The Dragon's Path

her hand.
    “This is a theater piece,” he said. “A bunch of men are going to meet on a field outside the city, wave sticks and swords at each other, tumble about enough to satisfy honor, and then we’ll open the gates to the Antean army and let them run things for a few years.”
    “But the prince—”
    “Exiled. Or imprisoned, but probably exiled. This goes on all the time. A baroness in Gilea marries a prince in Asterilhold, and King Simeon decides Antea needs a counterbalance in the Free Cities. So he finds a reason to declare war on Vanai.”
    Cithrin frowned. Besel seemed so amused, so unconcerned. By his light, her fear seemed naïve. Foolish. She dug in her heels.
    “I’ve read about wars. The history tutor doesn’t make it sound like that at all.”
    “Maybe real wars are different,” Besel said with a shrug. “If Antea ever marches on Birancour or the Keshet, I’ll pull all wagers. But this? It’s less than a spring storm, little bird.”
    A woman’s voice called Besel’s name. A merchant’s daughter wearing a deep brown bodice and full skirts of undyed linen. Besel rose from Cithrin’s side.
    “My work’s before me,” he said with a glimmer in his eye. “You should get back to the house before old Cam starts getting anxious. But seriously, trust Magister Imaniel. He’s been doing this longer than any of us, and he knows what he’s about.”
    Cithrin nodded, then watched as Besel took the steps twoat a time, down to the dark-haired girl. He bowed before her, and she curtseyed, but it all looked false to Cithrin. Formality used as foreplay. Likely Besel didn’t think Cithrin knew what foreplay was. She watched sourly as he took the woman by the elbow and led her away into the pale streets and bridges of the city. Cithrin plucked at her sleeves, wishing—not for the first time—that the Medean bank had adopted colors that flattered her more. Something green, for instance.
    If her parents had both been Firstblood or Cinnae, she might have had family to take her in. Instead, her father’s titles in Birancour had been reclaimed by the queen and awarded to someone else. Her mother’s clan in Princip C’Annaldé had politely declined to take a half-blood child.
    If not for the bank, she would have been turned into the streets and alleys of Vanai. But her father had placed a part of his gold with Magister Imaniel, and as inheritor, Cithrin became the bank’s ward until she was old enough to press her bloodied thumb to contracts of her own. Two more summers, it would be. She would see her nineteenth solstice, become a woman of property, and move, she supposed, out of the little apartments near the Grand Square where the Vanai branch of the Medean bank did its business.
    Assuming, of course, that the invading army left the city standing.
    Walking through the fresh market, she saw no other particular signs of fear on the faces around her. So perhaps Besel was right. God knew the man seemed sure of himself. But then, he always did.
    She let herself wonder whether Besel would see her differently when she wasn’t the bank’s little girl any longer. She paused at a stall where a Firstblood woman sold perfumes, oils, and colored hair-cloths. A mirror hung on a roughwood post, inviting the customers to admire themselves. Cithrin considered herself for a moment, lifting her chin the way women with real families might.
    “Oh, you poor thing,” the woman said. “You’ve been sick, haven’t you? Need something for your lips?”
    Cithrin shook her head, stepping back. The woman snatched her by the sleeve.
    “Don’t run off. I’m not afraid. Half my clients are here because they’ve been unwell. We can wash that pale right off you, dear.”
    “I haven’t,” Cithrin said, finding her voice.
    “Haven’t?” the woman said, steering her toward a stool at the stall’s inner corner. The scent of roses and turned earth made the air almost too thick to breathe.
    “I’m not sick,” she said. “My mother’s Cinnae. It’s… it’s normal.”
    The woman cast a pitying look at her. It was true. Cithrin had neither the delicate, spun-glass beauty of her mother’s people nor the solid, warm, earthy charms of a Firstblood girl. She was in between. The white mule, the other children had called her. Neither one thing nor the other.
    “Well, all the more, then,” the woman said consolingly. “Just sit you down, and we’ll see what we can do.”
    In the end, Cithrin bought a jar of lip