A Throne for Sisters (Book One)

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

In Kate’s dreams, her parents were still alive, and she was happy. Whenever she dreamed, it seemed that they were there, although the faces weren’t memories so much as constructed things, with only the locket to guide them. Kate hadn’t been old enough for more when it all changed.

She was in a house somewhere in the countryside, where the view from the leaded windows took in orchards and fields. Kate dreamed the warmth of the sun on her skin, the gentle breeze that ruffled through the leaves outside.

The next part never seemed to make sense. She didn’t know enough of the details, or she hadn’t remembered them right. She tried to force her dream to give her the whole story of what had happened, but it gave her fragments instead:

An open window, with stars outside. Her sister’s hand, Sophia’s voice in her head, telling her to hide. Looking for their parents through the maze of the house…

Hiding through the house in the dark. Hearing the sounds of someone moving about there. There was light beyond, even though it was night outside. She felt she was close, on the verge of discovering what finally happened to their parents that night. The light from the window started to grow brighter, and brighter, and—

“Wake up,” Sophia said, shaking her. “You’re dreaming, Kate.”

Kate’s eyes flickered open resentfully. Dreams were always so much better than the world she lived in.

She squinted at the light. Impossibly, morning had arrived. Her first day ever sleeping a full night outside the stench and screams of the orphanage’s walls, her first morning ever waking up somewhere, anywhere, else. Even in a dank place like this, she was elated.

She noticed not just the difference from the failing afternoon light; it was the way the river in front of them had sprung into life with the barges and boats hurrying to make the most distance upriver they could. Some moved with small sails, others with poles pushing them or horses towing them from the side of the river.

Around them, Kate could hear the rest of the city waking up. The bells of the temple were sounding the hour, while in between, she could hear the chatter of a whole city’s worth of people making their way to work, or setting off on other journeys. Today was Firstday, a good day to begin things. Maybe that would mean good luck for her and Sophia, too.

“I keep having the same dream,” Kate said. “I keep dreaming about… about that night.”

They always seemed to stop short of calling it more than that. It was strange, when they could probably communicate more directly than anyone else in the city, that she and Sophia still hesitated talking around this one thing.

Sophia’s expression darkened, and Kate immediately felt bad about that.

“I dream about it too, sometimes,” Sophia admitted sadly.

Kate turned to her, focused. Her sister had to know. She’d been older, she would have seen more.

“You know what happened, don’t you?” Kate asked. “You know what happened with our parents.”

It was more of a statement than a question.

Kate scanned her sister’s face for answers, and she saw it, just a flicker, something she was hiding.

Sophia shook her head.

“There are some things it’s better not to think about. We need to focus on what happens next, not on the past.”

It wasn’t exactly a satisfying answer, but it was no more than Kate had expected. Sophia wouldn’t talk about what happened the night their parents left. She never wanted to discuss it, and even Kate had to admit to feelings of unease every time she thought about it. Besides, in the House of the Unclaimed, they didn’t like it when orphans tried to talk about the past. They called it ungrateful, and it was just one more thing worthy of punishment.

Kate kicked a rat off of her foot and sat up straighter, looking around.

“We can’t stay where we are,” she said.

Sophia nodded.

“We’ll die if we stay here on the streets.”

That was a hard thought, but it was probably true, as well. There were so many ways to die in the streets of this city. Cold and hunger were just the start of the list. With the street gangs, the watch, disease, and all the other risks out here, even the orphanage started to look safe.

Not that Kate would ever go back. She would burn it to the ground before she stepped back through its doors. Maybe one day she would burn it to the ground anyway. She smiled at that.

Feeling a hunger pain, Kate pulled out the last of her cake and began to wolf it down. Then she remembered her sister. She tore off half and handed it to her.

Sophia looked at her hopefully, but with guilt.

“It’s okay,” Kate lied. “I have another in my dress.”

Sophia took it reluctantly. Kate sensed her sister knew she was lying, but was too hungry to deny herself. Yet their connection was so close, Kate could feel her sister’s hunger, and Kate could never allow herself to be happy if her sister was not.

They both finally crept out of their hiding place.

“So, big sister,” Kate asked, “any ideas?”

Sophie sighed sadly and shook her head.

“Well, I’m starving,” Kate said. “It will be better to think on a full belly.”

Sophia nodded in agreement, and they both headed back toward the main streets.

They soon found a target—a different baker—and stole breakfast the way they’d stolen their last meal. As they ducked into an alley and gorged themselves, it was tempting to think that they might live the rest of their lives like that, using their shared talent to take what they needed when no one was paying attention. But Kate knew it couldn’t work like that. Nothing good lasted forever.

Kate looked out at the bustle of the city before her. It was overwhelming. And its streets seemed to stretch forever.

“If we can’t stay out on the street,” she said, “what do we do? Where do we go?”

Sophia hesitated for a moment, looking as though she was as unsure as Kate was.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Well, what can we do?” Kate asked.

It didn’t seem like as long a list as it should have been. The truth was that orphans like them didn’t get options in their lives. They were prepared for lives where they would be indentured as apprentices or servants, soldiers, or worse. There was no real expectation that they would ever be free, because even those genuinely looking for an apprentice would only pay a pittance; not enough to ever pay off their debt.

And the truth was that Kate had little patience for sewing or cooking, etiquette or haberdashery.

“We could find some trader and try to apprentice ourselves,” Kate suggested.

Sophia shook her head.

“Even if we could find one willing to take us on, they would want to hear from our families beforehand. When we couldn’t produce a father to vouch for us, they would know what we were.”

Kate had to admit that her sister had a point.

“Well then, we could sign on as barge hands, and see the rest of the country.”

Even as she said it, she knew that was probably just as ludicrous as her first idea. A barge captain would still ask questions, and probably any hunters of escaped orphans would watch the barges for those trying to escape. They certainly couldn’t rely on someone else to help them, not after what had happened in the library, with the only man in this city she had considered a friend.

What a naïve fool she had been.

Sophia seemed to get the enormity of what faced them as well. She was looking away with a wistful expression on her face.

“If you could do anything,” Sophia asked, “if you could go anywhere, where would you go?”

Kate hadn’t thought about it in those terms.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I never thought past just surviving the day.”

Sophia fell silent for a long time. Kate could feel her thinking.

Finally, Sophia spoke.

“If we try to do anything normal, there are going to be just as many obstacles as if we shoot for the biggest things in the world. Maybe even more, because people expect people like us to settle for less. So what do you want, more than anything?”

Kate thought about that.

“I want to find our parents,” Kate said, realizing it as she spoke it.

She could feel the flash of pain that ran through Sophia with those words.

“Our parents are dead,” Sophia said. She sounded so certain that Kate wanted to ask her again what had happened all those years ago. “I’m sorry, Kate. That wasn’t what I meant.”

Kate sighed bitterly.

“I don’t want anyone to control what I do again,” Kate said, picking the thing that she wanted almost as much as their parents’ return. “I want to be free, truly free.”

“I want that as well,” Sophia said. “But there are very few truly free people in this city. The only ones really are…”

She looked out across the city and, following her gaze, Kate could see that she was looking out toward the palace, with its shining marble and its gilt decorations.

Kate could feel what she was thinking.

“I don’t think being a servant at the palace would make you free,” Kate said.

“I wasn’t thinking about being a servant,” Sophia snapped. “What if…what if we could just walk in there and be one of them? What if we could persuade them all that we were? What if we could marry some rich man, have connections at court?”

Kate didn’t laugh, but only because she could tell how serious her sister was about the whole idea. If she could have anything in the world, the last thing Kate would want would be to walk into the palace and become a great lady, to marry some man who told her what to do.

“I don’t want to depend on anyone else for my freedom,” Kate said. “The world has taught us one thing, and one thing only: we must depend on ourselves. Only on ourselves. That way we can control everything that happens to us. And we don’t have to trust anyone. We have to learn to take care of ourselves. To sustain ourselves. To live off the land. To learn to hunt. To farm. Anything where we don’t rely on anyone else. And we have to amass great weapons and become great fighters, so if anyone comes to take what is ours, we can kill them.”

And suddenly, Kate realized.

“We need to leave this city,” she urged her sister. “It’s filled with dangers for us. We need to live out beyond the city, in the country, where few people live and where no one will be able to harm us.”

The more she spoke about it, the more she realized that it was the right thing to do. It was her dream. Right then, Kate wanted nothing more than to run for the gates of the city, out into the open spaces beyond.

“And when we learn to fight,” Kate added, “when we become bigger and stronger and have the finest swords and crossbows and daggers, we will come back here and kill everyone who hurt us in the orphanage.”

She felt Sophia’s hands on her shoulder.

“You can’t talk like that, Kate. You can’t just talk about killing people like it’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Kate spat. “It’s what they deserve.”

Sophia shook her head.

“That is primitive,” Sophia said. “There are better ways to survive. And better ways to get revenge. Besides, I don’t want to just survive, like some peasant in the woods. What is the point of life then? I want to live.”

Kate wasn’t sure about that, but she didn’t say anything.

They walked on in silence for a little way, and Kate guessed that Sophia was as caught up in her dream as Kate was. They walked along streets filled with people who seemed to know what they were doing with their lives, who seemed filled with a sense of purpose, and to Kate, it was unfair that it should be so easy for them. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they had as little choice as she or Sophia would have had if they’d stayed in the orphanage.

Ahead, the city sprawled beyond gates that had probably been there for hundreds of years. The space beyond was filled with houses now, pushed right up against the walls in a way that probably made them useless. There was a wide open space beyond, though, where several farmers were driving their livestock on the way to slaughter, sheep and geese, ducks and even a few cows. There were wagons of goods there too, waiting to come into the city.

And beyond that, the horizon lay filled with woods. Woods that Kate longed to escape to.

Kate saw the carriage before Sophia did. It was pushing its way through the waiting vehicles, the occupants obviously assuming that they had the right to be first into the city proper. Maybe they did. The carriage was gilded and carved, with a family crest on the side that would probably have made sense if the nuns had thought such things worth teaching. The silk curtains were closed, but Kate saw one twitch open, revealing a woman within looking out from under an elaborate bird’s-head mask.

Kate felt filled with envy and disgust. How could a few live so well?

“Look at them,” Kate said. “They’re probably on their way to a ball or a masquerade. They’ve probably never had to worry about being hungry in their lives.”

“No, they haven’t,” Sophia agreed. But she sounded thoughtful, perhaps even admiring.

Then Kate realized what her sister was thinking. She turned to her, appalled.

“We can’t just follow them,” Kate said.

“Why not?” her sister shot back. “Why not try to get what we want?”

Kate didn’t have an answer for her. She didn’t want to tell Sophia that it wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work. That it wasn’t the way the world fit together. They would take one look at them and know they were orphans, know they were peasants. How could they ever hope to blend into a world such as that?

Sophia was the elder sister; she was supposed to know all this already.

Besides, in that moment, Kate’s eyes fell on something that was equally enticing to her. There were men forming up near the side of the square, wearing the colors of one of the mercenary companies that liked to dabble in the wars across the water. They had weapons laid out on carts, and horses. A few of them were even having an impromptu fencing tournament with blunted steel swords.

Kate eyed the weapons, and she saw what she needed: racks of steel. Daggers, swords, crossbows, traps for hunting. With even a few of these things, she could learn to trap and live off the land.

“Don’t,” Sophia said, watching her gaze, laying a hand on her arm.

Kate pulled free, but gently. “Come with me,” Kate said, determined.

She saw her sister shake her head. “You know I can’t. That isn’t for me. It’s not who I am. It’s not what I want, Kate.”

And trying to blend with a bunch of nobles wasn’t what Kate wanted.

She could feel her sister’s certainty, she could feel her own, and she had a sudden sense of where this was going. The knowledge of it made tears sting her eyes. She threw her arms around her sister, just as her sister embraced her.

“I don’t want to leave you,” Kate said.

“I don’t want to leave you either,” Sophia replied, “but maybe we need to each try our own way, at least for a little while. You are as stubborn as I, and we each have our own dream. I am convinced I can make it, and that then I can help you.”

Kate smiled.

“And I am convinced I can make it, and then I can help you.”

Kate could see the tears in her sister’s eyes now too, but more than that, she could feel the sadness there through the connection they shared.

“You’re right,” Sophia said. “You wouldn’t fit in at court, and I wouldn’t fit in, in some wilderness, or learning to fight. So maybe we have to do this separately. Maybe our best chances of survival are by being apart. If nothing else, if one of us is caught, then the other can come rescue her.”

Kate wanted to tell Sophia that she was wrong, but the truth was that everything she was saying made sense.

“I’ll find you afterwards,” Kate said. “I’ll learn how to fight and how to live in the countryside, and I’ll find you. Then you will see, and you will come join me.”

“And I will find you when I’ve succeeded at court,” Sophia countered with a smile. “You will join me in the palace and marry a prince, and rule over this town.”

They each smiled wide, tears rolling down their cheeks.

But you won’t ever be alone, Sophia added, the words ringing in Kate’s mind. I will always be as close as a thought.

Kate couldn’t bear the sadness anymore, and she knew she had to act before she changed her mind.

So she hugged her sister one last time, let go, and ran in the direction of the weapons.

It was time to risk it all.