We come to a stop before the gates. The guards have snapped to attention, but their eyes keep running over our little group as if they can’t quite comprehend what we are doing here. “I am looking for the stairway up,” the princess says to them. “I am hoping for a view of the city, and my attendants think you will know better than they how to find it.”
One of the soldiers steps forward, a silver ring through his ear proclaiming his status as captain. “Zayyida wishes a view from the walls?”
“If it can be arranged.”
He bows. “Of course. Is there a particular part of the city you wish to see?”
“The west side.”
“If you will follow me.” He leads us farther down the wall. At intervals we pass doors built into the wall, until, reaching a particular one, the captain opens the door to reveal a tight staircase, each flight built above the previous.
“Oh!” Jasmine cranes her head to look up. “I don’t think I can handle such a height.”
“Then stay below,” Alyrra suggests gently. “I would not want you to overexert yourself. You may both wait here. We shall be down shortly.”
She turns back to me, hesitates. “Will the stairs be all right for you?”
“Just fine,” I assure her.
“I should have asked sooner,” she murmurs, so quietly I’m not sure if she’s speaking to me or herself. Still, I like her very much for it.
Three long flights up, we step onto the ramparts. A cool spring breeze blows, tugging at our hair and rippling our skirts around us. The princess walks forward to lean against the edge of the wall, gazing out over the city. I wait a step behind her.
“What do you see?” she asks.
I move forward, my hands reaching out to touch the white stone. The city spreads out before me: the same road that I drove in from, filled with buildings crammed together, laundry flapping on rooftops, and below, tight alleys disappearing into shadow. Down the great road that runs here, I spot children playing, though they are too small and far away to see clearly. Still, I remember what I saw from my drive up the road well enough. But what does the princess want me to say? Surely it would be rude to raise issues with her in our very first meeting?
“I see a city far greater than the town I live near,” I hedge. She waits. I look out. The people below move quickly, appearing and disappearing from view. I can make out a few run-down shops, though what they sell, I cannot be sure. What else should I say?
She lets out her breath and steps back from the wall.
“There is a great deal of want,” I say, the words a little too fast. She pauses, turning toward me. I go on. It’s not like I’ll have this chance again. “More than I’ve seen in Sheltershorn. The children are not well clothed; the people do not—I can’t say what it is, but they don’t look well. The buildings are old; they haven’t been repaired in a long time.” I point out over the nearest rooftops. “There is one that has fallen in on itself.”
“What do you think of it all?” she asks.
I turn my head to meet her gaze. She watches me keenly, her features schooled into pleasant curiosity but her eyes sparking with eagerness. “It’s a pity,” I say finally. “But perhaps if you see it as well, then something might be done.”
“Shall I fix the building that has fallen in on itself?” she asks.
“Not the building,” I say, trying not to sound like Bean when someone asks something utterly ridiculous. I’m relatively certain the princess is testing me, but it’s hard not to laugh at such a question. “You might look to the children.”
She gazes out over the wall. “I might,” she agrees. “I have heard,” she goes on slowly, “that some children are snatched and never found again.”
Hope spikes through me, and I press my lips together firmly to keep from grinning at her, or blurting something overeager.
She looks at me when I don’t answer.
“Yes,” I say softly.
“What happens to them?”
I take a breath, my thoughts flying to Ani and her grieving family. “In our town, we believe they are sold into slavery.”
“Where?”
I shake my head. “Away somewhere. In other lands.”
“It seems strange that so little should be known. Do the children never escape?”
She meets my gaze, and I realize in that moment that she knows. That this conversation is to find out about me, rather than the snatchers. “They do sometimes,” I say quietly. “They are taken to the Speakers for a blessing to prevent the Darkness—a sort of illness in the blood that can destroy their minds if left unchecked. The Blessing leaves them their minds, but takes a portion of their memories.”
“Interesting.”
I blink. “Zayyida?” I ask uncertainly.
“Interesting how people are too terrified to ask their children what happened to them before the Blessing, and how little good it does to ask such questions afterward. Don’t you think?”
I hesitate. “No one knows when the Darkness might strike. There are rumors that it can take a child while they tell their story; I don’t know if such tales are true, but I doubt a family would be willing to risk it. But you’re right. It does no good to ask afterward.”
“Indeed.” Alyrra leans against the wall, half-turned toward me.
Although the Darkness does not always take our children. Not if they leave the villages and towns, traveling deep into the plains, or even into the mountains. Why that should help, I don’t know, but it does. I always assumed everyone knew this, but perhaps it is known more in the country than the city. I open my mouth to say as much, but Alyrra speaks first. “I suppose a princess who knows nothing of such things can hardly hope to change them.”
No. She’s supposed to care, as are Zayyid Kestrin and the king. They’re supposed to do something about this. Why bring up the snatchers if only to assert her own perceived helplessness?
The thought brings me up short. Why did Alyrra bring up the snatchers at all, let alone as the first serious question she has posed me? I remember Filadon’s sharp grin, the brightness of his eyes when I first pushed him about the snatchers last night. Filadon must have known Alyrra cares about this, which means surely, if she has brought it up, she doesn’t intend to give it up after a single conversation.
Alyrra waits, her head tilted toward me. I get the feeling she listens, so I may as well speak.
“I don’t know much of the palace or court, zayyida,” I say into the quiet. “But perhaps, if you cared to find out more, we could at least better understand . . .” What? The Darkness? How the snatchers work? I’m not sure exactly what I mean, other than that I want the snatchers stopped. “What’s happening,” I finish vaguely.
“There is that. Still, the people have other needs, do they not?”
Disappointment flares through me. Perhaps I was wrong about her, about what Filadon may have shared. But she is right—there are children going hungry on the streets here, families who spend every waking moment working to earn a meal or money enough to guard themselves from the weather. After a moment, I say, “Of course, zayyida.”
“Hmm.” She looks back out over the wall, then at me. “I have convinced Zayyid Kestrin to open a house of healing in the city to mark the royal wedding.”