But she fell asleep still wishing, and dreamed of wishes which could never come true.
5
Sunlight woke Tasia from a heavy slumber some hours later. She blinked sticky eyelids open to find Mylla still breathing deeply beside her. The girl looked innocent and child-like while asleep, more like Tasia’s younger sister than a lover.
Before her eyes had opened, she’d dreamed of Nik, of the time they’d played in the farthest palace meadow, exhausting themselves with running and laughing and daring each other to jump from trees before finally falling asleep in a patch of purple flowers.
Nik. Her brother. Her best friend. She felt shame for thinking it, but she missed her brother even more than she missed her mother.
Tasia sat up, pulled her robe around her to block the chill.
The candles in the windowsill from the night before had disappeared, and the round table where she and Mylla usually had their meals was set with fresh pink and white flowers, a carafe with teacups beside it, and two dishes with silver covers over them.
The chambermaids had come and gone, then.
Tasia wondered if the food on the table was the morning meal or, judging from the strength of the sun, the noontide meal. It wasn’t unusual for her and Mylla to sleep through the arrival of the morning meal and wake just before noontide, but given that they hadn’t gone to bed the night before until nearly dawn, Tasia wouldn’t be surprised if they’d slept through both meals.
She stretched, winced when her bare feet touched the cold stone of the floor. She crossed from the bed to the table, lifted the metal cover above her plate. The steamy smell of roasted hen, garlic, and wilted greens struck her nose and made her mouth water.
Definitely the noontide meal.
Tasia replaced the cover and plucked a grape from the bowl between the dishes, popping it into her mouth while she wandered to the window overlooking the courtyard.
It was the same courtyard where her mother had kept the exotic birds she’d brought to the palace when she married the Emperor, and Tasia saw one of them now, its snow-white form flitting from the tree to the cobblestones below. It hopped around, cocking its head. Tasia wondered if it was one of Mother’s original birds or its offspring. Did it know that a beautiful woman with golden hair used to glide through the courtyard each morning, spreading seeds for her precious pets? Probably not. Like so many in the Empire, the birds had probably forgotten the Empress Cristianne years ago.
A knock at the bedchamber door startled her out of her musings.
“Princess Natasia?” came a muffled male voice. Whoever it was knocked again, and Mylla stirred with a grumpy groan, rolling over without opening her eyes.
Tasia tightened the robe at her waist, straightened her hair, and walked to the door with an assured step.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Commander Cole of Easthook. And someone I wish to introduce.”
Tasia opened the door.
Cole stood in the doorway, one hand on the hilt of his short sword, scarred face inscrutable as ever. Next to him stood a tallish, serious-looking woman. She was dressed in one of the black and silver uniforms of the palace guard, but Tasia knew there were no women in the guard. She’d heard there were a handful of women in the city guard, along with a few score in the Imperial Army, but there were no women in the palace guard. There never had been.
But there she stood in a palace guard uniform anyway, as if no one had informed her of her mistake, the black padded leather shining and smelling of oil. The silver-pommeled short sword and silver-pommeled dagger hanging from her hips appeared equally clean and new. Like Cole, she rested her hand on the pommel of the sword, but unlike the head guardsman, it was a stance that made her look slightly awkward and uncomfortable.
The woman stood just behind Cole. She took in Tasia with inquisitive eyes the same color as her uniform, eyes that contrasted with her rich bronze-colored skin. Tasia could tell in a single glance that she was an easterner — but not from the Northeastern mountain provinces like her mother, or even the far East where the war was being fought. The tanned skin, the gentle folds around the woman’s eyes, the high cheekbones: They all marked her as a nomad of the desert tribes.
Tasia tried to decide which was more surprising — a woman wearing a palace guard uniform or a nomad wearing one. She found herself staring at the woman before her without decorum.
“Good midday to you, Majesty,” Cole said with a perfunctory bow.
Tasia tore her attention from the guard to Cole. “Good midday, Commander Cole of Easthook.”
Cole indicated the woman. “This is Guard Joslyn of Terinto,” he said. “After discussion with your father earlier today, it is decided that she is to be your personal guard from now on.”
Of Terinto.
If Tasia had needed any confirmation that the woman was a desert nomad, there it was. The barely conquerable, barely rulable territory stood just east of the Capital Lands, consisting mainly of a vast and empty desert and a sparse scattering of nomadic herders who smelled much like the animals they tended to.
There were a few cities in Terinto, nestled against the coastline. But these were mostly small, dirty places. The kinds of cities that pirates and crooked merchants called home. And Cole hadn’t introduced the new guard as being from one of these places — she wasn’t Joslyn of Paratheen or Joslyn of Negusto; she was Joslyn of Terinto. To name someone as being “of” an entire, empty territory… only the homeless, tribal people of the desert wastelands were named in such a way.
Tasia’s heart sunk.
So. Her father and Cole had found a way around the problem of having a male guard in her private chambers after all. They’d sifted through the bottom dregs of the army’s ranks and created themselves a female guard.
Tasia did her best to hide her disappointment. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Guard Joslyn,” she said to the nomad. She held out her hand, palm-down, as a royal or noble-born woman did when meeting a servant for the first time.
Joslyn hesitated. She glanced at Cole for the briefest of moments, but then quickly dropped to one knee, took Tasia’s hand, and kissed it stiffly. “It is my honor to serve both you and the Empire, Princess,” she said, the words as stiff as the kiss had been.
She rose again.
Behind her, Tasia heard bedsheets rustle, and Joslyn’s eyes flitted towards what Tasia assumed was a sleepy, half-awake Mylla. It was not good that they had seen the handmaid in Tasia’s bed. But it was unlikely that either of them would draw the correct conclusion about the girl’s reason for being their. Handmaids were often close to the royalty they served, and it wasn’t that unusual for two close girlfriends to share a bed. The chambermaids might chatter amongst themselves about the frequency with which they found Mylla in Tasia’s bed, but even they probably simply thought that Mylla and Tasia were especially close. Which was true.
Nevertheless.
Commander Cole was no chambermaid, and he reported directly to the Emperor. For once, Tasia wished Mylla had slept in her own bed.
“Joslyn is a distinguished infantry veteran who has served the Empire well as we fight to protect our borders in the East,” Cole said.
Tasia gave a curt nod.
The Empire’s fight to protect (and expand) its borders was never-ending, of course, with war following war for as long as Tasia could remember. Terinto itself was a border territory won through one such a war, its land declared part of the Four Realms when Tasia was a toddler. But although Terinto might be considered a part of the Four Realms by men like Cole and the Emperor Andreth, the desert people were ferociously independent, and some of the more stubborn nomadic tribes still gave the Imperial Army trouble from time to time.