back. The Princess walked to where Florenza was still retching and weeping. When Jorja noticed Quintana approaching her daughter with the spear, she put a shaking hand on Florenza’s shoulder to quieten her. No one spoke as Quintana bent before Florenza, gripping the girl’s face with one hand, studying it hard.
‘Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories, Florenza of Nebia. Remember that, or you’ll be vomiting for the rest of your life.’
Florenza stared up at Quintana and something passed between them as she nodded solemnly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘And Tippideaux of Paladozza, the Provincaro De Lancey’s daughter, has the prettiest face in Charyn,’ she continued to inform them all. ‘Not you. So don’t believe a word your mother says.’
She stood up and looked down at their bounty of fish, satisfied.
‘If we can build a fire tonight, we’ll eat well,’ she said. ‘Phaedra and I will collect the kindling.’
‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Cora asked. ‘You’re beginning to waddle with that load.’
‘Waddling helps me clear my head of your voices,’ Quintana responded. ‘It lessens my need to kill you all.’
‘Then off you go,’ Cora muttered. ‘Keep an eye on her, Phaedra.’
Quintana was up to something. That Phaedra knew. All the same, she followed her into the undergrowth, picking up anything that could pass as kindling. There was plenty to choose from and Phaedra hummed as she worked, pleased with what she was able to collect.
‘I’m getting good at this,’ she said to Quintana, holding up her bundle of twigs for emphasis.
They reached a steep slope that afforded them a view of a lower clearing.
‘Put it down,’ Quintana ordered. ‘Let’s go.’
Phaedra stared at her stash. ‘Go where?’ she asked.
Quintana was already gripping a vine and half-sliding down the incline. Phaedra dropped the kindling and quickly followed.
‘You’re going to hurt yourself!’
‘He’s down there,’ Quintana whispered when Phaedra caught up with her, both of them hiding behind a waterberry tree.
‘Who?’
‘He’ll arm us. I know he will.’
‘
Quintana pointed down. In a deep, narrow gully Tesadora was bent over, tugging at the exposed roots of plants growing around its edges. But it was her lover Perri that Quintana was pointing at. He sat with his back against a tree in some sort of contemplation. Quintana went to step out and Phaedra dragged her back.
‘If you dare mention what I saw them do, I will …’
They both heard a sound and looked up to see the Lumateran on his feet, alerted to their presence.
Tesadora noticed them as well, and climbed to where her lover stood, whispering to him, her eyes on Quintana with un bridled love.
‘You there, Lumateran,’ Quintana called out. ‘You’re to make me a few scabbards.’ Phaedra cringed, listening to the demand spoken in Charyn as if the Queen’s Guard would understand every word.
Quintana walked closer, handing Phaedra her spear to hold.
‘Like the ones you made him. Here. Here. And here.’ She pointed to both wrists and her shoulders. ‘So when they come to attack, I’ll …’
And then she did a quick show of what she’d do. Phaedra was quite enthralled. Perri studied Quintana and then a chuckle escaped from his lips. Quintana reached him and he held out a hand to gently touch her face. ‘What have we got here?’ he said in strange wonder.
Tesadora’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Tell her,’ she urged her lover. ‘Tell her about Froi. She’ll want to know.’
Quintana heard the name and clenched her fists so tight that Phaedra found herself dropping the spear and gripping both the girl’s hands, loosening her fingers.
‘You’re going to draw blood. Stop it.’
And blood she drew, but not her own. Quintana’s nails dug deep into Phaedra’s hands.
‘Let Phaedra go,’ Tesadora ordered gently. ‘You’re hurting her, Quintana.’
But she didn’t let go and Phaedra fought hard not to cry out in pain. And then Quintana was a heap on the ground before them as if she had willed the breath inside her to stop. Tesadora and Phaedra fell beside her. Perri didn’t speak, but when Quintana looked up to him, his smile was bittersweet.
‘So you’re the one Froi is running around Charyn searching for?’
‘Did he say my name?’ she asked, her voice cold. But Phaedra had learned to listen to the words and not the voice. The words craved love. The words were those that Phaedra thought over and over again at night. Did Lucian say her name? Did he think it or murmur it in his sleep like she did his?
Phaedra translated the Queen’s words, but Perri understood them well enough.
‘Did he have to?’ he asked Quintana. ‘When your name is written all over his heart?’
A smile appeared on Tesadora’s face. ‘Ah, you’re getting soft in your old age,’ she said to him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Perri held out a hand to Quintana and helped her to her feet, inspecting her wrists, as if measuring them for the scabbards.
‘You too, Phaedra,’ Perri said and her face flushed at the sound of him saying her name. She hadn’t even realised he knew who she was, despite the nights he had come up to the mountain and shared her table with Lucian.
He made a gesture with his hand, asking them to turn around.
‘I don’t know how to use a weapon,’ Phaedra said over her shoulder.
‘You’re a Mont’s wife,’ he said gruffly. ‘So you better learn.’
She heard an intake of breath and turned to watch as he traced a finger along the lettering on Quintana’s nape and then along the marks on Phaedra’s.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘The mark of the lastborns,’ Quintana said.
‘I thought they were supposed to be exactly the same,’ he said to Tesadora in Lumateran.
Phaedra felt Tesadora’s coarse fingers on her neck.
‘They got it wrong,’ Tesadora insisted, surprise in her voice. ‘Those fools copied every lastborn with the same lettering as each other, but they’re different to yours, Quintana. Yours has stems on some of the letters. And a strange mark or two that seems nothing more than a dot.’
Phaedra thought of all those years when the Priests and her father’s advisors had tried to work out the meaning of the strange lettering. ‘It makes no sense,’ they’d say. To think that Quintana’s differed from hers and those of the rest of the lastborns frightened her. It made the Princess seem even less of this world.
‘On my thirteenth day of weeping when they grabbed me and tried to keep me down to copy the lettering, I was a snake,’ Quintana said. ‘I squirmed and I squirmed and I bit any man who dared come close.’ There was glee in her voice at the memory, her sharp little teeth showing. ‘I knew what they’d do to the lastborn girls, so I made a decree.’
Her stare was suddenly on Phaedra, blazing fiercely.
‘Did I keep old men from your bed of innocence, Phaedra of Alonso?’
Phaedra couldn’t speak. She remembered the women in her father’s residence. How they wept and wept at the thought of what would happen to her after she was marked. She shivered just to think of those awful days.
‘I remember it well,’ Phaedra said. ‘And then it was decreed that you and only you would give birth to the first and that any man or lastborn girl who tried would be punished by the gods. The women in my father’s residence thanked the gods that you were delusional.’
But there was nothing delusional about her. Phaedra stared at her in wonder. Quintana of Charyn had insisted on the decree to protect the lastborn girls. And in return, they mocked her madness.
‘You’re not going to start crying, are you, fool?’ Quintana asked bluntly. ‘It irritates me.’
Tesadora made a clucking sound of annoyance.
‘What did I tell you?’ she said to Quintana in a reprimanding voice.
Tesadora’s lover continued to study Quintana and in return she appraised him with arrogant curiosity, except
