She was pleased to find that King Olin was out in the garden today, looking across the walls from atop a jutting ornamental stone not far from the bench, the one place a person could climb high enough see between the towers of the stronghold over all the Kulloan Strait. He sat cross-legged on the stone with his chin propped on his hands, more like a boy than a grown man, let alone a monarch. She stood by the base of the stone waiting for him to realize she was there.

“Ah, good Mistress Akuanis,” he said with a smile. “You honor me with your company again. I was just sitting here wondering if a man could fashion wings like a gull’s—out of wood and feathers, perhaps, although I suspect each feather would have to be tied in place separately, which would make for a great deal of work—and so fly like a bird.”

She frowned. “Why would someone want to do that?”

“Why?” He smiled. “I suppose the freedom of a gull on the wind has more meaning to me just now than to you.” He clambered down, landing lightly. “I muse, only—I see the birds fly and my mind begins to wander. I beg you not to tell your father of my interest in flight. I might lose the gift of this time in the garden.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said earnestly.

“Ah. You are kind.” He nodded, the subject concluded. “And how are you today, Mistress? Have the gods treated you well since I saw you last?”

“Well enough, I suppose. My tutor sets me the dreariest lessons you can imagine, and I will never, never be a seamstress, no matter how many years I try. Mother says my needlework looks like the web of a drunken spider.”

He chuckled. “Your mother sounds like a clever woman. That is not the first thing she has said that made me laugh. Perhaps that is where you come by your own wit and curiosity.”

“Me?” All she could think of were the lessons that Brother Lysas taught, reading at length from The Book of the Trigon, “…Beloved of the gods are the daughters and wives who make themselves humble, who seek only to serve Heaven…” “I’m not curious, am I?”

He smiled again. “Child, you are a fountain of questions. It is often all I can do not to unpack the entirety of my life and let you rifle through it like a trunk of clothes.”

“You must think I’m annoying, then. A child who cannot be still.” She hung her head.

“Not at all. Curiosity is a virtue. So is discretion, but that is usually learned at a later age. In fact, take your shawl—it is a bit cool—while I ask you something about that very subject.” He handed her the delicate Syannese cloth, but did not immediately let go. She was surprised, and started to say something. “Take it but do not unfold it,” he said quietly. “I have put a letter in it. Do not fear! It is nothing criminal. In fact, it is a letter for your own father. Give it to him, please?”