That’s really what it came down to: privilege, or freedom? The relief of being “like every other girl,” or the excitement of being like no one else, of setting her own standards? Power and wealth, or the ability to, now and again, right a wrong?

If she married Daren, she would never again be able to totally be herself.

If she didn‘t, she’d spend the rest of her life keeping her head above water, and wondering if the next sword thrust, the next arrow, was Death’s messenger.

Security, or liberty?

It was enough to give anyone a headache, and she had an incredible one, when, in the pearly-gray moment of pre-dawn, someone tapped lightly on her door.

She nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to answer it; she was expecting Tarma, but it was Daren.

He was white and shaking, and from the tear streaks on his face and his reddened eyes, he’d been crying. He tried to compose himself, his upper lip still quivering as he tried to breathe more calmly.

Kero stood, frozen, with her hand still on the door latch. She couldn’t even begin to imagine why Daren would look this way; surely he hadn’t been upsetting himself that much over her, had he? But his next words told her everything she needed to know.

“Kero—” he said, hoarsely, as tears began to trickle down his face once again. “Kero, it‘s—my father’s dead.”

Ten

Ten

For one long moment, she couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there stupidly, staring at him. Then his shoulders began to shake with silent sobs, and she reacted automatically, pulling him inside, taking him over to the bed and getting him to sit down on the side of it.

“What happened?” she asked, bewildered. Last she’d heard, the King was in excellent health, and Prince Thanel had been safely married off to the Queen of Valdemar. Dear heavens, that was over a year ago. Closer to two. Daren expected to be called home then, but it didn’t happen, and that was when he started making hints about getting me ennobled. Have we been here that long?

She tallied up the seasons in her mind, and realized with a bit of shock that she had been Tarma’s pupil for over three years. She glanced reflexively at the mirror built into the wardrobe, and the Kerowyn that looked back at her, hard, lean, eyes wide with surprise, was nothing like the ill-trained girl that had arrived here.