I watched her jump over my blue pawns, landing in the middle of my territory. A bold move from her always baffled me; she tended to play so carefully. I retaliated, mirroring her, and asked, “Would you rather have a very handsome patron who had bad breath, or a very ugly patron who always smelled good?”
Merei laughed. “Nice try, Bri. I am not that easily distracted.”
“I am not distracting you,” I insisted, trying to hide a smile. “These are very important things to think about.”
“Mm-hmm.” She swiped my second red pawn. “I would have to go with the ugly patron, then.”
“Same,” I responded, trying to break through yet another ring of her yellow pawns.
“If we are going to play this game, then you have to answer a question.” She moved her black pawn to an odd marque. “Would you rather fall in love with your master or your patron?”
“Both are horrible, foolish choices,” I muttered.
“You must answer.”
I stared at the board, trying to see a way out of the knot she had me in. “Fine, then. I would rather fall in love with my patron.” My face warmed, but I kept my eyes on the marques. I was almost to her second red pawn …
“I have to say I would go with the master.”
I glanced up, surprised at her answer. She smiled; her eyes locked with mine as she effortlessly claimed my final red pawn.
“You always beat me at this game,” I lamented.
“You lose because you never protect your side, Bri. It’s your one weakness. I beat you with an oblique move.” She waggled my defeated red pawn. “Shall we play again?”
I made a noise of objection, but she knew that I wanted to. We reset our pawns on their origin marques, and then I waited for Merei to move first.
We asked no questions this round; I was too focused on trying to outwit her, by employing this oblique tactic she always championed me with. So when she cleared her throat, I looked up, startled to see she was about to claim my last red pawn.
“Now,” Merei said. “On to a very important question.”
“And what is that?”
She paused, trying to hold back her laughter as she defeated me yet again. “What are you going to tell Master Cartier when he asks why your face is stained blue?”
I was the first one to reach the library Monday morning, waiting for Ciri and Cartier to arrive for the lesson. Despite Merei’s faithful scrubbing and a dose of Oriana’s turpentine, I still had a faint shadow of blue paint on my face. So I decided to leave my hair unbound and drawn to the front; it spilled down my chest, long and ornery, the color of mahogany, but it felt like a shield for me to hide behind, to guard my face and the lingering memory of war paint.
Ciri arrived next and took her seat across from me, on the other side of our table. “I can still see the paint,” she murmured. “But maybe he won’t notice.”
Master Cartier entered not two breaths after that. I pretended to pick at my nails as he set his books down on the table, my hair falling forward even more. I realized my mistake only when I felt his eyes rest on me, his hands go still. Of course he would notice my hair was loose. I always bound it in a braid for lessons, to keep it out of my eyes.
I heard him walk about the table, to Ciri’s side, so he could get a full look at me.
“Brienna?”
I silently swore. And then relented to lift my face and meet his gaze. “Master?”
“May I ask why … it looks as if you painted half of your face blue?”
My eyes shifted to Ciri, who was pressing her lips together, trying not to giggle.
“You may ask, Master,” I responded, kicking Ciri beneath the table. “I sat for a portrait. Oriana decided to, ah, paint my face.”
“It was because we dressed her as a Maevan queen, Master,” Ciri rushed to explain, and then I watched, mortified, as she leafed through the history book to find the illustration of Liadan Kavanagh. “Here, this is the one.”
Cartier turned the book around so he could get a closer look at it. He stared at Liadan Kavanagh, and then he stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he thought this was humorous or offensive—if he thought I was bold or childish.
He gently pushed the book back to Ciri and said, “Tell me about Liadan Kavanagh, then.”
“What about her?” Ciri was quick to respond, always eager to answer everything before me.
“Who was she?”
“The first queen of Maevana.”
“And how did she become queen?” He walked about the table, his voice settling into that deep, rich cadence that made me think of a summer night crowded with stars. It was the sort of voice a storyteller might harbor.
“Well, she belonged to the Kavanagh clan,” Ciri answered.
“And why does that matter?”
Ciri hesitated. Did she truly not remember? I was a bit amazed by this, by watching the frown mar her brow, her blue eyes sweeping the table before us as if the answers were in the marks of the wood. She never forgot the things Cartier told her.
“Brienna?” Cartier prompted me when she took too long.
“Because the Kavanaghs are the descendants of dragons,” I replied. “They hold magic in their blood.”
“But the other thirteen Houses of Maevana do not?” he questioned, even though he knew the answer. This was how he taught Ciri and me; he entered into conversations with us, asked us to tell the little pieces of history that he had once fed us.
“No,” I said. “The other Houses do not possess magic. Just the Kavanaghs.”
“But why a queen, then, and not a king?” He stopped his walking before the great map on the wall, his finger brushing the four countries that composed our hemisphere: the island of Maevana to the north, Grimhildor to the far frozen west, Valenia and Bandecca to the south, the ocean breaking them into three pieces of mountainous lands. As he touched them, he said, “Valenia has a king. Bandecca has a king. Grimhildor has a king. All the countries in our realm do. Why, then, would Maevana—a warrior, clannish land—build its throne on a queen?”
I smiled, letting my fingers trace a mark in the wood. “Because the Kavanagh women are naturally stronger in magic than their men.” And I thought of that glorious illustration of Liadan Kavanagh; I remembered her proud stance, the blue woad on her skin and the blood on her armor, the silver crown of diamonds on her brow. Might it be possible that I had descended from one such as her?
“You are right, Brienna,” Cartier said. “Magic always flows stronger in woman than in man. Sometimes I think the same of passion, until I am reminded that passion is in no way magical or inherited. Because some of us choose our passion”—and here he looked at me—“and sometimes, the passion chooses us”—and here he looked to Ciri. It was only then that I realized how different Ciri and I were, how flexible Cartier had to be in his teachings, to ensure his two ardens learned by the methods that best suited them. I preferred stories; Ciri preferred facts.
“So.” He resumed his slow walk about the library. “You have told me that Liadan Kavanagh held magic. But why was she appointed queen, then, three hundred years ago?”
“Because of the Hilds,” Ciri hastened to say, rejoining the conversation.