Page 119 of The Ragpicker King
Conor’s gray eyes darkened. “Leave it, Kel. It doesn’t matter.”
“You would not have done it if it didn’t matter. You left a politically important party—and you asked me to change places with you. This is someone you care about, Con.”
And I think I may know who it is.
Conor cursed under his breath, turned, and began to climb the spiral stairs that led to the tower. Ordinarily, Kel would have let him go, but nothing about the situation was ordinary. He started up the steps after him.
“Conor—”
Conor glowered down at him from the step above. “If you are correct,” he said, “and I am not saying you are, that should tell you why I cannot answer your question.”
They had reached the top of the tower. It was another hot, bright day. Not a single cloud marred the porcelain-blue sky. The gardens of Marivent spread out, green and low, around them; the clear edge of the sea cliffs was visible, the ocean a sheet of blue iron.
“I know what you want to say,” Conor said, and Kel was surprised by the savagery in his voice. It was a savagery directed not at Kel, but at Conor himself. “Tell Anjelica you can’t marry her. Figure out some other way Castellane can pay its debt to Sarthe and protect itselfat the same time. Do not torture yourself.But you know there is no other way.”
“I would not have used the wordtorture,” Kel said in a low voice. “But it means something to me that you did.”
Conor whirled to face Kel. “I see them,” he said. “At night, when I close my eyes.”
“Who do you see?”
“The people of Castellane,” said Conor. He sounded reluctant, as if he did not want to be saying what he was saying. Which, Kel knew, made it likelier to be true. “Guildmasters, publicans, merchants’ wives, shopkeepers, children. I see them put to the sword when the Sarthians break through the Narrow Pass. I see the Palace burn, the ashes of Poet’s Hill, our city brought to ruin all because I failed. Because I could not manage this alliance with Kutani.” His gray eyes fixed on Kel. “You have always been an idealist, Kellian. But this is not an ideal world. If you knew—”
He was interrupted by a loud blast. The trumpeting of an elephant.
Sedai.Kel raced to the edge of the tower, Conor beside him, and looked over the parapet. The clarity of the day made it easy to see them—Sedai, with Anjelica perched on her back, marching along the cliff path. Despite her size, Sedai picked her way delicately, Anjelica riding her without benefit of the usual wicker seat. Even from this distance, Kel could see her perched by Sedai’s head, her legs dangling as she leaned forward to stroke her mount’s broad ear.
“Well,” Conor said in his normal voice. “At least she’s having a good time...?”
Kel rather thought it was more than that. He said nothing, watching as—alerted by the elephant’s trumpeting—quite a number of Marivent’s servants and Castelguards spilled out into the courtyards. A faint cheer went up from a few; everyone was fond of Sedai. Kel wondered where Kurame was, if he was watching as Anjelica and Sedai bore down on a white folly perched by the cliff edge.
“Is she—?” Conor began just as Sedai reared back and camedown, her two great circular feet landing directly on top of the folly. Kel could hear the noise as it burst apart. Plaster dust rose like smoke as Sedai drew back and kicked out with her powerful legs. More wood and plaster collapsed as the folly’s roof fell in, landing like a wobbly plate atop a pile of kindling.
“Well,” Kel said, “you always did say you thought the follies ruined the view.”
Conor laughed. It was a real laugh—half disbelief, half genuine amusement. “So isthiswhat she had to do before she forgave me?”
Sedai had already turned around, and she and Anjelica were moving past the ruins of the folly, heading farther down the cliff path. It would take them to the wooded path that ran along the spine of the hills separating Castellane from Detmarch. As they went, Anjelica turned around and waved in the direction of the Castel Mitat.
“I suppose it is,” said Kel. “Be glad she only crushed the folly, and not you personally.”
Conor was gazing out toward Detmarch and the mountains. “You have always been the one thing in my life that was real,” he said. “But when I become King, I will lose you.”
“I will still be here,” Kel said, though he knew what Conor meant. He would neverbeConor again, never need to stand in for him, never need to recall at all moments how he talked and walked and thought, and as the head of the Arrow Squadron he would not be Conor’s shield alone, but a shield for all Castellane. “But you may require more than just me.”Anjelica? Perhaps, if you are honest with her, and discreet as she has required.But he did not say it.
“Require,” Conor echoed. “There is something I require now. Before I can speak with Anjelica again.” He looked at his hands, at the rings glittering there, as if he had never seen them before. “I have to be sure.”
And with that he was gone, in a whirl of burgundy silk and teal velvet.
Conor’s tailor had been right about the colors, Kel thought, leaning against the ridged parapet. Theydidclash with each other.
Lin could not concentrate. Having returned from the Black Mansion with the medicine, she had determined to do what she could to prepare for her test, but her mind would not focus. She sat fretfully at her kitchen table, where she usually did her best research, her books spread out around her. Her eyes had blurred from staring at diagrams of Source-Stones and reading various accounts of how they held power.
If only she couldconcentrate.But every time her mind wandered, it wandered back to the night before, to the folly and what had happened there. To Conor: his mouth, his hands, the sound of the rain, the sensation of him against her. Her heart would skip and stutter; she would feel sick and hot all at once, as if her skin were burning.
Trying to pull her mind free of the memories was like trying to wrench her hand back through narrow slats that seemed to want to peel off her skin. But she did it, telling herself to forget Conor, to concentrate on how power was forced into a Source-Stone. Still, the image of the letter he had scrawled to her kept rising in her mind, as did the knowledge that in fact, shedidneed to talk to him about the medicine for his father, regardless of how very much she didn’t want to talk to him about anything else.
Focus,she whispered to herself.Lin, you are facing a trial whose substance you cannot guess at. You must prepare.It was true that since she had last seen King Markus, she had noted a flicker of power in her stone, but it was only a flicker.
