The Will of the Empress

Gudruny was still setting the table when Briar arrived. He carried his mage kit and a shakkan from the imperial greenhouse. “I thought I’d work on it later,” he told Sandry, placing the shakkan on a side table. “Hullo, Gudruny. Did you see your kids and Zhegorz?”

The maid nodded. “Zhegorz asked me to tell you and Viymese Tris, he followed one single conversation all the way to the green market today. He says to say it was real, bargaining between a cherry seller and a potter. He said he did it after he took out just one ear bead—whatever that means. And I think Wenoura is spoiling my children.”

Briar chuckled. “Good cooks do that. If you worry about this sort of thing, once we get to Summersea, keep them away from Gorse at Winding Circle. Otherwise you’ll have kids that roll, not walk.”

Sandry had inspected his miniature willow while Briar talked to her maid. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked when she had the chance.

Briar grimaced. “See how it’s shaped so it’s bent almost clean out to the side? The bleater that shaped this beauty actually thought the tree ought to be trained up in the full Cascade style. She properly needs the Windblown style, with the trunk more upright. Anyone can see that. The empress had the eye to see it, even if she hadn’t had the time to get to work on her yet.” He caressed the tree’s slim branches, which twined gently around his hand. “Nobody ever asks the tree, do they, Beauty?”

Sandry shook her head. “If only you found a human being you loved enough to talk that way to.”

“Isn’t one of us in love bad enough?” Briar asked.

Sandry knit her brows. “You know, then. About Daja. And Rizu.”

“Couldn’t hardly miss it,” Briar replied, pinching off tiny new leaves. He glanced up at Sandry. “How’d you know?”

Sandry blushed and looked down. “Daja and I reopened our bonds with each other a little while ago.”

“Interesting way to find out,” Briar murmured, his concentration on the tree again. “Don’t hold your breath for me to throw myself down in a heap of contriteness and beg you two to include me in all this joy.”

“I wasn’t going to,” retorted Sandry, her eyes flashing. “Of all the selfish, rude, impertinent boys—”

Briar grinned at her. “Well, I am family.”

Sandry couldn’t help it. She had to laugh as Gudruny admitted Tris and Chime.

“Good to see you two getting on,” the redhead remarked. She came over to look at the miniature willow. “Reshaping her?” she asked Briar. Chime stretched out from Tris’s shoulder, her head at the same angle as Tris’s as they eyed the tree.

Briar nodded. “No willow tree bends over on itself. That was pretty decent of you today, taking some of the load from the sailors.”

“Too bad it only made them uncomfortable,” Tris replied drily.

“It’s just that weather magic and anyone who can do more than control a wind here and there are so uncommon,” explained Sandry. “If you’d brought up a big wave that just rolled us toward shore, they might not even have noticed.”

“But the shore would,” Tris said. “Besides, Her Imperial Majesty and her pet puppy dogs wanted a wind. Can you imagine how His Grace your uncle would react if every time he asked for something, everyone around him asked for the same thing?”

Sandry winced. Uncle Vedris had expressed his opinions of such fawning behavior very forcibly in the past. “They wouldn’t do so more than once,” she said as Gudruny responded to a knock on the door.

Daja came in, looking oddly uncertain. Rizu stood by her shoulder. “I—I told Rizu it would be all right if she joined us.”

Sandry beamed at the pair. “Of course you may,” she told Rizu, glancing back to make sure neither Briar nor Tris was about to make a liar out of her. Briar’s eyebrows were slightly knit; Tris had that same politely interested expression she had worn that afternoon while talking with Quen and Ishabal, but neither one said anything. Sandry continued, “You never asked permission to join us at Landreg Castle, Rizu—why start now? Gudruny?”

The maid was already rearranging chairs and settings for a fifth person at the table. As soon as she finished, they all sat down to eat.

To Sandry’s relief, everyone relaxed once they were eating. They talked about the ball for the Lairan ambassador in two weeks’ time and that day’s sail. Now that they knew more people at court, Rizu could tell stories about them that the others would understand. She and Daja remained for a while after the footmen cleared away the plates, then excused themselves and left.

There was a long silence once Gudruny had retreated to her own room. Briar concentrated on the willow shakkan. Gently he urged it up from its ugly, bent-over stance, raising it to the limit the trunk could handle even with his magic to make it more flexible. Once it was as straight as he could make it for the time being, he fashioned a sleeve of heavy wire to help it keep from folding down again. Tris petted Chime as the glass dragon gave off her singing purr. Sandry peered at her embroidery and waited for one of the others to say something.

At last, Briar sat up. “Just because she has a partner now doesn’t mean the partner is one of us,” he grumbled. “You don’t see me dragging a girl everywhere.”

Tris looked at him steadily. “Have you cared enough about a girl to want us to accept her?” she asked.

Briar couldn’t meet her level gaze. “Well, Evvy,” he mumbled.