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I knew from my seven years of rooming with Merei that she was a perfectionist when it came to her music. Every note had to be exquisitely placed, every song must be played with fervor and rapture. If her fingers or bow so much as let a screech slip over the strings, she was irritated by her performance.
“Do you know what this means?” I asked, smiling as I reached for the elaborately carved box on one of her shelves.
Merei lay back on her bed, overly dramatic as she claimed, “I am too tired to play.”
“We have a pact,” I reminded her as I opened the box on our communal table, drawing forth the checkered board and the marble pawns.
Her father had sent this game of cheques and marques for both of us, a game Merei adored and had grown up playing on the island of Bascune. As the years had gone by at Magnalia, as Merei and I had become progressively more preoccupied with our impassionment, we hardly had time to play anymore. Save for the evenings when we were both overwhelmed and worried. We had vowed to bring forth the game then, as a way to remind ourselves that the impending solstice wasn’t everything.
“All right.” She relented, as I knew she would. She rose from the bed and walked to our table, gathering a few loose sheets of music and setting them aside.
We sat across from each other, our colorful pawns gleaming as I lit the candles and Merei flipped a ducat to see who had the first move.
“You start, Bri,” she said.
I stared at my pawns, lined up obediently. Cheques and marques was a game of strategy, the goal being to remove all three of the opponent’s red pawns. I decided to begin on the edge, shifting my yellow pawn forward to the first marque.
We always started the game quietly, granting ourselves time to adjust to moving in rhythm with each other. I tended to make the bold moves, Merei the cautious moves. Our pawns were scattered all over the board when Merei broke our silence by asking, “Have you heard from your grandfather?”
I claimed her first red pawn, one she had defiantly floating toward our line of impact. “Yes. I’ll have to let you read it later.”
She began to shift toward one of my red pieces. “Did he tell you a name?”
“No name. The usual response.”
“That your father is unworthy to note?”
“Yes, those very words.” I watched as she swiped one of my red pawns. She also had me blocked with her yellow pieces. I began to weave between them … “What about your father?”
“He wrote a few days ago. He says hello, and that he hopes you come with me to visit him after the solstice.”
I watched her jump over my blue pawns, landing in the middle of my territory. A bold move from her always baffled me; she tended to play so carefully. I retaliated, mirroring her, and asked, “Would you rather have a very handsome patron who had bad breath, or a very ugly patron who always smelled good?”
Merei laughed. “Nice try, Bri. I am not that easily distracted.”
“I am not distracting you,” I insisted, trying to hide a smile. “These are very important things to think about.”
“Mm-hmm.” She swiped my second red pawn. “I would have to go with the ugly patron, then.”
“Same,” I responded, trying to break through yet another ring of her yellow pawns.
“If we are going to play this game, then you have to answer a question.” She moved her black pawn to an odd marque. “Would you rather fall in love with your master or your patron?”
“Both are horrible, foolish choices,” I muttered.
“You must answer.”
I stared at the board, trying to see a way out of the knot she had me in. “Fine, then. I would rather fall in love with my patron.” My face warmed, but I kept my eyes on the marques. I was almost to her second red pawn …
“I have to say I would go with the master.”
I glanced up, surprised at her answer. She smiled; her eyes locked with mine as she effortlessly claimed my final red pawn.
“You always beat me at this game,” I lamented.
“You lose because you never protect your side, Bri. It’s your one weakness. I beat you with an oblique move.” She waggled my defeated red pawn. “Shall we play again?”
I made a noise of objection, but she knew that I wanted to. We reset our pawns on their origin marques, and then I waited for Merei to move first.
We asked no questions this round; I was too focused on trying to outwit her, by employing this oblique tactic she always championed me with. So when she cleared her throat, I looked up, startled to see she was about to claim my last red pawn.
“Now,” Merei said. “On to a very important question.”
“And what is that?”
She paused, trying to hold back her laughter as she defeated me yet again. “What are you going to tell Master Cartier when he asks why your face is stained blue?”
I was the first one to reach the library Monday morning, waiting for Ciri and Cartier to arrive for the lesson. Despite Merei’s faithful scrubbing and a dose of Oriana’s turpentine, I still had a faint shadow of blue paint on my face. So I decided to leave my hair unbound and drawn to the front; it spilled down my chest, long and ornery, the color of mahogany, but it felt like a shield for me to hide behind, to guard my face and the lingering memory of war paint.
Ciri arrived next and took her seat across from me, on the other side of our table. “I can still see the paint,” she murmured. “But maybe he won’t notice.”
Master Cartier entered not two breaths after that. I pretended to pick at my nails as he set his books down on the table, my hair falling forward even more. I realized my mistake only when I felt his eyes rest on me, his hands go still. Of course he would notice my hair was loose. I always bound it in a braid for lessons, to keep it out of my eyes.
I heard him walk about the table, to Ciri’s side, so he could get a full look at me.
“Brienna?”
I silently swore. And then relented to lift my face and meet his gaze. “Master?”
“May I ask why … it looks as if you painted half of your face blue?”
My eyes shifted to Ciri, who was pressing her lips together, trying not to giggle.
“You may ask, Master,” I responded, kicking Ciri beneath the table. “I sat for a portrait. Oriana decided to, ah, paint my face.”
“It was because we dressed her as a Maevan queen, Master,” Ciri rushed to explain, and then I watched, mortified, as she leafed through the history book to find the illustration of Liadan Kavanagh. “Here, this is the one.”
Cartier turned the book around so he could get a closer look at it. He stared at Liadan Kavanagh, and then he stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he thought this was humorous or offensive—if he thought I was bold or childish.
He gently pushed the book back to Ciri and said, “Tell me about Liadan Kavanagh, then.”
“What about her?” Ciri was quick to respond, always eager to answer everything before me.
“Who was she?”
“The first queen of Maevana.”
“And how did she become queen?” He walked about the table, his voice settling into that deep, rich cadence that made me think of a summer night crowded with stars. It was the sort of voice a storyteller might harbor.
“Well, she belonged to the Kavanagh clan,” Ciri answered.
“And why does that matter?”
Ciri hesitated. Did she truly not remember? I was a bit amazed by this, by watching the frown mar her brow, her blue eyes sweeping the table before us as if the answers were in the marks of the wood. She never forgot the things Cartier told her.
“Brienna?” Cartier prompted me when she took too long.
“Because the Kavanaghs are the descendants of dragons,” I replied. “They hold magic in their blood.”
“But the other thirteen Houses of Maevana do not?” he questioned, even though he knew the answer. This was how he taught Ciri and me; he entered into conversations with us, asked us to tell the little pieces of history that he had once fed us.
“No,” I said. “The other Houses do not possess magic. Just the Kavanaghs.”
“But why a queen, then, and not a king?” He stopped his walking before the great map on the wall, his finger brushing the four countries that composed our hemisphere: the island of Maevana to the north, Grimhildor to the far frozen west, Valenia and Bandecca to the south, the ocean breaking them into three pieces of mountainous lands. As he touched them, he said, “Valenia has a king. Bandecca has a king. Grimhildor has a king. All the countries in our realm do. Why, then, would Maevana—a warrior, clannish land—build its throne on a queen?”
I smiled, letting my fingers trace a mark in the wood. “Because the Kavanagh women are naturally stronger in magic than their men.” And I thought of that glorious illustration of Liadan Kavanagh; I remembered her proud stance, the blue woad on her skin and the blood on her armor, the silver crown of diamonds on her brow. Might it be possible that I had descended from one such as her?
“You are right, Brienna,” Cartier said. “Magic always flows stronger in woman than in man. Sometimes I think the same of passion, until I am reminded that passion is in no way magical or inherited. Because some of us choose our passion”—and here he looked at me—“and sometimes, the passion chooses us”—and here he looked to Ciri. It was only then that I realized how different Ciri and I were, how flexible Cartier had to be in his teachings, to ensure his two ardens learned by the methods that best suited them. I preferred stories; Ciri preferred facts.
“So.” He resumed his slow walk about the library. “You have told me that Liadan Kavanagh held magic. But why was she appointed queen, then, three hundred years ago?”
“Because of the Hilds,” Ciri hastened to say, rejoining the conversation. “The raiders of Grimhildor plagued the Maevan coast.”
“Yes,” I added. “Little did the raiders know that they didn’t scatter or intimidate the fourteen clans of Maevana. Rather, the Hilds’ violence united them beneath a queen.”
“And Liadan was chosen because …” Cartier prodded.
“Because she held magic,” Ciri said.
“Because she united the clans,” I responded. “It wasn’t just because Liadan wielded the magic of her ancestors. It was because she was a warrior, a leader, and she brought her people together as one.”
Cartier stopped his pacing. His hands were linked behind his back, but his eyes found mine through the morning sunshine and shadows. For a moment, one slender wondrous moment, he almost smiled at me.
“Well said, Brienna.”
“But Master Cartier,” Ciri protested. “Both of you just said that she was chosen because of the magic.”
Any hint of a smile was gone as his eyes moved from me to her. “She held powerful magic, yes, but need I remind you of how the Kavanaghs’ magic behaved in battle?”
“It went astray,” I said softly, but Cartier and Ciri heard me. “Magic gained a will of its own during battle and bloodshed. It turned on the Kavanaghs; it corrupted their minds, their motivations.”
“So what did Liadan do?” Cartier asked me.
“She did not fight the Hilds with magic. She fought with sword and shield, as if she were born of another House, as if she did not possess magic at all.”
Cartier did not need to affirm my response. I saw the pleasure in his eyes, that I had remembered a lesson from so long ago, a lesson he probably gave thinking we had not listened.
Ciri hefted a loud sigh, and the moment was broken.
“Yes, Ciri?” Cartier inquired with raised brows.
“This has been pleasant, listening to the two of you recount the story of the first queen,” she began. “But Maevan history does not mean much to me, not like it does to Brienna.”
“So what would you like to talk about, then?”
She shifted in her chair. “Perhaps you can prepare us for the solstice. Who are these patrons attending? What can Brienna and I expect?”
As much as I enjoyed talking to Cartier about Maevan history, Ciri was right. I was, once again, trapped by things of the past instead of looking to the coming days. Because knowledge about Maevan queens was probably not the sort of thing that hooked a Valenian patron. As far as I knew, Maevana recognized the passions but did not embrace them.
Cartier pulled back his chair and finally sat, lacing his fingers as he looked at us. “I fear that I cannot tell you much about the solstice, Ciri. I do not know the patrons the Dowager has invited.”
“But, Master—”
He held up his finger and Ciri quieted, although I could see the indignant red rise in her cheeks.
“I may not be able to tell you much,” he said. “But I can give you both a little hint about the patrons. There will be three of them seeking a passion of knowledge, one for each branch.”
“Branch?” Ciri echoed.
“Think back to our very first lesson, a long time ago,” Cartier said. “Remember how I told you that knowledge is broken into three branches?”
“The historian,” I murmured, to whet her memory.
She glanced at me, the knowledge slowly trickling back to her. “The historian, the physician, and the teacher.”
He nodded in affirmation. “Both of you need to prepare your approach for each of these three patrons.”
“But how do we do that, Master Cartier?” Ciri asked. She tapped her fingers over the table anxiously, and I wanted to tell her she had nothing to worry over; she would undoubtedly impress all three of the patrons.
“For the historian, you should have an impressive lineage memorized; you should be able to talk of any member of that lineage. Preferably, you should focus on the royal kindred,” Cartier explained. “For the physician, you should be prepared to talk about any bone, any muscle, any organ of the body, as well as trauma and wounds. And for the teacher … well, this one is more difficult. The best advice I could give you both is to exemplify that you can conquer any subject as well as instruct any student.”
He must have seen the glazed look in our eyes. Again, he almost smiled as he crossed his legs and said, “I’ve overwhelmed you. Both of you take the rest of the morning and prepare for the solstice.”
Ciri at once pushed back from her chair, eager to get away and mull over what he had just told us. I was slower to rise, once more feeling that strange confliction … the need to stay with him and ask him to teach me more warring against the desire to sit alone and try to sort it all out on my own.
I had just walked past his chair, heading to the open door when I heard his voice, soft and gentle, say my name.
“Brienna.”
I paused. Ciri must have heard it too, for she stopped on the threshold to frown over her shoulder. She watched me retreat back to him before she vanished down the corridor.
“Master?”
He looked up at me. “You are doubting yourself.”
I drew in a deep breath, ready to deny it, to feign confidence. But the words withered. “Yes. I worry that a patron will not want me. I worry that I do not deserve my cloak.”
“And why would you believe such?” he asked.
I thought about telling him all the reasons why, but that would require me to extend back to that fateful day when I had first sat in Magnalia’s hall, eavesdropping. The day I had first met him, when his unexpected entrance had drowned out the name of my father.
“You remember what I told you,” Cartier said, “the day you asked me to become your master, to teach you knowledge in three years?”
I nodded. “Yes, I remember. You said I would have to work twice as hard. That while my sisters were enjoying their afternoons, I would be studying.”
“And have you done such?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I have done everything you have told me to do.”
“Then why do you doubt yourself?”
I glanced away, looking to the bookshelves. I didn’t feel like explaining it to him; it would bare far too much of my heart.
“Would it encourage you to know that I have chosen your constellation?”
That bold statement brought my eyes back to his. I stared down at him, a prince on his throne of knowledge, and felt my pulse quicken. This was his gift to me, a master to his student. He would chose a constellation for me, have it replicated on the heart of my passion cloak. Stars that would belong only to me, to mark my impassionment.
He wasn’t supposed to tell me that he was preparing my cloak. Yet he had. And it made me think of his own cloak, blue as the wild cornflower, and the stars that belonged to him. It was the constellation of Verene, a chain of stars that foretold triumph despite loss and trials.
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Master Cartier.” I began to leave, but felt hung once more between the door and his chair.
“Is there something else you long to ask me, Brienna?”
I came back around to him, meeting his gaze. “Yes. Do you have a book about the Stone of Eventide?”
His brows rose. “The Stone of Eventide? What makes you ask about it?”
“That illustration of Liadan Kavanagh …” I began shyly, remembering how she had worn the stone about her neck.
“Ah yes.” Cartier rose from his chair and opened his leather satchel. I watched as he sifted through the books he carried, at last bringing forth an old tattered volume wrapped in a protective sheet of vellum. “Here. Pages eighty through one hundred will tell you all about the stone.”
I accepted the book, minding its fragile binds. “Have you always carried this book around?” I found it odd that he would, because I saw the Maevan printing emblem on it. And who bothered to tote around a tome on Maevan lore?
“I knew one day you would ask for it,” Cartier responded.
I didn’t know what to say. So I curtsied to him, dismissing myself without another word.
That afternoon did not find me with Cartier in a private lesson, because we both forgot that the tailor was coming to measure the ardens for our solstice dresses. But I was never one to be seen lacking a book. I stood in the hall beside Ciri as we waited for our measurements, my fingers turning the delicate, speckled pages of the Maevan lore book Cartier had given me.
“Listen to this, Ciri,” I said, my eyes rushing over the words. “‘The origin of the Stone of Eventide is still largely speculated about, but legends claim that it was found at the bottom of a cave pond in the Killough Mountains. It was retrieved by a Kavanagh maiden, who took the stone to the clan elders. After many deliberations, the Kavanaghs decided to bind their magic to the stone, which slowly led to the digression of their ability to shapeshift into dragons.’”
I was enchanted by the lore, but when Ciri continued to remain quiet, my eyes drifted to her, to see her standing rigid against the wall, her gaze stubbornly fastened to the wainscoting.
“Ciri?”
“I do not care about the Stone of Eventide,” she said. “In fact, I do not wish to hear about it at all. I have enough things to crowd my mind these days.”
I shut the book, my thoughts quickly sifting through my memory of that morning, trying to find the source of her irritation. “What is wrong, Ciri?”
“I cannot believe I never saw it until now,” she continued.
“Saw what?”
At last, she turned her eyes to me. They were cold, the blue of ice ready to crack. “That Master Cartier favors you.”
I stood, frozen by her claim. And then my words rushed forward, incredulous. “He does not! Ciri, honestly … Master Cartier does not like anyone.”
“For seven years, I have striven to impress him, to gain his favor, to try and get even a tiny smile out of him.” Her face was exceptionally pale, the envy burning bright and hot within her. “And then you come along. Did you see how he looked at you today? How he wanted to smile at you? It was as if I was not in that room as you both prattled on and on about Maevan queens and magic.”
“Ciri, please,” I whispered, my throat suddenly hoarse as her words sank into me.
“And then he couldn’t help himself,” she continued. “He had to hold you back and tell you that he had chosen your constellation. Why would he tell you that? Why wouldn’t he say the same to me? Oh, that’s right—you’re his pet, his favorite.”
My cheeks warmed as I realized she had been eavesdropping on us. I didn’t know what to say; my own temper was roused, but arguing with her would be as foolish as banging my head against the wall. All the same, she stared at me, daring me to oppose her.
That was when the tailor opened the door and called for Ciri.
I felt the brush of her passing, breathed in the fragrance of lilies that trailed her as she disappeared into the dressing room, the tailor shutting the door.
Slowly, I slid to the floor, my legs feeling like water. I pulled my knees up and held them close to my chest, staring at the wall. My head began to throb, and I wearily rubbed my temples.
I had never thought that Master Cartier favored me. Not once. And it baffled me that Ciri would think such rubbish.
There were certain rules that masters and mistresses followed very closely at Magnalia House. They did not show favoritism to one of the ardens. They evaluated us by a certain rubric at the solstice, far removed from bias and prejudices, although they could provide some level of guidance. They did not bestow a passion cloak if an arden failed to master. And while their modes of teaching ranged from dancing to mock debates, they abided by one cardinal rule: they never touched us.
Master Cartier was nigh perfect. He wouldn’t dare break a rule.
I was thinking of this, my eyes shut, pressing my hands to my flushed cheeks, when I smelled a faint tendril of smoke. I drew it in, deep to my heart … the scent of roasting wood, of crushed leaves, of long, tangled grass … the metallic aroma of steel being warmed over fire … wind carved from bright blue skies free of clouds … and opened my eyes. This was not a scent of Magnalia House.
The light seemed to have shifted around me, no longer warm and golden but cool and stormy. And then came a distant voice, the voice of a man.
My lord? My lord, she is here to see you …
I rose shakily to my feet and leaned against the wall, staring down the corridor. It sounded like that voice was coming toward me, the weathered and raspy words of an older man, yet I stood alone in the hall. I briefly wondered if there was a secret door I didn’t know about, if one of the servants was about to emerge from it.
My lord?
My assumption faded when I realized he was speaking in Dairine, Maevana’s tongue.
I was one moment from stepping forward, to search and discover who was speaking, when the dressing room door groaned open.
Ciri emerged, ignoring me as she walked down the hall, and the light returned to summer gold, the cloying scent of burning things evaporated, and the stranger’s beckoning fizzled into dust motes.
“Brienna?” the tailor inquired.
I forced myself to walk across the hall to him, to step inside the dressing room. I carefully set Cartier’s book aside, made sure that I stood still and quiet on the pedestal as the tailor began to take my measurements. But within, my head was pounding, my pulse darting along my wrists and neck as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked pale as bone, my brown eyes sadly bloodshot, my jaw clenched. I looked as if I had just seen a ghost.
Most Valenians would claim that they were not superstitious. But we were. It was why we sprinkled herbs on our thresholds at the start of every season, why weddings only took place on Fridays, why no one ever wanted an odd number of sons. I knew that saints could appear to sinners, but this … this almost seemed as if Magnalia House was haunted.