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Finena swiveled her head from her perch on the exquisitely stitched and gemmed leather gauntlet on Andrin's left wrist, looking up at her human friend with an eye Andrin was privately certain gleamed with approval. Her own lips twitched ever so slightly at the thought, yet not even that image, delectable though it might be, could break through the shell of ... of what?
She couldn't answer that question, hard though she'd tried. She knew her terrifying Glimpses of Janaki were a huge part of it, of course. They were too strong, too persistent, for her to just brush them aside, however hard she tried. However frequently she reminded herself Glimpses often failed, or turned out to have been misunderstood or wrongly interpreted, especially when they concerned loved ones. She'd felt the bumblebees swarming under her skin again, felt the needles and pins of prophecy pricking in her bones, and she knew something—something dreadful—was going to happen to her brother.
Shalana the Merciful, please, she thought. Please let this Glimpse be wrong. Protect Janaki.
If only her father hadn't so obviously been Glimpsing something similar, it might have been easier for her to convince herself she was wrong. But she'd seen the same unspoken fears in his eyes, felt his Talent resonating against hers, and she knew what it was he hadn't told her mother.
Her haunted eyes tracked across the ballroom floor to where Empress Varena swirled through the graceful measures of a Uromathian waltz with the Prince Regent of Limathia (who appeared to have finally forgiven her father for the famous "godsdamned fish" remark). The Empress' head was tilted to one side as she smiled at her partner, moving with all the skilled grace which had seemed to elude Andrin, despite the best efforts of veritable troops of dancing masters, for so many years of her adolescence. Varena radiated vivacity, zest, confidence in the future, as she looked forward to her coronation as Empress of Sharona on the morrow.
But Andrin knew. She knew the burden of the Calirath Talent lay even heavier on the shoulders of imperial consorts who lacked that Talent than on any who possessed it. Her mother couldn't experience any Glimpse directly, yet she knew when her daughter and her husband were gripped by the cruel pincers of precognition. And she knew how desperately they sought to protect her from the often frustratingly murky visions of the future which haunted them. Despite her smiles, despite the confident, gracious image she projected, she knew they were protecting her now ... and even someone far less intelligent than she would have had very little difficulty figuring out which of the people she loved was most probably in danger.
And yet, she did her duty. She shouldered the burden she had agreed to bear the day she accepted Zindel chan Calirath's hand in marriage, and the even greater one no one could have predicted, which would settle upon her tomorrow. She hid her fears, pretended she was unafraid. Pretended even to her husband and her daughter that she wasn't terrified by the future which they, unlike she, could at least Glimpse, however imperfectly.
As Andrin watched her dancing, smiling, she wanted to weep. Weep for her mother's courage, for the crushing weight of the duty she had accepted so many years before.
"Your Highness?"
Andrin blinked herself back into focus and turned her head.
"Yes, Voice Kinlafia?"
"I was hoping you might be kind enough to allow me to partner you for the next dance, Your Highness."
The tough-looking, brown-haired Voice looked out of place in the ballroom. Not because he wasn't perfectly attired, and one of the better-looking men present, but because he made the other, younger, far more nobly born males still orbiting Andrin look as callow and untried as they actually were. Many of them had the ta
"I promise I won't walk all over your slippers, Your Highness," Kinlafia told her with a twinkle. "Mind you, I wouldn't have promised any such thing for this waltz, but the next dance is from New Farnal, which means I actually know the steps."
He smiled so wi
"I'd be delighted," she told him, and the crowd of disappointed aspirants parted like ice floes around the bows of a Farnalian icebreaker as he escorted her towards the head of the line forming for the next dance.
"You'll have to excuse me for a moment again, dearling," she told Finena, and the falcon launched from her gauntleted left wrist. Fortunately, the Caliraths' attachment to their falcons was sufficiently well known—not to say notorious—that no one seemed particularly astonished or upset when Finena went flashing overhead. The falcon settled on her perch, under the watchful eyes of Brahndys chan Gordahl and Ulthar chan Habikon, and Andrin offered her hand to Kinlafia.
"Thank you, Your Highness." He bent over it, pressed a kiss to its back, and then they took their places as the orchestra played the first few bars of a New Farnal country melody and the step-caller called out thecircle dance's first movement.
The dance was far more lively than the stylized, refined waltz which had preceded it. Kinlafia was obviously familiar with the steps, although despite his athleticism, he was not Howan Fai Goutin's equal as a dancer. Yet there was something profoundly soothing about him, and Andrin found herself actually laughing with delight as he twirled her through the dance's movements. And as she did, she realized it was precisely for that moment of escape that Kinlafia had asked her to dance.
It came to an end at last, and she tucked her hand into his elbow. He started to escort her back to where her abandoned suitors waited, but she looked up at him with a winsome smile
"If you please, Voice Kinlafia," she said, "I think I'd prefer a glass of lemonade."
"Nothing could please me more, Your Highness."
From one of the nobly born butterflies who had been fluttering about her so assiduously all evening, it would have been a pleasant nothing. From Kinlafia, it was a completely sincere statement, and she squeezed his elbow gently. He glanced down at her with a small smile, and she realized there was no need to explain to him what that squeeze was for.
Lazima chan Zindico trailed watchfully along behind, his eyes searching constantly for any tiny flaw in the crowd, any possible sign of danger for his charge.
He didn't find one, of course, which didn't prevent him from settling into what Andrin privately thought of as his "brooding protector mode" as Kinlafia seated her at one of the small, candlelit tables placed to catch the pleasant evening breeze swirling in through the wall of opened double doors. Kinlafia glanced at chan Zindico with a much more measuring eye than most of the young sprouts who had pestered Andrin all night ever showed. Obviously, the Voice recognized chan Zindico for what—and who—he truly was, whereas most of the spoiled, pampered aristocrats saw him only as one more item of furniture.
Andrin liked that.
Kinlafia disappeared for a moment or two, then returned with not one glass of punch, but four... and Prince Howan Fai Goutin and Alazon Yanamar. Andrin thanked the Voice for the glass and raised it to her lips a bit more quickly than she might otherwise have to hide her smile. She'd wondered when Alazon would turn up. She also wondered how long it would be before the reporters noticed that wherever "candidate Kinlafia" happened to be, the Emperor's Privy Voice was virtually certain to turn up, and vice versa. The thought tickled her fancy, and her eyes gleamed mischievously as she considered how she might twit the two of them. The two Voices were busy looking at one another, and Andrin's dancing eyes met Prince Howan's equally amused gaze for just a moment.
"Forgive me, Voice Kinlafia," she said then, lowering her glass, "but I've noticed that some of the papers and some of the Voice reports are commenting on how much time you seem to be spending here in the Palace. There's speculation that your presence here indicates you've decided to become one of 'Zindel's men.'"thinspace""
She paused, and Kinlafia cocked his head slightly to one side.
"I've seen the reports, Your Highness," he said. "May I ask why you mention them?"
"I know from something Yanamar said that Father didn't want it to seem as if he was too openly supporting your candidacy. But I've also noticed he seems to be spending an extraordinary amount of time talking to you ... especially for someone who hasn't even won election yet. I was just wondering if you and he had changed your minds about the possible implications of his openly supporting you. Or, at least, appearing to support you?"
She looked at him very steadily, and saw something like recognition flicker back in those brown eyes of his, but he didn't reply immediately. Instead, he sat there for several seconds, gazing at her thoughtfully
—much as Shamir Taje might have. That thought danced through the back of Andrin's brain, and as it did, she realized that one of the things which most appealed to her about Kinlafia was that he and Taje were the only two men, apart from her father, who didn't seem to care about her youthfulness when she asked a question. They actually thought about those questions, about their responses to them, because they extended respect to the person asking them, not simply out of courtesy to the title of that person.
Then he tilted his head to one side, glancing at Prince Howan, and arched one eyebrow.
"King Ju
"Most assuredly not, Your Grand Imperial Highness," Prince Howan responded with a slight smile. His Ternathian had improved enormously over the last couple of months, thanks in no small part to the services of a Voice language tutor, and the irony in his tone came through perfectly. Then his expression sobered. "Still, I will certainly understand if Voice Kinlafia would prefer to answer your question in privacy."
The Eniathian prince started to stand, but Kinlafia shook his head.