Tears stung my eyes at her harshness. I tried not to let her words affect me, having been deemed too sensitive all my life. Her rubbing hands intensified, but I shook as a different chill overcame me. The chill of disappointment.
Her hands stilled, her eyes catching mine. I averted my gaze down to my muddy toes, but her fingers caught my chin. “Enough with the tears, Roselyn. I don’t say these things to makeyou cry. I say them because no man is going to take you for a wife if you are always running off into the rain, dancing barefoot in the mud, and crying over silly things.”
My jaw clenched firmly despite my trembling, shoving the emotions down where Nahn deemed they belonged. “I don’t want a husband.”
“No one does. But you, my child,needone,” Nahn insisted, hazel eyes hardening. “What you want doesn’t always matter. Not when life is hard, especially for the unwise ones who live by their heart. I’m only making sure you will be taken care of once I’m gone. You will have Basil, but he will no doubt start a family of his own. You will become a spinster unless?—”
“Spinster,” I huffed. “Because I couldn’t possibly take care of myself and build my own life?”
“Hard to do when you spend your spare coin on ales and spare time dancing at seedy taverns,” she remarked pointedly. Only the crackling fire filled the already heated silence. But her silence was long enough to inflict pain over the ever-present scar on my heart where her words, or lack thereof, had sliced so many times before. “These are dangerous times,” she continued. “The apostai are running the royal cities amok?—”
Three sharp knocks sounded from the front door and defused the rising tension. Nahn released my chin and scurried to the window. “Stars above us, what is the baroness doing here?”
I wrapped the cloth tighter around me. “Basil said we’d have a visitor today.” I reminded her of my twin brother’s dream from last night. “It’s the final day ofTempus, and in the middle of a storm no less. Shouldn’t she be on her way to a temple?”
Nahn whirled around, resting her back against the wooden door as the baroness knocked incessantly. I never understood how my grandmother put up with that woman after what she did to our grandfather years ago.
“Don’t answer,” I insisted, hardly in the mood to appease the baroness of Dioscuri and its surrounding towns. “She’ll go away eventually.”
“We can’t ignore thebaroness. She may not be a Chosen, but she answers to King Zephyr. A slight to her is a slight to him—whoisa Chosen—and therefore a slight to the Astrals. Do well to remember that,” she said before unlatching the door. “Hurry and go make yourself look presentable.”
I tiptoed in retreat, nearing the staircase right as the baroness burst in with several guards dressed in Gemini’s bright yellow uniforms. Nausea roiled low in my stomach when I spotted the baroness’s son, Jere, grinning smugly at me.
“My darling Iris!” the baroness exclaimed. “I amsoglad you are open today.”
“We aren’t, actually,” I called from beside the banister. “Gemini’sTempusends tomorrow. We’re not a tavern or brothel, open throughout the season.”
The baroness slowed her movements. Nahn nervously patted the baroness’s yellow gown dry. Her guards wore the Zodiacal symbol of Gemini crested into their golden chest plates: two vertical lines between two curved horizontal ones. Their stares hardened on me.
I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at the annoyingly serious brutes. I couldn’t imagine being followed everywhere by anyone like them.
“Hello, Roselyn,” Baroness Jacostah greeted me stiffly.
“It’s Rahzlyn.” I returned her greeting with an equally tight smile.
“Right.” Her tone was nothing short of mocking.
Nahn’s exasperated face each time I’d mispronounced my name brought me unparalleled glee as a child. Somewhere between youth and adulthood, the name stuck for me. It becamea defiance to the woman my grandmother pretended I was, and a haven for who I wanted to be.
Whenever I tried to explain the name’s significance, I was met with arched brows and rolled eyes.
“Well.” The baroness inspected me. “You’re awfully muddy this morning,Roselyn.”
“She looks delectable, as always,” Jere said, appraising me with lustful eyes that made my skin crawl.
His brown hair was slicked back by a gel not even the rain could tarnish. Most found him handsome, but his vulgar entitlement repelled me.
“How kind of you to notice, Baroness.” I curtsied, ignoring her son. “Surely you didn’t come here simply to remark on my appearance?”
The baroness’s mouth parted in shock. Nahn stepped between us. “Of course not. Have a seat, the both of you, and I’ll brew some tea for us while my granddaughter tidies herself.”
“She can stay,” Jere barked.
Nahn straightened. “She’s hardly dressed appropriately?—”
“I quite enjoy her wildness.” He grinned, his smugness grating my insides. “I command her to stay. I have a fondness for taming creatures. We recently acquired a Hippogriff breeding farm?—”
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your arrival today?” I asked tightly, desperate to change the subject. I sat beside the fire, draping a nearby blanket over my lap. “With it beingTempusstill, we were expecting to celebrate as a family.”
