“Is it? Please tell me it is.” She sounds a bit too excited about the prospect of something that’s not much of a joy. “I heard the queen’s ladies talking yesterday. I think they use cotton wrapped insilk! You have to tell me if it’s true—”
“It is not my monthly time!” I snap.
“Oh.” She actually sounds disappointed.
I roll my eyes. “But I’ll be sure to report back.”
She straightens and looks in the mirror again, then fidgets with the end of one of her braids, which hang straight down her back. “Do you think you could help me pin them up?” She glances hopefully over her shoulder. “Like Verin does?”
There’s something about it that sounds so eager and wistful all atonce, the way the princess wanted to learn to plait my hair. Just like that, Nora is a girl again.
“Sure,” I say. And I do.
The arena is nearly empty, which isn’t a surprise, because the weather is temperate and any guards and soldiers are training out on the fields. The queen’s sister is there, though she’s not waiting on us. Verin is engaged in a bout of swordplay with another soldier, and their blades flash and spin in the light. The soldier is a man, easily twice her age and double her size, but Verin is quick and efficient, and she holds him off as he bears down with a strength that clearly outmatches hers.
Nora’s eyes are wide. “He’ll slice her in two.”
“I don’t think so.” It’s been a long time, but I remember the way our mother used to talk about swordplay. Nora was too young to learn much of anything before she died, but Mother taught me how to hold a weapon. Her first lessons were all about cleverness and skill and speed. Strength and size were really the least important.
Just as I have the thought, the man knocks the sword out of Verin’s hand, and the impact sends her to the ground. When he advances, his sword is aimed for her throat.
My sister gasps, but Verin rolls between his legs, then leaps onto his back. Her dagger finds his neck before I’m even aware she drew it from the sheath at her waist.
It’s my turn to suck in a breath, but he’s chuckling, his hands up in surrender. “All right, Ver. You got me.”
She pats him on the shoulder, then springs to the ground. “You’re getting old and slow, Solt.”
“Old just means I’m not dead yet.” His gaze falls on us by the arenarailing, and he loses the smile. “Are these the girls the queen brought back from Briarlock?”
I’m not sure how to read the note in his voice. It’s not friendly, but it’s not antagonistic either. There’s a heaviness to it that gives me pause.
“They are,” says Verin. “Callyn and Nora, this is General Solt.” She pauses, and a wicked note enters her voice. “They attacked Lord Alek yesterday, so I thought maybe I’d help them with a little technique.”
“I wanted to claw his eyes out,” Nora volunteers.
Verin smiles. “Spend an hour with me and I’ll teach you how to peel the bones out of his fingers.”
“Ew!” says Nora, but she doesn’t look horrified. She looks a little fascinated.
Solt’s eyes are on me, though, and he approaches the arena railing. “The queen said we lost your mother during the first conflict in Emberfall. What was her name?”
It’s so unexpected that I’m shocked silent, so it’s Nora who says, “Mama? Her name was Adelyn.”
Solt nods. “She was a captain. I remember.”
That almost takes my breath away. After Da died, there weren’t too many people left in Briarlock who knew our mother. She spent so much time as a soldier that most of her friends were here, in the Crystal City—or dead on the battlefield around her. I have to clear my throat. “Yes,” I say. “You knew her?”
“Not well,” he says, “but I knew her. She was in my brother’s regiment. He would have known her better.” Solt pauses. “You look just like her.”
Again, I don’t know how to react. My thoughts were so tangled up with worries about Alek and nerves about the queen’s sister. I wasn’t prepared to be confronted with memories of my mother. Maybe I should have been.
In Briarlock, our lives were wrapped up in the bakery. Mother’scareer as a soldier was something she did somewhereelse. At home, she was the baker’s wife, curled up in the window with a saucy romance novel. She might have taught me to hold a sword, but she also taught me how to trace pictures in the frost on the windows, or how to milk the cow in the barn out back, or how to plait my hair so it would stay in place but wouldn’t give me a headache.
Here, I’m staring at a man who has memories of my mother that I’m not even a part of. Or at least . . . ?his brother does. “Your brother,” I say. “Is he a general as well?”
“No. He died in the same battle.”
He doesn’t say this with any additional gravity, but I feel like I’ve made a misstep. I should have paid attention to his phrasing. The way he said,She was in my brother’s regiment. He would have known her better.
