Brygstad, capital of the Free State of Mentendon, crown jewel of learning in the West. Years he had dreamed of returning to its streets.
There were the tall and narrow houses, each with a bell gable. There were the sugared roofs. There was the crocketed spire of the Sanctuary of the Saint, towering from the heart of the city.
Niclays Roos sat in a heated coach, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak. During his convalescence at Ascalon Palace, High Princess Ermuna had written to request his presence at court. His knowledge of the East, she had told him in her letter, would help enrich the relationship between Mentendon and Seiiki. He might even be called upon to help open negotiations for a new trade deal with the Empire of the Twelve Lakes.
He wanted none of it. That court was haunted. If he walked there, all he would see were the ghosts of his past.
Still, he had to show his face. One did not refuse a royal invitation, especially if one was intending not to be banished again.
The coach trundled over the Sun Bridge. Through the window, he looked out at the frozen River Bugen and the snow-capped spires of the city he had lost. He had crossed this bridge on foot when he had first come to court, having traveled from Rozentun on a haywain. In those days, he had not been able to afford coaches. His mother had withheld his inheritance, pointing out, not erroneously, that it amounted to the cost of his degree. All he had possessed was a sharp tongue and the shirt on his back.
It had been enough for Jannart.
His left arm now ended just below the elbow. Though it ached at times, the pain was easy to ignore.
Death had kissed his cheek on the Dancing Pearl. The Inysh physicians had assured him that now he was through the worst, what was left of the limb would heal. He had never trusted Inysh physicians—pious quacks, the lot of them—but he supposed he had no choice but to believe them.
It was Eadaz uq-Nāra who had mortally wounded the Nameless One with the True Sword. And then, as if that were not sufficient heroism for one night, she and Tané Miduchi had finished him off with the jewels. It was the stuff of legend, a tale destined to be enshrined in song—and Niclays had slept through the whole damned thing. The thought made a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. Jannart would have laughed his guts out.
Somewhere in the city, bells were ringing. Someone had been wed today.
The coach passed the Free State Theatre. On some nights, Edvart had disguised himself as a minor lord and slipped out with Jannart and Niclays to watch an opera or concert or play. They had always gone drinking in the Old Quarter after so Edvart could let go of his cares for a while. Niclays closed his eyes, remembering the laughs of friends long dead.
At least some of his friends had managed not to die. After the Siege of Cárscaro, a search party had been sent for Laya. As he had lain abed on the Dancing Pearl, racked with fever, he had remembered certain things about that cavern that had been their prison—namely the red veins that had snaked through its walls.
They had found her in the Dreadmount. Close to death from thirst, she had been nursed back to health in a field hospital, and High Ruler Kagudo had taken her back to Nzene on her own ship. After decades away, she was home, and had already written to invite him to visit her.
He would go soon, when he had taken in enough of Mentendon to be certain it was there. To be sure that this was real.
The coach stopped outside the gates of Brygstad Palace—an austere structure of dark sandstone, hiding an interior of white marble and gilt. A footman opened the door.
“Doctor Roos,” he said, “Her Royal Highness, High Princess Ermuna, welcomes you back to Mentish court.”
Heat prickled in his eyes. He saw the stained-glass dormer window of the highest room.
“Not yet.”
The footman looked baffled. “Doctor,” he said, “Her Royal Highness expects you at noon.”
“At noon, dear boy. Noon is not now.” He sat back. “Do take my belongings, but I shall go to the Old Quarter.”
Reluctantly, the footman gave the order.
The coach trundled through the north of the city, past bookshops and museums and guildhalls and bakehouses. Hungry for the sights, Niclays leaned out on his elbow. Scents wafted from the open market, scents he had dreamed about so often in Orisima. Gingerbread and sugared quinces. Pies to crack open with the flat of a knife, revealing the spiral of pear and cheese and cuts of hard-boiled egg inside. Pancakes drizzled with sugar-brandy. The apple tarts he had loved to eat on strolls along the river.
On every corner, stalls sold pamphlets and tracts. The sight made Niclays think of Purumé and Eizaru, his friends on the other side of the world. Perhaps, when and if the sea ban was lifted, they could walk these streets with him.
The coach stopped outside a shabby-looking inn in a lane that branched off Brunna Square. The golden paint had flaked from its sign, but inside, the Sun in Splendor was just as he remembered it.
There was something he had to do before he faced the court. He would seek the ghosts before they found him.
It was traditional for the people of Mentendon to be laid to rest in their birthplaces. Only in rare cases was it permitted for them to be entombed elsewhere.
Jannart had been one of those rare cases. Custom dictated that he should be buried in Zeedeur, but Edvart, torn by grief, had given his dearest friend the honor of a tomb in the Silver Cemetery, where members of the House of Lievelyn were interred. Not long after, Edvart had caught the sweat and joined him there, along with his infant daughter.
The cemetery was a short walk from the Old Quarter. Snow lay thick and untouched over its grounds.
Niclays had never visited the mausoleum. Instead he had fled to Inys, racked with denial. Not believing in an afterlife, he had never seen the point of talking at a slab of stone.
It was icy cold in the mausoleum. An effigy, sculpted from alabaster, lay upon the tomb.
As he approached it, Niclays breathed in deeply. Whoever had captured his likeness had known Jannart well when he was in his early forties. On the shield of the statue, representing the protection of the Saint in death, was an inscription.
JANNART UTT ZEEDEUR
SEEK NOT THE MIDNIGHT SUN ON EARTH
BUT LOOK FOR IT WITHIN
Niclays spread his hand over the words.
“Your bones lie behind me. Nothing lies ahead. You are dead, and I an old man,” he murmured. “I resented you for such a long time, Jannart. I had been comfortable in the belief that I would die before you did. Perhaps I even tried to ensure it. I hated you—hated the memory of you—for leaving first. Leaving me.”
With a lump in his throat, he turned away. He sank to the floor, his back to the tomb, and clasped his hands between his knees.
“I failed her, Jan.” His voice grew almost too soft to hear. “I lost myself, and I lost sight of your grandchild. When the wolves encircled Truyde, I was not there to beat them back.
“I thought—” Niclays shook his head. “I thought of dying. When they brought me up from inside the Dancing Pearl, I watched the sea burning. Light from darkness. Fire and stars. I looked into the Abyss, and I almost let myself fall.” A dry chuckle. “And then I stepped back. Too heartsore to live, too craven to die. But then . . . you sent me on that journey for a reason. The only way I could think to honor you was by continuing to live.
“You loved me. Without condition. You saw the person I could be. And I will be that person, Jan. I will endure, my midnight sun.” He touched the stone face one more time, the lips that were so like they had been in life. “I will teach my heart to beat again.”
It hurt to leave him in the dark. Still, leave he did. Those bones had long since let him go.
Outside, the snow had eased a little, but a frigid chill remained. As he walked back through the cemetery, tears icy on his cheeks, a woman came through its wrought-iron gates, wearing a cloak lined with sable. When she looked up, her lips parted, and Niclays froze.
He knew her well.
Aleidine Teldan utt Kantmarkt was standing in the cemetery.
“Niclays,” she whispered.
“Aleidine,” he replied in disbelief.
She was still a handsome woman in her august years. Her russet hair, as thick as ever, was streaked with white and gathered into a coiffure. The love-knot ring was still on her hand, though not on the forefinger, where it ought to be. No ring had replaced it.
They stared at each other. Aleidine recovered first. “You truly are back.” She let out a sound, almost a laugh. “I heard rumors, but I dared not believe them.”
“Yes, indeed. After some trials.” Niclays tried to compose himself, but his throat had shrunk. “I, er— do you live here now, then? In Brygstad, I mean. Not the cemetery.”
“No, no. Still in the Silk Hall, but Oscarde lives here now. I came to visit him. I thought I would visit Jannart, too.”
“Of course.”
There was silence between them for a moment.
“Sit with me, Niclays,” Aleidine said, with a brief smile. “Please.”
He considered the wisdom of following her, but did it anyway, to a stone bench by the cemetery wall. Aleidine dusted the snow from it before she sat. He remembered how she had insisted on doing things the servants would usually manage, like polishing the marquetry and dusting the portraits Jannart hung about the house.
For a long while, the silence continued, unbroken. Niclays watched the snowflakes falling. Years he had wondered what he would say if he ever saw Aleidine again. Now the words eluded him.
“Niclays, your arm.”
His cloak had fallen back, revealing the stump. “Ah, yes. Pirates, believe it or not,” he said, forcing a smile.
“I do believe it. People talk in this city. You already have a reputation as an adventurer.” She smiled a little in return. It deepened the fine wrinkles around her eyes. “Niclays, I know we … never spoke properly after Jannart died. You left for Inys so quickly—”
“Don’t.” His voice was hoarse. “I know you must have realized. All those years—”
“I don’t seek to reprimand you, Niclays.” Aleidine spoke gently. “I cared very deeply for Jannart, but I had no claim on his heart. Our families arranged our marriage, as you know. It was not his choice.” Snowflakes caught in her lashes. “He was an extraordinary man. All I wanted for him was happiness. You were that happiness, Niclays, and I bear no grudge against you. In fact, I thank you.”
“Jannart swore to give nobody else but you his favor. He swore it in a sanctuary, before witnesses,” Niclays said tautly. “You were always a pious woman, Ally.”
“I was, and am,” she conceded, “and that is why, though Jannart broke that vow to me, I refused to break mine to him. I swore, first and foremost, to love and defend him.” She laid a delicate hand over his. “He needed your love. The best way I could honor the promises I made him was to let him have it in peace. And to let him love you in return.”
She meant it. The sincerity of her belief was carved deep into her face. Niclays tried to speak, but the words, whatever they were, stuck in his throat. He turned his hand and held hers in return.
“Truyde,” he finally said. “Where was she laid to rest?”
The pain in her eyes was unbearable. “Queen Sabran had her remains sent to me,” she said. “She lies in our family plot at Zeedeur.”
Niclays tightened his grip on her hand.
“She missed you terribly, Niclays,” she said. “She was so very like Jannart. I saw him in her smile, her hair, her cleverness . . . I wish you could have seen her as a woman.”
Something was pushing in his chest, making it hard to breathe. His jaw quaked with the effort of keeping it inside.
“What will you do now, Niclays?”
He swallowed the taste of grief. “Our young princess wants to offer me a place at court,” he said, “but I should sooner take up a professorship. Not that anyone would give me one.”
“Ask her,” Aleidine said. “I am sure the University of Brygstad would welcome you.”
“A former exile who dabbles in alchemy and spent weeks in the employ of pirates,” he said dryly. “Yes, that sounds like someone they would want to mold the minds of the next generation.”
“You have seen more of the world than others have written of it. Imagine the insight you could bring, Niclays. You could shake the dust from the lecterns, breathe life into the textbooks.”
The possibility warmed him. He had not given it serious consideration, but perhaps he would ask Ermuna if she could intercede with the university on his behalf.
Aleidine looked toward the mausoleum. Her breath shivered out in a white plume.
“Niclays,” she said, “I understand if you would rather live your life here as a different man. But … if you would favor me with your company from time to time—”
“Yes.” He patted her hand. “Of course I will, Aleidine.”
“I’d be so glad. And of course, I could reintroduce you into society. You know, I have a very dear friend at the university, about our age, who I know would be delighted to meet you. Alariks. He teaches astronomy.” Her eyes were sparkling. “I am quite sure you would like him.”
“Well, he sounds—”
“And Oscarde— oh, Oscarde will be overjoyed to see you again. And of course, you’d be welcome to stay with me for as long as you liked—”
“I certainly wouldn’t wish to intrude, but—”
“Niclays,” she said, “you are family. You could never intrude.”
They looked at each other, slightly breathless from the outpouring of courtesy. Finally, Niclays managed a smile, and so did Aleidine.
“Now,” she said, “I hear you have an audience with our High Princess. Ought you not to get ready?”
“I ought to,” Niclays admitted, “but first, perhaps I could ask a small favor.”
“Of course.”
“I want you to tell me, in”—he checked his pocket watch—“two hours, everything that has happened since I left Ostendeur. I have years of politics and news to catch up on, and don’t want to look a fool in front of our new princess. Jannart was the historian, I know,” he said lightly, “but you were the one in the know when it came to gossip.”
Aleidine chuckled. “I should be delighted,” she said. “Come. We can walk by the Bugen. And you can tell me all about your adventure.”
“Oh, dear lady,” Niclays said, “there is enough of a story there to fill a book.”
