“Another reason to let me ward this place for you while you’re in Vérella,” Paks said, grinning. “I am closer to my own childhood, as you said, and I had younger sibs—I like children.”

“But never wanted some of your own?” Dorrin asked.

“No. Wiped too many dirty bottoms, and saw my mother’s birth pangs too many times. A soldier’s life is thought hard, and it is, but that day-by-day watchfulness and worry—I was not meant for that.”

“Indeed, you were not,” Dorrin said. “Nor was I. Well. I don’t want to go, but I see I must.” Another thought struck her. “Oh gods above!”

“What?”

“I have no court clothes.” Paks looked blank. “Tsaian court clothes. For the coronation and everything else; everyone else will have them. They’ll expect—it will be an insult if I turn up like this—” Dorrin gestured at her plain shirt and trousers. “And it’s too late to get anything made in Vérella; every tailor will be racing to finish things ordered at the Evener or before.”

“Did your relatives take all their clothes with them?”

“No, but—” Dorrin shook her head. “It is a jest, but a bitter one. I was so disgusted with their finery … I threw them out, all those fancy things, or most of them. Told the house staff to cut them up and make clothes for themselves, or give them to their families. And besides, nothing would have fit me—the ladies of this house had magery, not muscles.”

“Must you wear skirts at court? You were titled duke, not duchess.”

“I suppose—” Dorrin thought about it. “If I’m going to be an outcast anyway, and the only female duke, I might as well be outrageous in my dress. That’s good; I hate skirts. Men’s dress at court is still court dress, but I might contrive something more easily. I wonder if Verrakai House in Vérella has been sold—”

“Your family has two houses?”

Dorrin nodded. “Verrakai had more than two houses, if any are left to us, if the Crown did not confiscate them for my uncle’s treason. A house in Vérella, where family attending court lived. Houses here and there for family members who wanted to live apart for a while.”

“Perhaps your uncle left court clothes there, and you could use them.”

“I would not want to wear anything that had touched his body,” Dorrin said. “The touch of his magery—”

“Falk will protect you,” Paks said with such confidence that Dorrin felt her own doubts vanish.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Dorrin left the next morning, escorted not by her Phelani troops, but by five Verrakai militia chosen by Selfer for their progress toward soldierly qualities. They looked nothing like the ruffians she’d first encountered; now their badges and buckles gleamed, their boots shone, their hair was clean and trimmed. Their saddlecloths were authentic Verrakai—that much had been found in the stables—though the horses were Phelan’s. Dorrin had signed another note to Selfer acknowledging the debt.