They square off again. They do not have all day, but they have most of it; the afternoon sun burns bright and hot against the top of Jules’s head. Emilia’s dark hair shines like a mirror, and knowing how skilled Emilia is at combat she will probably figure out how to blind Jules with it.
As they circle, Jules’s eye wanders to the tree. One lone tree in the private, walled-in courtyard of uneven bricks, not as full as it could be, as it should be, in the height of summer. She could make that happen. Make it bloom with leaves that instant. They would have shade, and Emilia might be distracted enough that Jules could land a decent hit.
“I never ask you to use your war gift,” Emilia says, and Jules looks away from the tree. “But you never use your naturalist gift either. Why? Do you think the other gifts offend us?”
She strikes twice, and Jules blocks them.
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe not,” Emilia repeats. “Maybe not normally, you mean. But in you it would, with your legion curse.” She moves in quick and effortlessly smacks Jules right between the eyes. Behind her, Camden begins to growl.
“Can you blame me?” Jules scowls. “My own family feared the curse. My own town turned their backs on me for it. I still don’t understand why you—and the warriors—don’t.”
“We look past it because of what you have done. The great things that you will do. It was you who boosted the weak queen. Arsinoe,” Emilia adds when Jules’s eyes narrow. “And even bound, your war gift is as strong as mine. You could use it now. Push my staffs off course, if you wanted to. If you would.”
Something sharpens in Emilia’s eyes, and she comes for Jules in a flurry. No longer fighting at half speed or half strength, she drives Jules back, using her advantage in skill to push Jules until her knees bend. And as her heel slides in against the gravel path, Jules feels a spark of familiar temper.
She dodges and pivots as Emilia keeps coming on. Jules waits until she is positioned just right. Until Emilia has allowed herself to put Camden in a blind spot.
Jules strikes out hard with her staff and Camden leaps. She had been crouched, waiting, to knock Emilia down and pin her to the grass.
“Oof!” Emilia says, and rolls faceup as Jules and the cougar look at her. For a moment, her jaw clenches and her face reddens even beneath her deep tan skin. Then she laughs. “All right.” She grasps Camden fondly by the fur and pats her ribs. “No need of a war gift when you have her.”
Emilia tosses Jules a light red cloak, like the ones the servants wear.
“Where are we going?” Jules asks. After a long afternoon of training, she is in no mood to go anywhere; she craves a hot bowl of stew and the softness of her pillow.
“There is a bard staying at the inn. Father told me she knows the song of Queen Aethiel, and I would hear it.”
“Can’t you go without us? I’m likely to fall asleep in my ale, and I don’t want to insult the bard.”
“No,” Emilia replies, “I can’t go without you. Camden will have to stay here, of course. Too many people not in our trust. We’ll bring her back a nice fat leg of lamb.”
Camden lifts her head from her paws but only long enough to yawn. A leg of lamb and a quiet room suit her just fine.
As Jules walks beside Emilia through the city, she pulls the hood of the cloak down to shadow her eyes. Nearly everyone they pass acknowledges Emilia somehow, with a nod or a lowered gaze. The whole city knows the oldest daughter of Vatros by the jut of her chin and the bounce in her stride. They revere her, almost like the people of Wolf Spring used to revere Jules before they knew about the curse. Now if she were to return, they would march her to Indrid Down with her hands tied behind her back.
When they arrive at the inn, there is already a crowd and the bard has already started. Emilia frowns slightly, but the long spoken songs are known to go far into the night, with listeners coming and going as they hear their favorite parts.
“This isn’t even the song of Aethiel,” Emilia says. “It is the arming verse for the song of Queen Philomene. And it goes on forever. I’ll get us some ale and food.”
Jules lets the hood slip back in the heat of the inn. No one is paying attention to her anyway. All eyes are on the bard, standing near the fireplace in a lovely tunic edged in gold thread. She is one of the youngest bards that Jules has seen, though she has not seen many. So few pass through Wolf Spring, tired perhaps of night after night of the song of Queen Bernadine and her wolf. This bard wears a light hood, not unlike the red one that Jules wears, and her voice is melodious even as she recites the arming passages: greaves and knives and leather to be buckled, on and on, dressing the long-dead war queen in her battle finery.
Jules finds an empty table along the rear wall and sits. By the time Emilia returns with two mugs, the bard has moved on to tell of the fierceness of the queen’s army.
“What is there to eat?” Jules asks.
“A leg of lamb, like I told you. And boiled greens. We will eat what we can and bring the rest back to the cat.” Emilia’s eyes dart around the inn and back to the bard. “She will never get to Aethiel at this rate. Perhaps we can bring her to the table when she stops for food and get a few lines then.”
“Or you can wait. She’ll be here for as many nights as people have coin to pay her. Besides, I don’t want her so close. Bards travel all over the island. She could recognize me.”
“Even if she did, she would not say anything. For a people who speak so much, bards have very tight tongues.”
“How do you know?”
Emilia raises her eyebrows.
“Well, I’ve never had to cut one out, for a start.”
The food arrives, a great platter of it, a whole roasted lamb leg on a bed of greens and roasted potatoes besides.
“Thanks, Benji,” Emilia says to the server, a yellow-haired lad who will run the inn one day.
“An entire leg for two,” Benji remarks. “I wouldn’t think such a small thing would have such a large appetite.”
Jules looks up and finds him smiling at her. She lowers her eyes quickly.
“Nothing small about my stomach,” she says.
“Well, I hope you enjoy. I’ll bring another jug of ale.”
“He is curious about you,” says Emilia.
Jules does not respond. She is bad company, pretending to listen to the bard and speaking only when she must. She supposes that she has been bad company since she came to Bastian City. But it is hard not to be, when every dish of food makes her think of Arsinoe and her famous appetite, and every boy with a crooked smile could be Joseph, for just one instant before she remembers that he is dead.
She forces herself to look back toward the bard and finds her staring directly at her, eyes fixed as her lips move over the words of the raid on the burned city. Jules stares right back, angry, though she cannot say why, and the woman turns her head just slightly so Jules can see the stark white streak running through her hair. The white strands have been gathered together into a braid that falls through the gold like an icicle.
Such white streaks are common marks amongst the seers.
“That is no mere bard,” Jules whispers. “Emilia, what are you up to?”
Emilia does not deny it. She does not even look guilty.