The Will of the Empress

Rizu smiled. “You think so, truly?”

Daja opened her lips to say that of course she thought so, but she didn’t get to speak. Instead, Rizu leaned over and kissed her softly, gently, on the mouth.

After a moment, she pulled away. There was a look of worry in her eyes. Her hands were fisted in her skirts.

“Oh,” said Daja when she remembered how to talk. She felt as if the sun had just catapulted into her mind. Dazzled with what it showed her, she realized also, Rizu’s afraid. She’s had enough people tell her no that she’s not sure…

Strictly to make Rizu feel better, certainly not because she wanted more of that sunlight spilling into her heart and mind, Daja leaned over and kissed Rizu’s mouth all on her own. Then, rather than ruin the quiet between them, Rizu took Daja’s hand and led her into the palace by a door that did not open into the Moonlight Hall.

“I’m serious—stop laughing!” murmured Fin as he twirled Sandry around in the dance figure called “the Rose.” “Just the two of us, with your maid for chaperone, tomorrow or the next day. There’s a cove down on the Syth where the pools are inlaid with semiprecious stone. It’s exquisite. You’ll be enchanted.”

“But I don’t know you well enough, Fin,” Sandry replied in her lightest tone. “What if a strong fellow like you were to kidnap me and try to make me sign that marriage contract I keep hearing about?” She batted her eyelashes at him, as if she didn’t really believe he might try that. The truth was that once she knew it was possible, she suspected the men that Berenene had assigned to court her most of all. As far as Sandry knew, they could have orders to marry her by summer’s end, one way or another.

“But you’re a mage,” he coaxed, leading her in a circle with the other dancers. “And kin to Her Imperial Majesty. You—”

A surge of emotion—tenderness, shock, heat that flooded her veins and made her muscles loose—struck Sandry like a wave, making her sway. At a distance, as if she were someone else, she felt lips touch hers in a kiss, and she kissed back.

Oh my, she thought, very severely rattled. Daja and, and Rizu.

She grabbed Fin by both arms, partly to steady herself, partly to make her story convincing. “I’m sorry,” she said. She flashed a smile at her fellow dancers and spoke a little more loudly. “It’s very warm in here, isn’t it?” Hurriedly she threw up a barrier on her connection to Daja, who was following Rizu giddily. “I’m sorry, I really must sit down.”

A lady’s wish was a command at a dance. Fin guided Sandry to a chair. “May I get you something cool?” he asked, concerned, as she located her fan.

“Shaved ice would be wonderful, thank you,” she said. She waved the fan hurriedly, trying to cool the scarlet blush she felt rising on her cheeks. Once he was gone and she didn’t have to work to talk to him, she put up more blocks on her connection to her sister, trying to keep it open without knowing anything of what Daja was up to now. Only when she had reduced it to the merest thread did she lean back in her chair and close her eyes.

I don’t think she knew, thought Sandry. Or if she did, she thought she was more like Rosethorn, interested in women and men. I know she’s mentioned boys, once or twice, but never girls. Thinking of Rizu, Sandry added, Or women.

A hand rested on her shoulder, making Sandry jump. She turned as Shan bent down and whispered in her ear, “It’s cooler outside.”

And it’s dark, so nobody can see my face till I get myself under control, Sandry added silently. She bounced out of her chair and followed Shan onto a terrace, thankfully a different terrace from the one Daja and Rizu had just left. She wasn’t completely sure that the other terrace wasn’t aglow from that sudden flare of passion in Daja.

“Oh dear,” she whispered, hesitating. “Fin will think I’ve deserted him.”

“Tell me he doesn’t deserve it for hounding you,” Shan replied quietly, tugging her away from the windows. “I saw the look on your face when you were dancing with him. He’ll recover.”

Sandry shook her head, but she didn’t resist the tug on her hand any longer. Shan was right. She was uncomfortably warm. I’ll tell Fin I was going to faint unless I got fresh air. I’ll make it up to him somehow. Maybe he’ll take the hint and stop trying to get me alone.

Out here, the wind cooled Sandry’s hot face. She let Shan guide her to a shadowed bench, where she sat with relief. “Sometimes there are things you just don’t want to know the details of,” she murmured.

Shan took a seat next to her. “Was that aimed at me?” he asked.

“Goodness, no,” Sandry replied. “Oh, dear, Tris is up there again.” She pointed up to the curtain wall.

Shan was a large source of warmth against Sandry’s left side. “The Master of Ceremonies should just build her a room up there,” he remarked, his voice soft music over her shoulder. “Has she always liked high places?”

Hearing his male rumble, Sandry felt better, less giddy. “Well, she is a weather mage,” she pointed out. “It’s the best place to reach for weather. If we weren’t sure where to find her, back at Discipline, the wall was the first place we started. We—”

Fingers touched her chin and turned her head. Shan bent down to kiss Sandry gently.

She jumped away as if stung. The sensation was too close to Daja, what Daja had felt. Sandry couldn’t tell the difference between her reaction to Shan and Daja’s to Rizu. “Please don’t be offended,” she said, even more rattled now. “I…I’m just, all the light and the dancing—I really must get back to it!”