uplifted, for all the world like an alabaster sculpture. And Rien jumped up and hustled the three steps to catch up with her sister, and as a result almost tripped over Pinion's trailing edge. Somehow she managed to enter the corridor, third in line but dripping all the dignity she could muster, and perversely glad she'd smoothed her hair.
Like Tristen—like Perceval—she raised her hands. And faced a corridor full of armed men and women, ten or more arrayed in ranks, all dressed in black and golden-brown.
The one in the front wore plain black, trousers and a constructed uniform jacket. He was of a height with Tristen, black hair hanging razor-cut to the edge of a lantern jaw, his eyes a dark-ringed hazel that caught the light. Rien's eyes widened—she'd known they were close, but not so close—and her hand darted out to close on Perceval's wrist and drag her down on one knee as Rien herself genuflected.
'Tristen,' said Benedick Conn, his gloved hand resting on the grip of his pistol. 'I thought you were dead.'
'I'm back,' said Tristen, and Rien did not think that anyone except she or Perceval was close enough to see him shaking like a leaf. 'And these are your daughters.'
15 sweet things grow in the cold
Benedick Conn both was and was not what Rien had expected. She knew him only as a portrait, as she had known Tristen—though Benedick's image in Rule did not wear black crepe. And now he stood before her and stared at Tristen, his lips moving on three syllables. He looked past Tristen, from Rien to Perceval and from Perceval to Rien.
'My daughters,' he said, out loud this time, and then extended his right hand to Tristen. 'Thank you.'
They clasped. And then Tristen grasped Benedick by the wrist and pivoted, bringing him around.
The men and women behind Benedick shuffled and stomped, but Rien saw the man—her father, not that she believed it in her heart any more now than she had in the dungeon when Perceval told her—make some gesture that quieted them. And then Tristen's impelling grasp became a propelling one, a firm push against Benedick's shoulder. Rien had a strong sense that even as Benedick allowed Tristen to move him, he was considering his options, and some of them were violent.
And then they had stepped apart, and Benedick ex-tended both hands, one each to Perceval and Rien.
His daughters allowed him to draw them to their feet.
Perceval looked as Rien imagined she must have when she'd just been knighted. Her face held a kind of tense wonder, and Rien thought back to her casual bravado— we'll just go and see Father—and bit her lip.
It was easy to forget that Perceval was, more or less, only her own age. That resemblance was there again, Benedick's eyes both paler and clearer than Perceval's, but set as deep. And his face was so obviously stamped on hers that Rien again had no doubt of the relationship.
But whom did Rien look like? It wasn't any of these tall, rangy creatures with their hands like spades and the weapons on their hips.
'Father,' Perceval said, 'do you remember me?'
She squeezed his fingers and let go of them. Rien couldn't, just yet, and Benedick did not seem inclined to make her. Still, Rien caught herself stepping left and crowding Perceval, as though she were the only reliable thing in the universe. And Perceval didn't seem to mind, or at least, Pinion draped around Rien's shoulders warmly.
And meanwhile Benedick, with the knuckles of his one free hand, reached out and brushed Perceval's shaved head. He touched Pinion on the proximal strut, close to where it joined Perceval's body. 'Who did this to you?'
Arms folded across her rib cage, chin lifted, Perceval could have been a statue labeled
His face gave away nothing, but Rien was still holding his hand. She felt the tendons tighten, and then the moment when he asserted control. 'That's a message to me,' he said. 'I am terribly sorry it was you who absorbed the blow, Sir Perceval, and I will do what I can to make it right.'
The calmness of his tone made Rien want to strike him.
But then Benedick turned to Rien, and she could not think of anything except how tall he was, and how he was looking straight at her, and that his hand that still held hers was very strong. The heavy lines from his nose to his mouth-corners made it look as if he never smiled. His hair was black as lacquer.
'I am sorry,' he said. 'It was my father's choice that you be raised in ignorance, Rien, and I did what I could do to see that you received the best guidance available.'
'Head,' she said, understanding. 'Head was working for you.'
'Head works for no one except by choice,' he said. 'But I call hir a friend. Come along, please. Come home with me.'
Perceval had never seen a winter before.
Benedick's domaine was a Heaven, bigger than Mallory's, full of stark black-limbed trees, twigs rimed in ice. They came out on a high ledge overlooking a valley, of sorts, the whole thing dark with true night and frozen cold.
'You're on the bottom of the world,' Rien said, craning her neck back. Gavin—who had rejoined them— huddled against her throat under her hair. Perceval copied her. Far, far overhead, through panes frosted at the edges, she could see the sharp brilliance of stars.
The gravity was very light; Rien bounced on her toes. 'It gets
'Mirrors,' Perceval said, wondering to whom, exactly, she thought she had to prove herself. She would not glance at Benedick, or Tristen either, and see if they looked approving. Behind her, the harness on the militia jingled as they breathed. 'There are mirrors on darkside, to reflect light. As there are shadow panels on sunside.'
'My house is below,' said Benedick. Perceval could make out the lights, and thought
It fascinated her. She reached out and put her hand into it, watching Tristen's breath, as blue-white as his skin, curl between her fingers. He shot her a look, and then pursed his lips and blew to make her laugh.
And then he was receding, abruptly, falling away from her. Reaching out—lunging—until Rien and Benedick caught him by the arms and hauled him back. She was airborne—effortlessly, without strain—pulled away on beating wings. 'Pinion!' she said, but Pinion did not listen.
Last time, it had ferried her and Rien to safety. This time, there had been no evident danger, but nevertheless she was carried helplessly into the air and away. She shouted—uselessly, the words snatched off her lips by the wind of her motion—and even reached up over her own shoulders to pluck at the roots of the beating wings.
They were so much stronger than her fingers.
The air whistled across her scalp, tugged her halter. Flying with her own wings had taken concentration, the cooperation of her entire body. These just bore her along, sizzling through the air, nothing but a passenger. She crossed her arms over her chest to try to fight the wind.
And had an idea.
Both hands clawed over her right shoulder, fingertips battered by Pinion's leading edge. She stretched and caught, one hand then both, holding on, hauling with all the strength in her strong arms.
She pulled the wing down.
