A split second later, Nemuan lay flat on his back, Dilys’s hand at his throat. The face of the formerMyerial’s son was turning a satisfying shade of puce.
“I could,” Dilys said. “I could very easily. And you’d do best to remember it,pulan.” His mother had given him more than a little power. She’d all but drained herself for him, making him more than a match for his motherless, sisterless cousin.
Dilys released Nemuan and rose in one swift, smooth motion. Leaving his cousin lying there, Dilys crossed the coral slab of the dock and stepped aboard the glossy blue canal boat. “Don’t bother coming to see me off,” he said.
At the back of the boat, two Calbernans shoved long poles into the clear water of the canal, pushing away from the courtyard dock. As the boat moved down the canal towards the harbor, Dilys could feel Nemuan’s narrowed black eyes boring into the back of his head. The two of them had never been particularly friendly—not at all since the deaths of Sianna and Nyamialine—but their shared blood had always kept them civil. Clearly, those bonds held no longer.
Dilys knew that in Nemuan, he now had an enemy.
Chapter 2
Konumarr, Wintercraig
“Calbernans, who claim to be the favored race of the goddess Numahao, all possess seagifts that enable them to manipulate currents, commune with creatures of the sea, and swim without needing to surface for air. They are rightly called Sealords, as the oceans of the world obey their commands.” The small, golden-skinned boy standing at the head of the small schoolroom gripped the edges of the leather-bound book in his hands and turned expectant eyes towards his teacher.
“That was excellent, Jori.” Gabriella Coruscate, the Summerlea princess known more commonly by her giftname Summer, smiled at the young boy and took the book from his hands.
The seven-year-old beamed proudly. “I been practicing with Mam.”
“Youhavebeen practicing with your mam,” she corrected kindly, “and, yes, I can see that you have. You’ve made excellent progress, Jori.” The boy’s cheeks flushed a sweet, red-rose beneath his golden skin, making the smattering of white freckles across his cheeks glow like stars. He looked so earnest and adorable, with his big blue eyes and the sheafs of straight white hair slanting across his brow, and so proud, too—his spine straight, his narrow shoulders squared beneath his threadbare but pristinely washed, starched, and neatly mended shirt—nothing like the timid, painfully shy child who’d first stepped into her classroom two weeks ago. Unable to stop herself, she reached out to ruffle his hair, and was rewarded with another beaming smile and a palpable pulse of joy that suffused her with soothing warmth.
Summer let herself bask in that warmth for a moment, then stepped back from the lure of Jori’s affection and turned to return the book to the neatly ordered bookshelf standing against the wall.
“All right, class. That’s all for today. There will be no school tomorrow so everyone can attend the welcoming celebrations for the Calbernans. So, I’ll see you again next Modinsday, when we’ll start the next chapter in Tanturri’sHistory of the World.”
She laughed at the chorus of groans from the students. They much preferred reading adventures and heroic epics likeRoland Triumphant: Hero of SummerleaorThe Great Hunt—a predilection shared by Summer’s sister Khamsin, the Queen of Wintercraig, who had founded Konumarr’s new public school—but while those texts made for an exciting read, they didn’t expand students’ knowledge of geography and history beyond the shores of the Æsir Isles. Khamsin was determined that the graduates of her experimental new public school should emerge with the ability to read, write, do arithmetic, and have a useful foundation of knowledge in history, geography, and commerce, which is why she’d pressed her sister Summer into teaching this first semester. Children naturally flocked to Summer—and what parent would refuse to let their child attend a class taught by the most beloved princess in the Æsir Isles?
Summer wasn’t entirely convinced that these children—many of whom would go on to join their parents in farming, fishing, sheep herding, or trapping—needed an education that went beyond basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, but Khamsin insisted. Who knew? Maybe she was right. Summer’s own tutor had been fond of history, proclaiming, “A wise man learns from those who came before so that he may duplicate their successes while avoiding their mistakes.” Even if the children never needed to know why long-dead kings had plunged their nations into war or how the battles had affected the world, the part about avoiding the mistakes of one’s forebears was probably a lesson worth learning.
Certainly, it was a lesson Summer had taken to heart.
In any event, Tanturri’sHistorywas the students’ least favorite text. Summer secretly agreed with them—she’d always found it a dead, dry read—but since Wintercraig’s queen had included it in the curriculum, Summer would plow through it all the same. Hopefully, she’d found a way to make the material more interesting, both for her own sake as well as the students’.
“Lily”—she nodded towards the pregnant young woman at the back of the class—“suggested you might enjoy Tanturri more if we made costumes and acted out some of the historical events. What do you think of that?” When a small chorus of cheers replaced the groans, she smiled. “Excellent. Costumes it is. We’ll plan our costumes for the first chapter and go to the store on Turinsday, where you can all practice your arithmetic by deciding how much of each fabric you’ll need and how much it will all cost.”
She stood by the door as the children filed out, saying good-bye and offering each one a personal word of encouragement for their continued efforts in class. In response to her praise, their joy washed over her like a swell of nourishing warmth. She watched them scatter—some racing home, some racing off to play in one of Konumarr’s many parks, the younger ones skipping into their waiting mothers’ loving embraces—and forced herself to keep smiling despite the ache of bittersweet longing that burned in her breast.
After they were gone, Summer stood in the schoolhouse doorway, closed her eyes and turned her face up towards the sun, letting the soothing radiance soak into her skin, bringing with it a surge of potent energy that slowly eased the ache in her heart. As a royal princess of Summerlea, she and her sisters all had a particular affinity for the sun—a trait which, as they recently discovered, was owed to the blood of the Sun God, Helos, that ran through their veins.
There was a small sound behind her. “Your idea was a hit,” Summer murmured, without opening her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I hope you know you’re going to help me with all the sewing the children don’t do themselves—and I have no doubt that will be the bulk of it.”
There was a short, uncertain silence, then a small laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”
Gabriella turned to smile at Lily, the pretty young Summerlander who’d arrived in Konumarr only a few days after Summer’s own arrival two weeks ago. Lily’s husband had died in last winter’s rebellion, leaving her pregnant and alone. She’d heard about the Calbernans coming to court willing women, so she’d walked and hitched rides from her home in Summerlea’s northwestern province, the Orchards, all the way to Konumarr. She’d arrived with a burgeoning belly, no place to stay, and only a scant handful of copperpisetasto her name. Khamsin had offered her free room and board at the school in exchange for helping to clean the school and prepare the classrooms each day, but after the second time Gabriella had found Lily standing in the hall outside one of the classroom doors, listening to the lessons, she’d convinced the girl to assist her in the classroom instead.
“You have a good way with children,” Summer said. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Lily smiled shyly and stroked a hand over her rounded belly. She was a lovely girl, Summerlander dark, with wavy black hair, beautiful dark-chocolate eyes, and deep, lustrous brown skin, but it was the earnest sweetness of her spirit that Summer found her most attractive quality. From Lily’s telling reluctance to speak about her life in Summerlea, the way she jumped at loud noises or sudden movements, and the shadows that sometimes haunted her eyes, Summer gathered the girl had seen more than her share of rough times, but Lily hadn’t let those times harden her gentle heart. That took strength. The kind most people missed because it was so subtle.
Abruptly Lily flinched, gave a muffled grunt, and clapped one hand to her right side. “Ow. Little sprout here has quite a kick.” She laughed and patted a spot on her belly that was visibly moving as the child in her womb stretched and turned inside her.
Summer’s gaze fixed on that movement and the ache in her heart surged back to excruciating life. With it came a trembling deep inside and a feeling of terrible pressure, like the rumbling of a volcano preparing to erupt.
She turned abruptly away to pluck her shawl from the peg by the door. “I should go,” she said. “My family will be waiting tea for me. I’ll come in on Helosday and we can review your plans for the children’s costumes.” Not waiting for a response and without risking another glance in Lily’s direction, she headed for the door. “Enjoy your weekend, Lily.”
