The Winds of Kalmor
Startled, she lifted her head—and found a face gone cold and hard. Barcas looked down at his younger brother with a piercing gaze and spoke in a low voice.
"You've grown rather ill-mannered."
The boy's young face soured into a pout.
Barcas shook free of his hand as if brushing him off and turned his eyes to the middle-aged man standing beside the stairs.
"What kind of etiquette have you been teaching him?"
"I have no excuse, my lord."
The stern-faced man bowed his head in shame.
At the sight of it, the boy raised his voice in a sudden shout.
"If you've got something to say, say it to me! Why are you taking it out on someone who has nothing to do with it?"
Barcas's ice-cold eyes snapped back to him at once.
The boy who had been shouting so boldly flinched and dropped his gaze.
"It's not like looking costs anything. You could at least let me see her face."
At his muttering, Thalia's eyes narrowed sharply. The way he spoke of her—as if she were some rare animal on display—sent a surge of heat through her.
"How dare you treat someone like a spectacle—!"
Just as she was about to snap back at him, long fingers cut across her vision.
Barcas yanked her hood down firmly over her eyes and continued climbing the stairs without breaking stride.
Thalia's expression went blank with disbelief.
She could not understand why he was so determined to keep her sealed away. Was he trying to cut her off before she could clash with his household?
She shoved the hood back and shot him a fierce look.
"What exactly do you think you're doing? You could at least introduce me!"
"You've been burning with fever the entire journey," he answered in a calm tone as he crossed the broad marble hall.
"Recover first. I'll introduce you as much as you like once you're well again."
"I am well—!"
She started to argue—then a dry cough scraped up her throat.
Thalia clamped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Her fever-parched throat stung as if it had been scoured with sandpaper.
He let out a quiet sigh.
"Stop wasting what little strength you have and go to sleep."
Then he pulled the hood back over her head once more.
Thalia glared at him, scowling—then her head drooped, the fight gone out of her.
He was right. Days of illness had left her drained to the dregs. Privately, she was even relieved to put off an uncomfortable meeting. But she could not bring herself to admit as much, so she grumbled for show instead.
"You are seriously irritating."
He made no reply and climbed the stairs in silence.
A man who appeared to be the steward hurried after them and led the way to a large bedchamber on the second floor of the main keep.
A moment later, a wide room far more lavishly appointed than the one in the annex opened before her eyes.
Thalia looked around, her eyes gone round. A chandelier dense with crystal hung from the high ceiling, and golden candlesticks stood at regular intervals throughout the chamber.
Along the walls were furnishings so splendid they would not have looked out of place as tribute to the Emperor—pieces that, at a glance, seemed the work of dwarven craftsmen.
Beyond those, tapestries of distinctive design, a shield bearing the Seorkan family crest, animal furs, and pale white porcelain decorated the room here and there.
She was studying them carefully when Barcas walked to the great bed at the center of the room and set her down with care.
"This will be your chamber from now on."
Without thinking, Thalia caught hold of his sleeve.
"And you?"
Barcas, who had been ringing the bell by the bed to summon a servant, paused and looked down at her.
Heat flooded her cheeks in an instant.
She scrambled to add,
"I don't mean we should share a room—"
"Don't worry. I intend to use a separate bedchamber."
His voice was even.
Thalia let the tension ease from her shoulders in relief. She had been fretting the whole time over the possibility that she might have to show him her legs.
He straightened and continued in the same measured tone.
"This chamber has been used by the mistress of House Seorkan for generations. It will not be lacking for Your Highness."
"If I use this room, where does the current Grand Duchess stay?"
"For the past ten years, the seat of Grand Duchess of Seorkan has been vacant."
The flat reply left her momentarily speechless. Fragments of his family history she had overheard in the Imperial Palace drifted belatedly through her mind.
Barcas's birth mother had died of childbed fever not long after bringing him into the world.
The second Grand Duchess who came after her had also perished in an unexpected accident, and the shock of it had ruined the Grand Duke's health as well—or so she had heard.
Under those circumstances, taking a new Grand Duchess would have been difficult.
She cleared her throat awkwardly.
"Ah. Right. Of course."
"I'll send for a healer. Take a fever remedy and get some rest."
Perhaps the rasp in her voice concerned him; he poured a glass of water and held it out to her.
She took it and drank a swallow—then a presence stirred at the doorway.
Thalia turned and found a middle-aged woman of severe bearing. She started to push herself upright.
Barcas pressed her shoulder back down and turned his head toward the woman. The woman, who had been studying Thalia with an assessing gaze, offered a respectful bow.
"It has been a long time, Young Lord."
The voice was gentle—at odds with her rigid appearance.
She continued softly,
"His Grace the Grand Duke has ordered that you be brought to his chambers at once."
"Tell him I'll be there shortly."
Barcas answered evenly, then looked down at Thalia with calm eyes.
"I'll take my leave, then."
"…Sh-shouldn't I come with you?"
"Your Highness may pay your respects separately, later. I'll explain everything properly, so don't concern yourself."
And before she could catch him, he was gone from the room.
Thalia stared blankly at the closed door, then climbed down from the bed and staggered to the window.
Beyond the clear glass, the whole of Kalmor lay spread before her at a glance.
A city ringed by walls, the villages large and small beyond it, and the green grasslands… She slid the window open, and a cool wind swept roughly across her face.
She gazed out over the plains that met the blue sky—then turned her head at a strange sound drifting faintly from somewhere far off.
At the edge of a hill, a birch forest shone white. For a moment, a peculiar feeling washed over her—something between excitement and fear.
This is where I'm going to live from now on.
She drew a deep breath.
The scent of cold, dry wind that had clung faintly to Barcas filled her lungs.
In that instant, she knew she would come to love this land.
Lucas sprawled in his chair, kicking at the floor with idle thumps.
His sister Laina—younger by a year—glared at him and snapped,
"If I get treated like some uneducated brat because of you, you're taking the blame!"
"You are an uneducated brat."
A pillow stuffed full of goose down came flying at his face.
Laina had spent hours braiding her thick hair into an elaborate coiffure, determined to make a good impression on her elder brother, and had even brought out their late mother's ornaments and a silk tunka—the traditional Eastern wrap—to dress herself up.
And yet she had not managed so much as a word with him, nor received so much as a glance.
She poured every ounce of that frustration onto her convenient year-older brother.
"Brother Barcas was educated like royalty in the capital! He's a noble among nobles, fluent in every scrap of palace etiquette! And you go talking like some commoner kid in front of him—what were you thinking?!"
"Noble among nobles, my ass."
He sat up with a jolt.
"Didn't you see? People who'd been waiting days for him to show up, and he just walks off without a proper greeting? That's palace etiquette, is it?"
"That's because you got on his nerves first!"
"What did I even do that was so wrong?!"
Lucas shot up from the chair, fuming.
"All I wanted was a look at that woman's face! You were curious about her too!"
"I am not the least bit curious about that woman's face!"
Laina tore off the jade ornaments hanging in a cluster around her neck and flashed her reddish-brown eyes, sharp as blades.
"What good would it do to look at the face of that vulgar woman who dragged our brother's honor through the mud? She's bound to be the same sort of creature as her vulgar mother!"
"…Weren't you the one who told me not to talk like some uneducated person?"
"That was about being careful in front of Brother Barcas!"
Laina roughly undid the hair she had pulled so tightly up and let her eyes flash.
Having ridden every single day without fail since she was six, Laina had sun-browned skin and long, rangy limbs; without her finery, she looked for all the world like a tall, strapping boy.
She flung off even the trailing outer coat heavy with elaborate embroidery, then sat cross-legged on the bed.
"Listen carefully. In front of our brother, you must never treat that woman roughly. If you bully her out in the open, our innocent brother will only end up feeling sorry for her! And we'll just look like the rotten little siblings!"
"…Innocent?"
Lucas muttered, incredulous.
Laina let the remark sail past one ear and pressed on with her lengthy speech.
"Which means we have to needle her as quietly as possible! The second we poke at her even a little, that woman will run straight to our brother and badmouth us. Then she's the wicked woman who tears down her kind, adorable little siblings-in-law—and we become the poor, pitiful ones!"