A Throne for Sisters. Морган Райс

of the square, wearing the colors of one of the mercenary companies that liked to dabble in the wars across the water. They had weapons laid out on carts, and horses. A few of them were even having an impromptu fencing tournament with blunted steel swords.

      Kate eyed the weapons, and she saw what she needed: racks of steel. Daggers, swords, crossbows, traps for hunting. With even a few of these things, she could learn to trap and live off the land.

      “Don’t,” Sophia said, watching her gaze, laying a hand on her arm.

      Kate pulled free, but gently. “Come with me,” Kate said, determined.

      She saw her sister shake her head. “You know I can’t. That isn’t for me. It’s not who I am. It’s not what I want, Kate.”

      And trying to blend with a bunch of nobles wasn’t what Kate wanted.

      She could feel her sister’s certainty, she could feel her own, and she had a sudden sense of where this was going. The knowledge of it made tears sting her eyes. She threw her arms around her sister, just as her sister embraced her.

      “I don’t want to leave you,” Kate said.

      “I don’t want to leave you either,” Sophia replied, “but maybe we need to each try our own way, at least for a little while. You are as stubborn as I, and we each have our own dream. I am convinced I can make it, and that then I can help you.”

      Kate smiled.

      “And I am convinced I can make it, and then I can help you.”

      Kate could see the tears in her sister’s eyes now too, but more than that, she could feel the sadness there through the connection they shared.

      “You’re right,” Sophia said. “You wouldn’t fit in at court, and I wouldn’t fit in, in some wilderness, or learning to fight. So maybe we have to do this separately. Maybe our best chances of survival are by being apart. If nothing else, if one of us is caught, then the other can come rescue her.”

      Kate wanted to tell Sophia that she was wrong, but the truth was that everything she was saying made sense.

      “I’ll find you afterwards,” Kate said. “I’ll learn how to fight and how to live in the countryside, and I’ll find you. Then you will see, and you will come join me.”

      “And I will find you when I’ve succeeded at court,” Sophia countered with a smile. “You will join me in the palace and marry a prince, and rule over this town.”

      They each smiled wide, tears rolling down their cheeks.

      But you won’t ever be alone, Sophia added, the words ringing in Kate’s mind. I will always be as close as a thought.

      Kate couldn’t bear the sadness anymore, and she knew she had to act before she changed her mind.

      So she hugged her sister one last time, let go, and ran in the direction of the weapons.

      It was time to risk it all.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Sophia could feel the determination burning inside her as she set off across Ashton, making for the walled precinct where the palace lay. She hurried down the streets, dodging horses and occasionally hopping onto the back of wagons when it looked as though they might be heading in the right direction.

      Even with that, it took time to cross the expanse of the place, moving through the Screws, the Merchant Quarter, Knotty Hill, and the other districts one by one. They were so strange and full of life after her time in the House of the Unclaimed that Sophia wished she had more time in which to explore them. She found herself standing outside a great circular theater, wishing that there were enough time to go inside.

      There wasn’t, though, because if she missed the masked ball tonight, she wasn’t sure how she was going to find the place at court she wanted. A masked ball, even she knew, didn’t come around very often, and it would offer her best chance to sneak in.

      She worried about Kate as she went. It felt strange, after so long, simply walking in opposite directions. But the truth was that they wanted different things from their lives. Sophia would find her, when this was done. When she had a life settled among the nobles of Ashton, she would find Kate and make everything all right.

      The gates to the walled precinct that held the palace lay ahead. As Sophia had expected, they were thrown open for the evening, and beyond them, she could see formal gardens laid out in neat rows of hedges and roses. There were even great expanses of grass, trimmed shorter than any farmer’s field could be, and that in itself seemed like a sign of luxury when anyone else in the city who had a scrap of land beside their house had to use it to grow food.

      There were lanterns set up on poles every few steps within the gardens. They weren’t lit yet, but by night, they would turn the whole place into a wash of bright light, letting people dance on the lawns as easily as in one of the great rooms of the palace.

      Sophia could see people heading inside, one after another. There was a gold-liveried servant by the gate, along with two guards in the brightest blue, their muskets shouldered in perfect parade ground display while nobles and their servants sauntered past.

      Sophia hurried for the gate. She’d hoped that she could lose herself in a crowd of those coming in, but by the time she got there, she was the only one. It meant that the servant there was able to give her his full attention. He was an older man in a powdered wig that curled down to the nape of his neck. He looked at Sophia with something approaching disdain.

      “And what do you want?” he demanded, in a tone so arch it might have been that of an actor playing at being noble, rather than the servant of the real thing.

      “I’m here for the ball,” Sophia said. She knew she could never pass for noble, but there were still things she could do. “I’m the servant of – ”

      “Don’t embarrass yourself,” the servant shot back. “I know perfectly well who is to be let in, and none of them would bother being accompanied by a servant like you. We’re not letting in dock whores. It’s not that kind of party.”

      “I don’t know what you mean,” Sophia tried, but the scowl she got back told her that it wasn’t even close to working.

      “Then allow me to explain,” the servant on the door said. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Your dress looks as though it has been cut down from a fishwife’s. You stink as if you’ve just come out of a cess pit. As for your voice, you sound as though you couldn’t even spell elocution, let alone employ it. Now, be off with you, before I have you run off and thrown in a lock-up for the night.”

      Sophia wanted to argue, but the cruelty of his words seemed to have stolen all of hers. More than that, they’d stolen away her dream, as easily as if the man had reached out and plucked it from the air. She turned and ran, and the worst part was the laughter that followed her all the way down the street.

      Sophia stopped in a doorway further on, utterly humiliated. She hadn’t expected this to be easy, but she’d expected someone in the city to be kind. She’d thought that she would be able to pass for a servant even if she couldn’t pass for a noblewoman.

      Maybe that was her mistake though. If she was trying to reinvent herself, shouldn’t she go the whole way? Maybe it wasn’t too late. She couldn’t pass for the kind of servant who would accompany her mistress to a ball, but what could she pass for? She could be the thing she’d almost been when she left the orphanage. The kind of servant who would be given the lowest of jobs.

      That might work.

      The area around the palace was a place of noble townhouses, but also of all the things that their owners might want from the city: dressmakers, jewelers, bathhouses, and more. All things that Sophia couldn’t afford, but all things that she might be able to get anyway.

      She started with a dressmaker. It was the biggest part of it, and maybe, once she had the dress, the rest would be easier. She walked into the shop that looked busiest, panting as if she were about to collapse, hoping for the best.

      “What are you doing in here?”