The King's Blood

day over it.
    “Baron Ebbingbaugh!” Clara said, swooping down and hauling Geder’s arm around her own. “I have been looking everywhere for you. You don’t mind if I appropriate Lord Palliako, dear?”
    “That would be fine, Mother,” Jorey said, his eyes offering the thanks he couldn’t say aloud.
    Clara smiled and angled Geder away, guiding him carefully enough that it wasn’t obvious he was being led. There was an alcove at the side of the temple where she might plausibly have a moment’s conversation, though for the life of her, she didn’t know what it would be about. The odd thing about Geder Palliako—the thing that no one else commented upon—was how much and often he changed. She’d been vaguely aware of him the way you were of people at the periphery of the court before he and Jorey had gone off to the Free Cities. She’d seen him when he returned from there and danced with him at his revel. He’d seemed stunned and lost and amazed, like a child watching a cunning man turn water to sand for the first time. Then he’d disappeared for that long, terrible summer, and returned thinner and harder and confident. And knowing, it seemed, all there was to know about poor Phelia Maas and her husband. And now here he was after a winter in his new holdings with a bit more flesh under his chin and carrying a cloud of anxiety with him so thick it dampened the skin.
    “Thank you, Lady Kalliam,” Geder said, craning his neck to look back toward the collected young women of the court. She wasn’t sure if he was hoping to see them following or fearing the prospect. Both, perhaps. “I’m not at my best at these things.”
    “It can be awkward, can’t it?”
    “A baron without a baroness,” Geder said with a tight little smile. “None of them liked me before, you know.”
    “I’m certain that isn’t true,” she said, though really she was certain it was.
    She watched him catch sight of someone or something, eyes narrowing in anticipation and pleasure. Clara turned to see Sir Alan Klin arrive.
    The man looked so pale he was almost ghostly. Seeing his friend and conspirator executed for murder and treason had hit him like an illness, and he hadn’t remotely recovered. Geder had been under Klin’s command, and Clara knew there was some petty feud between them. The powerful memory came to Clara of Barriath, her eldest boy, just before his seventh name day lighting moths on fire. Innocence and cruelty defined young boys. They were what she saw now in Palliako, and it reminded her of how it had felt to be the mother of three young sons.
    “Excuse me,” Geder said, extricating his arm from hers. “There’s someone here I’ve been wanting to see.”
    “Of course,” she said.
    Geder walked over toward Klin, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. Just a little spring in the step. Clara watched him go with a combination of affection and dread. God help the woman that catches him , she thought.
    A shout came from the other end of the temple, and then a man’s voice in a roar. Clara hurried toward it, fearing some new crisis. A group had gathered and was beginning to cheer someone or something, and then Sabiha Skestinin appeared above them all, hoisted onto someone’s shoulders. Her gown was the green of new leaves, her hair braided back so that her face was visible. She was laughing and gripping something hard to keep her balance. The roar came again, and the girl’s eyes opened wider in alarm as she began to move. The crowd didn’t part so much as follow along behind. Barriath and Vicarian ran with their soon-to-be-sister lifted between them, each held one of the girl’s ankles to keep her from tipping backward, and she had her fingers wrapped tight in Barriath’s thick black hair. Barriath still wore his naval clothes with the emblem of House Skestinin on his shoulder to honor his commander. Vicarian had his white priest’s robes, but without the golden braid of final vows. All three laughed and howled as they tore through the gardens in the mock kidnapping of the bride.
    Pride and satisfaction rose in Clara’s breast. Whether they were aware of it or only divined it by instinct, the message her boys were sending read clear. The girl is ours now, not only Jorey’s. She is a Kalliam, and if you cross her, you cross us. Clara caught a glimpse of scarlet and gold in the crowd: Prince Aster laughing along with the others, pulled by the gaiety and the young women. The only thing that