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Berrone picked idly at the embroidery on her dress, mostly to keep her feet from kicking at the dust below. The dirt from the garden path had already made itself visible on her hem, and she knew she’d hear about it from her mother. She was bored, though, and the tension that had simmered within her since her arrival was only kept at bay with excessive fidgeting.
When they’d been invited to live in Sounis’s capital, she and her mother, Berrone had been confused. She’d thought herself in horrible standing with the young king, she’d thought he’d want them fully out of sight, maybe out of the country. But he’d summoned them, or at least extended an invitation (which her mother could never have refused) and now she was here—pacing lackluster palace gardens and hoping she’d never run across the king, or his barons, or anyone at all. She had no friends here, which was not too different from the usual, but she was also afraid in ways she wasn't used to—a grown-up sort of afraid.
She heard a small commotion to the south—a familiar noise, by now. A dozen attendants and guards preparing the way for someone exalted. She followed her usual route to make a clean escape before the King of Sounis wandered through, or his visiting queen. Two lefts, push through an opening in the hedges, and she was out to the little untended grove behind the kitchen gardens, among trees that didn’t bear good fruit anymore.
There was never anyone to witness her swift exit, never anyone waiting to accost her—except today, Berrone startled to learn. After she let out a small shriek (she thought it was small, it may not have been) the intruder, perched in a tree high above the ground, whipped their head around.
“Berrone!” they crowed in surprise, and Berrone’s shoulders dropped, just a little, to recognize Ina. The king’s sister had been friendlier than most since her arrival, but Berrone still shied away from her nearness to the throne. She peeped a greeting, which was probably quite pathetic-sounding, and cut along the hedges to head inside.
She heard a thump behind her before she’d taken three steps.
“Where are you off to? Where’d you come from, is another question,” Ina said, now on solid ground and shaking out her skirts, which had been pushed up quite high in her tree-climbing expedition.
“I’m just headed in for the evening,” Berrone said, wondering if she could edge backwards without Ina noticing.
“The sun isn’t even setting yet,” Ina pointed out, sauntering a little ways forward. She wasn’t quite correct—the sun was well on its way to setting, at least enough to color Ina’s hair in oranges and golds. “Did you come from the hedges?”
Berrone flushed. “There’s an opening.”
Ina glanced back in the briefest of gestures. “So there is.” She fixed her gaze on Berrone again. “I guess the question becomes: why, Berrone, did you emerge from a very hidden opening in the hedges at sunset? Is this to do with your association with the fairy folk?”
Berrone was aghast. “This isn’t—I didn’t—it’s just my escape route, for when—I was just walking in.”
Ina was smiling, her over-freckled face dimpling under her mess of short dark hair. “No, I think I really did solve it,” she said, stepping forward again. “I knew there was something about you, Berrone, and here we are at the root of it. A fairy woman. Stealing away among the dusk. Stealing hearts, perhaps?”
Berrone blinked, once and then again. When had Ina gotten so close to her? “It really isn’t true,” she said, not sure what exactly she was arguing.
“I know, Berrone,” Ina said, her mischievous expression softening into something warmer. “You could act like it was true, though. You could act like each of the barons you skirt away from—my brother, too—you could act like you could curse them away to the sea, or banish them to the air. Most men can’t tell whether a woman is a witch or not, you might as well take advantage of it to give them a little scare.”
“I don’t want to scare anybody,” Berrone protested. Her voice sounded muted to her own ears, but Ina’s cheerful tone was resonant.
“It’s a fine balancing act,” Ina said. She was just a little bit taller than Berrone, and she had to tilt her head to meet her eyes. “Avoid scaring them, fine. But Berrone, I hope you do enough to keep getting scared yourself. I always tell my mother, there’s no reason to be scared of anybody if you meet everyone’s eye and carry a long knife in your skirts.”
Berrone’s gaze darted down and up again, brow furrowed, and Ina obliged.
“The tailors do this for me now,” she said, as she made visible a hidden opening, “but I used to cut dresses myself. I could show you, if you like.”
“I don’t even know how to use a weapon like that,” Berrone said.
Ina smiled. “I can show you that, too.”
“Don’t you—“ Berrone said quietly, then, spurred on by Ina’s encouraging gaze, “Aren’t you busy? You’re—the court—“
Ina took her arm, spinning her neatly so that suddenly, they were both headed inside at just the proper time of sunset. “I can solemnly swear to you, Berrone the Fey, I don't think there's any better use for my time.”