Exile's Valor

Chosen wanted. She settled, finally, on the gratitude. There was no point in being annoyed, anyway. Caryo would do what Caryo did; the two of them didn’t always see eye to eye.

:It hasn’t happened,: she reminded Caryo. :And what would be better—him, or someone that was beholden to one or more of my Council, someone we couldn’t trust not to have a dozen people whispering in his ear?:

:Who’s to say your precious Prince doesn’t have that baggage already?: Caryo countered, then softened. :I suppose that you’re right. And besides, if he doesn’t take the bait tonight, and he can’t convince you—:

:Then even if I eventually marry him anyway for alliance purposes, it won’t be until I’ve managed to control my own feelings,: Selenay said firmly. :If I am doomed to an alliance marriage, it will be with all my armor on.:

She said that, but underneath her words was the yearning, the hope, that she’d never be required to live up to those words. What was more, she wasn’t entirely certain that she could. She thought that she covered it well, however. Certainly Caryo seemed mollified.

:Then, in that case—go, and see whatever is to be seen with clear eyes,: Caryo told her, and slipped out of her mind.

She heaved a sigh of relief. That could have gone very badly, and the one thing that she could not bear would have been for Caryo to be angry with her.

On the other hand, if Caryo never could grow to like Karath, well, too bad. There were even Heralds who didn’t particularly care for one another, and not even all the Companions got along in perfect accord.

On the other hand, maybe she would mellow over time. When Alberich had first been Chosen, there had even been a group of young Companions who had tried to attack him. Now there wasn’t one of them that wouldn’t defend him to the death, and when he got into it with one of the Trainees—as he had over the broken mirror—even the Companions of those Trainees backed the Weaponsmaster.

If Karath truly loved her, then with luck Caryo would come around eventually. It could be just a matter of time and patience.

She dismissed the whole situation from her mind. Tonight would be hers—more truly than that moment on the battlefield when she became Queen, more truly than the moment of her coronation, because in both cases, it had been the Queen, not Selenay, who had received the accolades, whose life had been forever altered. Tonight, it would be Selenay, and not the Queen.

She glanced at the windows, and was gratified to see that the last rays of sunset were gone, and the light outside was deepening into twilight. It was nearly time for the masque. All the guests would have been assembled by now, and would be waiting for the appearance of the Moon Maidens to begin the real festivities.

“Are my ladies ready?” she asked one of the maids.

“In the antechamber, Majesty,” the girl said promptly.

She nodded. “Good. Then that’s enough fussing with the gown; it is never going to be more perfect than it is now. Hand me my mask.”

Wordlessly, one of the maids gave it to her; she fitted it over her face, and the maid tied it in place over the coif, then settled the long, trailing veil over her hair, now so tightly braided and coiled under the coif that once the chaplet was pressed down over the veil and coif, not a hair was to be seen.

The world as viewed through the eye holes of the mask was clear enough, perhaps a little obscured, as if by a thin mist, but no worse than that. The face presented to the mirror, however, was a featureless silver oval, more than a bit uncanny.

The legend of the Maidens of the Moon was right out of Rethwellan, not Valdemar, and told of a young prince—supposedly one of Karath’s ancestors—who met a maid dancing in his garden by the light of the full moon and fell in love with her, only to discover that she was one of the twelve daughters of the King of the Moon. He went through many harrowing adventures to get to the Moon-King’s kingdom to claim her, only to be faced by a final test—pick her out from among her twelve identical sisters as they danced before him. She hoped that was enough of a hint to Karath of what he was expected to do tonight.

“Let’s go down,” she told the maids, and went out to her antechamber to collect her eleven ladies.

But she was not the one in the lead; she let Lady Jenice have that honor. She was determined not to give Karath any more hint than that rosebud—and not to give anyone else any hint, so that no one could prevent her from escaping from the throng with him if he chose right. She had instructed all of her ladies to speak only in whispers and never to so much as hint as to their identities, pointing out that the whole purpose of a masquerade was to keep everyone guessing (insofar as that was possible) until the unmasking. And everyone taking part in the masque had agreed with alacrity. One or two of her ladies, she suspected, had certain suspicions of their own lovers and were thinking to see if they could be caught out. One or two she knew were hoping to use the opportunity for some clandestine flirtations of their own. The rest were all simply intrigued by the idea, which was more than enough to keep them in the spirit of the game.