Page 131 of The Ragpicker King
“It will go to Artal’s younger brother, Donan. He’s been fostering in Valderan, but a rider has already been dispatched to fetch him back. Where haveyoubeen, anyway?” Conor added, looking at Kel curiously. “I’d thought you’d be in the rooms.”
“I went to speak with Lin,” Kel said, taking care with his words. “Her trial is very soon. I wanted to wish her well.”
Conor’s hand tightened on the papers he held. “How is she?”
Kel hesitated.I cannot tell you that she is even now in Marivent. That she is with your father, the King. That when I speak your name to her, her eyes fill with a rare light, just as yours do when you say hers.
Kel said, “She is nervous. But you know how she is. She will not show it.”
“No.” A shadow flitted across Conor’s expression. “She does not show much.” He glanced toward the doors of the Castel. “I should go. They’ll be waiting for me in the chamber. But, Kel—”
“Yes?”
“It seems long since we have talked.” There was something oddly formal in Conor’s tone, something Kel could not quite put his finger on. “Shall I come find you when the meeting has ended?”
“Of course. There are things I need to talk about with you as well. I’ll wait for you in the room.”
Kel could not help but think that the look Conor gave him was a strange one. Perhaps he could not imagine what news Kel might bear. But, “I’ll look forward to hearing about them” was all that Conor said. And then he was gone, clattering down the steps, his red velvet cloak flying around him as Lin’s hair had flown about her shoulders when she ran into the tower.
The Windtower Clock was striking the hour of six as the carriage wound through the streets approaching the Sault. Lin gripped the edges of her seat, readying herself to leap out the moment they arrived.
She had realized, upon leaving the North Tower at last, that much more time had passed while she was inside with the King than she had imagined. The sky had begun to shade over in preparation for twilight, and her test was meant to take place at sundown. She had little time to return to the Sault.
She could feel the Source-Stone in her brooch, pulsing like a heart. The glow of it had been so bright when she left the tower that she’d had to drape the edges of her shawl over it. The color of it had changed entirely, in a way she had never seen before, from a luminous pearl to a hot and burning red, the color of the King’s blood.
She had thought she would need to use her scalpel, but the King had used the claw of his right hand to slice open his own wrist. His blood had resembled molten metal, almost glowing from within. As it splashed onto her brooch, lighting the Source-Stone, she had felt the heat from it and wondered how it did not cause the King agonyto have such blood in his veins. There was a hiss as each drop hit the stone, and the smoke within it turned the color of blood and began to swirl under its surface.
She had thought she would need to bandage his wound, too, but it had closed almost as quickly as he had opened it.
“Thank you,” she had whispered, but he had withdrawn into himself again. He only watched her as she caught up her satchel and let herself out of the room, breaking into a run as she reached the stairs.
She did not know when she would see the King again. How would he know if she passed her test or not? If she did, or could, become the thing he expected her to be?You will give the Malgasi something to fear,he said, but she could not now see past her own fear to imagine that that would ever be true.
The carriage was finally in sight of the Sault gates. Before it had even come to a full stop, she catapulted herself from the open door, nearly tripping over her skirts, and raced through the gates.
As she ran full-tilt through the Sault, bits of its familiar landscape seemed to flash into closer focus, as if placed under the lens of a magnifying glass. The House of Women, with its windows of stained glass, scattering rainbows on the pavement. The almond trees by the west wall, where she and Mariam had climbed when they were children. The physick garden, lush under the fading sun. And finally the Kathot, where she had first claimed to be the Goddess. The flagstones were scattered with clusters of saffron jacaranda petals, the dome of the Shulamat glimmering as the setting sun sparked off its tesserae of bronze and gold.
She had half expected the square to be crowded, but it was empty. Indeed, the Shulamat felt as if it were shuttered for the night, everyone asleep, though it was far too early.
As she neared the Shulamat, she saw a lone figure standing on the steps. It was Mayesh. Lin had almost not recognized him in hishesilon.It had been so long since she had seen him dressed inanything but his Counselor’s garb. He looked older, she thought, and more serious as well.
She met him halfway up the steps, almost expecting him to chide her for being late. Instead, he only looked down into her face and said, “I had thought for a moment you might not be coming at all. I had even hoped it. But of course you are here.”
“I am.” Lin’s heart was beating hard against the inside of her chest, sparking an eagerness inside her. She could feel the heat of the Source-Stone, burning against her chest. She wondered if she looked strange, wild even, but Mayesh did not seem puzzled. Only worried. “This is something I have to do,zai.”
“The test,” he said, and hesitated. “It might not be what you are expecting.”
She looked at him hard. What was this about? She knew better than anyone else how ruthlessly practical Mayesh could be. “So you know what it is,” she said, “and you think I cannot do it.”
For a moment, he looked like the old man he was. “I am not permitted to say what the test might be, Lin. You know that. Only—prepare yourself.”
Lin straightened her back. Above them, the double doors were open, only darkness visible within. She held out her hand to her grandfather, and he took it.
“Walk with me,” she said. “We will go inside together.”
She had not imagined herself ever walking into the Shulamat with her grandfather at her side, even in the unlikely event of her future wedding day. But they went in together now, their hands linked, as if she had been much younger than she was. Mayesh’s face was stern, unyielding in the light of the hundreds of candles illuminating the Shulamat’s interior. They glowed up and down the roof beams, lined the sills of the diamond-paned windows, burned in candelabras placed at the far end of the room by the raised platform of the Almenor.
Ranged along either side of the aisle were the witnesses. Fifteenwomen, Chana Dorin among them, on the left side. And fourteen men on the right. All wore thehesilon;all bore matching expressions of gravity. Atop the Almenor were three figures—the Maharam, his staff planted squarely before him. Beside him, Aron Benjudah, broad-shouldered in dark blue, a silver circlet binding his brow.
