This afternoon Rhrenna rode a chestnut mount she must have chosen to compliment her outfit: a vest of pastel blue and tan, with a split skirt that looked almost like a dress when she stood, but which split when she mounted. She was a pale, slim-boned girl composed of imperfect features that, fortunately for her, somehow combined to pleasant effect. She wore her hair long, in a braided fashion that took Corinn some time to separate from that of the men.
For the first couple of years of the occupation, few Meinish women had ventured out of Tahalian. Meinish men, it could be said, were possessive and protective of their women. The Mein were not fond of mixing their blood with other races and could think of few greater sins than one of their women giving birth to a half-breed child. It was not much better when women of the newly conquered empire began to mother children paler than themselves, gray eyed and sharp featured. Though frowned on, such miscegenation proved impossible to prevent. No matter the praise they constantly heaped on their own women, Meinish men still mixed with foreign women. They seemed to love the taste and feel and shape of the skin tones and features they claimed indifference to. Even Maeander, Hanish’s brother, was said to have fathered a small tribe of children. Gradually more and more Meinish women journeyed down to fill roles as wives and concubines, to add a greater domestic normalcy to life both in the palace and among common soldiers, most of whom were now living uncommonly luxurious lives.
Rhrenna had been in Acacia only a few months, but she seemed to have adapted to the place. One of her charms was her voice, high and gentle and better suited to the Acacian tongue than that of most of her people. “Hanish thinks you are beautiful,” she said. She wore a hat with a wide, meshed brim to protect her from the sun. She looked through the lace of it coyly. “But you must know that already. You understand men better than I, don’t you?”
“I have understood very little during my life so far,” Corinn answered. She had little interest in discussing romance or courtly intrigue. It was not her court, for one thing. But also, more piercingly, such notions reminded her only of loss. Despite this, she heard herself ask, “Why do you say Hanish finds me beautiful?”
“It’s obvious, Princess,” she said. “When you are in the room he cannot take his eyes off you. At the summer dance he barely paid attention to any partner but you.”
Another young woman, a friend of Rhrenna’s from childhood, agreed. She turned in the saddle to the four women behind them and pulled echoes of the same opinion from them.
Corinn would have none of it. “As if I impressed anyone that night! Stumbling around as I did…he had to pay attention, or else I’d have squashed his feet to pulp. Your dances make no sense to me.”
Rhrenna thought about this a moment, rocking with the easy motion of her horse’s stride, and then said, “You are a more graceful stumbler than most.”
Corinn tried several times to deflect Rhrenna’s praise, but the young woman always found a way to turn back her protests with glowing phrases. Corinn eventually fell silent, defeated at devaluing herself. And what should this admiration mean to her? She had been admired in the years before the war by women and men more refined than any of these girls. She understood her situation better than they did and was never entirely sure if they were aware of the falseness that tainted everything that passed between them. She knew that she was a trophy put on display for the pleasure of the Mein and for the edification of the new king’s subjects. Here, her presence said, is incontrovertible proof that the empire that came before the Mein has been defeated. See how this Akaran sits at our table. See her manners, her beauty, her refinement. See her and remember how mighty the Akarans were and how completely they have been whipped, tamed, and domesticated. That was the point that Corinn’s presence daily reinforced. What a misery it was! Her life had little physical hardship in it, no toil, all the luxuries and most of the privileges she had ever known. And yet she felt constantly set apart, possessed, owned-even by these young women who so claimed to adore her.
They were near enough to Haven’s Rock that the bird-dung stench of the place swept past them on a gust of the breeze. One of the maids commented on it, holding her hand to her nose and querying whether they really had to go closer. Corinn rode on, tight-lipped, aware that she took offense at any slight given to her father’s island, even one directed at the habits of seabirds. She did not have to feign adoration of the landscape around her. The island was at the height of its summer colors. The grass blanketing the hills had crisped to a flaming, metallic yellow. The only things missing were the green crowns of acacia trees. They had all been cut down during the first year after Hanish’s victory: an act of symbolic spite and another thing Corinn would never forgive him for.
Soon the dry season fires would flare up, sending up clouds of black smoke and attracting scavenging birds to pick through the charred streaks lashed across the hillsides like wounds. Corinn mentioned as much to her party, saying that they would soon have to choose the days they ventured out carefully. People had been caught in the quick-moving blazes before and incinerated where they stood. The young women heard this in silence, awed at the thought of a fire spontaneously combusting. It must have been a hellish thought to a people accustomed to nine-month winters and summers-as Igguldan had said-never free of the possibility of a sudden snowstorm. It pleased Corinn that they feared aspects of the island that she had known all her life, though she also felt the bite of remembrance that so often came with such thoughts. Igguldan. She could not bear thinking of him. What torture that she had come so near a great love, only to have it snatched from her by the callous actions of madmen.
The wind picked up as they approached the cliffs of Haven’s Rock. By the time they reached the edge, Rhrenna and her countrywomen were all clutching at the crowns of their hats to keep them from flying free. Corinn, not needing the protection since her skin warmed and browned under the sun’s touch instead of blistering and turning red, sat hatless and as composed as ever. Her amusement at this was short-lived, however.
One of the maids said, “Look, Larken is back from Talay. See his ship, there.”
It took Corinn only a moment to spot the vessel. It ran a crimson mainsail embossed with a short-handled pickax. It was Larken’s sign, bestowed on him by Hanish for his services during the war. The sight of that billow of red speeding toward them across a sea of shimmering, luminous hyacinth filled her with instant rancor.
Larken. The thought of him always reminded her of the time before her captivity. It was he who had knocked on the door to her room in Kidnaban nine years earlier. He had stood before her, tall and wolfishly handsome in his Marah robes. He had spoken so earnestly, with a calm at his center that conveyed strength such as she had not seen in some time. He had come from Thaddeus Clegg, he’d said. He was to take her to safety, just her. Other guardians would deal with her siblings as they were to head to separate destinations. It was not wise that they all be together in a single place. Thaddeus and her father had made arrangements for them. He produced documents to this effect, with all the seals and signatures in order, blessed with an imprint she knew to be Thaddeus’s ring.
“Come,” Larken had said. “You can believe in me. I live only to protect you.”
She must have wanted to believe him so very badly. How, she wondered now, could she have consented to go with him without first speaking with her siblings? She had tried to, but he had been so convincing and earnest. Hanish Mein’s agents were closing on them, he had said. Betrayers were rife now throughout the empire. Even their host at the mines, Crenshal, could no longer be trusted, and that was why they had to fly. Speed was everything. Her brothers and her sister had already embarked on their journeys. If she came now she could feel confident she would see them again soon. It was the only way.