A Throne for Sisters

She opened the stable door as quietly as she could, every creak of the wood or squeak of the bolt sounding impossibly loud against the quiet of the night. She didn’t dare to ride the horse from the stables, so instead, she led it quietly, step by step, until she reached the gate that led to the street.

“Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?”

Kate didn’t hesitate. Her climb up into the saddle wasn’t graceful, but it was fast. She dug her heels into the horse’s flanks and yelled at the top of her voice. At the same time, she sent, as powerfully as she could, the urge to run.

Kate didn’t know which aspect of it brought the horse to a gallop, but right then it didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was that she found herself clinging to the horse as it sprinted through the nighttime streets. Shouts sounded behind her, but they quickly faded into the distance.

The real difficulty was hanging onto the horse. Kate hadn’t ridden before. The orphanage assumed that the only ones riding around her would be whoever bought her indenture. Certainly not her, and certainly not this fast.

That meant that she clung to the horse’s neck for dear life, not even trying to steer it as it chose its own path past carts and the few pedestrians still out there. She hung on until the horse’s strength started to fade, then pulled on the reins, trying to draw it to a halt.

She managed to slow it to a walk, at least, trying to orient herself. She didn’t know exactly where she was in the city, but she had a sense of where the river was, because she’d pulled herself from it not that long ago. If she kept heading in the opposite direction, eventually, she would be out of the city.

Kate pointed the horse in what she hoped was the right direction and kept riding. She might not have ridden before, but she quickly found herself getting the rhythm of it, gripping with her legs and keeping going as her new mount took her past shops and inns, brothels and gambling parlors.

She passed one of the gaps in the old walls there. There had been a time when she would have had to ride through a closed off gate, getting past guards who would have wanted to know where she’d gotten the horse. Those days were long gone, though, the gates destroyed by cannon in one of the civil wars. Now, Kate was able to ride through with ease, traveling through into the greater quiet of the outer city.

There were still shouts somewhere behind her, but Kate doubted that anyone would be able to catch up now. Just to be sure, she kept off the main roads, so that anyone chasing would have to search for her. Out here, that meant going past rows of wooden buildings, most with their own small gardens to try to grow some extra food.

For the first time in her life, Kate felt truly free. She could just keep going, out into the Ridings with their open fields and their small villages, and no one would stop her. She would be able to find what she needed out there, whether it was food, or weapons, or just the freedom to live off the land.

She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to kick the horse into a gallop again. It had run hard enough for one night. For now, she wanted to keep going at a pace the chestnut could maintain until morning, so she let it continue its brisk walk through the outer reaches of the sprawling city.

It wasn’t until she saw a blacksmith’s shop that Kate drew her mount to a halt again. It was the one cluster of stone-built buildings in a sea of wood and clay brick construction, so solid looking that it seemed as though it had been there forever. There were examples of the owner’s work out in the space around it, from wrought iron gates to scythes awaiting sharpening, to barrels of arrow shafts, just waiting for arrowheads to fit them.

Those caught Kate’s attention. If there were arrowheads, there might be other things to go with them inside. There might be short hunting bows, just waiting for the kind of elaborate metal fittings some people loved. There might be knives. There might even be swords.

Kate knew that she ought to keep going. It would be safest not to risk any more thefts until she was clear of the city. Even the horse had been a massive risk. Yet it had been a risk that had left her far better off, hadn’t it?

And maybe it was better to do this now, all in one go. People were already hunting for her, so maybe it was better to take all her risks tonight, rather than risking spoiling things once she was out in the open country. Somehow, Kate had the feeling that it was better to leave all her small crimes behind in the city once she left Ashton. This was still part of the life she was trying to leave behind; she didn’t want to spoil her new life by making enemies in the villages out in the Ridings or the Shires beyond them.

Her mind made up, Kate hitched her horse to the fence around the side of the blacksmith’s shop. She hopped over that fence, and the moment she had, it felt as though she’d done something irrevocable. She crept toward the blacksmith’s shop, keeping low.

There were three buildings. One was clearly the main shop, another looked as though it might be the blacksmith’s home, while the third was probably some kind of storage area and workshop. That was the one Kate slipped toward through the darkness, on the basis that it was the least likely to be tightly locked, and the most likely to contain completed weapons.

Sure enough, when Kate looked in through one of the tiny windows, she could see barrels with sword hilts and bows sticking from them, mixed in with ornamental ironwork and long nails designed for boat building.

Now, she just needed to find a way in. Kate made her way around to the door, but there was a large, wrought iron lock on that and the handle wouldn’t move when she tried it. She moved back around to the window, eyeing the leaded glass there. Would she fit through? It would be a tight fit, but Kate thought that she might make it.

She would have to break the window to do it, but with so many objects scattered around the yard, that proved to be easy. She just picked up a twisted iron railing spike and swung.

The glass breaking sounded far too loud against the silence, and Kate held still, listening for activity. When there was none, she knocked out the rest of the glass and pulled herself through the window.

Kate searched through the barrels. She didn’t know as much about weapons as she wanted to, but Kate could see that some of the creations here were better than others. There were some swords that seemed light and springy, while others seemed like cheap copies of them. Even some of the blades with more elaborate-looking hilts had blades without any flex, and with just a dull shine to them rather than the wave patterned metal of the better ones.

The same went for the bows. Some were just straight yew and ash, while others seemed to be composites of many layers of wood and horn, bound with metal. Kate took the best she could find. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. There was no way that she could climb out of the window again with them strapped to her, so she tossed them out ahead of her, then climbed back through, tumbling to the ground in the darkness and coming up to a crouch.

A hand closed over her shoulder, large enough and strong enough that Kate had no chance of escape. She spun, trying to pull away, and strong arms wrapped around her.

Kate swallowed, knowing she was finished.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sophia forced herself to stand and watch the ball as the dancing started, groups of people moving through formal court dances that she simply didn’t know the steps to. She wanted to rush forward in the direction of Prince Sebastian, but right then, it was hard to get her feet moving in the right direction.

What did you come here for, then? Sophia asked herself.

That was the question. She couldn’t be timid about this. If she couldn’t bring herself to even talk to the prince, then she had to make her way over to one of the other men in the room. If she couldn’t do that, then she needed to leave, sell what she had, and hope that it would be enough to keep her off the streets for a night or two.

Wasn’t it better to go over to the prince than to do either of those things? Wasn’t it better to just talk to a young man she liked? Sophia found herself able to move again with that thought, and she started to pick her way through the crowd.

Not everyone was dancing, even now. The older nobles there mostly watched from the sidelines, talking to one another about whose son or daughter or niece was dancing the most elegantly, about the wars across the Knife-Water, about the latest artists patronized by the dowager or the fact that Lord Horrige’s daughter had elected to become a nun of the Masked Goddess. Just the mention of it was enough to steer Sophia away from the conversation.

She kept drifting toward the prince. He wasn’t dancing yet, although his brother was, swapping from partner to partner with the laughing ebullience of a man who knew he could have his pick of the women. Sophia made sure that she avoided him. She had no interest in being swept up in the whirl of his amusement.

As she stepped out toward Prince Sebastian, she was sure she caught him looking her way. It was hard to tell for sure with the mask obscuring his expression, but her talent seemed to catch his surprise.

She’s coming over to me? I assumed a girl that lovely would have a full dance card already.

“Your Highness,” Sophia said as she reached him, curtseying because they’d taught the girls how to do that much at least at the House of the Unclaimed. “I hope you don’t mind me coming over like this.”

Mind? Only if she’s going to start going on about how perfect the ball is. I hate how contrived these things are.

“No, I don’t mind,” he said. “I’m sorry, I can’t guess who’s under that mask.”

“Sophia of Meinhalt,” she said, remembering her false identity. “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at parties. I’m not sure what I should be doing.”

“I’m not very good at them either,” Sebastian admitted.

They’re meat markets.

“You don’t have to hide from me,” Sophia said. “I can see you don’t like them much. Is it too many people looking for advantage in one place?” She paused. “I’m sorry, that was too forward of me. If you want me to go – ”

Sebastian reached out for her arm. “Please don’t. It’s refreshing to meet someone who is prepared to be honest about what’s happening here.”

Sophia actually felt a little guilty about that, since she was more than aware that she was there under false pretenses. At the same time, she felt more of a connection to Sebastian as he stood next to her than to any of the others there. He felt real while so many of the others seemed like simple facades.

The truth was that she liked him, and it seemed as though he liked her. Sophia could see his thoughts as clearly as fish at the bottom of a river. They were bright things, without the edge of cruelty to them that his brother’s had. More than that, she could see how he felt and thought when he looked at her.

“Why did you come to the ball if you hate them so much?” Sophia asked. “I’d have thought a prince could choose not to.”

Sebastian shook his head. “Maybe it works that way in Meinhalt. Here, it’s all duty. My mother wishes me to attend, and so I attend.”

“She’s probably hoping you’ll meet a nice girl,” Sophia said. She looked around pointedly. “I’m sure there must be one somewhere.”

She managed to get him to laugh with that.

“I thought I just had,” Sebastian countered. He seemed to realize what he’d just said. “What about you, Sophia? Why are you at this ball?”