggested that he might prefer a university education, and his mother who barely looked him in the eye. He wondered if she had known when she summoned him back from Corus that his father had forgotten him. It was almost a relief when Burchard finally passed, and talk changed to funeral arrangements; at least that meant that they all had something to do.

They made other plans, too. Aubrey would ride back to Corus accompanied by Annalena and their uncle, who would oversee cleaning up the Corus townhouse and reestablishing the family’s social standing. Noella and their mother would come for Midwinter. Dagney and Mirien, still in school, spoke wistfully about the palace celebrations no matter how many times Aubrey told them that they weren’t really that exciting.

He was helping his eldest sister to pack when she commented mildly, “Are you really only taking one trunk with you?”

“I left things at the palace,” Aubrey said carefully. “And it’s a knight’s duty to outfit a squire.”

Annalena made a non-committal sort of noise and told him to send servants to her directly if he needed anything. She was only seven years his senior, but sometimes she treated him more like her child than her brother.

It was September when they arrived back in the capital city. Aubrey rode on alone through the palace gates. He passed the training yards and saw that the pages had resumed their daily lessons. If Lord haMinch noticed him returning, he didn’t show it. Aubrey stabled and groomed his horse, and then asked the first servingman he saw where he could find Lady Keladry. He was lucky that as a hero of the recent Scanran war, everyone was always talking about her. He was directed to a training yard used by knights and squires, and found her chatting with a red haired knight and a sergeant of the King’s Own while some other knights jousted on the field behind them. She caught his eye as he approached, smiled, and excused herself from the conversation. 

“I’m sorry for your loss, Aubrey,” she said quietly. Then, in answer to his confused expression, she added, “Word travels faster than people, I’m afraid. It’s alright, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

Aubrey told her anyway. He hadn’t meant to, but as soon as he opened his mouth it all just spilled out. He felt two warm tears roll down his cheek before he could stop them. “And now I’m crying like a— like a girl. No wonder you wanted to take me as squire.”

Keladry fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Aubrey, I wanted to take you on as my squire because I saw the way you practiced. Every day, no matter what. I asked Sir Myles, he says you’ve always been that way. No matter how much homework you had, you found time for an evening run. No matter the weather, you went outside. You want your shield. Girl, boy, I don’t care. If I’m going to take a squire, that’s the kind of squire I want.”

Aubrey blinked away the last of his tears, and said simply, “Oh.”

“I’m telling you this because if you accept my offer, nothing you do for the next four years will be easy. It won’t be the traditional squire’s education you’ve been trained for. But I don’t believe earning your shield is about that— at least not only about that. Joren had the talent, and that didn’t help him during his Ordeal.” Aubrey flinched a little at the comment. "I don't mean to poke at a fresh wound,” Keladry added, “but I need to know you understand what you’re signing up for.”

“I do want my shield,” Aubrey said after a moment. “I think what scared me was only getting it because someone felt sorry for me.”

“I don’t expect a lot of people will envy your position,” Keladry said, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. “You are getting stuck with ‘the Girl.’”

Aubrey chuckled a little at her joke. “Fianola might be jealous,” he said, naming the only other girl in his page class. “When would you like me to start?”

Keladry glanced back at the tilting lane, her smile faltering a bit. “I suppose you could help me arm up right now,” she said. “And then you can tell me I’m insane, still practicing against Lord Raoul.”

The Bazhir suncream really did do wonders, Aubrey thought, eyeing his reflection in the mirror as he was fitted for new tunics in Midelan blue and gray.

Chapter Text

Arriving at New Hope just in time for their weeklong harvest festival — and Aubrey’s fourteenth birthday — had been a treat. He hadn’t celebrated a harvest and an All Hallows since he’d come to the palace; the traditions weren’t as popular in Corus where Midwinter was the more prominent holiday.

“Enjoy the festivities now,” Keladry told him that first evening over cups of mulled cider. “Because we’ll be snowed in here until spring.”

“Sounds great,” Aubrey replied. “Better than another winter in Corus serving at parties at any rate.” Keladry raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m northern born and bred; I don’t mind the snow. I wasn’t made for winter social seasons and politicking. Maybe some of my sisters were, but Ma says I’m all knees and elbows when I get nervous. My second year at the palace I tripped and spilled wine on Duke Baird.”

Across the table from them, Sir Nealan snorted into his mug. “That was you? My mother laughed about that for months!”

“If he spilled wine on a Duke,” Tobeis Boon declared, “then I like him.”

Aubrey felt heat rise in his cheeks. “I wrote him an apology.”

“Which I’m sure he accepted,” Keladry said, with a meaningful look at Sir Nealan. 

“I think,” the other knight replied, “that his exact words were ‘I’m a healer, wine is probably one of the cleanest things I’ve ever had spilled on me.’”

Sitting on her other side, Sir Merric leaned toward Keladry and asked, “If your squire spills wine on me, may I go down to Queensgrace to buy new shirts?”

“We think he’s sweet on some’un,” Tobeis told Aubrey. “Merchant most like. Always wants ‘a go when there’s a market.”

“You can go anyway,” Keladry told Merric dryly. “But only because you keep inventing more and more absurd excuses to do so.”

Keladry had been right when she’d told him that the work at New Hope wouldn’t be traditional squires duties — at least not only those. The harvest might have been brought in, but that only marked the beginning of winter preparations, and Keladry and Aubrey worked alongside the townsfolk in every task. In the first week, he learned to salt and smoke fish, strip grains and lay them out to dry, and preserve fruits in honey. They piled wood stores and refreshed the waterproofing on every roof. Twice a week they rode patrols with Sir Merric; there were still reports of scattered raids, but it seemed that even those who refused to acknowledge the end of the Scanran War were smart enough not to attack New Hope. They hunted, for meat in the first weeks and furs later on. Saefas Ploughman, who lit up when he learned Aubrey came from Stone Mountain where he himself had been raised, taught him the best methods for sewing leather and helped him to make a beautiful fox-fur cowl with a coveted wolverine trim. 

When winter had truly settled in, he and Keladry — and whichever children had come to join them that day — spent daylight hours in lessons, drilling with sword, bow, staff, and axe for as long as the skies were clear. They spent nights in New Hope’s great hall, listening to local variations on traditional winter tales and waiting to see if the auroras lit the sky. The only time Keladry and the other knights spent secluded in the offices was when it snowed

“We did it,” Keladry announced one day, a month or so after the new year. She had just finished checking over a set of calculations that first Aubrey and then Nealan had completed. “We have enough surplus that we can export, and go to the first market of the year.”

Sir Nealan perked up. “Really?”

“Yuki will be thrilled.” She turned to Aubrey, and explained, “We’re self-sustaining here. We don’t need the support of the army, we can become an official township. Which means they won’t need three knights to oversee it anymore.”

“So you’ll go back to Corus?” Aubrey asked Sir Nealan. 

“I assume you all will,” Merric added. Then, when both Aubrey and Keladry whipped around to look at him, he added, “Don’t make me beg, Kel. I’m a second son with three cousins to boot. Let them look after Hollyrose. This is my home. And we all know you have bigger and better things to do than babysit us.”

For a moment, it looked like Keladry was set to argue with him. Then she turned and asked Aubrey, “Well? Think you’ll be ready for something different come spring?”

He gaped at her, and she seemed to mistake his surprise at being considered in the decision as hesitation. “You could always stay with Merric, if you preferred.”

“No!” Aubrey blushed, shocked by his own conviction once it came. “My Lady, I wouldn’t shirk my duty to you, I swear. I don’t care where you ask me to go, as long as it isn’t home.”

They left the newly incorporated town in the late spring, as soon as the roads were open and a messenger had arrived bearing the official documentation with the king’s signature. Sir Nealan and a few others who were career army men rode straight back for Corus. Tobeis went with them, to begin an apprenticeship as a palace hostler. Keladry and Aubrey turned west, toward Mindelan.

Much like Stone Mountain, the fief was smaller than those found in parts south. An outer stone wall marked the boundaries, inside which was farm and grazing land. The ground was rocky but, fed by silt from an ancient lake bed, rich and fertile, and almost the same black hue as that around his home. The people working in fields and along the banks of the Domin River were the same hearty northern folk he’d grown up around, and come to knew at New Hope. They waved and cheered when they saw Keladry.

“You’d think they’d be used to seeing knights come home,” she said, as they passed the inner walls and approached the castle. “Inness and Anders both live here. Get ready to be swarmed.”

“What?” Aubrey asked, and got his answer as a half dozen of Keladry’s nieces and nephews spilled into the courtyard to greet her, then besieged Aubrey, anxious to discover if this blond stranger had brought sweets with him. Used to being the youngest, Aubrey laughed at finding the situation reversed on him.

“Aye, let him down from his horse, at least,” a man with Kel’s hazel eyes but a stockier build cut through the children, scooping up the smallest to balance on a hip even though he clearly suffered from a stiff leg. “You must be Aubrey,” he said, extending his other hand. “I’m Anders. Lachran wrote us that you’d gone with Kel.”

Aubrey took the proffered hand and shook it, unsure what to say. He knew Lachran, as they had started in the same year, but they had never been close friends. He wondered what else the other boy had said about him. 

“Is he still happy serving with Sir Myles?” Keladry asked, coming to join them. Anders nodded.

“He seems to be. We’ll have another scholar and diplomat in the family. Papa said it’s about time.” He chuckled. “I think he was a little hurt you didn’t ask him, though.”

“Lachran had four offers by the time I got— Oh, please don’t do that,” she said, gesturing above them at the wall, where someone was running up a second Mindelan flag, this one with the distaff boarder of the Lady Knight. 

“Conal sent that,” Anders remarked mildly. “He said when he visited you at New Hope you didn’t have one.”

“I had one,” Keladry countered. “It was destroyed at Haven. And we’ve had more important things to do than stitch me a new one.”

Aubrey realized that her brother was right; he’d never seen a Mindelan flag at New Hope. He should have noticed sooner, it was usually a squire’s job to raise them. He’d supposed when they arrived that perhaps it was one of Tobeis’ duties, and then he hadn’t thought about it again. It was strange. He’d never known a noble who didn’t make announcing their presence to every- and any-one on their lands a priority. But Keladry had made it so normal that no one had questioned it. 

They stayed a week at Mindelan, and at the end of it, Anders pulled Aubrey aside to point out the flag that he’d had packed along with his things.

“My sister doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘pride,’” he told Aubrey. “Stubbornness, sure, but for other people, or for injustice. She doesn’t always remember that every so often she’s allowed to celebrate herself. Let her know that, would you?”

They made a lazy trip back down the great south road, stopping in villages along the way to offer whatever help a knight could provide, and reached Corus in late summer. His trunks were retrieved from storage, and Aubrey was finally given a room in the squire’s wing of the palace. Fianola moved in the day after him, fairly buzzing with excitement; she was squire to Lord Wyldon of Cavall. Keladry looked both very proud and very sympathetic when Aubrey told her.

“I hope Lady Alanna is as kind and generous to her as she was to me. I certainly can’t afford to buy her a specialty saddle, not when I need to buy you one as well.”

“Specialty saddle? Why do I need a speci—? Oh no.”

She was going to teach him to joust. She was famous for it. 

Of all the martial arts taught to pages, Aubrey had only been worse at wrestling. His beautiful Lygen mare, Ida, was older than he was and better suited to travel than war games, and for one wild moment he wondered if he would be expected to ride Peachblossom, who had bitten Aubrey twice in the time since Tobeis had left them. But if Keladry was planning to purchase one of the high-backed jousting saddles, that seemed unlikely, as she already had one for her warhorse.

As if reading his racing thoughts, Keladry waved him out of his room and into the hall. “Come on,” she said. “There’s some people I’d like you to meet.”

She led him to one of the fields used by the King’s Own. “Third Company is in the middle of recruiting, so they’re stationed here through the fall. Lord Raoul’s invited us to train with them.” Keladry always said ‘us’ and ‘we,’ as if she was still a student like Aubrey, and indeed she took part in every exercise she set him. “Other knights will probably be in and out, too. It’ll be a good opportunity for you to see a variety of horsemanship.”

To her point, a dozen or so men in less formal versions of the royal blue uniforms rode paces and practiced with pole arms. Watching them from the fence, Aubrey saw who must be Lord Raoul of Goldenlake. Though he himself wore no identifiable regalia, he was attended by a young man in the green and gold of his fief. 

“Kel!” He waved jovially. “Did you bring me a new jousting partner?”

“Don’t let him tease you,” she told Aubrey. Then, to Raoul, she said, “Don’t scare off my squire, I’d hate to lose a year’s worth of work with him.”

“I keep telling my Lord,” the boy in Goldenlake green said, “if he wants new jousting partners he has to start upsetting the conservatives again. Having me as squire is too normal after you, m’Lady Kel.”

“You’re a squire?” Aubrey blurted, before he could stop himself. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

“I had my page years at Port Legann,” the boy said. “And I started a few years late. I’m Alan,” he said.

“Aubrey.” Hesitantly, he put a hand forward, watching Alan carefully for any reaction to learning his name, but there was none except for a firm shake.

“What Alan failed to include in that introduction,” Raoul said dryly, “is that he’s of Pirate’s Swoop, and he has his mother’s gift of gab.”

Alan made a face. “I like it better when people get to know me first without my family name. I love Mama and Papa, but I’m not either of them.”

“I get that,” Aubrey told him. “My brother was… uh… quite famous at court.”

“I won’t ask,” Alan said, laughing again. 

And, to Aubrey's great surprise, he never did.

Summer turned to fall, and to the first hints of winter. Learning to joust against Alan wasn’t as bad as Aubrey had feared, although the older boy was much better at it than he was. As a trade off, Aubrey showed Alan around the palace, and introduced him in the squire’s mess. 

It was strange, returning to life in the palace. For the first time since coming to Corus five years ago, he had a friend.

Chapter Text

It turned out that his knight master liked the palace Midwinter parties about as much as Aubrey did, which fortunately meant that he wasn’t required to serve at any of them except the largest, held on the longest night of the year. Master Oakbridge had taken one look at him, in almost sheer pale gray shirtsleeves, and instantly switched his tray of mulled wine for one bearing a less messy dessert. 

On the other nights, Keladry and Raoul hosted their close friends. For these less formal affairs, it was Aubrey and Alan’s task to coordinate with palace staff, and to place and pick up orders from food houses and confectioners in the city. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being in charge of Keladry’s money, and tried to be as careful with it as she herself was, figuring that anything he saved now went toward his own gear in the end. 

“Is it ethical,” Alan asked, as they began the walk back to the palace with boxes of both sweet and savory pies, “for a squire to flirt his way to a few coppers discount?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” Aubrey replied.

“She only agreed to give you an even dozen when you gave her that smile,” Alan insisted. “I won’t tell Lady Kel if you teach me how to do that. I wouldn’t mind being able to charm Farrah of Port Legann like that.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything special.”

“I’d be happy to just get her to notice me. You don’t even have to try—“

“Aubrey?”

They both turned. “Wow. See? She’s gorgeous. Who is she?”

Aubrey sighed. “She’s my sister.” 

Noella hurried up the street toward them, beaming. “I thought it was you! Mithros, you’ve grown, haven’t you?”

“I’m still shorter than you.”

“Sure,” Noella replied, “but I’m wearing pattens.”

Stunned, Aubrey looked down and saw that his sister was indeed wearing the elevated platform shoes that ladies used in wet weather, which made her a good three inches taller. Accounting for that, he was of a height with her. 

Alan elbowed him. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

Privately feeling that he’d rather not, Aubrey gestured as best he could with his arms full of boxes, and said, “Noella, this is Alan of Pirate’s Swoop. He’s squire to Lord Raoul of Goldenlake.” He hoped the older boy would take a hint from his formality, but he didn’t.

“May we escort you back up to the palace, Noella of Stone Mountain?” Alan asked. “Dressed up like this, you must be on your way to a party.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Do you have to go straight back?”

“We’re expected, yes,” Aubrey told her.

“If you aren’t on your way to a specific party,” Alan continued, “I’m sure my Lord wouldn’t mind me extending you an invitation.”

“I can’t,” Noella said, giving Alan the barest acknowledgement. To Aubrey, she added, “We didn’t know you were in Corus this year. Maybe tomorrow you could have dinner with us?”

Aubrey swallowed, fighting to keep his voice even. “Send a note to Lady Kel. It’s not polite to ask a squire somewhere without their knight master.”

For a long moment, Noella just stared at him. “We’re trying, you know? You’re not making this easy for us, Aubrey.”

“I’m not—?!”

“Go,” Noella said firmly. “Do your duty.” She turned her back on him and disappeared into the crowds of holiday revelers.

Alan gaped. “What just happened?” 

Staring at the space his sister had occupied mere moments before, and feeling all the fight that had been there drain out of him, Aubrey said, “You want advice about girls, Alan? Don’t try so hard next time.”

It was a mild winter, and a milder spring. Third Company rode south, to finish their recruitment among the Bazhir, and Keladry and Aubrey switched from practicing with the Own to the Queen’s Riders. 

Or sometimes, Aubrey was somewhat horrified to learn, with the Queen herself. 

“You’re spoiling us, Kel,” Thayet said the second morning, as Aubrey poured cold water into cups for each of the ladies who had come for glaive practice, “bringing your squire around.”

“I could make Roald take one on,” Shinkokami suggested, making her mother-in-law laugh. 

“Tell him to take the next girl page,” Thayet suggested. “Then she can join us.”

As he handed out cups, Aubrey wondered if Joren had ever felt so small and awkward serving royalty. Probably not, he reasoned. He had taken their family’s listing in the Book of Gold — which the Conté family was not — very seriously. And he’d been of age with crown prince Roald. It was probably harder to be intimidated by someone who you regularly whacked with a stick. 

Steeling himself, he handed the last cup to Keladry and asked, “Would it be improper, if I wanted to learn?”

She seemed surprised, and looked to Shinkokami. It was difficult to tell what the princess was thinking; like Keladry, she let little of her emotion show on her face. Aubrey did his best to hold her unwavering gaze. “This is not the Islands,” she said after a moment, looking to the other two Yamani ladies who attended her, and then back to Keladry. “Here you learn the arts usually left to men. Why shouldn’t he learn naginata?”

The way Keladry grinned at him probably should have scared him, but he’d already conquered jousting. How bad could this be?

He loved it.

The little flourish that he had never quite been able to banish from his swordsmanship was welcome with the glaive. The balanced weight of the cap and blade ends helped him get the speed he’d never managed with a spear or a halberd. And practicing it from horseback, Aubrey finally felt his muscles understand how to balance a pole arm; the next time that Keladry had him take a lance out to the field, he hit the ring target every time.

Not to say that it was easy. Keladry had him practice twice a day — in the morning drills, and again in the evenings when she taught him the katas. This usually attracted some sort of audience; knights unfamiliar with this method of practice and courtiers marveling at the foreign weapon all came to observe and, in many instances, offer their commentary. 

“Imagine a boulder in the middle of a river,” Keladry told him, when he stumbled under the eyes of a particularly large crowd. “The mantra I was taught is ‘I am stone.” Let the river go by. No matter what’s happening around you, you stay focused and strong.”

I am stone, he thought, closing his eyes and turning slightly so that Annalena and Noella, standing to the back of the group of courtiers, were no longer in his line of sight before he and Keladry started from the beginning of the kata again. 

Court life slowed as they entered summer. The monarchs went to the Summer Palace, ready to enjoy the cooler temperatures along the coast, and most nobles returned to their home fiefs. Without duties to Mindelan, though, Keladry stayed in Corus. They were there when Third Company returned, though they waited for the temperatures to dip again before they resumed their jousting practices with Lord Raoul. Even then, Keladry recruited Tobeis to accompany them, and ensure the horses weren’t overworked.  

In time for his sixteenth birthday, a new glaive arrived from the Yamani Islands, this one sized for Aubrey’s hand and height, with a live blade made of the finest steel he’d ever seen. He didn’t ask how Keladry had been able to afford the generous gift; he suspected that certain other members of their morning practice group had contributed, and he wasn’t sure he deserved that. He felt the same about the padded and quilted leather gambeson that Alan and Raoul gave him, meticulously embroidered with a Mindelan owl motif.

“‘Course you deserve it,” Alan told him. “You need it, the amount of times you go flying. None of us would begrudge you if you wanted an afternoon off from that for your birthday though,” he added, as they made their way to the jousting lanes. Aubrey made a face. 

“I’d rather the distraction.”

“Someone’s touchy about turning sixteen.”

Aubrey shook his head and resumed lacing up his new armor. “I haven’t fallen in weeks. You’re not going to unseat me today just because I’m better protected.”

He ran the first two passes against Alan, successfully keeping his word, and prepared to run a third against Keladry (which probably would knock him from his saddle) while Alan retrieved a new lance. As he turned back to the start of the lane, he was surprised to see a visitor lounging against the fence.

“Excuse me, Lady Keladry?” Fianola waited politely for her to remove her helm, before asking with a smile, “My Lord Wyldon wishes to know if this is a private party, or if anyone might join?”

“We’d be honored,” Keladry said, at the same time that Lord Raoul said, “As long as I don’t have to joust against him.”

Fianola laughed, bowed, and went to relay the message back to her knight master. “Happy birthday, Aubrey,” she added, waving to him.

He was so stunned she’d known that Keladry had to whack him with the flat of her sword to get his attention again.

Sitting on the fence to watch them approach, Aubrey did his best not to stare openly at Wyldon of Cavall, though he’d long been curious about the former palace training master. He wanted to know what kind of man could be held in such high regard by Joren and their father, and also so deeply respected by Keladry; why after doing all he could to chase off the first girl page, he had taken the second as his squire. Despite his earlier grumblings, Raoul insisted that he did not dislike the man, though he hadn’t quite forgiven him for letting Keladry disappear unaccompanied into enemy territory during the height of the Scanran War.

Alan needed more convincing. “You know he’s the reason I didn’t do my page training here in Corus, right? The whole point was to not train under him.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Aubrey said, “when I came in the fall and he wasn’t training master anymore. I felt like I knew him, the way my brother wrote and talked about him.”

That earned him a sideways glance from Keladry. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and tried to change the subject. “If nothing else you have to respect his horsemanship.”

Alan acknowledged this. “Mama says Wyldon was born with lead in his behind to keep him in the saddle, and an equal amount in his head to keep him in the past. But at least he knows better than to cross her.” 

Raoul snorted and tried to cover it up as a cough. 

Aubrey jumped down to hold the gate open as they reached the lanes. Wyldon and Fianola each led a warhorse that could rival Peachblossom, despite the fact that Fianola was barely as tall as her mount’s shoulder. They were also attended by a trio of some of the largest dogs Aubrey had ever seen, with wolf-like markings and wide, lolling-tongue smiles. The nearest trotted over excitedly to sniff at him. Keladry got down to scratch the ears of another before they got too close to her horse.

“And where is your little scrapper?” Wyldon asked. 

“Jump?” Keladry asked, as the dog in front of her sat happily and then rolled to present its belly for scratching. “Enjoying a well earned retirement at Mindelan. My nieces spoil him. Last I heard they had made a game of sneaking him soup bones.”

That made Wyldon laugh, and Aubrey felt some of his nerves vanish. He could see what made Wyldon an effective leader; despite his imposing voice and figure, he put people at ease. “If I bred more terriers,” the former training master told Keladry, “I might have bought him from you. Down!” he barked suddenly, as the third dog joined the first and jumped to put its forepaws on Aubrey’s shoulders so that it could lick his face.

“Forgive me,” Wyldon said, dragging it down by the collar when it didn’t immediately obey. “This lot are still just pups.”

“If that’s a puppy,” Alan said dryly, looking down at them from the relative safety of his saddle,  “then I’m a Basilisk.” 

“Best start collecting some rocks for dinner then,” Fianola replied without looking at him, busying herself with adjusting her stirrups. “Maybe you’ll find some good ones when I knock you out of your saddle.”

His demeanor changed instantly. “That sounds like a challenge.” Alan turned to her with a grin. “I like challenges.”

Shaking his head, Raoul motioned Alan to the follow him to the far end of the lane. Aubrey stepped back to stand next to Keladry while Fianola climbed the fence and used it as a step to get into her saddle. Despite the size of her horse, she sat with all the confidence of a queen on a throne as Wyldon passed her helm and lance up to her. 

“If Goldenlake taught this one half as well as he taught Mindelan here, your biggest problem will be force,” he told her. “He’ll know exactly where to hit and how hard. You can’t meet him with brute strength, so don’t try to. Just see what he does in the first pass.” 

Fianola nodded and trotted to the starting line. At the signal, both she and Alan kicked their horses into a gallop. Each of them struck the other’s shield, and came back around. Wyldon nodded, a knowing smile on his face.

“Exactly what I thought,” he said, once his squire was back in earshot. “Did you notice the way that he—?”

“Yes,” Fianola said, shaking out her shield arm. 

Whatever made sense to her was beyond Aubrey’s understanding. He looked at Keladry, who seemed to be deep in thought herself, and gave it up for a bad job; if even she didn’t know what he’d been about to tell Fianola, Aubrey certainly wasn’t going to learn anything, and ought to just watch for entertainment. 

Raoul gave the signal. Aubrey watched intently as Fianola made minute adjustments to her stance and her aim, once again striking Alan’s shield squarely. 

“Sit!” Wyldon shouted.

Clearly used to chasing things that flew through the air, all three dogs had run to where Alan had landed in the grass, and now three pairs of blue eyes regarded him excitedly as he sat up. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Alan said grumpily, eyeing them back. “I’m a cat person.”

I am stone, Aubrey thought, settling himself in his saddle as he prepared to face Fianola. Predictably, she knocked him from the saddle as well. 

I am stone. He ran through the mantra in his head as their afternoon practices also began to draw audiences. At least most of the people who came to watch them joust did so with little interest in the squires; Aubrey was aware of at least three different betting pools, and even Alan had a silver noble on Raoul settling his old rivalry with Wyldon before the end of the year.

I am stone, he thought frequently, the closer they got to Midwinter and the more Alan talked about his upcoming Ordeal.

He was grateful to Fianola, who had also taken to joining them in their evening leisure time and did an admirable job of distracting both of them from thinking too much. The wolf-dogs followed her most places within the palace, and it was difficult to be stone when those animals bounded up and whined for attention.

Chapter Text

He should have known what was coming when he was sent down to the dress shop to pick up a package for Keladry, and before he could protest Lalasa Ingram had ushered him behind the counter, whisked his tunic over his head, and replaced it with one of the rough cut blanks she used for fitting.

“You’re growing almost as fast as my Lady did at that age,” she commented, tugging at the draped linen so that the pinned seam sat where she wanted it. “You should send your uniforms, I’ll have to let down your hems again.”

Aubrey squirmed. He’d gotten used to standing in Miss Ingram’s shop over the last two years, and she’d told him definitively that she did not associate him with his brother, but with Mindelan, and that no one of Mindelan would ever be turned away from her shop no matter how small or large the job. Which in this case meant that he’d have a new Midwinter set whether he thought he needed it or not.

“Will you want this for spring, too,” Lalasa asked, pulling out a measuring tape and laying it along his shoulder, “or will you want to wear Stone Mountain colors for the wedding?”

“What wedding?”

Lalasa stopped working and looked at him curiously. “I heard from Aldra in the tailor’s guild, she is making a wedding dress for Noella of Stone Mountain. I assumed—“ She pursed her lips, and drew in a deep breath before continuing. “Forgive me, master Aubrey, it’s not my place to say, but they shouldn’t do this to you. It’s shameful.”

“They don’t want to split my loyalties,” Aubrey replied bitterly, although part of him certainly wanted to agree with her. “I have duties to Lady Keladry, and moreover she’s been good to me, I wouldn’t want to. They don’t really know that of course, they just know that this is how I get my shield, but my sisters…” he sighed. It was easier to talk to Lalasa, who wasn’t noble and didn’t try to excuse anything, but he hated admitting that his family could still be guilty of the worst of conservative, irrational thinking. “I love them. Elle’s my sister, I want to be there. But I couldn’t show up without Lady Keladry, and they don’t know her. They don’t want to know her. They all say that Joren started to change as soon as he met her. That she… witched him somehow. They’re angry, they don’t want to blame him for what happened, but they want to blame someone so they settled on her.”

Lalasa was silent for a long moment, and Aubrey wondered if he’d said too much. Finally, bringing more pins over from her sewing box, Lalasa said, “Maybe this wasn’t your point, but it seems to me that so did you.”

Aubrey blinked. “So did I what?”

“Begin to change,” Lalasa clarified. “When you met my Lady.”

“No,” Aubrey said bitterly. “I’ve never been like the rest of my family.”

Lalasa chuckled. “Don’t all teenagers think that?” She resumed her pinning as she talked. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a coincidence, and thirteen is just when all of us start to become our own person. But it seems to me something’s changed about you in the last three years. You’ve grown confident as you’ve grown up. Lady Kel has that effect on people. I should know.”

Aubrey looked at himself in the mirror on the far wall as Lalasa resumed her draping, nudging him to stand straight. Sure, he’d grown taller, and was finally starting to put on muscle. But he was still just Aubrey. His ankles still turned in if he didn’t think about correcting it. He was shorter and stockier than Joren had been. His hair was too long, and starting to fall into his eyes.

He didn’t feel confident.

“It’s probably better this way,” Aubrey said, hating how much bitterness leaked into his voice. “I’ll need every day I can get under Lady Keladry’s tutelage if I’m going to survive my Ordeal. I don’t have time to go to a wedding.”
Lalasa made a non-committal noise in response, perhaps sensing that he didn’t want to talk about it further.

The package Lalasa sent him back with contained the first of two gowns, with Aubrey’s new shirt and tunic promised to arrive with the second. An envelope delivered by palace staff explained the extravagance, at least in part.

“Mama said Thayet was threatening to issue an imperial summons this year,” Keladry said, looking over the pack of Midwinter dinner invitations. “Your service schedule is attached too, but it looks like you’re being requested at all the same parties that I am.”

“Is it too late to go back to New Hope?” Aubrey asked dryly.

Keladry chuckled. “Believe me, I thought about it.”

She gave him the rest of the afternoon off. Although the Midwinter holiday and thus the large parties did not start until the next day, Alan was excused from practice too, while Raoul met with the other knights whose squires faced their Ordeal. The two of them went into Corus to do some last minute shopping; each still had a handful of people to purchase Midwinter gifts for.

“Thom got in yesterday,” Alan said. “So I’ve got to get him something even though we both know he’d be happier staying at the university instead of pretending to be excited about Midwinter parties.”

“Is there anyone,” Aubrey wondered aloud, “who actually likes these things?”

Alan shrugged. “Papa doesn’t mind them. But he says it’s because watching people like Raoul try to tiptoe through them is better entertainment than the theater. Oh, I have to get Papa something, too.” He eyed a quill and ink set. “What did you get your sisters?”

“I sent sweets,” Aubrey said, glad no one in his family expected more. “Apparently they were delivered to the palace, so I’m sure to see them at at least one of the parties I serve at this year. Keladry has been asked to all of them.”

“I heard about that.” Alan grinned at him. “Mama is furious. Apparently Jon is chasing some Scanran princess for Liam. Scanrans don’t turn their noses up at lady warriors, they actually really revere them, so to make a good impression Jon wants all two of his on display. Mama said she came here to support me through my Ordeal, not to be turned into a dancing marionette with a sword. Jon said she was a knight of the realm and she’d set a good example to me and do both.”

Aubrey, who was a bit hung up on how casually Alan called the royal family by name, just said, “I mean, he isn’t wrong, is he? I wouldn’t challenge the king like that.”

“That’s what Raoul said.” Alan paused to look in another shop window. “And that she also owes it to Fianola and Kel to be there. I think that’s what actually made her stop arguing. After she told Raoul he was a hypocrite. Do you think Fianola would like to get sweets for Midwinter?”

Aubrey shrugged. “I think she’s mentioned lavender candy before.”

“Has she?” Alan gave him a look that he didn’t really understand, then started up the street. “Alright, lets find a sweet shop and then head back. I heard it’s supposed to snow tonight.”

“They said they were expecting heavy snow this year.” Mirien stared out the window at the palace gardens below, where people were all but running down paths cleared of a mere two inches of accumulation. What was still falling was loose and powdery. “That’s not snow.”

“I tried to tell you.” Noella didn’t even look up from her needlework. “Snow just doesn’t mean the same thing here. We didn’t need to be staying in the palace.”

“We didn’t need to be hiring a carriage every night either. There are four of us this year,” Annalena, ever the practical one, pointed out.

“We don’t need to be here every night.”

“Says you; you’re already engaged.”

“And you’re only seventeen,” Dagney added. “You’ve got time.”

Mirien sniffed. “And I intend to enjoy every minute of it. I’m going out to see the decorations go up.” She waited a moment to see if any of her sisters intended to join her, but got no response.

Good, she thought, and headed toward the indoor practice courts.

The delegation of Scanrans arrived just as the snow did, and it was all anyone could talk about during dinner. Aubrey, who had little interest in discussing which princess Liam ought to choose based on one single faraway glimpse, was happy to leave as soon as he'd finished eating. His sisters had also sent pastries and candies ahead of the holiday, and he collected a bowl of spiced almonds to share before heading for Alan’s room, which was larger and more suited to the three of them and ‘the boys,’ as Fianola referred to the wolf-dogs.

“I’m last,” Alan said, without any preamble. (Behind him, Fianola mouthed, “Ordeal,” when she caught Aubrey’s confused expression, and pat Alan consolingly on the shoulder.) “Raoul thinks it’s funny. He says every time he’s had a squire they’ve been last that year. I’m inclined to be angry with him.”

“You should talk to Lady Keladry then,” Aubrey said. “She’ll probably have better advice for you than I do.”

“I didn’t think it would be this bad.” Alan dropped his head into his hands. “I thought I’d have a day or two to be nervous. There’s eight of us this year. What do I do?”

“I’ve been telling you,” Fianola said, still patting his shoulder awkwardly, “we’re going to keep you busy. We’ll practice. I heard they’re organizing a tournament, you know Raoul will be in it. You don’t even have to sleep if you don’t want to.”

“I know you mean that as a joke,” Alan said weakly. “But I might not. I’ve already had nightmares about it. Is that normal? No, don’t answer that, I don’t actually want to know.” He sighed. “Mama says it’s like having something reach inside your head and rattle your brain around and squeeze out every awful thought you’ve ever had.”

All three of them were silent. One of the dogs went to Alan, and when he didn’t lift his head, forced it’s muzzle into his hands, finally startling a laugh out of him.

“I’m sorry,” Alan said after a while, looking first at Fianola and then Aubrey. “I know I shouldn’t talk like that. Especially to you.”

So, Aubrey thought, he did know after all.

“It’s alright,” he told Alan, not sure what else to say. “I wish I had better advice for you, but…” he shrugged. “Well, you’ll have to give me some before I go through mine.”

Alan smiled weakly. “I can do that.” He reached up and squeezed Fianola’s hand and scooted closer to her, making room for Aubrey to sit with them on the bed. He chose the desk chair instead. “I’m sure I’m just repeating what Fianola has already said, but just tell us how we can help. We’ll do whatever we can.”

“I know.” Alan looked at each of them, hazel eyes alight. “Maybe the holiday is just making me sentimental, or I’ve already lost it and the Ordeal is going to leave me well and truly cracked, but you two should know, I’m really grateful to have you. Things were tough for a while, with my sister disappearing, Mama getting hurt, and then we were stationed at Fort Steadfast and I was away from Thom, too, right when we were finally in the same city again… I was really scared I was loosing everyone I was close to. That my family was falling apart.” He smiled at each of them. “Turns out it just got bigger.”

Fianola put her head on Alan’s shoulder. “You’re a hopeless romantic, you know that?”

Aubrey felt a weird twist in his stomach, like he was intruding on something that ought to have been private. Suddenly remembering that he was holding the almonds, he shoved them toward Alan, who laughed — properly, this time. “Thanks, Aubrey,” he said, taking a handful and passing the bowl to Fianola. “Hang on, I have some cider somewhere.” He found a flask on his windowsill, which he emptied into a pitcher and then into cups that he passed to each of them. “To Midwinter luck,” he said, raising his.

“Midwinter luck, Alan,” Aubrey replied, and tried not to think about the last Ordeal he’d witnessed.

Lalasa had outdone herself. Inverting the usual Mindelan color scheme, she had made Keladry’s gowns in a fine, deep blue wool, with gray trim at the collar, sleeves, and hem, and an overcoat made of cream colored velvet with pearl closures at the front. Aubrey hung them to release any wrinkles before he took his own package back to his room to change. The shirt and velvet tunic were made to match. He admired himself in the mirror for a moment and decided that he actually liked how he looked. Overall it suited his complexion, and best of all he wouldn’t worry so much this year about accidentally sticking his cuff or elbow in something that stained.

“Oh good, you’re still here.” Fianola burst into his room, pulling one of the pages in behind her. “This is Ellisa. She came to me for help with her gown, but then she started asking me questions that I told her she’d be better off asking you directly.”

Confused, Aubrey turned to the girl. She looked to be about 11 or 12, a second year page. For her part, Ellisa was chewing her lip and worrying at the edge of her surcoat. Remembering what it was like to always be looking up at people, Aubrey sat on his bed so they were closer to eye level. “What is it? I’m happy to help if I can.”

Ellisa hesitated, then muttered, “I’m supposed to serve Lady Keladry at dinner tonight. Is she- I mean, I just… I hear she’s intense?”

Aubrey smiled at her. “Only about training. And she’ll be thrilled to see you. I didn’t know girl pages got their own uniforms now.”

“Neither did I,” Fianola said. “Not until she came knocking.”

Ellisa smiled faintly. “I still wear breeches most of the time. Anything else?”

“She doesn’t drink anything stronger than cider when she’s out,” Aubrey said, after a moments thought. “If you want to avoid offering it. Neither does Lord Raoul, if he’s with her; he’ll just take water or juice. She‘ll probably be the quietest at the table, but it’s not because she’s bored. She tries to listen more than she speaks. If you want to ask her for advice, she’ll give you the best she has, but she’ll expect you to follow it.” Feeling like he’d run on a bit, he asked Ellisa, “Does that answer your question?”

“I think so.” She stood there for another minute, then blurted out, “I just want her to like me. I want to be just like her one day.”

Aubrey smiled. “Me too.”

“Really?” Ellisa seemed surprised. “But you’re a boy.”

He shrugged. “What I’ve come to respect her for most doesn’t have anything to do with her being a woman.”

Ellisa looked vaguely confused, and Aubrey was wondering if he aught to quantify his statement more when Finanola said, “Okay, that’s enough sentimental talk for the first night of the holiday. Dinner starts at the bell and if you aren’t there Master Oakbridge is going to have kittens, and I’ve still got to get your hair up.” She shooed Ellisa out of the room and started to follow, but stopped in his doorway and turned back to Aubrey.

“Sorry,” she said. “One more sentimental thing. That was really nice of you, Aubrey.”

And then she disappeared into her own room before he could ask her what she’d meant.

“If you check your reflection one more time,” Annalena told Mirien, “we’re going to leave without you.”

“Do you think I should put my hair up?” Miri had arranged the loose curls around her face into a carefully pinned cascade; now she coiled the long braid that hung over her should up at the nape her neck, turning to consider the effect from all sides.

“Leave it tonight and put it up tomorrow,” Dagney suggested. “See what gets you more attention. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Now that,” Miri said, grinning, “is an experiment I can get behind.” She dropped the braid, smoothed the front of her gown, and joined her sisters. She knew they made a stunning group as they entered the ballroom where dinner was being served, each wearing silver jewelry and a combination of both the icy and inky Stone Mountain blues. It wasn’t quite as nerve-racking as her official presentation to the Court had been, though she was aware of every eye that turned to look at her as they approached the Master of Ceremonies to be directed to their seats. Noella, unsurprisingly, was sent to a table with her future in-laws. Annalena and Dagney each were seated with young noblemen. Mirien, however, was sent to a table with three other noblewomen. They watched her approach, taking in her white-blond hair, her fief colors; one leaned in and whispered to the other two as she pulled out her chair to sit down.

Over the years, Aubrey had hinted at the way he'd been treated at court. He'd dealt with it. Fixing a polite smile on her face as she introduced herself, Mirien resolved to do the same. She wasn't here to make friends; not with these girls, anyway. She had work to do.

By the time Aubrey arrived in the serving area off the kitchen, most of his year-mates were already assembled, and all of them looked flabbergasted to see him.

“Oh no,” Lachran said, a teasing smile gracing his round features. “Someone else is going to have to take the red wine.”

“Give him the liqueurs,” Brant of Afon chimed in, naming the post-dinner drink that was most popular with a majority of the knights. “Let him do some real work this year.”

Ignoring them, Aubrey joined the line of first- and second-year squires, picked up his assigned tray of drinks, and walked into the hall known as the Crystal Room, doing his best to keep his head high. Dinner over, most of the court were now milling about the floor. He spotted one of his sisters in the middle of a group of admiring men. If her painful smile was anything to go by, Mirien was trying to detach herself from a conversation with a man in Tusaine colors who was old enough to be their father. But Annalena seemed to have spotted it too, and appeared at Mirien’s shoulder before Aubrey could do anything anyway. He continued on his way to the table where Keladry still sat, now accompanied by Merric and one of the Scanran ambassadors.

“How are you doing, Aubrey?” he asked, accepting a glass of mulled wine. “Kel isn’t working you too hard?”

“I’d rather be jousting than here,” Aubrey answered honestly. “And I’m still really bad at jousting.”

“What?” His eyebrows rose into his fringe of red hair as he feigned shock. “Keladry of Mindelan hasn’t been able to teach you to joust?”

“He doesn’t give himself nearly enough credit,” Keladry replied. “Even Lord Wyldon says he’s getting better. And you know he doesn’t just hand out compliments.”

“How are things at New Hope?” Aubrey asked, keen to change the subject.

“Swell enough that I could leave to escort our friends from the north down here for the party.” He indicated the big man to his right, whose cheeks were rosy under his blond beard, though whether from the wine or the temperature Aubrey wasn’t sure. “Aubrey of Stone Mountain, I’d like to introduce Elov Særberg, the first Scanran ambassador to Tortall in… well, in at least 200 years.”

“Ah, Stone Mountain,” he said in a thickly accented Common. “You are down in the Grimholds. Those peaks are treacherous.”

“Vi bor nær bjørnensbreen,” Aubrey said, using the Scanran name for the glacier that supplied the spring melt to his home fief, and earning a booming laugh in reply.

“Han snakker språket mitt! Delightful child!” And he kept laughing while Merric and Keladry stared at Aubrey.

“Three years we’ve known each other,” Keladry said, grinning herself, “and tonight I find out you’re bilingual?”

“I mean, enough to get by. We get trade from Scanra. Ma taught us all.” Elov had attracted more stares from around the room. Suddenly uncomfortable, Aubrey picked up his tray and excused himself. Behind him, he heard Merric say to Keladry, “They all learned it. Mithros, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, do you know how useful Joren would have been four years ago!”

“I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable,” Keladry told him later, as they walked back towards the residential areas of the palace. Aubrey shrugged.

“I don’t mind talking about Joren,” he told her. “Believe me, if there is anything negative to be said, I’ve already heard it.”

“That doesn’t mean we should contribute to it.” Aubrey shrugged again, ready to part ways, when Keladry put her arm out to stop him. “I’m glad I’m still learning new things about you. It’s good to still be able to surprise people.”

“You disappeared from the party early,” Miri teased.

Dagney didn’t even look up from her book. “You’ve been disappearing since we got to the palace. I don’t ask where you go.”

Choosing not to answer that, Miri went and sat beside her sister. “I chatted with a corporal in the Kings Own this evening. Not my type, but he said his brother is an anatomy student at the University, and he’d be interested in meeting you. Hopefully he’ll make a more interesting dinner partner than whoever you were with tonight. Even I could tell his head was full of air.”

“It was like trying to make conversation with a goat.” Dagney gave her a grateful smile, then pursed her lips. “Where do you go? You didn’t used to wander like this at the convent.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “In fact, I thought I saw you leave before I did. And you weren’t seated with anyone from the King’s Own.”

“Just say ‘Thank you, Miri,’” she retorted. “You’re very smart but shrewdness doesn’t suit you.”

The second and third nights of the holiday passed uneventfully. Aubrey finished wrapping gifts for Fianola, Alan, and Keladry, placed them outside his door, and the next morning he found wrapped parcels from his friends and a few others in their place.

Keladry knocked as he was opening a new book from Raoul, looked at the title, and said, “He must give that to every Squire he works with. It’s a good read, you’ll like it. I don’t mean to interrupt your morning, but I think I got one of yours.” She handed him an envelope with a wax seal bearing the Stone Mountain coat of arms. The first thing he noticed upon opening it was Mirien’s small, neat handwriting. The second was that it was not, in fact, addressed to him.

“Ma wants to meet you,” he said, amazed, handing it back to Keladry. “It’s an invitation to have lunch one day while they’re here in the palace.”

Keladry ran a hand through her hair. “Tell me honestly. How fraught of a situation might I be walking into?”

“Honestly?” Aubrey shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been here for six years, and I haven’t seen any of them since I became your squire.” He bit his lip, thinking of that one brief encounter with Noella, and decided not to say anything. But he wasn’t as good as she was at keeping his emotions off of his face, and she must have seen something.

“Do you want to see them?”

Aubrey thought for a moment, then nodded. He didn’t always agree with them, but they were his family.

“Then write a reply back. I’ll go get my seal.” She was into the hallway and Aubrey was at his desk when he heard her say “I hope they don’t care if I show up in boots and breeches. I’m going to turn an ankle if I spend another day in court slippers.”

Thinking that they probably would, and finding that he himself didn’t care, Aubrey trimmed his quill and started penning their reply.

I am stone.

He didn’t know why he was nervous. It wasn’t that Aubrey doubted his mother loved him. But being the youngest of six, and Lady Eleonora being at the time preoccupied with the education of her older daughters, Aubrey had been raised mostly by nursemaids and servingmen. He imagined that his mother felt much the same way about him that he did about her; he loved her, he just didn’t know her all that well.

She greeted them with the cool formality that he expected, giving Keladry a sideways glance even as she kissed Aubrey’s cheek and directed them to the long dining table where his sisters — three of them, anyway — were already waiting. Unsurprised to see who was missing, Aubrey made the introductions. “This is Annalena,” he waited as his oldest sister dipped into a curtsey, no deeper than was necessary to one of a barony, “Dagney,” she did the same, shyly hiding ink stains on the tips of her fingers by twisting them up in the fabric of her skirt, “and Mirien.” 

Of all his sisters, Mirien seemed to the one who had changed the most over the three years since he’d seen her last. She was built like their mother, lithe and nearly as tall as he was. As surreptitiously as possible, Aubrey checked to see whether she was wearing heels. 

“I hope you’ll excuse Noella’s absence,” Eleonora said, addressing Keladry. “It isn’t that she didn’t want to meet you. She is newly engaged, and very excited. My brother in law has gone to accompany her so that she might visit with her fiancé’s parents. They have much to arrange, and she has no other chaperone.”

“I’m sure she does,” Keladry said. It was always hard to tell, but Aubrey wondered if she felt as out of element talking about weddings as he did. “I only saw a little of what my sisters went through in planning weddings, and even that was a lot.” She nudged Aubrey with her elbow. “You didn’t tell me. I should have sent congratulations.”

He swallowed, trying to pretend he hadn’t heard from Lalasa, and said, “I didn’t know.” 

“We haven’t made an official announcement yet,” his mother said, which was as close to an apology as Aubrey expected to get. “All this fuss with the Scanran princess. It isn’t the right time.” 

“We saw you talking to the ambassador the other night,” Mirien said, turning to Aubrey. “Did you hear anything? Everyone is dying to know who Prince Liam will choose.”

Aubrey shook his head. Keladry answered for both of them. “I admit I was more interested in catching up with Merric than I was in the arrangement of another royal wedding.”

“She's as evasive as you are," Annalena told Aubrey, in the fond but somewhat judgmental tone she used when she wanted to say she disapproved. “I can see why you two get along,” she added.

Aubrey glanced at his knight master again. Her expression gave nothing away; she might just as well have been discussing the weather. But at least she didn’t seem to have been insulted.

A collection of palace and Stone Mountain servants came in bearing plates, serving ware, bowls of fruit and plates of sandwiches, and Eleonora ushered them over to the table to sit. Keladry accepted an arrangement of apple and pear slices, but stopped the servingman short of pouring wine into her glass. “Just water, thank you. I’m on the lists later, I can’t afford to eat anything too heavy right now.”

“The lists?” Mirien asked. Then, “Oh, the tournament! I’ve never seen one. You have to challenge someone, right?”

“I’m only on exhibition today,” Keladry explained. “You sign up and get matched with someone of relatively equal skill and experience. There’s no challenge to make gossip, and no penalty if you lose.”

Mirien looked vaguely disappointed.

“Will you compete, Aubrey?” Annalena asked. 

He shook his head. “Squires weren’t allowed to sign up,” he told them simply. “I don’t think I’d do very well anyway.” He caught Keladry glancing at him, and, remembering their conversation the other night, dipped his head and applied himself to finding a chicken sandwich; most appeared to be sliced ham, which he wasn’t as fond of.

“I thought I heard though… there’s another female squire everyone is talking about…?” Dagney let her question hang, and Aubrey smiled, glad to shift the conversation. 

“Fianola,” he said. “Not in the jousts, although she could. Tomorrow she and Lord Wyldon are showing the dogs they’ve trained.”

“Well that doesn’t seem fair.” It touched Aubrey that his sister was so outraged on his behalf, although it would have been better directed toward Alan, who could have used the distraction and  was equally upset about not being able to register on the lists himself. “If she gets to take part even like that, why shouldn’t the rest of you?”

“What I heard,” Keladry said carefully, “is that they decided not to allow squires to compete while some of them were getting ready for their Ordeal. It was more fair to draw a hard line than to make exceptions for some.”

Mention of the Ordeal created an awkward silence around the table. Annalena, after a long moment, signaled a servingman for more wine, and their mother began to ask polite questions of Keladry. He noticed that both of them carefully avoided any subject that might be even remotely related to knighthood or training now.

Eventually, the bell signaled the passing of an hour, and Keladry pushed her chair back and excused herself to prepare for her jousts. Aubrey made to do the same, but to his surprise she waved him off. “Please, stay with your family. I know you already looked over all my gear and I’ll be thrilled to have your help afterward, but,” she smiled sheepishly, “I prefer a little quiet while I get ready.”

Aware of his family staring at him, Aubrey asked, “Are you sure I shouldn’t—”

Keladry shook her head. “You’ve already done everything I’ve asked of you, and done it well, I might add. And besides, it’s only Garvey I’m up against, it’s not anything to worry over.” She bowed to his mother, thanked her, and left.

The moment the door had closed behind her, Mirien turned to Dagney. “Did she just say Garvey? As in Garvey of Runnerspring?”

Aubrey, who knew the name but not from where, asked, “Do we know him?”

It was Annalena who answered him. “You may have met him once, years ago. He was a friend of Joren’s. And…” She stopped, apparently deciding how to continue. 

Any warmth he’d felt over Keladry’s praise disappearing rapidly, Aubrey looked from his mother to each of his sisters and asked, “And?” 

“Garvey of Runnerspring,” Mirien said, with just a little too much excitement coloring her tone, “is Noella’s betrothed.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t like how he looks at her.”

Like Keladry, Garvey was alone at his end of the field, as he did not have a squire in his service to attend him. Unlike Keladry, he paraded past the stands, making a show of stopping so that Noella could lean over the rail and tie a handkerchief around his wrist. 

“Look at that,” Alan continued, disgusted. “He treats her like an object.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Fianola told him dryly, “but in my experience that’s how most noblemen look at their wives.”

Alan huffed. “I would never.”

“Yeah, well, you’re one of the good ones.” She put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun, watching Garvey as he made another round past the stands before taking his place at the end of the lane. “That horse is entirely too big for him.”

Alan snorted. “Says the woman who basically rides a draft horse down the lanes.” 

The herald signaled the start. Aubrey turned his attention back to Keladry, and knew instantly that Garvey stood no chance. Usually Keladry jousted at a strong canter; today, with the full length allowed for a competition joust and the field in perfect condition, she urged Peachblossom to his gallop, thundering down the lane. He saw Garvey flinch unconsciously in exactly the same way Keladry was always coaching him not to do, but really, he couldn’t blame the man. Peachblossom was an avalanche, and the crowd was mostly cheering for Mindelan. Alan whooped as her lance struck Garvey’s shield just off the center. The high back of the jousting saddle did little to keep him in place; the angle of impact effectively popped Garvey out like a cork from a bottle. He landed in the dirt, and immediately scrambled to his feet, prepared to continue from the ground. Keladry, though, had already removed her helm, signifying that she had no interest in further combat. She offered an ungloved hand to Garvey as she rode back around. He did not take it.

Aubrey chanced a glance back to where Noella and the rest of his family were watching from.

She looked devastated. And very angry.

“Gods you’re fast,” Keladry said, rolling her shoulders. “Tobe’s already seen to Peachblossom, he insisted. You could have stayed to watch a few more jousts. Pass me that canteen, would you?” 

She turned to accept the proffered water, and blinked. “I’m sorry. You’re… not Aubrey.”

Mirien shook her head. The combatants’ tents were warm, even though it was late December. Between that, the slim silhouette of her day dress, and the hazy light filtered in through the white canvas walls, the mistake was easy to make. “Everyone always assumed we were twins growing up. We’re the same height now, and he’s decided to grow his hair long. I guess I better get used to it again.”

Keladry regarded her curiously. “If you’re looking for your brother, I’m sure he’ll be along in a moment. It’s only the back of this new armor I need his help with, really.”

“I was looking for you, actually,” Mirien told her. “I wanted to ask you something, but I… wasn’t sure I could earlier.”

“Oh.” Keladry took another swig of water, and gestured at the stool. “It’s Mirien, right? Do you mind if I sit?” She shook her head. “Alright,” Keladry said, settling herself as best she seemed able in the plate armor. “What can I do for you?”

“The man you just faced,” Mirien said carefully. “You knew him growing up?”

“I did.”

Mirien took a breath before continuing. Going around her family, Aubrey included, felt a bit like betrayal, but she needed to ask. “I was so young. No one would talk to me about what was going on with the trial, or the Ordeal. But I hear things, now that I’m at court. People still talk when they see us, you know? About that, and about their other friend, Vinson?” Keladry nodded, showing she understood. “I just want to know… do I need to worry about my sister?”

“No,” Keladry said, after too much of a pause for Mirien to find her answer completely reassuring. “Garvey is many things, but he’s a coward at heart. He won’t hurt your sister.” She looked at Mirien, appraising, and asked, “Does that answer your question, or is there something else you’d like to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Mirien said honestly. “I just… I don’t like him. Something about him. And I can’t tell who does like him and who is just being polite for Noella. I figured you have no reason to lie to me.”

“Well,” Keladry said dryly, “I’ll be honest then, if that’s what you want. I never liked Garvey. But I would hope he’s grown out of most of the things that I disliked him for.” Then, while Mirien was trying to puzzle out what she’d meant by that, Keladry surprised her by saying, “You really do look like him, you know.”

She smiled. “Aubrey?”

“Joren.” Mirien blinked. “You have the same build. You’d be a good swordsman, if you ever cared to take it up. Which I assure you I mean as a compliment.”

More light flooded in as someone lifted the flap, and Aubrey stepped into the tent. He blinked at her. “Mirien?”

Not ready to answer his obvious questions, she curtsied to Keladry, and fled.

“Did you notice how Garvey had all of his weight braced in his feet?” Fianola asked, as they made their way through the maze of combatants’ tents looking for Keladry. Aubrey nodded. It was the same technique that Lord haMinch favored and had taught, especially to the smaller pages like Aubrey; lifting up in your stirrups gave you that much extra reach against a larger opponent. “It’s really hard to balance evenly that way,” Fianola continued, “and you could see Garvey was listing to one side. I’ve noticed you do that. If you put your weight more back, in your hips instead of your feet, you’ll be better balanced and you’ll probably stay in your saddle more.”

Aubrey thought about this for a minute, trying to feel what she was talking about as they walked. “How’d you figure that out?”

“Wyldon. Well, sort of. See, he told me to get more comfortable in my saddle first, and that’s how I’m comfortable. Then he pointed out that he’d noticed Keladry did the same thing. We just do it without thinking.”

“Why?”

“We’re women,” Fianola said simply. “Wider hips. That’s just where our weight naturally falls. But it’s not like you can’t do it. You just might have to think about it more.”

“I’ll try it.” He spotted the strip of bright Mindelan blue that indicated Keladry’s tent, wondered if he ought to find a way to knock first, and then realized that she couldn’t have started changing without someone to help her out of the back-latching breastplate she used anyway. Still, it surprised him to find someone else in the tent.

“Mirien?” It was small consolation that she seemed equally off guard, and ducked past him to run out without saying anything.

“I don’t think it’s you,” Keladry told him, getting up so that he could start undoing her armor. “I may have upset her.”

“What did she want?” Aubrey asked, moving on to the straps that secured her gorget. 

“She asked about Garvey.” Relieved of the largest pieces of metal, Keladry bent over to stretch and to unbuckle her greaves. “I saw that little display before the joust. I take it that’s the sister I didn’t meet?”

“Noella,” Aubrey confirmed. 

Keladry sighed. “I’m not saying I’d have thrown the match if I’d known, but I might have held back enough to make it closer to a draw. Gods, I hate court politics.” She rolled her shoulders as she straightened up again, and tried smiling at him. “Are you planning to watch any more of the tournament today?” Aubrey shook his head. “Me either. Run up to the palace and tell one of the maids I’d love a bath before we have to be at dinner. I’ll carry my armor.”

Because it was part of a squire’s duties, and because he’d learned when he could ignore her commands and get away with it, Aubrey took the armor for her anyway.

The next day was more exhibitions. Keladry rode against Raoul, who was awarded the win on the third pass after each of them broke two lances, and also against crown prince Roald, who was at least a more gracious loser than Garvey had been. Aubrey brought her lunch on the side of the field while Tobeis urged Peachblossom to drink water, then helped her back into her dress armor and cloak. During the break, Lord haMinch and the pages had set up rings ranging from two inches wide to a quarter inch, barely enough for the tip of a lance to pass through. Aubrey caught the girl Ellisa watching with awe as Keladry caught all of them with her lance save the last and smallest, which she instead drew her sword and cut from its rope. 

“That,” Raoul said, also sounding impressed, “might be the showiest I’ve ever seen that girl.” He chuckled as Alan helped him mount up for his turn. “Good for her.”

As Raoul moved to the start line at the end of the lane, someone pushed into the space he had previously occupied. “Hey—!” Alan protested as he was shoved to the side, and Garvey of Runnerspring turned his horse just enough to block Aubrey’s view of him. 

“Don’t suppose you could help a man out with his stirrups?” Garvey said, smiling jovially down at Aubrey as if they’d known one another for years. “I feel like I left them just a little long.”

Aubrey looked around. There were a half dozen hostlers on the ground, as well as the pages, who were all there to assist those knights who didn’t have squires in attendance. Without saying anything, he adjusted the strap of one stirrup, carefully taking just long enough for Keladry to come around, see what was happening, and call him and Alan over before Aubrey had time to look at the second.

“We left before we saw him ride,” Alan said, after telling Fianola about the encounter (with somewhat more embellishment than Aubrey himself might have added) over dinner. “But I hope he was too proud to get down and fix the other one, and had to do it lopsided.”

“Stop talking for a minute and eat something, would you?” She slid a dish of potatoes toward him and turned to Aubrey. “You know he only did that to get a rise out of you, right?”

“That’s what Keladry said,” Aubrey told her. “She says he’s always been that way. A bully.” He poked at his own food, only half interested, and wondered whether Garvey had turned out that way because of Joren, or Joren had become that way because of Garvey. He tried to push the thought aside. “I’m just… confused, I guess. I don’t understand why Noella would put up with someone like that, never mind agree to marry him.”

“I do.” Fianola’s expression turned stormy. “It doesn’t matter what he’s like with everyone else. He makes her feel special. She’ll forgive anything so long as he continues that act with her.”

They all fell silent after that. 

“Is it just me,” Alan said, after Fianola had excused herself to get ready for service at that evening’s party, “or was she not really talking just about your sister?”

Alan and Fianola had been going to the Chapel of the Ordeal each morning to see his year-mates; Aubrey had not. He hadn’t yet decided whether or not he would go the following morning, when it would finally be Alan’s turn. Part of him wanted to. Another part was still paralyzed by the thought.

He tried to tease out an answer as he ran. The path along the palace wall was familiar enough from his page years that he didn’t need to think about where he was going, only about putting one foot in front of the other. Drawing on his glaive lessons, he focused on his breathing, on his body, on emptying his mind of all distractions. But the pit in his stomach when he pictured Alan standing in front of that iron door remained. 

Aubrey rounded a corner and forced himself to an abrupt stop, finding the narrow path blocked by a man leaning against the parapet. 

“Mindelan was always awake before the rest of us, too,” Garvey said, attempting nonchalance but unable to keep the bite out of his words. “It wasn’t enough to do what the rest of us did, she had to show everyone she could do more, right from her first day of page training. Guess she’s got you doing that now.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Aubrey said simply. Then, “And I used to run before I met Keladry.”

“Why?”

Aubrey shrugged. “If you were smaller than everyone you were expected to keep up with you’d  have had to work harder, too. I was here to work, not make friends.”

Finally, Garvey turned to look at him, appraising. “We’re not that different, you and I, are we?” he said. “You know what it’s like to be underestimated.” He smiled suddenly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to come off so strong. I just thought it was time we met. We’re going to be brothers soon, after all.”

“Brothers by law,” Aubrey said reflexively. 

Garvey’s smile faltered, but only for a moment. “Family is complex enough. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be?”

Because I had a brother, Aubrey felt like saying, and I’m not looking to replace him. Instead, he bowed politely, and excused himself. “Of course. I should be getting back, I have glaive practice at the first bell.”

He was halfway to the stairs that led down the wall when Garvey called after him, “You should have a man’s weapon. If Mindelan isn’t able, I’m happy to help you. Practice, a good sword, whatever you need.”

Aubrey stopped. Insult to his knight-master aside, he didn’t like the implication in Garvey’s tone that he himself was somehow lesser in this man’s eyes. He turned around, and said evenly, “I have the broadsword that Joren left to me. The one he made, before they stopped asking that of pages.” He paused to see how Garvey reacted; his jaw had dropped open, he knew he’d made a mistake. “Keladry inspected it with the rest of my kit. She said it’s as fine a blade as any she’s seen. Is that manly enough?” 

Garvey had no answer; Aubrey knew he wouldn’t. He turned and walked off, head high, shoulders back. Only once he’d started descending the stair did Aubrey allow himself to smile. 

Maybe it was petty, but he couldn’t help it. It was nice to win.

Fianola was pulling on a fresh shift when she heard Aubrey’s door open across the hall, so she took the extra couple of minutes to clean her teeth in case he wanted to join them. A few moments later, she heard his door open and close again, and him pad down the hall in the soft soled boots he wore indoors. No then.

She sighed, but decided there was no point in worrying about him now. He would go tomorrow or he wouldn’t, and he and Alan would deal with it either way. 

Men, she thought, shaking her head. Stubborn, mulish, block-headed—

She was feeling stuffy, and before she left to meet Alan she opened her window— and did a double take. After all, there weren’t any other pages or squires with that distinct white-blond hair. 

How did he get down there so fast? she wondered. 

“No practice this morning?” 

Aubrey turned towards Fianola, who was lounging in his doorway, eyeing him worriedly. “You weren’t at breakfast, either.”

“Oh, yeah. I started a new kata this morning. I… got whacked pretty hard on the wrist,” he admitted. “Keladry and Lady Yukimi took me to see Sir Nealan to heal it, and they insisted we stay for breakfast after that.” He finished hanging his glaive on his weapon rack. “Why do you ask?”

“I heard you leave,” Fianola explained. “But then I saw you run through the courtyard instead.”

Aubrey raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t go through the inner courtyard at all. You must have seen…” he’d been about to suggest that it was one of his sisters, but even before he’d finished the sentence he knew it couldn’t be right. “No, never mind.”

“What?”

“I thought it might be—” he shook his head. “But my sisters don’t even visit me. They have no reason to be in this part of the palace. I don’t know what you saw, but,” he shrugged, “it wasn’t any of us.”

“Oh, Aubrey. You are so sweetly naive.” Fianola smiled fondly at him. “You know, I try very hard to talk to you just one squire to another, but I feel obligated to tell you, as a woman—”

A voice behind her said, “Speaking as someone with two older sisters myself, I’m quite sure he doesn’t want to know. Excuse me.” They each bowed as Lord Wyldon came into view, and beckoned them into the hall. “Might I have a word? With you, actually,” he specified, as Aubrey made to step back into his room. He glanced at Fianola, who shrugged in reply before she bowed to her knight master and went back across the hall. 

“Let’s walk,” Weldon suggested, and started off before Aubrey had a chance to answer either way. They had left the palace proper by the time Wyldon spoke.

“Your mother seems to think you’re… troubled. I assume by the idea of the Ordeal.”

He didn’t answer. He’d rather have gone back to talking about his sisters, even though something in his gut told him that Wyldon was correct and he’d be happier not knowing.

“I did my best to tell her that most every boy I worked with while I was training master was somewhere between nervous and outright frightened by it, and that it was merely a matter of how much they showed it. She still insisted I talk to you.”

“Ma’s very stubborn,” Aubrey said, and Wyldon chuckled.

“Yes, I remembered that about her. And I know better than to argue with a mother about her son. Now,” he slowed enough so that he could draw even with Aubrey. “My personal advice is that you speak to Mindelan when you’re ready. It doesn’t have to be tonight or even this week, but do it before you go for your own Ordeal this time next year.”

“Yes, sir,” Aubrey said automatically. “And I’ll tell Ma we spoke.”

“Well, I don’t want you to have to lie to her,” Wyldon said, the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “And there is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. Something I feel I am significantly more qualified to advise you on.”

They had reached the stables. Keladry was outside, grooming Hoshi. She glanced up as they approached, and nodded to Wyldon in acknowledgement. 

They had planned this. Aubrey didn’t know whether to be touched or annoyed by the trouble they’d gone through arranging whatever it was he was walking into.

Wyldon knocked on the half open stable door, and Tobeis, grinning wildly, led a dapple gray mare into the yard. She nosed him as she followed, clearly looking for treats, and did the same thing to the newcomers, head butting Wyldon affectionately and tugging at Aubrey’s hair.

“What do you think?” Wyldon asked, as if the horse wasn’t inspecting Aubrey more thoroughly than he was inspecting her.

“She’s friendly, that’s for sure.” He accepted a handful of apple pieces from Tobeis to give her. “Joren had a horse this color.”

“I know.” Wyldon wasn’t quite looking at him, and Aubrey opened his mouth to apologize for bringing it up, but Wyldon kept speaking over him. “He wouldn’t take another rider after your brother, and he was too well trained to learn other work. So I bought him out of palace service. He sired this little lady.” Wyldon pat the mare’s white nose as she turned to him, seeking more apples. “I still think she’s a touch small for a boy your size, but I know how you northerners feel about your heritage breeds—”

Aubrey realized what was happening with a start. “My lord, I can’t accept.”

“Oh, she’s not a gift,” Wyldon said, even as he took her lead from Tobeis. 

“I don’t understand.”

Tobeis, it seemed, couldn’t hold his excitement anymore. “She’s not a gift ‘cause you’re gonna buy her. From me. And I’m gonna use the money to pay my guild membership, and then I’m going to be an hostler for the King’s Own!” He looked around, beaming. “Me! Ride with the King’s Own! I hope we go back through Queensgrace sometime so they can see me now!”

His grin proved infectious. Smiling back, Aubrey told him, “You could have said something. I would have given you the money. All your help with Peachblossom, you’ve more than earned it.”

“I’m sure he has,” Wyldon said, “but he wouldn’t have asked for money any more than you’d have asked to talk to someone. Or,” the former training master added dryly, “for a mount who was of better size considering your favored weapon turned out to be a pole arm.” He held the lead out toward Aubrey. “Now listen, if you disagree with my assessment, I have other buyers who are interested. But I thought you deserved this chance.”

The mare took that opportunity to nudge him again, offering her own encouragement. “I guess I know better than to ignore the advice of a master horseman. Or you, Tobeis.”

“Me?”

Aubrey shrugged. “You know me, and how I ride. And you know these animals here better than anyone except maybe Stefan. No matter how much you needed the money I don’t think you’d agree to make a sale that wasn’t right for both of us. I’m never going to get a better recommendation. I trust you.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, I guess.” He squirmed a bit under the compliment, but his grin came back as he said, “And it’s just Tobe. You’re the only one what uses my full name, you know that, right? And speakin’ of names, she’s gonna need one.”

Aubrey considered it as he took the lead from Wyldon and looked the gray-and-white face over again. “Fara. It means voyager. Yeah. Fara.”

“I’ll have it painted on her stall,” Tobeis said. “And I’ll get her paperwork.” He disappeared back into the stable, waving to Keladry on the way. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Aubrey saw Wyldon turning to leave. “My Lord,” he said, before he lost his nerve, “may I ask you something?”

Wyldon stopped, and nodded. 

“Do I remind you of him?”

For a long moment, Wyldon just looked at him. Then he his expression softened, and said, “For all his faults, your brother had many qualities I admire. Loyalty. Pride. Honor. I see those in you, but none of his arrogance.” He nodded in the direction Tobeis had gone. “You see the best in people, relate to them, that’s something that can’t be taught. You’re becoming a fine young man, Aubrey. And,” he hesitated, then continued, “I have no doubt that you’ll be a fine knight.”

“Going out?”

Mirien didn’t even pause. “Not your business.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Garvey offered, rising from his chair. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she spat back. “I’m the youngest daughter; I’m not a child.”

“But you should have an escort.”

“No one actually does that inside the palace.”

“Then other men have forgotten their chivalric duties.” He reached for her arm; she recoiled, spun on her heel, and glared at him. 

“You know,” she hissed, only just loud enough for him to hear, “it hasn’t escaped my notice how often you reach for me, but you won’t touch Noella at all.”

He took a half step back, hands raised by his shoulders to show he would not persist. “Your sisters worry about you,” he said, switching tactics. “I’d just like to be able to tell them they needn’t fret so much.”

“Then do that.” She turned her back on him again. “And stop trying to—”

“Mind your temper, Mirien.” They both turned as her uncle entered the room. Rainard of Stone Mountain was a bear of a man, and though he spoke softly, he nevertheless commanded any conversation he took part in. “Your tone isn’t becoming of a young lady.” He looked her up and down, taking in her gown, and no doubt coming to the same conclusion that Garvey had; this was not one final holiday party, but a more formal encounter. “Make sure you return by sundown. If you’re serious about this desire to become one of the Queen’s Ladies, you’d do well to show your face at court tonight, and rise early to be in the chapel tomorrow morning in support of the Pirate’s Swoop boy. If you have his favor, you’ll be a step closer to Thayet’s.”

“Yes, sir,” Mirien said, dipping into a small curtsey. “It’s a good idea. I will.”

Rainard nodded, and moved to hold the door open for Mirien, who gave Garvey one last withering look before she left.

“Of all of them,” Garvey commented, once the door had swung closed again, “she reminds me the most of Joren.”

“Then you should know better than to antagonize her.” Rainard said sharply. “You lack patience, boy, and it will prove your undoing.”

Garvey clenched his fist. He needed this man’s support, no matter how much he hated being treated like a simpleton and a servant. “I thought you wanted a man of action at your right hand.”

“Action in the right moment,” Rainard said simply. “And you know better than to speak of that inside the palace walls.”

He turned away, but Garvey refused to be dismissed so easily. “Do you really believe this nonsense about the Queen’s Ladies?” he asked, gesturing at the door in reference to Mirien. “She’s been sneaking around since she arrived in Corus, it’s only more noticeable now we’re in such close quarters. You know I’m right.”

“Oh, I believe she keeps secrets and schemes just as we do,” Rainard acknowledged. “It’s no matter to our plans. If anything, she provides a useful distraction.” He settled into one of the large, upholstered chairs that had been brought for his comfort. “You try to force people’s actions into the mold of your own plans, and you give them away. You must learn to work in concert with them. Let them carry on without suspect. There is a reason that Stone Mountain has stood unchanged for so long. We have seen kingdoms who try to overreach their borders rise and fall. We will do so again. If you want a part in that success, you will learn to wait.”

They settled up the payment and paperwork, and then Aubrey spent the rest of the afternoon getting Fara settled in the stall next to Ida, collecting tack and blankets for her, and helping Tobeis measure for a new saddle. He tried not to rush, but Aubrey watched the time carefully. He wanted to make sure he saw Alan before he left for his instruction and vigil. 

He was making his way to the wing that housed the King’s Own when he ran into Fianola coming in the other direction. His heart sank. “Have I missed him?” Aubrey asked, figuring that she was on her way back to the squire’s wing. 

“No,” Fianola said, raising an eyebrow at him, and making the dogs at each of her heels whine as they sensed her confusion, “but that’s because this is the second time today that I swear I just saw you.”

“What are you talking about?” 

She gestured at the hallway behind her. “You can see Alan’s window from across the courtyard. I just saw you there talking to him, that’s why I turned around. I figured you two deserved your space. And you are not going to tell me that I mistook you for one of your sisters this time.”

Aubrey froze as Fianola continued to stare at him. Then she put a hand to her mouth and went wide-eyed herself. “Oh, Goddess bless, I just realized what I just said.”

Chapter Text

It was snowing again, as much as it ever seemed to do in Corus. The holiday had ended at sunset, which meant that there was no party that night, and therefore that Mirien had very little to distract her from the idea of Alan sitting his overnight vigil in front of the Chamber door. 

“I don’t know why I’m panicking.” She looked at Katla Lyngborg for support, but the Scanran princess was dealing with her own nerves in her own way, buffing oil into an embossed leather belt that would, they both hoped, be part of her wedding attire. “I met him once, last year. We wrote a handful of letters—”

“More than a handful,” Katla muttered, hiding a smile. 

“We got what we needed.” Mirien gestured around her; they were sitting in the queen’s personal presence chamber, waiting to meet with her privately. “He introduced us to Buriram and even spoke to Thayet on our behalf. You’re here, I don’t need to see him anymore. They’re going to be signing the treaties by week’s end.”

“And it turns out that I quite like Liam.” Katla grinned as she put the belt aside and finally met Mirien’s eye. “And you quite like Alan. Acknowledge that. Then you can decide what to do with those feelings.”

Mirien threw her arms up in exasperation. “Why do you always have to be so practical?” 

“A good education is why my family sent me to your convent school. That the chance came up to make an alliance with the Contés was merely an additional benefit.” Katla’s gray eyes danced with quiet amusement. “What was in those letters?” she asked, conspiratorially. “More than our intentions to find a home here in Corus, surely, or there wouldn’t have needed to be so many.”

“You can read them if you want,” Mirien said dryly. “There’s nothing private about them. We mostly wrote about what he was doing, where he was riding with the Own, what was happening here, a little about Pirate’s Swoop. I asked him everything I asked Aubrey, the only difference is Alan answered in more than one sentence.”

Katla pursed her lips and fixed Mirien with a critical stare, an expression that her friend usually reserved for trying to translate historical texts. “You do care for him,” she said after a long moment. “I was mostly joking. I wouldn’t have judged you for having an affair with a political ally, but that’s not it at all, is it? You are in love with him. And this rite he goes through tonight — it scares you.”

Before she’d had a chance to deny it — she did not feel like explaining the nature of the Ordeal or her previous experience with it to Katla at that moment — the doors opened, and the servant who had shown them in returned to announce Thayet’s arrival. Katla rose and dipped into a curtsey; Mirien, who was significantly taller than her friend, sank into a full court curtsey and bowed her head to ensure she was lower. 

“Oh, please don’t do that,” the queen said, amusement plain in her voice. “Formality is for a room with a throne, and I try to leave that sort of behavior there.”

Despite the offer to relax, Mirien only rose to standing herself when she’d seen that Katla had done the same.

“I’m impressed,” a second voice observed. “I don’t know that I could hold that kind of genuflection that steady for that long and get to my feet so smoothly.”

Mirien turned toward the speaker, doing her best to fix a calm, polite smile on her face. Of all the nobles she had met in her short time at court, the Lioness unsettled her the most. For one thing, she did not know how to address the woman, her titles being both Lady and Sir. For another, although she prided herself on being able to read people quickly, Mirien had absolutely no idea what the woman thought of her.

“It was a compliment,” Thayet said, as though reading her mind — or maybe she was just used to making this excuse on behalf of the King’s Champion, who was famous for her sharp tongue. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to Alanna.” 

The ease with which she implied the two of them would be spending more time amongst the royal family and their advisors might have surprised Mirien more if she hadn’t gotten so used to the casual way that Alan did the same thing. Thayet gestured to Katla, inviting the Scanran to follow her into the adjacent sitting room. “I believe you consider it customary for guests to be offered food and drink, I hope a little wine and fruit is sufficient. I admit I’m not well versed in your customs. The other families have all been dealing with Jon and his ministers.”

“I don’t deal in men’s politics,” Katla said plainly. “My father died when I was young, my grandfather can no longer make such a journey. I have no man to speak for me, and so I must learn to speak for myself. You seem a good role model for that. And I would prefer a beer to wine.”

Thayet laughed. A waiting maid disappeared out of a side door to fill the request. 

“I like her,” Alanna said, surprising Mirien. “I see why Liam likes her.” She dropped onto one of the couches, one leg stretched in front of her in a distinctly unladylike fashion despite her fine linen skirts. “It aches in bad weather,” she explained, rubbing the outstretched thigh. “My own personal souvenir from the war with our northern neighbors. Can’t say I won’t be just as happy to send the Vesskog clan back to their forests, though I know Jon would like to make a more lasting peace with them, being that they occupy the territory just over the Vassa.” She flexed her knee a couple of times, watching Mirien through a hard stare before she smiled, her unnatural purple eyes glinting. “Sit down. Please. I know you think you’re showing deference by standing, but the code of chivalry says that I shouldn’t be sitting while a lady stands, and I’m both too achy and too anxious to stand comfortably right now, so please sit.”

Carefully, Mirien sat. If the Lioness was trying to get a rise out of her with this further dismissal and confusion of the gender roles that Mirien had been raised to respect, she wasn’t going to give it. Not with Katla so near to an offer of betrothal, and her own goals in sight with them.

“You lived at the convent school before you came here?” Alanna asked suddenly. Then, when Mirien didn’t answer immediately, she grinned wolfishly and added, “I want to know if it’s as terrible as I thought it would be when I was ten years old.”

Mirien offered a small, diplomatic smile in return. “It wasn’t as bad as all that, but I never intended to stay there as an acolyte, if that’s what you mean. The best part about it was that it was in a proper city, though it’s nothing compared to Corus.”

Alanna nodded thoughtfully. “I felt like a country bumpkin when I first came here as a page. I knew my letters and basic sums, but all the little social niceties you need to fit in here? Elocution, deportment. The proper way to challenge someone to a duel when I would have just as happily thrown them in the mud.” Unable to stop herself, Mirien scrunched up her nose at the distasteful image of a young girl doing such a thing. “And I had to learn them all twice once I started telling people who I really was. Sometimes I think it would have been easier to stay at Trebond and learn to play music, or tat lace, or whatever it is that they teach ladies to keep you busy.”

“You don’t actually know how difficult it is to tat lace,” Mirien sniffed, “do you?”

The Lioness raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue. 

“The motif at your collar probably took a skilled lace maker two weeks,” Mirien told her. “Bobbin lace is even more complex. My oldest sister can do it. She’ll work for a whole day and maybe manage an inch at best. It was enough to talk the rest of us out of putting our time and effort into something like that.”

“So what is it you put your time and effort into?” Alanna asked. Her tone suggested that she had navigated Mirien into a trap. “What is it that’s said to entice a husband these days?”

Mirien pursed her lips. Her uncle’s admonishment to mind her temper echoed in her head, and she did her absolute best to keep her voice even, if a bit clipped. After all, she rationalized, the Lioness wasn’t like most women, surely the usual rules did not apply. “Noella draws. She even illuminated a page of a manuscript back at the convent. Dagney is a botanist, and a healer. Katla likes languages. And I’ve an interest in economics.”

For a long moment, Alanna just stared at her. Then she leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms thoughtfully, and simply said, “Huh.”

Maybe it was Mirien’s imagination, but she thought she’d actually caught the famous warrior by surprise, and that did more to stun her into submission than further interrogation would have done. “Should I not have?”

“No, by all means. It just seems an odd interest for someone who is, in all other respects, so traditionally ladylike.”

“Finances are part of running a household,” Mirien said, shrugging. “They are part of the arts that every lady is expected to learn. Or at least, that’s how my mother taught me.”

“Which is unusual,” Alanna said plainly. “Most noble women here receive an allowance from their fathers or husbands; they don’t deal with the money themselves.”

“I’d heard that, yes,” Mirien added, letting a little more of her opinion slip into her tone. “Doesn’t mean it’s right, or that I have to like it.”

“Huh,” Alanna said again, a slow smile spreading over her features. “Well, I pity the man who tries to impress that kind of control over you. And now I think I see why Alan likes you.”

Mirien blinked, but didn’t dare say anything lest she reveal more than the lady already knew.

“I admit,” Alanna continued, “I had my doubts. So did Jon. You and Katla both come from very conservative families who traditionally haven’t liked the way he’s ruled. Reputations like that will always precede you at court, I’m sure you’ve already seen that. But I think my son was right. You’re a lot more like me than I’d have thought. You’ll do well here.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Mirien blurted out, before she could stop herself. 

“A headstrong young woman sure of what she wants and the change she wants to make in the world?” Alanna asked, her smile taking on a conspiratorial slant. “No, I have no idea what that’s like.”

Now it was Mirien’s turn to stare back in stunned silence. 

“I should tell you,” the older woman continued, getting to her feet, “I’m not just here because Alan wanted me to talk to you. So did Jon. I don’t think he’s thrilled that you went behind his back and straight to Thayet, but then again, negotiations with the other three families have basically stalled while they fight with each other — surprise, surprise, it’s like he didn’t know they were Scanran — and this’ll be the excuse he needs to send them packing. I’ll get that conversation out of the way, and then… do something until it’s time to go to the chapel.”

She seemed to be talking to herself by the end. Mirien felt her stomach twist at yet another mention of the Ordeal.

“Lady Alanna?”

The Lioness paused with her hand on the door. Mirien chewed her lip for a moment, not sure what had made her speak or even what she wanted to say, only that she desperately wanted to talk to someone who would understand, and maybe help her sort out her own twisted up emotions. 

“Could I ask you now… What was it like?” She tried a small smile. “I always thought it sounded pretty awful to be a page and a squire.”

The corridor outside the Chapel was as cold as Aubrey remembered it being. He considered going back for his coat, but worried he’d chicken out of returning, so instead he resumed his pacing across from the great wooden doors, trying to rub feeling back into his upper arms. Ten minutes passed that way, then twenty; he only stopped when he heard footsteps approaching from the far end of the hallway. 

Raoul was the only one who didn’t look terribly surprised to see him. Most of the rest of the arriving party — the king and queen, all three princes, Lady Buriram, Baron George Cooper of Pirate’s Swoop, a red-headed man Aubrey assumed was Alan’s brother Thom, and, of course, the Lioness herself — all stared at him openly.

There was one unfamiliar face with them, one of the Scanran princesses based on her dress. And just behind her, looking as out of place as Aubrey felt, was Mirien. 

“See, Alanna,” King Jonathan said after a moment, putting a supportive hand on the Lioness’ shoulder, “it’s not too early to come down. You’re not even the first one here.”

She whipped around to glare at him. Wisely, Aubrey thought, the king did not attempt to press his attempt at a joke. 

“Are the doors not open yet?” the Baron inquired. 

It took a moment to realize he was being addressed, and Aubrey stuttered a bit as he said, “I haven’t tried. I didn’t want to interrupt if he was still in his vigil.”

Raoul stepped forward to crack the door and check, then he pushed it wide and held it as the king led the way inside. Mirien was last; she paused at the threshold of the chapel, and looked back at him, a question in her blue eyes. 

Aubrey hugged his shoulders, fighting a shiver, and shook his head. “I’m going to wait for Lady Keladry.”  It was his final stalling tactic. He figured that he didn’t need to say as much, since his sister was very obviously doing the same. 

Mirien looked down, apparently studying the flagstones, and said somewhat nervously, “Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here?”

“Not if you don’t want to tell me.”

Mirien glanced behind her. “If things work out for Katla I won’t have a secret much longer anyway. I’ll explain when we aren’t in the middle of…” she gestured at their surroundings, “all this.” And before he could even think about asking anything further, Mirien squared her shoulders and stepped through the door. 

It felt cowardly not to join her, and the moment that he was alone again Aubrey regretted that he hadn’t. Outside, the watch called the fourth hour of the day as he resumed his pacing, which was how Keladry found him when she arrived with Shinkokami, Yukimi, and a sleepy-looking Sir Nealan. The group of them filled the rest of the second row behind Alan’s immediate family, and they squeezed closer together to make room for Fianola when she came in with Wyldon, who took a standing position toward the rear of the chapel. Anywhere else it would have been uncomfortable, but Aubrey was glad for her solid presence pressed against his left side, and Keladry on the other. 

The chapel filled quickly after that. Sir Myles came with Lachran. The patriarch of the new Trebond family, his lady, and their recently knighted son Thomsen, who had been Aubrey’s grudging page-sponsor, greeted Alanna before finding their own seats. What seemed like half of Third Company, all in parade finery, came in support; even Tobeis, though he tugged uncomfortably at the starched collar of his new tunic. Then the courtiers, many of whom seemed to hold little respect for where they were, began arriving. 

“How long is it, usually?” one young woman asked her friend in a not-quite whisper. 

“Not sure. I’ve only been to one other and it was my cousin’s. Which favor should I give him?” 

“The glove,” the first said, after a brief examination, “but you should perfume it if you really want it to stand out.”

Aubrey ground his teeth. Even Keladry, usually unfazed, turned around to glare at the pair until they fell silent.

I am stone. Aubrey mouthed the mantra silently, trying to breathe in the four by four pattern that Shinkokami was teaching him. I am—

Weak.

He heard the last as clearly as though it had been whispered in his ear, which was, of course, impossible. Keladry occupied the space they would have needed to be standing in, and the owner of the voice he’d never forgotten was seven years dead. He looked up, and felt as though he’d swallowed ice. 

It wasn’t a full bodied apparition; that might have been easier to dismiss as madness. It had the shape of a man, a sort of hazy outline like a ripple in a pond. But it had the poise that Joren had always walked with as it strode gracefully toward the altar, the same confident set of the shoulders. It had no face, but in the way it held its head, Aubrey could tell that it sneered at him.

You’re weak, it repeated. Not trained like a real knight. Never meant to have been one. 

He felt rather than saw Keladry lean toward him. “Aubrey? Are you alright?” 

Somewhat frantically, he shook his head. The breath wouldn’t come; his throat was too tight. Lights flashed behind eyelids he realized he was squeezing shut, unwilling to look at whatever this was any longer. He made a sort of hiccoughing noise, grabbing out blindly in front of him for something, anything that might help steady him—

Purple light flooded his vision; air rushed back into his lungs. When he opened his eyes again, the Lioness was peering back at him, and he realized it was her cloak he’d gripped onto. 

“Panic attack,” Alanna told the others matter of factly, withdrawing her hand from his chin. Then, “Are you alright, lad? Do you need to step outside?” 

Stiffly, cheeks and ears burning with shame, Aubrey shook his head. Mirien was staring at him, her face ashen; he caught her eye for the briefest glance before he looked away. He didn’t want to see just how many other people in the room were also staring at him.

There was a brief moment of unsettled silence, then: “I’m alright, too,” a voice said from behind the altar, “if anyone’s wondering.”

Even the Chamber of the Ordeal, it seemed, couldn’t dampen Alan’s dry humor.

“It feels so stupid now,” Aubrey said, swallowing past the lump that had formed in his throat, “to have been so scared over nothing.”

The chapel was empty. After a brief flurry of activity, during which it had quickly become apparent that Alan was swaying exhaustedly on his feet, Raoul and the Lioness had whisked him away through one of the side doors usually reserved for the Mithran priests. The assembled crowd had rippled with disappointment as they left, which had in turn made Aubrey bristle because Alan was alive, what did it matter if they had to wait a few more hours to shake his hand and make their perfunctory congratulations? Most of these people didn’t even know him.

“It wasn’t nothing to you,” Keladry said, looking between him and Mirien, who had also stayed behind. “And I doubt it was nothing to Alan.”

Mirien’s lower lip trembled briefly. “What… what is it like?”

“We aren’t supposed to talk about the Ordeal,” Aubrey said plainly. Keladry put a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“We’re forbidden to talk about our individual Ordeals,” she explained to Mirien. “And I’m not sure I could do justice to describing mine anyway.” She paused, waiting, until Aubrey finally looked up.

“What the Chamber does,” Keladry said, “is force you to accept yourself as a whole person. One who has fears and flaws and grudges and hate, all those things that we like to think aren’t present in ourselves. It looks for you to show humanity in the face of something so utterly without it. And it can be…” she hesitated, and finally settled on the word, “cruel in how it challenges you.”

“So… it’s different for everyone?” Mirien asked, and Keladry nodded. “Then how are you supposed to prepare for it?”

“You can’t,” Keladry said simply. 

“But—”

“It’s a test,” she explained. “Not an exam.”

Mirien turned to look at him. “Does that make any sense to you?”

“Actually,” Aubrey said slowly, as he turned Keladry’s words over again his head, “yes. It kind of does.” He glanced at the iron door again, mostly to convince himself that it was closed, and that whatever it was he’d seen was once again sealed inside. Then he turned back to Keladry and said, “Thank you. For sitting here with us. I know I made us late for practice.”

Keladry raised an eyebrow at him. “Practice? No. I’m going to practice. You’re going to sleep.”

Mirien wished she could have taken the same advice.

Noella was the only one in the front room when she returned, and as it would have been considered rude to walk past her without acknowledgment, Mirien went to the breakfast table, still strewn with a few light items. “Is everyone else out?” she asked politely, taking a piece of bread. 

Noella barely looked up from her sketchbook. “Gael took Annalena into the city for morning prayers,” she said, swiping charcoal lightly across the page. “Dagney went to hear a lecture at the university, Garvey offered to walk her.” She paused, and when Mirien did not react, added, “Ma and Uncle went to look for you. You didn’t come home last night.”

Mirien put a spoonful of jam on her bread, mostly as an excuse not to look at Noella. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone. I was invited out last night and it got late. I went straight to the Chapel of the Ordeal.”

“Of course you did,” Noella sniffed. “Every eligible social climber in Tortall was tripping over their skirts this morning to throw favors at Alan of Pirate’s Swoop and jump into his bed now that he’s completed his squire’s duties. I’m surprised you came back now.” She reached for a feather to brush away some errant line. “Or maybe you’ve already done as much.”

Mirien’s ears burned with the implication. She knew rumors had been spreading and would only do so faster now that she’d been seen at Alan’s Ordeal, counted among royal company, because accusing her of seeking favor through sex was the easiest insult for her jealous peers to reach for. But it was somehow worse coming from her sister, who should have been the first to defend her. Noella had become increasingly smug and superior since her engagement, and Mirien decided in that moment that she’d had enough. 

“Do you believe every sordid rumor you hear?” she snapped in response. “Because I’ve been told a few about Garvey that you won’t like.”

Two bright spots of color bloomed on Noella’s cheeks, and she finally looked up, her expression reminiscent of a vulture. “You might have uncle wrapped around your little finger,” Noella hissed, “and everyone else convinced you’re just a naive little girl, but I don’t believe you. I’ve been here long enough to know that no one in this city does something for nothing, Mirien. Whatever you gave away to that Pirate’s Swoop boy to earn his favors, I hope it turns out to be worth it.”

Mirien pursed her lips and drew in a deep breath before she answered. “It will be.” 

Her tone left no room for Noella to argue her, although she did shrug as if to say “If you say so.” Mirien put down the rest of her uneaten bread and started to leave, but paused at the door. 

“You want to know the truth?” she asked, and Noella raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue. “Yes, we’ve been alone together, Alan and I. And he’s been a perfect gentleman every time. Chivalrous to a T.” It felt good to finally tell someone about the experiences and emotions she’d been bottling up for several weeks, especially knowing that Noella could not tell anyone else without admitting that she had been wrong in her assumptions. “Do you want to know where we go? He’s shown me all around the palace, parts of it that you’ll never be invited in to see. The other night we went up to Balor’s Needle because he wanted to show me the city all laid out around us. He said in the afternoon, on a clear day, you can see all the way to the coast.” She smiled, picturing the way he’d talked about the sea, the promise he’d made to take her sailing, even if things didn’t work out for Katla and Liam. “I’ve always known the world was big, Elle, but… but there’s so much more than even I imagined. You can be content with a small life in the little hills at Runnerspring if it suits you. That’s fine. That’s good, even. But I… can’t. I want more from my life. I’m a daughter of Stone Mountain. I deserve more. And I for one wasn’t raised to settle for anything less than I deserve.”

She stopped, a little surprised herself with how much she’d had to say. Noella glared back at her, gripping her charcoal so hard that Mirien was surprised it didn’t crumble in her hand. 

“I’ll say one thing for you, though, Elle,” Mirien added, before she opened the door back into the hallway. “I appreciate that at least you had the nerve to accuse me to my face.”

Alan’s knighting had more ceremony than most. As the first male of his line to receive a shield, he held it while the court’s official portrait artist captured a sketch for records, and there were additional lines in his vows that promised fealty not only from Alan but from all the descendants of Pirate’s Swoop. Then, because he was also a gods’ child of Jonathan and Thayet, Alan and his father received a line of courtiers and ambassadors who presented him with gifts of armor, textiles, manuscripts, and other items intended to create or reinforce alliances. Even the Scanran families seemed to be friendly with the Baron. Perhaps he’d done as Aubrey’s uncle had over the last decade, and made trading with the coastal fief more lucrative than raiding it.

“So,” Fianola’s voice cut through his thoughts, startling Aubrey with her nearness, “now are you willing to admit that your sister might have been up to something with Alan.”

She indicated where Mirien stood in that line, bearing the leather cuirass that would be the Scanran princess’ gift. They couldn’t hear whatever she said to Alan as Mirien handed it to him, but whatever it was made a faint blush spread over Mirien’s cheeks and Alan go red all the way up to his ears. 

“Maybe,” Aubrey admitted.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What everyone at our station does about things like this.” Aubrey answered primly.

Fianola raised an eyebrow at him, and very bluntly asked, “Ostracize her from the family and remove her from all paths of inheritance?”

“Gods, no!” Her matter of fact tone took him entirely by surprise, and he finally turned to stare at her. “Look the other way,” he spluttered, “and pretend I didn’t hear anything.” He continued to gape at Fianola for a moment, before he worked up the nerve to ask, “Is that— is that a thing you worry about?”

“Me personally?” Fianola asked, and shrugged. “Not anymore. I’ve had time to get used to it.”

He was still gaping at her — Fianola had always been evasive about her life before coming to court and seeking knighthood — when Alan was finally shepherded off the dais and through the assembled crowd. He shot a hand out as they passed, grabbing Aubrey’s shirt sleeve and pulling him into the escort, while his mother casually looped an arm through Fianola’s. 

“C’mon,” Alan muttered, finally breaking a smile. “We’re getting out of here. Real party now.”

They left the palace for an inn called the Dancing Dove in the lower city. It was late when they returned to the squire’s wing, but not so late that they were the last ones awake. By Fianola’s logic, this meant they were not in the trouble that Aubrey worried they might be for returning at this hour, and slightly inebriated to boot. But if the voices coming from Brant’s open door were any indication, his year mates had only just returned from party service themselves. 

“I can’t believe what a circus they turned this into,” the older boy complained. “I don’t remember it being this bad even when Liam and Jason were knighted.”

“It wasn’t even like this for Roald,” Lachran said. “And that was in the middle of the Progress.” He paused briefly, and added, “And I’m just as happy to get it out of the way this year, before we all have to do it.”

Brant snorted. “Keep telling yourself that. It’s going to be just as bad. You think everyone and their mother isn’t going to come to Corus to see if Stone Mountain fails as spectacularly as his brother did?”

Steps from his door, Aubrey froze. Fianola, who had been just about to turn aside to her own room, looked at him in horror. 

“He did sort of freak out this morning,” Lachran acknowledged. 

“I’m shocked he finally boned up and went,” Oswin of Heathercove added. “I don’t think he’s tried to touch the door yet. Not that he’d say if he did, but I think there’d be signs.”

“Like stark raving madness?” Brant answered, and got a laugh from the others. “I’m just saying,” he finished, “if even just being in the room freaks him out, he still has time to go home.”

“I’ll say something,” Fianola mouthed to him, and started to step forward— but Aubrey pushed past her, quick and decisive, to Brant’s door. They didn’t notice him at first, until he cleared his throat to get their attention. Lachran, at least, had the good grace to look guilty.

“You know, any other day, I’d just go back to my room and let you all think I hadn’t heard you,” Aubrey said. “But I’m a little drunk right now, and I don’t really care what any of you think of me. I don’t even much care whether or not you believe what I’m about to tell you. Touching the door isn’t going to prepare you for the Ordeal. Nothing can prepare you for—” He broke off briefly, the same tightness from the morning threatening to constrict his throat. He swallowed heavily, pushing it down. “I was there. I was the first one off those benches that morning. I ran right up to him. And the Chamber— whatever… Power exists in there, it doesn’t care. It doesn’t care who it’s supposed to be testing, if you step over the threshold of that door you belong to it. I don’t think it was ten seconds before Ma pulled me back but I saw everything it did to Joren. So yeah, I’m scared of it. And you should be a lot more afraid than you are.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Without a more satisfying way to excuse himself, Aubrey simply turned his back on his year mates and padded silently back to his own door. 

“Aubrey.”

He paused in the doorway. He’d never heard that tone in Fianola’s voice, and although he couldn’t name all of the emotions on her face, he hated that pity was among them.

She opened her mouth to say more, but he cut her off. “Goodnight,” he said quietly, and pulled his door closed behind him.

If Keladry had anything to say about the fact that he met her in the hallway the next morning, glaive in hand, despite the fact that he’d been told explicitly that he was allowed to take one more morning to rest, she kept it to herself. He practiced doggedly, trying not to think about the nagging voice in the back of his mind. 

Weak.

He wasn’t. Whatever it took, he’d prove it. 

Chapter Text

Midwinter, HE 458

The iron door of the Chamber swung closed behind him, leaving Joren in pitch dark. He waited, trying to breathe deep and steady despite his nerves. An unnatural breeze stirred the small hairs at the nape of his neck. Cold air stung his nose and made his eyes water. He shut them, trying to imagine that he was home at Stone Mountain, where the cold was simply a fact of life.

And then, as if the Chamber had mistaken this for a plea, he was.

The ground gave way beneath his feet as the cracking of ice, and he fell into frigid, fast moving water. It spun him end over end, too deep for him to get his footing even if the current hadn’t been so strong. He’d never been a strong swimmer, hadn’t even learned until his third page year. First his shoulder slammed into something protruding from the banks, then his knee, then something sharp tore a line across his cheek. He bit back a cry — no one was allowed to speak during the course of their Ordeal — but his lungs were burning, the urge to try to pull in air was becoming too strong. He could see flashes of sunlight as the river battered him, and he kicked, tried to get his feet under him, to push towards the surface—

Ice. It was frozen over. He pounded futilely against it as his body rebelled, his mouth opened and water rushed in—

Something raked a gash across his back. Joren gasped, and opened his eyes to find himself on the wall of the royal palace. Booted feet pounded the stone beside his head, nearly trampling him. Frantically, Joren pushed himself to his hands and knees. Then the thing they were trying to fight back landed in the space he’d just been lying. The Hurrok reared and hissed at them, waving forelegs over his head that ended in bloodied, silver claws. Joren remembered the scene that was playing out before him. He’d been twelve years old at the end of the Immortals War, and as the smallest and fastest of the second year pages, Joren had been tasked with running messages between the tower command posts. 

“Hey!” As the soldiers closed in on the Hurrok, a familiar voice urged Joren to his feet. Derrick of Hannalof was a fourth year page, broad shouldered and the best archer he’d ever known. He pulled Joren back a step. “What are you doing? You have to move!”

But he couldn’t. His feet felt frozen, and as if in slow motion he watched as the Hurrok scrambled for purchase on the stone, as the line of soldiers broke to avoid the spread of its wings and the monster lunged forward, as Derrick’s face twisted in pain as its fangs sank into his arm and tore—

Joren stared as the other boy fell, now at the mercy of the thrashing claws. In a rush, he saw flashes of the following days and weeks: the grieving families who had come to the palace, seeking some comfort from Wyldon and the monarchs that people like Derrick had died defending. Did the Chamber want him to make amends now for his inaction? To show him what might have been different if he’d taken up a weapon and tried to do anything more than he was doing now?

No. No, he’d done his duty, and no one could have expected any more of him. Even Wyldon had said so. He’d done exactly as he’d been told. That was knighthood. He had to do it again.

He ran.

Distantly, Joren was aware of the scene changing around him. The stone beneath his feet became hard packed dirt, the open sky was choked with dense trees. From somewhere behind him, he heard the braying of hounds. Was he being hunted?

Yes. The voice was both inside his head and out. To his ears, it resembled his memory of Duke Turomot of Wellam. But to his mind, there was something else, an otherworldly, ageless quality that he couldn’t put a name to. It chilled him, making him put on an extra burst of speed. Perhaps next time there will be no noble privilege to hide behind, and the Provost and his Dogs will get you in the end. Perhaps it will not come to that. The voice seemed to laugh, a mocking, sneering tone in the last words, before it continued, Your world is changing. You cannot stop it, and you are arrogant to think you can try. Though I will give you one last chance to prove you can learn. 

His foot caught an exposed root, and Joren pitched forward, his ankle twisting sharply. He threw his hands in front him, expecting to hit with enough force to knock the air from his lungs, but the blow never came. Instead, he landed in deep, soft snow. Wildly, he looked around, and almost breathed a sigh of relief. Though he’d only made the hike to the Old Keep and the peak of Stone Mountain once himself, he knew this place from stories his father, grandfather, and uncle had told him. Whatever last test the Chamber held for him, he knew he could face it here. It meant for him to succeed. 

Gingerly, testing his injuries, Joren got to his feet, only to be buffeted back as a fierce wind blew down from the north. Storm clouds gathered above him. Within seconds, he was stumbling through a whiteout, pushed dangerously close to the ledge. 

Someone unseen grabbed his hand. Their grip was strong despite their small fingers. Joren looked down, and caught a glimpse of olive-toned skin and an undyed cotton sleeve. His mind reeled. Another squire? 

Joren pulled away, nearly losing his balance again. He understood what the Chamber was telling him now. More girls would come. More would try for knighthood and enter this place they didn’t belong. The King could do what he liked, could let Tortall fall apart and the Gods turn their favor elsewhere. But Joren did not have to let it happen at Stone Mountain. 

Arrogant, the voice said again. Joren stumbled and clapped his hands over his ears. This time, the words rumbled like thunder to make themselves heard over the blasting winds. You think you know better than powers far older than you. You think you know what it means to be a knight. You have not let yourself learn. Change must come here, too.

And then he heard a sudden, sharp crack, followed by the roar of snow and ice racing down the mountain. He knew that sound, all children who grew up in the Grimholds learned to fear it. 

Avalanche. 

Though the snow was still blowing too fiercely around him to see more than a few inches in front of his face, he knew there should be an overhang that might protect him, and Joren tried to pull himself towards it. Ahead of him, he saw the girl struggling to get closer to the rock herself. Another figure, tall and leanly muscled, long hair whipping around his face, reached towards her and pulled her up into the bluff shelter.

The wind let up, and Joren saw the face on the second figure. He had their mother’s delicate features, the same white-blond hair, their father’s sharp blue eyes. And for the instant that their gaze met, Joren saw the briefest flash of hope in his expression before grief and acceptance took its place. 

He’ll be tested too, in his time, the voice said. He may do what you cannot.

And then the wall of snow crashed into him, and Joren was plunged into darkness once again. Trees, boulders, everything the avalanche had displaced roiled around him, battering him, forcing him deeper into the raging torrent. This was worse than he’d feared drowning would be. He felt the weight of all of the thousands of pounds of snow crushing him from all sides. He didn’t fight it; there was nothing he could fight. 

For the first time since he’d been small enough to sit on his mother’s knee, Joren prayed. 

And then, knowing he wouldn’t be heard anyway — knowing he’d already failed — he screamed.