Chapter I

AILIS

The silver thread had knotted. I stared at it. It remained knotted. This was unreasonable of it.

I had been given enough thread for the border and very little besides. Mistress Seryn had measured it herself before setting the skein beside my frame, which meant I could not cut away the knot unless I wished to explain why a human embroiderer required more silver than the pattern demanded.

I did not.

I bent closer and worked the point of my needle beneath the smallest loop. The table jumped.

My needle went into my finger.

I pulled my hand back.

A bright bead of blood rose beside my nail.

Not on the cloth. I checked twice.

Then I put my finger into my mouth.

Only after that did I look toward the windows.

No one else in the workroom was sewing anymore. I had noticed this some time ago and continued sewing because the silver thread would not become less knotted merely because men were killing one another beyond the walls.

Also, I preferred the thread. The shutters had been closed that morning, but not well. A narrow blade of daylight showed between them. Dust trembled through it whenever another distant blow reached the stronghold.

“What was that?”

I looked toward the girl opposite me.

Tessa had been holding the same length of red wool for long enough that I suspected she had forgotten what she meant to do with it.

“I don’t know.”

“Closer?”

“I don’t know that either.”

She looked disappointed.

I returned to the knot.

People had begun asking me questions as though five years among the Vaelir had somehow taught me siegecraft. I knew how much linen a household might waste when nobody troubled to mend it. I knew which Veyrathi dyes stained the fingers for days and which only pretended to. I knew that Mistress Seryn counted silver thread and did not count brown.

None of this had prepared me to judge the distance of an army by the trembling of a table.

The loop loosened.

There.

I drew the thread carefully through.

A bell began ringing somewhere above us.

Tessa stood.

Three other women did the same.

I remained seated for one stitch longer.

It was a very small stitch. There was no reason to leave it half-finished.

Then someone ran past the workroom door.

Another followed. I set down my needle.

Mistress Seryn came in before I could rise.

“Frames down. All of you.”

Nobody argued.

That frightened me more than the bell.

Mistress Seryn liked arguing.

She crossed the room quickly, checking the frames as if Aedrath might judge Veyrath by the tidiness of its embroidery rooms.

When she reached mine, she looked at the dark wool stretched beneath my hands.

“Take out your needle.”

I had already done so.

She held out her palm.

I looked at it.

Then at her.

“Ailis.”

I gave her the needle.

She counted the others.

Of course she did.

There were soldiers in the stronghold. A bell was ringing. Somewhere outside, an army had apparently come to kill them all, and Mistress Seryn still wished to know where her needles were.

I disliked how reassuring I found this.

Then she took the silver thread.

That was less reassuring.

“Where are we going?” Tessa asked.

“Below.”

“Why?”

“For safety.”

I looked at Mistress Seryn.

She did not look at me.

I folded my hands.

It seemed wiser.

The corridor outside had changed since morning.

The walls were the same. The rushes still needed changing in the same places. The little painted chest beside Mistress Seryn’s door still had one crooked foot.

But every Vaelir I saw was moving quickly.

A servant hurried past carrying folded linen against her chest. Another had a bundle of candles. Two soldiers stood at the end of the passage where there were usually none.

One of them had blood on his mail.

I stopped looking at him.

We were taken downstairs.

Not all the way at first.

Humans appeared from other parts of the household as we went: kitchen servants, laundresses, stable hands, men from the lower storerooms. I recognized faces without knowing names. A woman from the kitchens had flour caught in the lines of her knuckles.

I wondered whether she had been making bread when the bell rang.

I nearly asked.

Then a soldier told us to keep moving.

The stairs narrowed below the kitchens.

I had never been down them.

I looked past Tessa’s shoulder as we descended.

Bare stone. No plaster. No rushes. Iron brackets on the walls where lamps had been set far enough apart to leave dark spaces between them.

Five years in the stronghold, and there were still rooms I had never seen. I would have preferred to discover this one under different circumstances.

At the bottom stood an iron-bound door.

“Inside.”

I chose a place against the wall because there was nothing else to choose.

Tessa sat beside me.

The woman with flour on her hands settled near the door with two other kitchen servants. More people came after them until the room felt much smaller than it had when I entered.

Then the guards shut the door.

The lock turned.

I looked at it.

Tessa did too.

“For safety,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

Neither of us said anything else.

A deep sound rolled through the stone not long after. Tessa caught my wrist.

I looked down at her hand.

She released me.

“Sorry.”

“You can hold it.” She looked at me.

“My wrist.”

“Oh.”

“If it helps.”

She took it again.

Her fingers were cold.

I wished I had kept my shawl.

It was hanging over the back of my stool in the workroom.

Blue wool. Eilin work.

The hem had begun to come loose last winter, and I had repaired it with thread that did not quite match because matching thread had not been available to me.

I had always meant to mend it properly.

Another blow came.

Tessa’s grip tightened.

I thought about my shawl.

That was foolish.

The stronghold might be falling.

My shawl remained upstairs.

Both things could be true.

“Do you think they’re inside?” she asked.

“Aedrath?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve heard the stories.”

“So have you.”

“You listen better.”

Voices passed outside the door.

Both of us went quiet.

Veyrathi.

I caught only pieces before they moved farther down the passage.

Eastern wall. Men needed above. General -- Then nothing.

Tessa leaned closer.

“What did they say?”

“Something about the eastern wall.”

“And?”

“Men are needed somewhere.”

“And?”

“I don’t know.”

“You heard a name.”

I had.

“Aodren.”

Her fingers tightened around my wrist again.

For three days I had heard that name everywhere without once hearing the same story attached to it.

Yesterday General Aodren had lost hundreds of men.

That morning he had lost none.

A kitchen servant swore he had torn a gate from its hinges himself.

Someone else said he was too beautiful to need to.

I had not understood the connection.

I still did not.

Another crash sounded somewhere above.

Someone cried out.

The room went quiet.

Nothing followed.

Then running. Many feet. Voices. Too muffled for words.

The sound passed overhead and faded.

The old man near the far wall had been making a soft rasping sound through his nose.

He was not making it anymore.

No one mentioned that.

I rubbed my thumb across the place where my needle had pierced it. The little wound had already closed.

My border was still upstairs.

I could see exactly where I had stopped.

One silver leaf finished.

The next barely begun.

If the frame overturned, the stretched wool might tear.

I hoped someone had moved it.

I immediately felt ashamed for hoping this.

There were people fighting above us.

Men were bleeding. Someone might already be dead.

I still hoped they had moved my frame.

Shame did not stop me hoping.

The lamp outside the door began to gutter.

The flame shrank.

Rose.

Shrank again.

Then went out.

Nobody spoke.

Another lamp farther down the passage gave enough light for me to see the outline of Tessa’s knees beside mine.

I waited for footsteps.

None came.

Tessa’s hand shifted in mine.

“They’ll replace it.”

“Yes.”

The old man started rasping through his nose again.

I was unexpectedly glad to hear it.

The second lamp burned on.

Nobody came.