and Froi had all struck up a profound bond with the heir of the southern throne, Jehr, and they all despaired at not having heard from the southern Yuts for at least two winters now.
‘I think those northerners have done something to Jehr. It’s been too long. I think we’re going to have to accept that Yutlind Sud is gone,’ Finnikin said.
They heard a sound in the hallway and then Jasmina’s chatter, and Isaboe saw Finnikin’s face soften. Her heart sang to see his smile. Sometimes she was frightened that Finnikin would never understand their daughter, in the way he didn’t understand most women. Jasmina ran into the room, eyes wandering, searching, and lighting up with joy when she saw her father. Finnikin leapt out of bed and held out his arms, and she ran to him. ‘Fa,’ she said with delight, and he pretended to collapse from the weight of her until they were lying beside Isaboe.
‘I like the sound of Fa,’ he said.
‘She’s copying Vestie.’
‘Tell me again why she has to call us Isaboe and Finnikin?’ he asked.
Jasmina was smothering them both with kisses.
‘In case anything happens to us,’ Isaboe replied. ‘I read it in one of the chronicles of the ancients to do with child-rearing. The more a child gets used to comfort terms such as Fa and Mumma, the more they will grieve if something happens to them. It’s the words they miss using.’
Jasmina squeezed them all together, her little arms around both their necks, and she practised her counting with a kiss to each cheek.
‘Yes, I can see it working,’ Finnikin said dryly. ‘Can we rid ourselves of the child-rearing books and let her call us whatever she wants?’
Isaboe laughed at Jasmina’s antics and he kissed them both. Suddenly the three of them were knocked aside by a force beyond reckoning and she knew by the thunderous look on Finnikin’s face that she’d have to explain the hound’s presence on the bed.
‘We were all so sad and he cried and cried for you,’ she explained. ‘We all did.’
She patted the dog.
‘He’s only slept with us when he’s cold and lonely,’ she said.
Finnikin stared at her with disbelief.
‘Isaboe, he is a hound. He will feign loneliness for the rest of his life just to lie on this bed. My bed. I was the king of this bed.’
He was woeful, but at the sound of the dog snoring, Isaboe could see a ghost of a smile on his face.
She could already hear the world they had to tend to outside calling to them, but for now it was just the three of them … and the hound, and Isaboe understood that happiness came in such moments and she savoured it.
Chapter 19
I see Tesadora in the woods, scraping sap from the trees. She knows I am there and she turns, holds my stare. She knows me, she knows me, she can see deep within.
‘Is it true that you love me more than the Lumateran Queen?’ I ask.
It’s the news that I’ve heard, it makes my blood sing. She walks to me, smiling, takes my face in her hands. But standing so closely, I see the truth in her eyes.
‘I love Isaboe of Lumatere with all my heart.’
I pull free from her grip and I clench both my fists.
‘Do you love her more than the scarred one?’ I demand.
‘His name is Perri and he doesn’t like to be reminded of his scar. So don’t mention it,’ she adds with a mocking whisper.
‘Would he be handsome to you without it?’
‘I was the one who put it there,’ she says with a shrug. ‘And he’s handsome enough with it.’
‘Do you love your Perri more than the Queen of Lumatere?’ I ask again.
‘If I love him less, does that make it less than love?’
‘But if you had to choose between them?’
‘I don’t want to live in a world where I have to choose,’ she says, and I hear fury in her voice and I dance on its embers. It’s for the other, that bitch queen who dared threaten my life. I’ll kill her for that, I’ll slice her to pieces. A jab to the side and a blade ear to ear.
‘And if your scarred lover doesn’t come down the mountain because she forbids him?’ I ask. ‘What then?’
‘Then so be it,’ Tesadora says. ‘They’ll both lose me.’
‘And it will just be you and me,’ I say. ‘That’s why you stayed in the valley. For me.’
And she looks at me sadly and I see tears pool in her eyes.
‘I stayed here because Isaboe can live without me. You can’t. You’re a pathetic lost spirit with no one.’
And I hold back my hurt, Froi. The hurt that you’ve seen.
‘Put away those savage teeth,’ she laughs. ‘They don’t scare me the slightest.’
And she grips my chin so I cannot break free.
‘Do you know what I just did, my broken little savage?’ she asks. ‘I told a truth. Do you understand the power truth has to hurt? Ask me why I stay again and I’ll find better words.’
If it was you, would you ask, Froi, or would you just walk away? But I’m desperate to know and I wait for the strength.
‘Is it true that you love me more than the Queen?’ I say and my voice is small and frightened. I don’t want to hear this truth twice.
‘I love the Queen with all my heart,’ she says. ‘But, for now, my place is here, because I’ll do anything to protect you. I can’t explain why. You’re on your own and I can’t bear the idea of someone hurting you.’
I unclench my fists. I like her new words.
‘Better?’ she asks and I nod in relief.
‘Understand what your truth does to others,’ she says. ‘Others such as Phaedra, my savage cat. Think for a moment. Not every thought in your head has to come out of your mouth.’
I don’t understand.
‘Learn to cloak your words, Quintana. Not with lies, but without so much truth. Do you want everyone like Phaedra to walk away from you, bleeding in spirit?’
I stay next to her and I work alongside her, watching the way she tears the bark into strips, and when everything’s silent, she looks deep in my eyes.
‘Who else is in there with you? Who else, my noble little savage?’
And I feel the tears in my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.
But she takes my hand and presses it to her cheek and I speak words I’ve never said aloud.
‘Sometimes … sometimes … it seems I’m bits and pieces and she … my sister, the Reginita … she was able to make sense of it all. I’d say, “Look after them! I don’t have the time,” and she’d say, “They’re part of us now. Not whole beings, but part of you. They want to go home, but they can’t. Because they’re not complete.”’
Tesadora stares at me, her face pale.
‘And I don’t understand her,’ I say. ‘So don’t ask me more.’
‘What are you hiding from me?’ Tesadora asks.
And I place my head against her heart. ‘Tesadora,’ I say. ‘I think the half-dead spirit of your child lives within me.’
Chapter 20
Phaedra heard the crunch of leaves coming closer and closer and hid deeper inside the shelter, praying it
