Page 47 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

He waved at her. Immediately, her expression turned chilly. Without acknowledging him, she averted her eyes.

Lorelei couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. “Did she just give you the cut?”

“I think so,” he said cheerfully. “I suppose because I’m consorting with the enemy.”

The woman could certainly hold a grudge. Lorelei respected that. “And you genuinely like these people?”

“I do. Most of the time, anyway. It’s complicated.” She must have looked skeptical because he asked, “Why? Did someone say something?”

He was a terrible bully, Sylvia said of Johann,and liked to make Ludwig do all sorts of ridiculous things because he was so desperate to fit in. “No,” said Lorelei. “No one said anything.”

He seemed to relax some. “Good. Really, most of what you hear is drivel. Wilhelm in particular has a flair for the dramatic, especially when it comes to his war stories. I’m sure you’ve heard the one where he secured a glorious, bloodless victory during the final battle of his campaign.”

Everyone had heard that. Wilhelm, resplendent on the back of his dragonling, had flown over the battlefield. The enemy had laid down their arms in awe, and Brunnestaad was at last unified. “Of course.”

“It’s true no blood was spilled in combat,” Ludwig said offhandedly. “ButImre”—hisdragon, Lorelei assumed—“was...shallwe say,misbehavedin his adolescence. A few miles away from the battlefield, he burned an entire village to ashes.”

Cold horror prickled along the back of her neck. “Dear God.”

“Sylvia and Adelheid were quite cross with him, from what I recall.”

“And Johann?”

“He thought it was funny.” Ludwig popped an almond into his mouth. “There are a thousand stories like that, but no one wants to hear them. No one wants the truth.”

“Which is?”

Ludwig smiled wryly at her. “They’re not heroes.”

Lorelei frowned at him. Apart from Johann’s initial outburst, it was the closest she’d heard one of them come to criticizing Wilhelm on this trip.

“Of course, they’re all remarkable people,” he added hastily, “and I love them dearly. I’d never speak ill of any of them. Ah. There goes Adelheid.”

Sure enough, Adelheid passed by them as she shoved against the current of the crowd. Her drawn expression caught Lorelei off guard. Without thinking, she began following her. Ludwig made a sound of protest but stumbled after her. The dirt-packed roads gave way to mud beneath their boots, still damp from the rain Ludwig had summoned.No one seemed to mind. The farther she pressed into the heart of the village, the more raucous it became. A makeshift stage had been assembled in the square, where Lorelei assumed folk dancers or musicians would give their performances throughout the night.

She wove through revelers in bright-colored gowns until she found Adelheid standing before a cart boasting the largest cabbage of the season. She was glaring at it as though it had personally wronged her.

“Enjoying yourself?” Ludwig asked.

Adelheid startled at their sudden appearance. She looked as crisp and immaculate as ever in her gown of plain white. Colorful ribbons, which had been curled into ringlets against a knife’s edge, tumbled from her flower crown and framed her unsmiling face. “We do not have things like this in Ebul,” she said, which Lorelei supposed was answer enough.

“Of course not. Only grim duty and hard work and dirt beneath your nails.” His reverent tone somehow gave the impression of an eyeroll.

The displeasure on Adelheid’s face deepened, and Lorelei sensed she had stumbled into an old argument. Admittedly, the two of them looked ridiculous side by side: the lavish caricature of a nobleman and a fairy-tale maiden with her austere, downtrodden beauty.

Once, Ebul had been renowned for its tulips and lush vineyards. Now the fields lay in ashes. When Lorelei thought of it, she imagined a countryside salted and burned, an infrastructure buckling under the weight of a surging population. As the easternmost province, it lay betweenNeide—theroyal seat of what was nowBrunnestaad—andits age-old rival, Javenor. It had served as their battleground for so long, nearly everyone there spoke both Brunnisch and Javenish.

“Right,” Ludwig said, clearing his throat. “Well, I’m going to see if I can watch Sylvia climb a tree.”

When he left them, Adelheid sighed. “I imagine you understand. The excess astounds me, but I cannot begrudge these people for celebrating their good fortune. It is no wonder Sylvia is so beloved.”

Adelheid nodded toward the gathering crowds behind them. Lorelei turned and blinked into the dwindling sunlight. She spied a flash ofsnow-white hair. Sylvia had forded the cattle river and was drifting through the festival, stopping to chat with vendors or crouching to speak with the children brave enough to approach her. Lorelei wanted to be disgusted. Truly, she did. But with her head thrown back in laughter and her cheeks pinkened from the alpine cold, Sylvia looked happy in a way Lorelei had rarely seen before.

She forced herself to look away.

“Last harvest season,” Adelheid said, “the people called for my father’s head.”

“And did they get it?”