Beyond the wall the ground dropped away, and hundreds of paces below them was something Celie had never seen before.
The sea.
Chapter
2
The Royal Palace of Grath, the official name of which translated into Sanctuary by the Sea, was distractingly lovely. Every line of the Sanctuary seemed to have been drawn by an artist’s hand, and every stone placed with an artist’s eye. Where Celie’s beloved Castle Glower was pleasantly sturdy and functional, the Sanctuary was made entirely for beauty. This meant that not every room was comfortable, and some bits of the Sanctuary had silk ropes draped across them, because they were too fragile to be used. But it was all very fascinating, and took Celie’s mind off other things. Most of the time.
“I don’t like it here,” Celie announced on the fifth day.
They were out in their garden, overlooking the sea, eating breakfast. They ate breakfast and lunch there every day, and Celie spent a great deal of time watching the ocean and trying to keep Rufus from plunging headfirst over the wall. She had no objection to him flying over the water, and she had twice ridden him herself as he dipped his toes in the waves, but he had a fascination with the cliff that worried her. It would be like him to test his speed by diving off and seeing how close to the rocks at the bottom he could get before extending his wings.
“What do you mean? It’s so beautiful,” Lilah said.
She was reclining on a bench, sunning herself. Juliet lay on the grass beside her, also basking. Lilah was beautifully attired in pink silk trimmed with blond lace, which had been yet another gift from Queen Amatopeia. The queen seemed to think of Lilah as a sort of large doll to dress and coo over, and Lilah loved every minute of it. Celie thought it was quite disgusting.
“I. Don’t. Like. It. Here,” Celie repeated.
“Celie, why do you have to be this way?” Lilah closed her eyes and groaned. “You’re going to be awful the entire time, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Celie, what is wrong?” Queen Celina said, looking up from her knitting.
Far from her usual unruffled self, the queen looked peevish, and Celie could tell from her mother’s voice that if she didn’t choose her next words carefully, she would be in trouble.
“The Sanctuary is beautiful,” Celie said honestly. “And the king and queen are the nicest people I have ever met.”
“Then why don’t you like it?” Lilah said impatiently.
“It’s . . . there’s just . . .”
“If your bed isn’t comfortable, tell a servant. If your new gowns are uncomfortable, tell the seamstress,” Queen Celina said. Then she swore.
Her daughters looked at her in shock.
“Sorry,” she said, her smooth cheeks turning red. “I dropped a stitch. I know that’s no excuse, but . . .”
“I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it here,” Celie said, pointing an accusing finger at her mother.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Queen Celina said, giving up on picking up the stitch and tossing her knitting aside.
The ball of yarn unspooled and rolled across the lawn until it ran up against Lady Griffin’s hip. The queen of the griffins looked up at the queen of Sleyne, then down at the ball of yarn, and made a noise of disgust. She scooted a few inches to the side so that the yarn wasn’t touching her anymore, and then went back to sleep.
“You don’t like it here?” Lilah sat up slowly, her fists clenching in the trailing sleeves of her gown. She opened and closed her mouth twice. “But Mother, why?” she asked, her voice plaintive.
“I don’t know, dear, it’s just . . . well, it’s always hard to be away from home.”
“The Sanctuary isn’t alive,” Rolf said, coming across the garden to them.
He had been down at the docks with Pogue and Master Cathan, the shipwright, all morning. He was wearing a lightweight sailor’s tunic and loose trousers, and was brown from the sun, after having worked on the ship back in Sleyne throughout the spring as well. He looked almost grown up, and very strange for a moment. Celie didn’t like that, either.
“This is the longest any of us has gone sleeping outside the Castle,” Rolf said, kicking at the base of a birdbath.
The bowl of the bath was made of a giant clamshell, and Celie had already asked twice if it was a fake. It wasn’t, apparently, and she hoped to never see a live clam that big. It could probably bite off her entire arm.
“It’s the longest we’ve eaten outside the Castle, slept, spoke, worked,” Rolf continued. “Even when we went to Hatheland, we were there only a few days.”
“Your father and Bran and I were living outside the Castle for months last year,” the queen pointed out. “And that was dreadful; but we were also injured.”
Rolf nodded, looking grim.
Last year all of Sleyne had thought that the king and queen and Bran, Celie’s oldest brother, were dead, after an evil foreign prince had paid bandits to kill them. They had gone into hiding in the forest until they were well enough to travel home to the Castle.
“But as you say,” Rolf went on, “you were hurt. You already didn’t feel well, and you had bigger problems to worry you.” He hunched his shoulders, settling the loose linen tunic. “This is the longest any of us have been outside the Castle by choice.”
“Except for Bran, again, when he went to the College of Wizardry,” Lilah pointed out.
“But Bran isn’t here,” Rolf said in exasperation. “I’m not talking about Bran! I’m talking about us! Why we feel out of sorts!”
“What are we supposed to do?” Lilah wailed. “We’re supposed to be here for months! And I feel all . . . floppy!”
Rolf turned his head. “So, I was right,” he called out.
“Are they coming?” Pogue called back.
He was in the gateway of the garden. He, too, wore a loose tunic, and high boots with his linen trousers. There was a red cloth tying his shoulder-length hair back, and he was even more tanned than Rolf. Celie felt even stranger, and not just because of the Sanctuary. Pogue Parry was widely considered to be the most handsome young man in Castle Glower or the village, but it appeared that he was even considered handsome in the sophisticated Grathian court.
“They’re coming,” Rolf said.
“Where?” Celie demanded, trying to cover up her fluster of feelings.
“To see the ship, and touch it,” Rolf said. “It’s part of the Castle; it will do you good!”
So they made their way down to the private docks that belonged to the royal family. In Sleyne, they simply would have walked out through the Castle gates and down the road, but in Grath things were always more complicated. First they had to find their hosts and tell them where they wanted to go, and the king and queen had to finish feeding their exotic birds, which lived in a glass-roofed room filled with tropical plants. Then they had to order a parade of coaches to take the Glower family to the docks, and while the coaches were being made ready, they had to change into suitable ship-viewing clothes.
This last was at Lilah’s insistence, not so much a rule of the Grathian court. But Celie wasn’t imagining the approval on Queen Amatopeia’s face when they told her good-bye in the courtyard. She was a deeply kind woman, but she also changed her clothes at least four times a day, and Celie knew that the queen found Celie’s habit of wearing the same gown all day distressing.