Rae Carson - The Crown of Embers

Mara is alone, sitting on the huge bed, her satchel opened and spread out before her. She looks up when I enter.

“I found it, Mara. The zafira . My Godstone sensed it.”

“That’s wonderful news!” she says, closing up the satchel. “I felt us shift course, but I didn’t know why.”

“I’m sorry we had to sell your saffron,” I say, eyeing the leather in her hands. “You took such care to keep it from getting wet, even in the sewer.”

She laughs. “It wasn’t the saffron I was worried about. Something much more valuable.”

“Oh?”

Hector bursts in, and we look up, surprised.

“Felix said you gave him a new course,” he says.

“Yes! Hector, I sensed the way. It called to me. Just like the Blasphemy said.”

He takes a deep breath, whether from relief or trepidation I cannot tell. “That’s good,” he says.

“It’s good,” I agree. I turn to Mara and say, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with Hector—”

“I’ll go visit Storm,” she says. “He’ll hate that.” She gathers up her satchel, and at my curious look, she mouths, “Later.”

After she shuts the door behind her, I turn to face my guard. Neither of us moves to close the distance.

He leans against his brother’s desk and crosses his ankles. His fingers thrum against the beveled edge. It’s the tiniest break in his usual composure, but it’s enough to make me study him closely. He stares wide-eyed at his brother’s rug as if it contains all the wisdom of the world. He’s nervous, I realize. Why?

Ah. Our kiss. He thinks I want to talk about it.

I clear my throat. “Felix told me . . .” This is going to be harder than I thought. But I can’t bear to think that he might be with me against his will. I plop onto the bed, lean my head against the bed post, and try again. “After Alejandro died, you could have inherited Ventierra.”

The words come out wrong, like I’m accusing him of something. They hang in the air between us, and he is silent for so long that I worry I’ve offended him.

At last he says, “I chose not to.”

My fingers dig into the silk bedspread as I softly ask, “And do you regret that choice?”

He hesitates, which tells me all I need to know. “It was the right choice,” he says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No,” he agrees, “it’s not.”

I steel myself, force steadiness into my voice. “Hector, I’m so glad you stayed. There is no one I trust the way I trust you. And . . . and whose company I enjoy as much.” Surely my heart is in my eyes, saying all the things I really shouldn’t. “But when this is over, after we’ve found the zafira, I’m going to give you the option to go home. To be free of me. So think about it.”

His mouth parts and his eyebrows lift. After a long moment, he says, “I thought you might marry me to your sister and pack me off to Orovalle. I’m quite the bargaining piece, or so Ximena tells me.” I’m certain I don’t imagine the edge of bitterness in his voice.

I sigh, too loudly. When I see Ximena next, we will have a very long talk about . . . a lot of things. Carefully I say, “It is important that we find a good match for you.” Now my hands are clenched so tightly in my lap that my knuckles hurt. “But only in consultation with your own feelings on the matter. I know what it’s like to not be consulted. I could never do that to you.”

He nods, though he looks everywhere but at me. “It would be very nice to see home again,” he muses, staring out one of the starboard-side portholes. Toward Ventierra.

I smile sadly. “So you already know, then, what your choice will be?”

“No. But I thank you for giving it to me.”

The sun drops below the horizon. Mara and I are alone in Captain Felix’s quarters.

“Storm said something you should know about,” she says as she unravels my braid.

“Oh?” I say, feeling my muscles slacken as she works.

“He said that the gatekeeper would sense you coming. That he would test you.”

The relaxation disappears and I sit straight up. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. But it makes sense that the gate would have a gatekeeper, yes?”

“Maybe so.” I frown, wishing I had thought to bring my own copy of the Blasphemy to study. Ximena was the one who packed it into the queen’s carriage. I never even saw it. Perhaps she meant for me never to see it.

“Father Alentín said something about a test, about proving myself worthy, but nothing about a gatekeeper.”

She pulls the brush through my hair. “Maybe you should pay Storm a visit. Ask him about it.”

“I will, yes. But right now I want to know what’s in that spice satchel. Mara, what could you possibly be carrying that is more valuable than saffron?”

She moves around to face me. Her eyes sparkle. “Just a little something I brought for us.”

I watch, wildly curious, as she retrieves it and lays it out on the bed. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a clay figurine. It’s ochre-colored, shaped like a naked woman from the knees up. She’s voluptuous, and she crosses her arms over her stomach, as if protecting it.

Mara pulls off its head; it comes uncorked with a popping sound. She tips it, and a few tiny grains spill into her palm.

“Lady’s shroud,” she says. “I have two bottles, one for each of us. Had to sneak it past Ximena. I knew she wouldn’t look in my spice satchel.”

At my confused look, she sighs. “Ximena never told you about lady’s shroud, did she?”

“No.” There are many things Ximena never told me about.

“Take eight to ten of these seeds once per day. No more. Chew them well and swallow.” She pours them back inside the bottle and stoppers it, then shoves it into my hand. “It will keep you from getting pregnant.”

My hand closes around the bottle like a fist. “Oh,” I breathe.

“You don’t have to take it, of course. But I just thought, well, we were going on this journey, and there was so much talk of splitting off, and I knew Hector would be with us, and sometimes the look you two share could liquefy sand, and . . . I wasn’t too presumptuous, was I?”

“No. Well, I don’t know.” I stare at the figurine. She is lush in my hands. Naked. Shameless.

Mara’s voice is softer when she says, “You could have a first time with someone you trust and love.”

I look up at her, startled. So she knows how I feel. If she knows, then Ximena assuredly does too. “He might not have me,” I admit.

“Elisa, he wants you desperately.”

Warmth floods my neck. “I think he regrets staying on as my guard. He may leave after we find the zafira . To go home. And my sister, Crown Princess Alodia, has expressed an interest in betrothal with him. So, you see, it would go nowhere. There is no future for us.”

She moves the satchel aside and sits next to me on the bed. “But you love him,” she says, and at her simple acceptance, the last of my barriers crumbles away.

“Oh, Mara, I do. I love everything about him. I love that he cares so much about honor and duty. I love how, when he’s working hardest to mask his feelings, they’re actually leaking out all over the place. I love the way his hair curls when it gets wet, his slightly crooked smile, the way he smells. When he laughs, I feel it in my toes.” I let my forehead drop onto her shoulder. “I sound like an idiot.”

“Yes,” she says, and I hear the smile in her voice. “You do.”

“He kissed me. In the sewer.”

“Holy God,” she says. “That was very bad timing.”

“The worst.”

“And very unlike Hector.”

“Very unlike him, yes.”