“I think she was naïve. I think she believed in the best in people. But some people have no best. Father understood that even if Mother never did.”
Maybe I’m a fool to believe in the best in Adria.
“You understand that, right, Sylvie? You understand Father was right. There can be no mercy for our enemies. What our mother did, she thought she was doing for love. But it was weakness. You know that, don’t you? You understand?” She looks me in the eye. The eyes we both share, our mother’s eyes.
And I see her, really see her. I don’t need Ronan’s gift to know her. This is who she is. This is who she has always been. And I don’t think there’s a way to ever,everchange her mind.
“I understand,” I tell her. “I’m no fool.”
Not anymore.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The days between the Festival of Arts and the beginning of the Great Feast are best described by their sound: the scraping of wood on stone.
From my window in the palace, it seems like every chair, table, stool, bench, barrel, crate, and cart in the kingdom is groaning along the floor and in the streets outside, arranging themselves in preparation for a meal that will somehow last for three days. If this is the pared-down version of the Feast, I hate to imagine what the original intent had been.
I don’t know how we’re going to handle any more partying at this point. I’m surprised that anyone has the appetite for it after nearly three months of celebrations.
But I seem to be in the minority with that opinion. No one can talk about anything but the meals that will be served, the delicacies from distant kingdoms and comfort dishes of home. The freshly harvested produce and cured and aged meats, cheeses, vinegars, and wines. The salty, the sweet, the fatty, the spicy. It seems that every single person in court, from the servants to the king himself, hassomethingthey’re looking forward to.
For Ronan, it’s a seafood stew that Queen Claudia made for him once when he stayed with her on a visit to her home of Minar as a boy. She had servants of her own and a talented cook, but she insisted on making the dish herself because she swore no one could get the broth quite right. She rarely makes it these days, but Ronan has convinced her to honor Arnan with it for the Great Feast.
I’m looking forward to trying it, but it’s Typhon’s favored dish that sounds the most exciting to me. It’s a noodle dish from far away in Velmora with a spicy pepper that leaves your mouth numb when you eat it. Ronan thinks it sounds insane, but I’m so curious to find out what it’s like.
I get my wish and more when the Feast begins.
I’ve never seen so much food in my damn life.
Starting at dawn, the court files outside into the same courtyard where the ball had been held a few days before. The endless scraping of chairs and tables has culminated in an unending sea of culinary delights. After the court has their first meal, the palace gates are opened to allow the commoners to take part. Ronan tells me the city’s plazas are filled with buffets like this one. While the palace provides much of the food and most of the ingredients, everyone around the city contributes to the Feast. I ask Ronan if we can visit each neighborhood and try something from each table, and he loves the idea. But he tells me he has something he needs to do first.
“Meet me by the northern entrance in an hour,” he says. “Come in disguise.”
I arrive at the gates just when he says, having changed into some of the trousers I bought at the market and tucked my hair into a flat cap. But Ronan isn’t there.
Soren is.
“Are we going to see Vesper?” I ask. Ronan-as-Soren is carrying a wooden box of some kind.
“There are some who can’t make it to the Feast,” he explains, shifting the box in his hands. “The old, the infirm. Vesper’s grandfather is bedbound.”
“Is there enough for all of them? Can we bring it to them instead of trying something at every table?”
“We can do both,” he says. He sighs, a deep, soul-affirming sigh that relaxes his entire body. “Today, we can do both. I can’t tell you what a relief it is. What this Feast means to me. It means more than any of the other Festivals. I think I lost my faith in Arnan before any of the other gods, ridiculous as that sounds. Why would a god let people starve?”
I look around reflexively, still nervous about the way he talks about the gods. “They say it’s a test of faith.Yousaid that in your speech to begin the Feast.”
“I said it because I had to. What kind of petty god needs to test us with starving children?”
I don’t have an answer for him, but I also don’t want anyone to report a man with Soren’s description to the priests, so I lead us to the shop where we met Vesper’s mother, asking about the food he’s bringing them along the way.
Vesper greets us at the door. She’s looking better already after bathing and putting her earrings back in. But the hollows of her cheeks are still too hollow, and I’m glad we have something with us to help remedy that.
I worry that when she sees Soren that she’ll blame him for what happened to her, but she hugs him instead. “I didn’t tell them anything. They asked again and again what I was doing, but I made up something different every time. It was like a game. They believed the first few stories, but eventually they figured me out.”
“Did they treat you well otherwise?” asks Ronan.
“No, they damn well didn’t,” says Vesper’s mother, coming to the door. “I have a mind to throw you into the street for whatshe went through because of you. But I won’t. And only because you brought her back to me. She said you were the one who told them where to go. The king himself went. Can you imagine?”
