A Throne for Sisters

She saw Sebastian smile. “At least you have the excuse of a whole different set of court dances out in Meinhalt. I’m simply not very good, and I’ve had tutors tell me that, so it must be true.”

Sophia put a hand on his arm. She knew firsthand what it was like to have cruel teachers. She doubted that any of the prince’s had beaten him, but there were ways to be cruel without ever laying a finger on someone.

“That’s a horrible thing to say to someone,” she said. “I’m sure you dance better than you think.”

“At the very least, we can learn together,” Sebastian said.

For the first couple of steps of the new dance, Sophia faltered, not knowing what to do. Then the obvious occurred to her: there was a whole room full of people around her who did know the steps to the dance, and who would have to think about them in order to be able to execute them.

She listened using her power, hoping that it would pick up everything she needed, using her eyes to catch the rest as she watched the rhythms of the other dancers. One girl a little way away seemed to be thinking her way through the steps with the concentration of someone who had been drilled in them by a dance tutor not too long ago.

“You’re picking this up quickly,” Sebastian said as Sophia started to move.

“You’re not doing too badly yourself,” she assured him.

He wasn’t. In spite of his assertions that he couldn’t dance well, the only problem Sophia could see with Sebastian’s dancing was a kind of self-conscious stiffness. That seemed to come and go, depending on whether he remembered that people were watching him, so Sophia decided to distract him.

“Tell me about yourself,” she said as they whirled among the other couples there.

“What’s to tell?” Sebastian answered. “I’m the younger son of the dowager, technically lord of a minor duchy out in the west, and largely unimportant as far as the succession goes. I do whatever duty requires of me, which includes attending balls.”

Sophia brushed her hand across his shoulder. “I’m glad you did. But I’m not interested in all that. I want to know about you. What makes you smile? What do you like most in the world? When you’re with friends, do they treat you like you’re still a prince, or are you just Sebastian to them?”

Sebastian was quiet for so long that Sophia suspected that she’d gotten it wrong in spite of the advantages her powers gave her.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m not sure if I have friends, not really. At best, I’ve always been the one on the edge of my brother’s social group. Faced with most of them, maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. In any case, my one job as a younger prince is not to be embarrassing. That’s easier if I avoid the kind of entanglements Rupert generates. And to be honest, books are more interesting than most of them.”

Sophia held him a little closer. “It sounds lonely. I hope that I’m more interesting than a book, at least.”

“A lot more interesting,” Sebastian said, and then seemed to realize what he’d said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”

Even if it’s true.

“It’s all right,” Sophia said. She could see his embarrassment at overstepping, but her talent showed her how glad he was that she didn’t mind, and what he was starting to think every time he looked at her. It was strange, seeing the room seem to light up for someone just because Sophia was there.

Sebastian looked as though he might be about to say something else, but another girl chose that moment to come up to them, her arm out as if to ask him to dance. Sophia could see how that would play out, with the prince passed from one lovely girl to another, completely forgetting about her.

To her surprise, though, Sebastian took a step back from the girl.

“Perhaps later,” he said, although he did it gently. “As you can see, I have a partner for this dance.”

“I have my dance card – ” the girl began, but Sophia was already dancing with Sebastian in the opposite direction.

She needn’t have worried. Sebastian’s eyes were solely on her as they kept dancing. Sophia loved his voice as he talked about the things that excited him, not the petty wars most noblemen might have been interested in, but art and the world, the people of the city and the things he was able to do as a prince to make things better.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s not like the days before the civil wars, when kings and queens could just do what they wanted. Now, everything goes through the Assembly of Nobles.”

“Leaving you feeling as though you can’t do any good?” Sophia guessed.

Sebastian nodded.

“Ashton is a cruel city,” he said, “and the rest of the country isn’t much better. Worse, in some of the more lawless parts. It would be good to be able to help.”

Sophia had always assumed that nobles just spat on those below them, not caring about how harsh their lives were. When it came to Sebastian, at least, it seemed that she was wrong.

Even so, she didn’t want to tell him the truth about who she was. Right then, the moment felt too precious for that. It felt as fine spun as a cobweb, and as fragile. One wrong move and it might all fall apart.

Sophia didn’t want it to fall apart. She liked Sebastian, and one look at his thoughts told her that he more than liked her. Right then, it felt as though she could stay and dance with him, talk with him, all night.

So she did.

She spun in Sebastian’s arms as another song played. She talked to him about life in the palace, about the places he’d seen and the people he’d spoken to. She drew out the parts of him that shone like diamonds in his thoughts, drawing him away from the mundane days and the pressures of court life.

When it came to Sophia’s own life, she kept things as general as she could. She could admit to having a sister, but couldn’t tell him stories about their lives except in the vaguest of details, because that would have meant talking about the orphanage. She could only keep up with mentions of the latest news because she could lift the details from the prince’s mind. The best she could do was to steer the conversation back to Sebastian, or talk about things that wouldn’t give away where she’d come from, or what she’d done to get there.

At some point in that, it simply seemed natural that she should kiss him. Sophia stepped back for a moment, then leaned in deliberately closer, ignoring the looks of some of the young noblewomen at the sides of the room. This wasn’t about them. It was about her, and Sebastian, and —

When the clocks struck, the clamor of their bells cut through the music, and through whatever had bound Sophia to Sebastian all evening. The shock of it made them both glance away, and in that moment, whatever had been about to pull them into a kiss shattered.

Sophia looked up to see some of those around the edges watching the two of them, talking in low tones. The younger women definitely didn’t look happy as they started to drift away, taking off their masks as they went.

“Is the party done?” Sophia asked. “It… it doesn’t seem an hour since it started.”

“Three,” Sebastian said, but only after a glance at a reflected clock face to confirm it. Sophia could see that the time had flown past for him as well. “It’s a strange feeling. Normally, these things seem to stretch out for an eternity.”

“It must be the company,” Sophia said with a smile.

“I think it probably is,” Sebastian said. He took off his mask then, and if Sophia’s heart hadn’t already been beating hard at the thought of him, it would have done then. He was handsomer than she’d thought, not plain and forgettable compared to his brother, as he’d seemed in the thoughts of so many others.

“May I?” Sebastian asked, reaching up for her mask. “It’s bad luck to keep a mask on after the end of a masque, and they’ll think you don’t know our ways if you wear it back to your carriage.”

Sophia felt a moment of fear then. Behind her mask, she was Sophia of Meinhalt, a stranger who couldn’t be identified. Without it… would she be enough?

She felt Sebastian’s fingers as they delicately removed the half mask that she hid behind. He looked at her then, and Sophia could hear his thoughts as clearly as if he’d shouted them.

Goddess, she is even more perfect than I could have believed! Is this… is this what love feels like?

Sophia was asking herself the same question, and that brought a problem with it. Sophia tried to bury that as Sebastian started to walk her back out toward the front of the palace, gliding with her among the crowds of people.

Sophia could see some of the girls there watching her with barely disguised hostility.

Who is she? What is she doing here?

Sophia could feel their anger at not being the ones on the prince’s arm, but right then, she only wanted to concentrate on Sebastian.

“When will I see you again?” Sebastian asked.

Sophia wasn’t sure what to say to that. How could she answer it, when the only reason she’d gotten in there at all was a lie? The great flaw in her plan gaped in front of her then: it gained her entrance to the palace once, but it gave her nothing beyond that. It showed her this world and then shut her off from it.

Sebastian reached up to touch her face.

“What is it?”

Sophia hadn’t thought that her worry would show so clearly. She thought as quickly as she could.

“The carriage awaiting me…” she began, trying so hard not to lie but knowing she had no choice, “…it will take me back to…”

“The ship?” he offered, concern in his face. “Back home, across the sea?”

She nodded, relieved he said it and that she didn’t have to utter the lie.

“It would,” she said, “and yet…I have no home, not really,” she said. “My home is not what it was. It is all in ruins.” That part, at least, was easy to fake, as there was some truth in it. “I sailed across the waters to escape my home. I am loath to return. Especially so soon after meeting you.”

She saw confusion cross Sebastian’s face, and then determination.

“Stay here,” Sebastian said. “This is a palace. There are more guest rooms than I can count.”

Sophia didn’t answer. She found that she didn’t want to lie to him more than she had to. That was a foolish thing, when every inch of her was a lie right then, but still, Sophia didn’t want to say the words.

“You’re offering to let me stay?” she said. “Just like that?”

Sophia could barely believe that. Sebastian filled the gap, and it turned out that he only needed two words to do it, holding out a hand to her as the last of the others filed from the hall.

“Stay?” he asked again.

Sophia reached out and took his waiting hand and, slowly, she smiled.

“There is nothing I would love more,” she said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kate winced as the blacksmith hammered a loop of chain closed around her wrist, anchoring her to the wrought iron fence. Kate tried to pull her hand free, but there was no give in the metal.

There didn’t seem to be much give in the man who’d forged it, either. He seemed as strong as the iron he worked with, barrel-chested and powerful. His wife was narrow featured and worried looking.

“That’s it, Thomas? You’re just going to leave her where she might get free?”

“Easy, Winifred,” the smith said. “The girl won’t get free. I know my work.”

His wife still didn’t seem convinced. She should have tried being where Kate was. Right then, it felt as though a vise was clamped around her wrist. She wanted to lash out, to fight, but the weapons she’d stolen were gone, and she couldn’t even get free.

“She’s little better than an animal,” the woman said. “We should hand her over to a magistrate, Thomas, before she murders us all.”

“She isn’t going to murder us,” the smith said, shaking his head at the drama of it all. “And if we hand her over to a magistrate, they’ll hang her. She’s barely more than a girl. Do you want to be responsible for her being hanged?”

Fear crept into Kate at that thought. She’d known the risks of stealing while she’d done it, but knowing them was a different thing from the threat that her death might actually happen. She did her best to look as innocent and harmless as possible. Kate wasn’t sure that she was any good at it. It was the kind of thing Sophia had always been better at. Sometimes, in the orphanage, she’d been able to keep from being beaten just because the masked sisters there had liked her.

Not very often, though. The House of the Unclaimed had been a harsh place, after all.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said.

“I hardly believe that,” the blacksmith’s wife snapped. “There’s a horse there that I doubt she came by honestly, and she was stealing weapons. Why would a girl like this want weapons? What was she planning to do? Become a bandit?”

What if they see the horse? What if they think we’re harboring a thief?

Kate could see the woman’s fears were more about what would happen if they didn’t hand Kate over, rather than a real hatred of her.

“I wasn’t going to be a bandit,” Kate said. “I was going to live free and hunt my food.”

“Being a poacher is better?” Winifred demanded. “This is foolishness. Do what you want, Thomas, but I’m going back into the house.”

She made good on her declaration, stalking back toward the main building. The smith watched her go, and Kate took the opportunity to try to escape again. It didn’t make any difference.

“You might as well stop trying,” the smith said. “I forge my metal well.”

“I could call out for help,” Kate said. “I could tell people that you kidnapped me, and you’re holding me here against my will.”

She saw the big man spread his hands. “I would show them the broken window, the things you tried to steal. Then you would be looking at the magistrate.”

Kate guessed that was true. The blacksmith was probably at the heart of the community in this small section of the city, while she was a girl who had appeared off the street. Then there was the horse, and the people who would know that she had stolen it.

“That’s better,” Thomas said. “Maybe we can talk now. Who are you? Do you have a name?”

“Kate,” she said. She found that she couldn’t look straight at him then. She actually felt ashamed by all this, and that was something Kate hadn’t thought she would feel.

“Well, Kate, I’m Thomas.” His voice was kinder than Kate had expected. “Now, where have you come from?”

Kate shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“It matters if you have a family looking for you. Parents.”

Kate snorted at that idea. Her parents were long gone, lost in a night that… she shook her head. It refused to come to her even now. Sophia might know, but Sophia wasn’t there.

“Which leaves several possibilities,” Thomas said. He grabbed at the leg of her stolen trousers, lifting it to reveal the tattoo that marked her as one of the Unclaimed. Kate squirmed away from his grip, but by then it was too late.

“Are you running away from your indenture?” Thomas asked. He shook his head. “No, you’re too young. From one of the orphanages then? You have hunters after you?”

“They sent some of the boys from the orphanage,” Kate admitted.

She tried to read the blacksmith then, and work out what he was going to do next. If he handed her back, she had no doubt that there would be some kind of reward for him, and in her experience, people did whatever was in their own best interest. She reached out for his mind, and she found him staring back at her.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Thomas said.

“What do you mean?” Kate countered. She knew from painful experience that anyone who knew what she was would react badly. Hadn’t the barge hands thrown her into the river to drown because of it?

She saw Thomas shake his head. “There’s no point in trying to hide it. One of our neighbor’s sons… he was like you. He always seemed to know what we were thinking, even when we didn’t say it. I learned to get a feel for when he was listening in. We didn’t know what he was until we heard some of the masked priests giving their sermons.”

“I don’t know… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kate said.

Thomas reached out, unchaining her wrist.

“You can run if you want,” he said, “but I’m not going to hurt you.”

Kate didn’t run. She had the feeling that the blacksmith had more he wanted to say.

He did. “I don’t care about what you’re able to do. As far as I’m concerned, you aren’t cursed, or evil, or anything else they say. Listen… my son Will has gone off to one of the companies. Wants to be a great soldier. Well, I’ve needed help around the forge ever since.”

Kate frowned at that, trying to understand what the blacksmith was saying.

“You’re offering me a job?”

It wasn’t what she’d escaped from the House of the Unclaimed for. It wasn’t what she’d wanted when she’d been trying to leave the city, either. Yet she had to admit that there was something enticing about the prospect.

“You’re running,” Thomas said. “But my guess is that you don’t have much of a plan. They chase the indentured who run. If they catch you, they’ll hurt you, and then they’ll sell you on. This way, you get to work at something I guess you’d like. You get to be safe, and I get help. You can have food and shelter, learn my trade.” He looked at Kate expectantly. “What do you say?”

Kate hadn’t expected this when he’d caught her. She hadn’t expected anything but violence, and probably the hangman’s rope. She felt as if it was all happening far too quickly, leaving her reeling.

He was right though. She would be safe like this, and she would be learning something she wanted to know how to do. She wouldn’t be in the country, but maybe there would be time for that in the future.

“Where do we start?” she asked.

***

The smithy was a dark space as they walked in, and Kate felt a hint of worry as she felt Thomas’s hand on her shoulder, guiding her in. What if this was all some kind of trick? For what, though? Kate couldn’t imagine what he might want.

He would want something. Everyone wanted something.

She waited while he lit a lamp, then moved over to the forge, laying out charcoal in something that looked far more careful than just a random mixture.

“Watch carefully,” he said. “One of your jobs will be to help light the forge in the morning, and there’s an art to doing it well.”

Kate watched the patterns of it, trying to make sense of it.

“Why do it that way?” she asked. “Why not just throw the charcoal in?”

She saw Thomas shrug. “Heat is a blacksmith’s greatest tool. It must be treated with care. Too much fuel, or too little, too much air or too little, all of this can ruin iron.”

Kate was surprised when he handed her a flint and steel, pointing to a spot where he’d set kindling.

“We start with wood, then build.”

Kate set to work with the flint and steel, striking sparks until the flames flickered in the kindling.

“Why did you run away?” Thomas asked.

“Do you know what the orphanage is like?” Kate countered. It was difficult to keep a hard edge out of her voice at the thought of it.

“I wasn’t there, so I would guess not,” the smith said. “I’ve heard rumors.”

Rumors. Those weren’t the same as the real thing. They weren’t even close. A rumor was a few words, quickly forgotten. The reality had been pain and violence and fear. It had been a place where every day had involved being told she was less than everyone else, and that she should be grateful just for the chance to be told it.

“It was that bad then?” Thomas asked, and it was only as he said it that Kate guessed how much of it must have shown on her face.

“It was that bad,” Kate agreed.

“Aye, there are some evil places in this world,” Thomas said. “And they’re often not where the priests tell us they are.” He nodded in the direction of a large set of bellows. “I’ll work you hard here, Kate, if you want to stay. Let’s see if you can get some air into the fire so it gets hot enough.”

Kate went to the bellows, expecting them to move easily. Instead, it was as hard as one of the cranks of the grinding wheels at the orphanage had been. The difference was that, as she strained at the bellows, she could see them making a difference. The forge fire grew, changing color as she fed it with air and charcoal. She watched the flames shift from yellow to orange, to a white heat that could move steel.

Thomas took a piece of iron, placing it within the forge. “Keep going, Kate. Iron only shifts slowly. There are things we can’t rush.”

He said it with the patience of someone who had worked a lot of the metal. Kate kept working, ignoring the sweat building up on her skin. She found herself wanting to impress the smith. After what he’d offered her, she wanted to show him that she was worth it. It was a strange feeling; at the orphanage, she hadn’t cared. Maybe that was just because they hadn’t cared about her, except as a commodity.

“See the shade the iron has gone?” Thomas asked. “When we get the metal out of the forge, we’ll have to work it quickly. When it starts to fade, we have to get it back in the forge.”

Kate understood, and she rushed to grab a pair of tongs, reaching for the metal and snatching it out at speed. She didn’t want to waste a single instant in her forging. The movement was too quick, and Kate felt the moment when the metal slipped and twisted from her grip, falling to the stone floor of the forge.

It brushed her leg on the way down, and Kate screamed. White heat flashed through her, the barest brush of it pure agony. Thomas was there in an instant, tipping a trough of water over her and the metal both. Kate heard the metal cracking, but right then, there was no time to care. It simply hurt too much.

“Hold still,” Thomas said, grabbing a jar of pungent salve. It proved to be gentle and cooling, numbing Kate’s leg so that the agony receded. From where she lay, Kate could see the cracks in the billet of iron she’d grabbed too quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She waited for Thomas to hit her for her clumsiness, the way the nuns would have. Instead, he held out a hand, lifting her up.

“The main thing is that you’re not hurt worse,” he said. “It’s a bad burn, but it will heal.”

“But the iron…” Kate began.

Thomas waved that away. “Iron cracks. The important thing is that you learn to be patient. You can’t become a master smith in one day, or even in a hundred. You can’t rush around a forge. It’s a place for patience and calm, because the alternative is burnt skin and broken metal.”

“I’ll do better,” Kate insisted.

He nodded. “I know you will.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sophia walked beside Sebastian, heading deeper into the palace with him. She found her hand creeping into his as they walked, her delicate fingers interlacing with his much stronger ones. She had never thought that such a simple moment of human contact could feel so important.

“Why did you agree to dance with me?” Sophia asked.

Sebastian looked at her as if he didn’t understand. “You sound surprised.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” she said with a tilt of her head. “I mean, I’m no one, not really. And you’re… well, you.”

That was probably closer to the reality of it all than Sophia should have gone, but right then it was hard to keep from saying more than she meant. She might have gone to the ball with the intention of doing something like this, but the thought that she might succeed with someone as kind and as good and as handsome as Sebastian was more than she could have hoped.

She’s more amazing than anyone I’ve met, and she’s wondering why I wanted to dance with her?

Sophia smiled as she caught that thought, although she didn’t say anything about it. She imagined that nothing would ruin the mood quite so quickly as letting Sebastian know what she really was.

“I’m just glad that you agreed to dance with me,” Sebastian said, as if he weren’t a prince, or handsome, or everything that Sophia imagined anyone could want. Did he really not know it? No, Sophia could see that he didn’t, and in its way that only made him more desirable.

Sophia had gone there with the intention of seducing someone, but now she was starting to think that those things cut both ways.

That thought brought with it a sense of nervousness that Sophia hadn’t expected to feel, even as she looked at Sebastian, imagining the play of the muscles under his clothing. She felt a little guilty too, because everything she was in that moment was a lie, and because of everything she’d gone there to do.