I hide a smile. “Yes. The way he looked at you . . . you are dear to him, Mara.”
She resumes combing, but her strokes are rhythmic and thoughtless. She combs the same section of hair over and over again. “Maybe . . .” she says. “Maybe I’m dear to him like a sister. We’ve become friends again.”
It’s hard not to laugh. “You know how you always tell me I’m pathetically ignorant in matters of love?”
She pulls my hair back and begins to separate it for braiding. “Well, it’s true. You were the last person to realize Hector was in love with you.”
“Yes, well, everyone is ignorant when it comes to their own life and love.”
“You think so?”
“I think . . .” I struggle to find the exact words. “I think sometimes when we find love we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we’re imagining it. Because it’s the most painful kind of hope there is. It can be ripped away so easily. By indifference. By death. By . . . the need for a political marriage. Or maybe that last one is just me.”
Her fingers move from habit, and I wish we were back in my suite, sitting in front of the vanity mirror so I could see her face. “You think I’m pretending away my hope?” she says in a small voice. “Because it might hurt too much?”
“I don’t know. But that’s what I did with Hector. Even though part of me knew I loved him.”
She plunks down beside me on the cot and lets her face fall into her hands. “I’m afraid,” she whispers into her palms.
“Belén adores you. I’m sure of it.”
“Not of that.” She raises her face, and I have to remind myself that the rippled scar pushing one eyelid down—a gift from her abusive father—always makes her appear sadder than she is. “I could not bear it, to fall in love again, only to have him die.”
“You’re thinking of Julio.” The boy she was secretly betrothed to, before she fled to the rebel village and met me. She doesn’t speak of him often, but over time I’ve eked bits of the story out of her.
“Don’t you ever think of Humberto?” she counters. “Surely losing him so suddenly makes you . . . wary.”
“I think of him often,” I say softly. “Though less than I used to.”
“You loved him.” Her voice is almost accusing.
“I did. It was different, though. I loved Alejandro too, in a small way. I seem to have great capacity for it. Alejandro was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. But Humberto was the kindest, a different kind of beautiful.”
“And Hector?”
I take a deep breath, for talking about him is both wondrous and painful. “Hector is my friend. I trust him in everything, always. But when I’m with him, it’s like my blood is on fire. And now that I understand you can love someone in different ways at once, I’ll never want less.”
She sighs. “Julio was my friend. And Belén was my fire. But now . . .”
“Now Belén is becoming a friend too.” I shake my head in mock despair. “A deadly combination.”
A little grin sneaks onto her face. “We are doomed, Elisa.”
“Indeed, I think we are.”
She starts to giggle, and then she’s laughing so hard that tears leak from her eyes.
“What, by God’s righteous right hand, is so funny?”
“You!” She gasps between breaths. “Giving me advice on love!”
And it hardly makes sense, but laughter pours out of me like a stream too long dammed, and then we’re hugging on the cot, both of us breathless, until she suddenly sobers and says, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Elisa.” But the moment it leaves her mouth, she stiffens and pulls her arms away. “I’m sorry. That’s not appropriate. I would never presume—”
“And you’re mine,” I say truthfully. There’s a hole inside me that she fills, something I wouldn’t get from being queen or winning a war or even being with Hector.
“You’re the sister I never had,” she adds.
“And you’re the sister I always wish I had.”
She barks a laugh. “Someday you’ll have to tell me all about Princess Alodia and why things are so difficult between you.”
I nod, my thoughts suddenly far away. “When I figure it out,” I murmur, “you’ll be the first to know.”
9
I braid Mara’s hair for a change, and I have just finished when Storm returns with close-cropped hair the color of corn silk and a new swagger. He stands tall, his head high, the cowl of his cloak thrown back for the first time in weeks. The shorter cut brings out the planes of his face, giving his cheeks and jaw a more chiseled nature. Were he not so preternaturally tall and oddly colored, he would be almost handsome.
He catches Mara and me staring and rubs his hair, frowning. “It will grow back,” he assures us. “By the time we reach Invierne, it will be less shameful.”
“I’m relieved to hear that your vanity has weathered this egregious trial unscathed.”
“Thank y— Oh. Sarcasm again.”
“Actually,” Mara says, “I was staring because it seems whiter than it used to be. Maybe I got used to the dye.”
“You think so?” His eyes spark with hope. “I thought it might be, but I wasn’t sure.”
Mara and I exchange a perplexed look. “This is a good thing?” I venture. “To have whiter hair?”
“It’s a mark of magic. The oldest, most powerful animagi have the lightest hair. It’s the one thing that has given me hope, made me think that maybe I could still learn to call the zafira. Because in spite of my continued failure . . .” He lifts his chin. “My hair does bear the mark of one who is learning the art.”
I touch my thick sleeping braid. My hair has been as black as night for most of my life—until the sun leached the color from strands around my face, leaving them a washed-out red. But maybe it wasn’t the sun. Maybe it was my Godstone. Will my hair be as ghostly pale as Storm’s someday?
“I asked about Lord Hector,” he says.
Mara and I straighten so fast our shoulders knock.
“What?” I demand. “What did you hear?”
Storm settles on the floor and crosses his long legs. “A group came through. Large, well armed. A mix of Joyans and Inviernos, though the Inviernos were all dark of skin and hair. The barber told me they mistook the Inviernos for mules at first, because of their coloring. Most of them made camp just out of sight. Only a few entered the village to trade for supplies.”
“When? When did they come through?”
“Less than a week ago.”
We are closer than I realized. “And did your barber notice a prisoner among them?”
“He did not.”
My shoulders slump.
“But I asked the glass merchant outside the inn, and she remembers him distinctly. One of the men traveling with Franco is a cousin of hers, so she spent time in their camp, trading information and news for him to take back to their family in Invierne.”
“And how . . . ? Is he . . . ?”
Storm gazes at me with uncharacteristic sympathy. “She said he was beaten badly.”
“Oh!” I reach out and find Mara’s hand. She clasps mine tight.
“She said he is pale and sick. His skin was as white as an Invierno’s.”
I nod, because the lump in my throat makes it impossible to speak. Hector is strong. I know it well. He will do his best to survive. But when I finally find my voice, it’s to say, “I will destroy Franco. Utterly destroy him.”
“I anticipate that eagerly,” Storm says.
I give him a sharp look. “Oh?” Though he harbors little loyalty to those of his homeland, I’ve never heard such resentment in his voice before.
“Franco is an unrighteous man,” he says firmly. “My uncle, once in line for a position in the Deciregi, was killed under mysterious circumstances. My family has long suspected Franco, though we cannot be sure.”