Arlbeth, in a very unkinglike manner, reached out and grabbed Tor before anyone found out what the first sola’s sudden move in Perlith’s direction might result in. “Perlith, you betray the honor of the second sola’s place in speaking thus.”

Tor said in a strangled voice, “He will apologize, or I’ll give him a lesson in swordplay he will not like at all.”

“Tor, don’t be a—” she began, outraged, but the king’s voice cut across hers. “Perlith, there is justice in the first sola’s demand.”

There was a long pause while she hated everyone impartially: Tor for behaving like a farmer’s son whose pet chicken has just been insulted; her father, for being so immovably kingly; and Perlith for being Perlith. This was even worse than she had anticipated; at this point she would be grateful just for escape, but it was too late.

Perlith said at last, “I apologize, Aerin-sol. For speaking the truth,” he added venomously, and turned on his heel and strode across the hall. At the doorway he paused and turned to shout back at them: “Go slay a dragon, lady! Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer!”

The silence resettled itself about them, and she could no longer even raise her eyes to her father’s face.

“Aerin—” Arlbeth began.

The gentleness of his voice told her all she needed to know, and she turned away and walked toward the other end of the hall, opposite the door which Perlith had taken. She was conscious of the length of the way she had to take because Perlith had taken the shorter way, and she hated him all the more for it; she was conscious of all the eyes on her, and conscious of the fact that her legs still trembled, and that the line she walked was not a straight one. Her father did not call her back. Neither did Tor. As she reached the doorway at last, Perlith’s words still rang in her ears: “A king’s daughter who had true royal blood in her veins ... Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer.” It was as though his words were hunting dogs who tracked her and nipped at her heels.

HER HEAD ACHED. The scene was still so vividly before her that the door of her bedroom was half open before she heard it. She spun round, but it was only Teka, bearing a tray; Teka glanced once at her scowling face and averted her eyes. She was probably first chosen for my maid for her skill at averting her eyes, Aerin thought sourly; but then she noticed the tray, and the smell of the steam that rose from it, and the worried mark between Teka’s eyebrows. Her own face softened.

“You can’t not eat,” Teka said.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Aerin replied, realizing this was true.

“You shouldn’t sulk,” Teka then said, “and forget about eating.” She looked sharply at her young charge, and the worried mark deepened.

“Sulking,” said Aerin stiffly.

Teka sighed. “Hiding. Brooding. Whatever you like. It’s not good for you.”

“Or for you,” Aerin suggested.

A smile touched the corners of the worry. “Or for me.”

“I will try to sulk less if you will try to worry less.”

Teka set the tray down on a table and began lifting napkins off of plates. “Talat missed you today.”

“He told you so, of course.” Teka’s fear of anything larger than the smallest pony, and therefore the fact that she gave a very wide berth to the stables and pastures beyond them, was well known to Aerin. “I’ll go down after dark.” She turned back to the window. There were more comings and goings across the stretch of courtyard that her bedroom overlooked; she saw more messengers, and two men racing by on foot in the uniform of the king’s army, with the red divisional slash on their left forearms which meant they were members of the supply corps. Equipping the king’s company for its march west was proceeding at a pace presently headlong and increasing toward panicky. Under normal circumstances Aerin saw no one from her bedroom window but the occasional idling courtier.

Something on the tray rattled abruptly, and there was a sigh. “Aerin—”

“Whatever you’re going to say I’ve thought of already,” Aerin said without turning around.

Silence. Aerin finally looked round at Teka, standing with head and shoulders bowed, staring at the tray. The plates were heavy earthenware, handsome and elegant, but easily replaced if Aerin managed to break one, as she often did; and she had not the small Gift to mend them. She stared at the plates. Tor had mended her breakages when she was a baby, but she was too proud to ask now she was far past the age when she should have been able to fit the bits together, glower at them with the curious royal Gifted look, and have them grow whole again. It did not now help her peace of mind or her temper either that she had been an unusually large and awkward child who seemed able to break things simply by being in the same room with them; as if fate, having denied her something that should have been her birthright, wanted her never to forget it. Aerin was not a particularly clumsy young woman, but she was by now so convinced of her lack of coordination that she still broke things occasionally out of sheer dread.

Teka had silently exchanged the finer royal plates for these earthenware ones several years ago, after Galanna had found out that the red-and-gold ones that should only be used by members of the first circle of the royal house—which included Aerin—were slowly disappearing. She had one of her notorious temper tantrums over this, caused crisis and dismay in the whole hierarchy of the hafor, and turned off three of the newest and lowliest servant girls on suspicion of stealing—and then, when no one could possibly overlook the commotion she was making, contrived to discover that the disappearances were merely the result of Aerin being clumsy. “You revolting child,” she said to a mutinous Aerin; “even if you are incapable”—there was inexpressible malice lurking behind the word—”of mending the settings yourself, you might save the pieces and let one of us do it for you.”

“I’d hang myself first,” spat Aerin, “and then I’d come back and haunt you till you were haggard with fear and lost all your looks and people pointed at you in the streets—”

At this point Galanna slapped her, which was a tactical error. In the first place, it needed only such an excuse for Aerin to jump on her and roll her over on the floor, bruise one eye, and rip most of the lace off her extremely ornate afternoon dress—somehow both the court members and the hafor witness to this scene were a little slow in dragging Aerin off her—and in the second place, both the slap and its result quite ruined Galanna’s attempted role of great lady dealing with contemptible urchin. It was generally considered—Galanna was no favorite—that Aerin had won that round. Of the three serving girls, one was taken back, one was given a job in the stables, which she much preferred, and one, declaring that she wouldn’t have any more to do with the royal house if saying so got her beheaded for treason, went home to her own village, far from the City.

Aerin sighed. Life had been easier when her ultimate goal had been murdering Galanna with her bare hands. She had continued to use the finer ware when she ate with the court, of course; when she was younger she had rarely been compelled to do so, fortunately, since she never got much to eat, but sat rigidly and on her guard (Galanna’s basilisk glare from farther down the high table helped) for the entire evening. But at least she didn’t break anything either, and Teka could always be persuaded to bring her a late supper as necessary. On earthenware plates.

She lifted her eyes to Teka, who was still standing motionless behind the tray. “Teka, I’m sorry I’m so tiresome. I can’t seem to help it. It’s in my blood, like being clumsy is—like everything else isn’t.” She walked over and gave the older woman a hug, and Teka looked up and half smiled.

“I hate to see you ... fighting everything so.”