It was a relief, in a way, because even the vaguest thoughts of children, of pregnancy, of childbirth, made Melia sick. Her monthly blood—irregular, painful, and black on her linen rags—disgusted her. It smelled of death and loss and grief; the chances of her body producing a life were about the same as the barren stones of Syr bursting in bloom.
Engulfed in such dark thoughts, she reached the house herfather had in Abia, a small villa tucked away in a maze of narrow, winding streets and walled gardens. She’d never stayed there and she couldn’t remember her father ever visiting Abia. It was a relic of another time, perhaps, of the childhood Queen Orsiana remembered, of the long-forgotten friendship between the two southern lords.
“Lady Melia!” someone called to her as she stepped in, and she turned to see men in her father’s livery, red and black.
“Welcome to Abia,” she said, and they moved to reveal a dark-haired woman standing in their midst. It took Melia a heartbeat to recognize her, so out of place did she look without the crumbling red walls and empty rooms of Syr behind her. “Ferisa,” she blurted out.
She bowed. “I have a message from your father. We should talk in private.”
Melia turned to her retinue. “Go back to the palace, you don’t need to wait.” Then she followed Ferisa into a sparsely furnished room that stank of ancient dust and winter damp. No one had scrubbed the floors, opened the shutters to let the sunlight in, or aired the carpets and pillows to prepare for the arrival of the master. No spark of life was ignited to wake the house up. Wherever her father went, the fog that quenched out all liveliness followed him. Preceded him.
And Ferisa, too, in her priestly colors: dark green, gray, and black. In Syr, she blended in. Here in Abia, compared to the gaudy court opulence, she looked like a scrap of misery, a poor cousin embarrassing everyone with her presence.
Ferisa was studying her right back. “You look pretty,” she said.
Melia looked down at her dress, at the layers of sunflower-colored silk organza, at the fine embroidery studded with tiny pearls, at the amber-and-gold necklace the queen had given her, and cold unease twisted her stomach. She looked like an exotic bird.
“It’s just court fashion,” she stammered. “It’s what all the ladies wear.”
“It suits you well,” Ferisa said, and again, although the statement was shaped like a compliment, there was broken glass waiting under a layer of honey. “You look like a princess.”
I am a princess, Melia almost said, but then she checked herself. Why would she quarrel with Ferisa?
“My father is not here?” she asked.
“He’s coming tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Tomorrow was important. Crucial, in fact. “So are the Seragians,” she added guardedly.
The turbulent weeks after her wedding had been so hectic for Melia that she’d almost forgotten the reason her father had sent her there in the first place. The Seragians, the peace treaty, and Prince Amril’s wedding all slipped her mind. In the lively streets of Abia, in the sunny gardens of the palace, the deathly silence of Syr seemed like a bad dream. She could have almost convinced herself it didn’t concern her anymore. The sheer size of the court, the scope of the affairs so beyond her she might have been an eavesdropping pigeon on the windowsill, made her believe she was irrelevant. Her father’s shadow didn’t stretch as far as Abia, and the royal circle cared nothing about Elmar’s feelings.
But now Ferisa was here, her dark fire burning, and Melia realized she’d been fooling herself. She could get out of Syr, but Syr would always be in her blood. The dark shadows of Elmar crept down the walls towards her.
“Your father wants you to help me,” Ferisa said.
She reminded her of Rovin at that moment, not because she was rough and fierce like her late brother, but because she expected Melia to obey her without question.
“Help you do what?” she asked.
“Take me with you as your cousin and companion, show me the layout of the palace, get me the schedule for the weddingceremony.”
It was as if a stranger had stepped into Ferisa’s skin, removed the priestess, the herbalist, the friend Melia had known, and replaced her with this brusque courtier.
“Why do you need it?” she asked.
“Oh, Melia, you know what your father wants.”
This wedding must never transpire, he’d said.
That couldn’t be right. That was just her father’s grief speaking, his angry words. In Syr, he was the master of life and death, but here in Abia? He was a fragment of the queen’s childhood memory, the uncouth southern neighbor, the surly father-in-law no one cared about. Melia had seen the scope of the wedding preparations. What could Ferisa do? Melia might as well show her everything, let her believe their mad schemes could change something.
With the shutters half closed, the shadows in the room pooled inside Ferisa’s dark eyes as she lifted her hand to touch Melia’s face.
It was a familiar touch, a comforting touch.
“How is it, with the prince?” Ferisa asked.
For the briefest of moments, Melia wanted to spill it all out: the hostility of the ladies, the broken intimacy, the occasional urgent lovemaking in the dark, the inability to express—or even determine—how she felt. But then, even though telling Ferisa everything had been an old habit, sharing details about Amron felt wrong. He wasn’t a piece of gossip.
