A Jewel for Royals. Морган Райс

over to her first, taking her hands.

      “Are you all right?” she asked.

      “Are you?” Rika countered. “Is the baby?”

      “Everything’s fine,” Sophia assured her. She looked around. “Is Kate here?”

      Ulf shook his head. “Frig and I haven’t seen her today.”

      Hans coughed. “We can’t wait. We need to go in. Father is waiting.”

      He made it sound serious, but then, Sophia could remember what it had been like when she arrived there, and how cautious people had been with her. In Ishjemme, they were careful about people claiming to be one of their own. Sophia felt almost as nervous standing there waiting for the doors to open as she had the first time, when it had been her claiming her heritage.

      Lars Skyddar stood in front of the ducal seat, waiting for them with a serious expression as if ready to receive an ambassador. Sophia kept her hand interlinked with her brother’s as she walked forward, even though that drew a frown of confusion from her uncle.

      “Uncle,” Sophia said, “this is Lucas. He’s the one who came from the Silk Lands. He’s my brother.”

      “I’ve told her that it isn’t possible,” Jan said. “That – ”

      Her uncle held up a hand. “There was a boy child. I thought… they told me, even me, that he died.”

      Lucas stepped forward. “I didn’t die. I was hidden.”

      “In the Silk Lands?”

      “With Official Ko,” Lucas said.

      The name seemed to be enough for Sophia’s uncle. He stepped forward and treated Lucas to the same crushing, all-encompassing hug that he’d given Sophia when he’d recognized her.

      “I thought I’d been blessed enough with my nieces coming back,” he said. “I hadn’t thought that I might have a nephew too. We must celebrate!”

      It seemed obvious that there should be a banquet, and just as obvious that there was no time in which to prepare one, which meant that almost at once, there were servants running in almost every direction, trying to prepare things. It seemed almost that Sophia and Lucas became the still point at the heart of it all, standing there while even her cousins ran around trying to prepare things.

      Are things always this chaotic? Lucas asked, as a half dozen servants ran past with platters.

      Only when there’s a new family member, I think, Sophia sent back. She stood there, wondering if she should ask the next question.

      “Whatever it is, ask it,” Lucas said. “I know there must be many things that you need to know.”

      “You said before that you were raised by tutors,” Sophia said. “Does that mean… are my, our, parents not in the Silk Lands?”

      Lucas shook his head. “At least, not that I could find. I’ve been looking since I came of age.”

      “You’ve been searching for them as well? Your tutors didn’t know where they were?” Sophia asked. She sighed. “I’m sorry. I sound as though I’m not happy to have gained a brother. I am. I’m so happy you’re here.”

      “But it would be perfect if it were all of us?” Lucas guessed. “I understand, Sophia. I have gained two sisters, and cousins… but I am greedy enough to want parents too.”

      “I don’t think that counts as greed,” Sophia said with a smile.

      “Perhaps, perhaps not. Official Ko said that things are as they are, and pain comes from wishing otherwise. To be fair, he usually said it while drinking wine and being massaged with the finest oils.”

      “Do you know anything about our parents and where they went?” Sophia asked.

      Lucas nodded. “I don’t know where they went,” he said. “But I know how to find them.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Kate opened her eyes as the blinding light faded, trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened. The last thing she remembered, she’d been fighting her way through to an image of Siobhan’s fountain, plunging her blade into the ball of energy that had bound her to the witch as an apprentice. She’d severed the link. She’d won.

      Now, it seemed that she was out in the open air, with no sign of Haxa’s cottage or the caves that lay behind it. It looked only a little like the parts of Ishjemme’s landscape that she had seen, but the flat meadows and bursts of woodland could have been there. Kate hoped so. The alternative was that the magic had transported her to some corner of the world she didn’t know.

      In spite of the strangeness of being in a place she didn’t know, Kate felt free for the first time in a long time. She’d done it. She’d fought through everything that Siobhan, and her own mind, had put in the way, and she’d broken from the witch’s grasp. Next to that, finding her way back to Ishjemme’s castle seemed like an easy thing.

      Kate picked a direction at random and set off, walking with steady steps.

      She marched along, trying to think of what she would do with her newfound freedom. She would protect Sophia, obviously. That part went without saying. She would help to bring up her little niece or nephew when they arrived. Perhaps she would be able to send for Will, although with the war that might be difficult. And she would find their parents. Yes, that seemed like a good thing to do. Sophia wasn’t going to be able to wander the world looking for them as her pregnancy progressed, but Kate could.

      “First, I have to find where I am,” she said. She looked around, but there were still no landmarks that she recognized. There was, however, a woman working a little ways away in a field, bent over a rake as she scraped away weeds. Perhaps she would be able to help.

      “Hello!” Kate called out.

      The woman looked up. She was old, her face lined with many seasons out there working. To her, Kate probably looked like some kind of bandit or thief, armed as she was. Even so, she smiled as Kate approached. People were friendly in Ishjemme.

      “Hello, dear,” she said. “Will you give me your name?”

      “I’m Kate.” And, because that didn’t seem enough, because she could claim it now, “Kate Danse, daughter of Alfred and Christina Danse.”

      “A good name,” the woman said. “What brings you out here?”

      “I… don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I’m a bit lost. I was hoping you could help me to find my way.”

      “Of course,” the woman said. “It is an honor that you have put your path into my hands. You are doing that, aren’t you?”

      That seemed an odd way to put it, but Kate didn’t know where they were. Perhaps it was just how people spoke here.

      “Yes, I suppose so,” she said. “I’m trying to find my way back to Ishjemme.”

      “Of course,” the woman said. “I know ways everywhere. Still, I feel that one turn deserves another.” She hefted the rake. “I don’t have much strength left these days. Will you give me your strength, Kate?”

      If that was what it took to get back, Kate would work on a dozen fields. It couldn’t be any harder than the tasks set in the House of the Unclaimed, or the more enjoyable work at Thomas’s forge.

      “Yes,” Kate said, holding out her hand for the rake.

      The other woman laughed and stepped back, pulling at the cloak she wore. It came away, and as it did so, everything about her seemed to shift. Siobhan stood there in front of her, and now the landscape around them changed, shifting to something far too familiar.

      She was still in the dream space of the ritual.

      Kate flung herself forward, knowing that her only chance lay in killing Siobhan now, but the woman of the fountain was faster. She flung her cloak, and somehow it became a bubble of raw power, whose walls held Kate as tightly