The Steel Princess

Chapter 17: Common Enemies

In the days after Karic's death, Skye hid in her room. She tried to tell herself she was making a strategic decision, that people in the castle needed time to grieve - there was certainly a subdued air about the place - but ultimately she knew she was being weak. She couldn't face Karic's father, Duke Gildan, or bring herself to attend the funeral. She couldn't face the Council, either, because whichever way she looked at the situation, she'd failed. She should have put a stop to these Nocturne incursions (though frequent patrols and sorties by the castle guard had failed to find trace of them in the city, and their tunnel into the castle cellar led only to a stone door that no-one could open). She should have won the Council to her side (though the odds had always been stacked against her, between Perityr and the prophecy and old men and women who wanted to get their own teeth into power). She should have skewered Tawny through the throat and saved Karic's life.

For that, there was no excuse. She'd trained for this and should have predicted what Tawny was going to do. Even if she wasn't particularly skilled in single combat, she should have known how events would play out, and found a way to twist them around.

But she hadn't, and now Karic was dead. That she'd barely known him didn't make that any easier.

So she stayed in her room, or spent hours in the training yard with the Kadvalaers, everyone else sent away. With them, Skye felt safe, balanced, able to think clearly; with Auda's barked commands and gruelling drills, with Josselyn's gentle corrections of her stance or grip when she faltered. Teacher had been the best mentor she'd ever had, and she missed him fiercely, but the Kadvalaers taught another type of combat, less restrained and more straight-forward, though not without its own kind of finesse.

On the third day, just when Skye was finally considering a visit to Duke Gildan - and desperately wishing something would happen to make that impossible - she had a visitor.

She'd turned her solar into a formal reception room open to all supplicants during the day, and she braced herself every morning before going inside. If anyone was waiting to see her, they'd be there; this morning, it was Borlas.

Skye didn't quite breathe a sigh of relief, but she came close. She couldn't stomach seeing anyone else, not until she'd got the lay of the land.

Borlas raised an eyebrow at the sight of her, and Skye tried to hide her blush. She was wearing one of her new gowns, a last-ditch attempt to remind those few suitors left in the castle that she was still a princess, and thus still marriageable.

Borlas bowed. "You look quite lovely, Your Highness. Your father would be proud."

Skye grimaced, though it somehow turned into a smile. "Father never cared what I wore. Lunen, on the other hand..." Lunen would have clapped her hands in delight, and probably sought out some matching ribbons for Skye's hair; she'd long declared she really had two brothers, not one. Skye's smile widened. Somehow, it hurt less to think of them than it had before, until there was joy in remembering her family, not just pain.

She sobered again when she saw Borlas' face, turned to the window with a pensive expression. She was just in time to see the last trunks being loaded onto a carriage below, and the door slamming shut.

"I've lost them, haven't I," she said, hardly even needing to ask.

Borlas nodded slowly. "I'm afraid, Your Highness, there's not much interest in a marriage alliance now."

"Is anyone left? Anyone at all?"

"A few, but it would be kind to call them the dregs. The sons of minor lordlings, or those of Celiande merchants."

Those desperate enough to want to marry her despite the danger, then. None of them would do her any good as a consort.

"I might as well marry Varren as one of them," she said, disgruntled.