“Cora!” Maiya’s grin mirrored hers, though she didn’t set down the firewood or embrace her friend. Instead, she cast a furtive glance around the camp and nodded at Cora to follow her inside.
Cora tempered some of her excitement and quietly entered the tent after her friend. She pulled up short at the sight of the interior. The last time she’d been inside Maiya’s tent, all of Cora’s belongings had remained exactly as she’d left them. They’d always shared a tent since the day Cora had joined the commune. She hadn’t expected Maiya to carry around Cora’s things and maintain an unused space as if she’d never left, yet seeing proof of her own absence was more startling than she’d anticipated.
That wasn’t the only change either. The tent was larger overall with more furnishings, finer rugs, and a much wider bed. This was a married couple’s tent.
She faced her friend with wide eyes. “You and Roije…”
Maiya crouched before the small stove and placed one of the logs inside. She grinned over her shoulder. “We were handfasted in the fall.”
“I’m so happy for you.” The warmth in her heart washed away the bitter ache at having seen her things replaced. Maiya had loved Roije for a long time yet had always been too shy to make a move. When Cora had returned to the Forest People last spring, her friend and Roije had just begun courting. And now they were wed, bound by ritual handfasting. She wished she could have been there, could have seen their ceremony. Maiya must have looked radiant, and Roije—
The blood left Cora’s face. Shame replaced her joy as she recalled something about Roije she never should have forgotten.
“Roije…his arm…” Cora swallowed hard, working the words from her throat. “Did he heal well?”
Maiya’s expression fell, and she quickly turned back toward the stove, busying her hands with a kettle. “He did.”
Cora didn’t miss the curt edge to Maiya’s words. Did she blame Cora for what had happened to her husband? Roije had fought at Centerpointe Rock and had faced Morkai directly. He’d lost an arm for it. Mother Goddess, she’d thought about his fate several times since then, yet she hadn’t considered it since stepping foot into the camp. Not until now.
“I’m sorry,” Cora said, voice trembling. “That should have been the first thing I asked—”
“And you?” Maiya faced her again, this time with two mugs of fragrant tea in her hands. “How have you been?”
Cora blinked at her a few times, surprised by Maiya’s deliberate change of subject. Her lips were pulled wide but the smile no longer reached her eyes. Cora shook her head, accepting one of the mugs her friend offered. “I…I’m as well as I can be, considering current circumstances.”
Maiya sipped her tea. “You’re a queen now, if the news from the villages is to be believed.”
“I am.”
“You still don’t mind if I call you Cora and not Highness or Majesty?”
Cora’s shoulders slumped. “I always want to be Cora to you. To everyone here.”
Maiya’s jaw tightened, and Cora was struck with a spear of anger that wasn’t her own. Still, her friend’s grin remained on her lips and she kept her tone light. “I don’t think you can bejustCora anymore. Not to the commune at large.”
“Why do you say that?”
Maiya gave an easy shrug and took another sip of her tea. “Twice you’ve returned since leaving us, and twice you’ve brought terrifying news. Last time, you took some of our people to war. This time, you’re taking our High Elder.”
“That’s not…I don’t mean to be a harbinger of doom, but—”
“I’m just telling you how it seems to the commune.” Maiya’s tone took on a sharper edge. She was so unlike the sweet shy girl she’d been not even a year ago. “I’m explaining why you can’t expect to be received as Cora anymore. To the commune, you are Her Majesty Aveline, Queen of Khero.”
“And you? You said the commune sees me this way, but how do you see me?”
Maiya let out a long breath, her expression softening. “I see you as a treasured friend whom I’m looking at for the last time.”
The weight of that statement pressed hard upon her chest. She wasn’t sure how to take those words. Was she saying she never wanted to see Cora again? Warning her to stay away? Or was this a claircognizantknowing?
“It doesn’t mean I don’t wish it were otherwise.” Maiya’s voice came out soft, strained. “You were my sister, Cora. But…but now you’re a queen. You can’t just show up when you need something. It makes a mockery of our core principles. The very rule that allows our commune to live in peace.”
Mother Goddess, she was right. Cora knew she was right. Fate may have wanted Cora to come here, to meet Ailan, to walk the path her threads had woven, but after this…
She needed to let the Forest People go. Not from her heart. Never from her heart. But she could not use them as her political allies ever again. Even asking them to teach Mareleau magic had been offensive enough. At the time, it had seemed like the only recourse. Yet she couldn’t use them as a recourse. A last resort.
“You’re right,” Cora said, voice trembling. “I can’t do this again. I won’t do it again. Yet I will keep you and everyone else in my heart. I will protect you in whatever way I can, even if it means never coming to find you again.”
Maiya set down her mug of tea and sank onto the foot of her bed. Cora did the same, having no sense of thirst with such a heavy conversation. She kept her distance from the other girl, sitting a few feet away.
