The cassia was magnificent, she couldn’t deny it. It had been built piecemeal, half engulfed in turquoise vines and orange flowers, and the result was surprisingly charming.
She toured gardens and galleries, training yards where men and even a few women practiced fighting with hands, knives, swords, axes, and rezals. Libraries and kitchens, drawing rooms and private family quarters abutted public spaces. The entire fortress bustled with people, busy going about their tasks, most of them casting surreptitious eyes her way.
Finally, after five days of walking and touring, Janna brought her to a massive gate speckled with quatrefoil cutouts. “This is the last place to show you.”
In the yard behind them, felanas gathered, all of them watching with narrowed eyes and hard mouths, whispering about her. None of the snippets she caught were complimentary.
It was exhausting being universally loathed. That, more than anything, served as a constant reminder of why she had to leave. She would never be accepted here.
Klym peeked through the slats in the gate. Birds leaped on trees with massive fronds, and lush orange flowers and violet bugs with wings the size of her hand fluttered on sunbeams.
“The private garden of the regio. Reserved for him and his felanas only.”
“You mean just me?”
Janna nodded.
What a waste. “You’ve never been inside?”
“No. My mother used it, and my father’s secondary felanas, but the children are not allowed.”
Klym tugged open the gate, took a step on a quartzstone path into a paradise of turquoise and birdsong. She turned back toward Janna, but she was already closing the gate.
“I can’t enter. This is only for his wives... wife. Just you.”
“That’s ridiculous. What in the world would I do in here all alone?”
Janna frowned. “It’s never happened before. A regio with only one wife.”
That took her aback for a moment. Why was Tor getting rid of them? Because he hated being tied down and more wives meant more obligations?
Janna backed away, but from the way her eyes took one last look across the garden, Klym could tell she was tempted, and curious.
Klym glanced behind her at the jungle-garden surrounding her. “I can’t keep this all to myself.”
Janna’s gaze darted to the pack of felanas behind them.
“Oh, for goodness sake. Come in.”
Janna’s dark eyes were wide. “It’s not right.”
“Is it illegal? Will you be arrested?”
“No, but…” Her face twisted with indecision.
Klym couldn’t help but laugh at the youthful expression. She opened the gate and grabbed Janna’s hand, tugging her closer. “I insist.” She pulled her down a path between two enormous flowering bushes. “Let’s invite them! Everyone. Surely, they couldn’t resist seeing the one forbidden place in the cassia. And I could get to know them.”
“Why do you care?” Janna asked, face twisted with something that almost looked like suspicion, winding a strand of her hair around her finger. “They’re leaving.”
Klym couldn’t help but smile because the question was so practical, so quintessentially Tor. “An emotional journey doesn’t end with leaving home. They’re all being displaced because of me.”
Janna stared down at the braided length of dark hair she was toying with. “Kindness on Vesta isn’t always rewarded.”
“Nor is it on Argentus.”
Janna lifted a shoulder and turned to amble down the path, and they fell silent as they roamed past ponds and pools, fountains and statues so old they crumbled. For a moment, when Janna pointed out an especially beautiful grotto, Klym could almost pretend that she was back at the Institute with a friend.
Except Janna wasn’t a friend, not yet, and this wasn’t the Institute where she’d been safe and protected, cloistered and designed for breeding.
This was Vesta, where she owed nothing to anyone, except one gigantic alien man.
She looked up at the only balcony overlooking the gardens.
“It’s the regio’s balcony,” said Janna.
Klym stared up for a long time, but if Tor was in his office, he wasn’t looking over the balcony. She hadn’t seen him all day, which was beyond unsettling. It felt like her skin was crawling with the need to find him, see his eyes, smell him, touch him.
She turned to Janna. “What do they want?”
“Pardon?”
“The felanas. Do they want to stay here? Go home? If they tell me what they want, I could speak with Tor. Maybe I can help.”
Janna touched her finger to an unopened blossom. Its smooth petals were almost white at the base. The corner of her mouth tightened. “Forgive me, my lady, for being blunt, but they will not take kindly to offers of help from you. They...”
“Hate me.” Klym finished for her. “I hear them. They call me the senashba. ‘Foreign whore,’ no? Anio paggia. That one’s not so insulting. My personal favorite is farina miganea.”
That one had made her laugh, thinking about the incident on Frigorria. The devil’s ass hairs.
Janna coughed into her hand and didn’t meet Klym’s eyes.
“I can imagine how they feel. Very well, in fact. I’d like to help them, but I don’t know how.”
Janna’s fingers continued tracing the flower, and she sucked in her bottom lip. “My, lady, I think—”
“Klym,” she said firmly.
“Klym.” Finally, Janna looked at her. “I think the people of Argentus are softer, easier maybe. The people here are not so gentle. Most of them see kindness as a weakness. Don’t underestimate the strength of their hatred.”
“There is strength in being kind even when it’s hard.” Klym took a deep breath. “I’d like to help them. But to do that, I need to get to know them.”
Janna made a face. “You need to discuss this with Tor.”
“I will.”
Janna sighed.
“And I will find the steward, but from this moment on, these gardens are open to all women of the Roq.” Klym sat down on the stonewall that circled a pond. “Tell me more about the food shortages and
