Chapter 009| Lian's Refusal

The 26th of the Cold Moon. Three-quarters past dawn. The Seventh Princess's Court.

Lucie finished the last strand of the braid.

"Your Highness. Grey thread?"

"Same as yesterday."

"Dress?"

"Same as yesterday."

"Your Highness, tomorrow's morning court is the seven great Houses settling the succession—"

"I know," Selene said. "But today is not yet tomorrow."

Lucie nodded, began to prepare.

Selene sat before the dressing case, looking into the mirror.

The one in the mirror was the same as yesterday. A single braid, grey thread, House Ironhart's true red, a Mute March grey shawl on her shoulders. Selene looked a while before she could place what was wrong—it was not in the mirror, it was behind the eyes that looked into the mirror.

Yesterday before noon, in the High Sanctum, as she passed, Ion had pressed a paper back into her hand.

The word on that paper, she did not know.

She had put that paper inside her left sleeve—pressed it to the bottom of the dressing-case drawer—together with her grandmother's paper on the single-braid knotting.

She did not take it out to look a second time.

Before she slept—three-quarters past the first watch of night—she closed her eyes. The word rose on its own. She recited it once—no sound came, she only walked it through once in her heart. When she finished that one pass, her heart slowed half a beat.

She did not know why it slowed half a beat. But she fixed the fact in her mind.

---

A quarter-hour before mid-morning, a palace dispatch arrived.

Red wax, the fire-seal with the finest silver dust in it. One glance and Selene knew the source—the Church's sealing did not look like this; this was issued direct from the Kingsguard Command.

Lucie opened it.

"Your Highness. Gavarid, Captain of the Kingsguard. Tomorrow at noon, the East Hall of the palace. He summons a representative of the Princess's Court."

"Do I go?"

"The dispatch says 'a representative of the Princess's Court'—no name," Lucie said. "Your Highness may send someone."

Selene took the dispatch, read it through herself.

There were no errors in the dispatch.

"I'll go myself," she said.

"Your Highness—"

"I'll go myself," Selene said. "The Captain naming no one is courtesy. But his naming no one is itself a signal: he knows I'll go myself."

Lucie nodded. Did not ask.

"Also." Selene paused a second. "At the late morning, ask Lian Silverhall to come."

"Your Highness, Lian this morning—"

"I know she's in her own side-room this morning. I'm asking her to come."

"Yes."

Lucie withdrew.

---

Late morning. Lian Silverhall walked into Selene's side-room.

This morning Lian wore the old robe of House Silverhall. Cloth House Silverhall had woven itself, grey-grounded, one very small horizontal stripe on the left shoulder. Four hundred years ago this cloth had been their common dress; the court's tailors could not produce the weave, and the Church would never use a grey like this.

In twelve years, Selene had seen Lian wear this robe three times.

"Your Highness." Lian sat down.

"Lian." Selene sat too. "I have a question."

"Please."

"Four hundred years ago, the three Houses of Tomb Hierophants: Greypen, Silverhall, and the Third House. Who was the Third House?"

Lian's eyes—Selene noticed it then—

—Lian's eyes dropped, did not look at Selene.

"Your Highness, I've spoken of it," Lian said. "I said that I would die."

"You spoke half of it, four hundred years ago," Selene said. "The one who died was of your father's generation, not yours."

"True," Lian said. "But if I speak the whole of it, the one who dies is of my generation."

"Why?"

"Because the year the Third House was erased, a rule was left behind: whoever speaks the Third House will, within three months, be called by name by the Throne."

Something in Selene's chest bent.

"Do you believe that rule?" she asked.

"I was twelve. I saw my father finish writing it, and three months later fall ill," Lian said. "My mother forbade me to recite it. I believe it."

"You saw it at twelve. You're seventy-one now. Fifty-nine years and you've not spoken it."

"True."

"Now your father, your mother, are both dead."

"True."

"If you speak it, is there anyone who would come to take revenge on you?"

Lian looked at Selene. Looked for three seconds.

"Your Highness, the braid you wear today is the same as yesterday's," Lian said. "But your eyes today are not the same as yesterday's."

"How not the same?"

"Yesterday you did not know your heart would slow half a beat," Lian said. "Today you know."

Selene did not answer.

She had not told Lian about the "half a beat"—she had not even told Lucie.

But Lian knew.

"Your Highness." Lian said. "I will not speak the Third House's surname. But I will tell you one thing: the Third House was not erased. It was given a new surname."

Selene fixed this away in her mind.

"Given what surname?" she asked.

"I won't say," Lian said. "But I'll give one clue—" Lian paused a second, "someone of the generation that was renamed is still alive, living in the Iron Palace of Ironhold."

"Living in the palace?"

"Yes," Lian said. "I won't say who. I'll only say—if Your Highness would find them, find someone whose surname is wrong, but whose eyes are right."

"Surname wrong, eyes right?"

"Yes," Lian said.

"How am I to know what eyes that are right look like?"

Lian did not answer.

A long while passed. Then Lian drew from a pocket under her robe a very old sheet of paper—folded seven times, the edges worn—

The paper was House Silverhall's old paper.

"Your Highness, this paper my father left. Not written—drawn," Lian said. "What's drawn is the eyes of the last person of the Third House my father saw in his whole life."

Lian handed the paper to Selene.

Selene took it, spread it open.

On the paper, only a pair of eyes was drawn.

Drawn plainly, a few strokes of suggestion. But in two places the one who drew it had pressed a firm stroke: both corners of the eyes turned faintly downward, and below the left eye's corner, a very faint line trailed.

Selene looked for three seconds.

She knew these eyes. She had never seen this person. What she had seen was a portrait—her father, the 105th King, painted in his last three years before death, that still hangs in the main hall of the palace's East Hall. In the portrait, below her father's left eye's corner, that line trailed too.

"Lian—" Selene said. "My father and the Third House—are they connected?"

Lian did not answer.

A long while passed. Then Lian said, "Your Highness, your father is not of the Third House. But your father and the Third House shared blood."

"Shared blood?"

"Yes."

"Shared blood with whom?"

"I won't say," Lian said.

"Lian—"

"Your Highness." Lian rose. "I've said this much. I can say no more today."

"Why?"

"Because—" Lian paused a second, "I already feel my heart has slowed half a beat."

Something in Selene's chest bent again.

Lian made her bow, withdrew from the side-room.

Closed the door.

---

Noon. Selene sat alone in the side-room.

She spread out the paper with the eyes drawn on it, looked a long while.

The line below the left eye's corner. Her father had it; the person on the paper had it. She raised a hand and touched her own left eye's corner—there it was flat. She had never seen her father's eyes when he was young—the one hanging in the East Hall was painted in his last three years before death. Whether the line was there in his youth, she did not know.

Three-quarters past noon, Lucie brought the midday meal.

Selene did not eat.

She moved to the window, looked at the snow.

The snow was heavier than yesterday.

She thought:

—"The Third House was given a new surname; someone is still alive, living in the Iron Palace of Ironhold."
—"The surname is wrong, but the eyes are right."
—"Your father and the Third House shared blood."

She was to find someone with that line below the left eye's corner. Living in the Iron Palace of Ironhold, surname wrong.

There were over a thousand people in the Iron Palace. But a line below the left eye's corner was not a thing seen everywhere. If she meant to find them, she could.

She thought a moment, and thought of one person.

In her father's lifetime there had been one guard very close to him—wearing no seal, his surname unremarkable. Selene had seen him a few times as a child, always standing behind her father, never speaking. She closed her eyes, tried to recall his face. The face was blurred. Whether there was that line below the left eye's corner, she could not bring back.

But she remembered his surname.

The surname Dusk.

Dusk, in the Ironhold dynasty, was no common surname.

This guard surnamed Dusk—in the past ten years Selene had not seen him once. Retired, dead of illness, or still on duty in some corner of the palace—she did not know.

Selene opened her eyes, looked at the snow.

"Lucie," she called.

"Here."

"Have it looked into—in the palace, over the past ten years, whether anyone of the surname Dusk exists. And if so, where they are now."

"Yes."

Lucie withdrew.

Selene folded the paper with the eyes drawn on it, pressed it to the bottom of the second drawer of the dressing case—together with yesterday's paper, together with her grandmother's paper on the single-braid knotting.

The drawer now held three things.

【Ch. 009 End · The Seventh Princess's Court · 26th of the Cold Moon, dawn → noon】