Valiant (35 page)

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Authors: Sarah McGuire

BOOK: Valiant
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I turned back to the work in my hands. “I thought it would be easier, this past week, not seeing him. I thought I’d grow used to it.”

Lissa waited.

“How is he?” I asked.

“About the same, I think. He’s spoken with Lord Cinnan every day. There’s a great deal of work waiting for him.” She paused, and I knew the words pained her. “And, Saville, there’s Lady Farriday waiting for him, too. That hasn’t changed.”

I didn’t even try to hide the hurt. “I didn’t think it would.”

I saw Galen almost every day the next week, often from a distance. He was recovering well, though he favored his left side and walked a little slower.

Every time I saw him, I felt again how deeply I missed our time together. I missed his silences, when he was lost to his thoughts. I missed our arguments—I’d never had a better or kinder opponent. I even missed the patchwork chair in his room.

Speaking with him was even worse. The few conferences in which I reported all that happened in the giant camp, a chance meeting in a corridor, or visiting the king when Galen was there—it was like leaving his room all over again.

Every time I felt the grief rise, I reminded myself that I hadn’t told him how I felt so that he’d choose me. I couldn’t hate him because he was betrothed.

I couldn’t hate him anyway.

Chapter 43

W
e were certain
of King Eldin’s improving health two weeks after the duke’s death. Volar had announced that the giants would soon be returning to their home, but the king’s recovery meant that we would have a true celebration. For days, humans and giants alike worked to raise a pavilion where the duke’s tent had once stood.

Uten
and humans would not be able to mingle much—Lord Cinnan had wisely pointed out that we couldn’t have people wandering through the giant camp. If a giant didn’t look where he stepped, the results would be disastrous. But there would be opportunities for the city to meet the giants. Though much had changed since the
uten
first arrived, the people of Reggen still feared the giants, and some giants still flinched when they heard a human voice.

Already, some of King Eldin’s riders had returned. Many were accompanied by representatives who wished to see the giants for themselves.

Will told me the night before the celebration that King Eldin had hired troubadours to tell the tale, from my meeting with the giant scouts to the duke’s overthrow. “Do you think they’ll have an actor for me, too?”

I looked up from the king’s new coat. “Who told you this?”

“Lord Verras. Just that troubadours would tell the story. He didn’t say who would play me.” Will stopped, and by the set of his mouth I knew he was thinking about the pens. “I don’t think I want to see all of it.”

I began another buttonhole. “Neither do I.”

I couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying than seeing my role in the story played out before me. How could they explain why I had dressed as a lad? No one would understand why I ran out to the scouts if they did not know Will.

And the giants! Sky above, the giants. The citizens of Reggen would cheer when the tailor outwitted the scouts. But what would the
uten
think, knowing the scouts would return to the duke and their deaths?

“Lord Verras said not to worry. I like him. Sometimes I sit in his rooms and tell him all the things that Pa could fix.”

Will picked up a tool he’d collected from somewhere in the castle and turned it over in his hands. “Do you miss him?” he whispered.

I froze, the needle inches above the fabric. Of course Will would guess the truth.

He looked up. “Do you miss the Tailor? Because I miss Pa.”

“Oh, Will … the Tailor wasn’t like your pa. You know that,” I said.

But Will peered up at me expectantly.

I set the coat down in my lap. “When I was little, I used to
imagine the Tailor acting like your pa.”
He’d compliment the seam I sewed. He’d hug me close. He’d just … look at me
. “And that’s what I miss: everything I wish he had done.”

The things the Tailor hadn’t done were an emptiness inside me that oceans couldn’t fill. And what was I supposed to do with that? Grieve it? I had, since childhood. Fight it? There was no one left to fight.

The Tailor’s ugliest piece of handiwork could not be undone.

That night, I waited until I heard Will’s whiffling snore through the closed door. I changed into a simple, dark gray dress that would not draw attention when I went for a walk.

The guards knew me and let me pass, and I took the stairs up to the wall. The East Guardian rose above me, and the Kriva stretched out in the moonlight. I could see part of the giant camp and the fires that burned like red stars in the plain.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the wind that brushed my hair against my cheek. Galen—Lord Verras—wouldn’t let the king commission inferior storytellers. That wasn’t his way. He saw so much. He wouldn’t let them tell the story in a way that would shame the
uten
.

Or me.

I rubbed my fingertips together, feeling the callouses from the sewing I’d vowed to give up. But it had seemed right to sew the new coat for King Eldin, and I knew, somehow, that
I would sew more. The skill was another inheritance from the Tailor that I could not ignore. That’s what he’d left me: a few velvets, the skill to sew a straight seam, and a list of all I wished my father had done.

I thought of Mama, and how the Tailor had dashed her hopes, too. But it hadn’t stopped her from making a life for me. From loving me.

I would claim that love as part of my inheritance, too.

I pulled in an unsteady breath and began to sing a tune the giants had taught me about sailing a ship in a storm when the waves are as high as mountains and the stars are hidden. I sang it until my breath came easily and the notes did not break.

The pageant day was clear, with a noon no longer blunted by summer heat. Volar, and the twenty
uten
he had chosen to attend him, stood at one end of the pavilion. The king, princess, Lord Verras, Will, and I sat opposite them, joined by some of the leaders who had returned with King Eldin’s riders.

The other two sides were filled with people from Reggen who had chosen seats there at dawn when the gates opened.

The ceremony began when King Eldin presented the high king with fist-sized portions of Gantaran amber. He hoped it would be new to the mountain-breaker. He also gave the giants a great herd of cattle—food for their long journey home now that the whale meat was gone.

All the while, I could feel myself pulled tight as a bowstring. Finally, the moment arrived.

“Ladies and gentlemen,
uten
!” called the first of the singers, a man dressed in black. “We present the story of the tailor of Reggen and the high king of Belmor.”

I waited for the actors in bright clothes, the troubadours with their instruments—people who would take the story and twist it into something simple and easy to understand.

Instead, Hylag stepped forward and sat cross-legged beside the man. He began to sing of the home the
uten
had left behind. Of mountains and seas and truth in stone. The tempo changed, and he sang of the duke’s arrival, how he challenged their warriors and survived.

When he stopped, his human companion picked up the tale. He sang about me and of the Tailor’s illness. I didn’t mind hearing my story in his mouth. He didn’t try to make the tale anything that it was not.

So the story shifted back and forth between the man and Hylag, and as I listened, I saw the wisdom in it. Reggen needed to know that they hadn’t routed an army of monsters, though there had been monsters. And perhaps the
uten
could better understand why I had done what I had. It was not easy to hear the story, but it would have been far more painful had it been altered.

When the song was finished, there was a great, slow silence. Many were crying, even some of the
uten
. Then applause began among the humans and
uten
alike. The giants cheered
and stamped their feet until the ground danced beneath ours, and Volar had to tell them to stop.

When King Eldin stepped into the center of the pavilion, silence spread once again. The left cuff of his new coat was pinned up, and I felt a rush of pride that he hadn’t tried to hide what had happened. He bowed low to Volar before speaking.

“I could speak of the past, how our people worked to build this city, and how their own selfishness caused them to part ways. But I want to praise what has happened. There could have been more deaths, more loss. I am grateful that this war was stopped.”

Volar bowed in return.

King Eldin continued, “We know you must return home soon. We send you with our best wishes and hopes that our ambassadors may join you in the spring.”

The crowd cheered.

The king went on to outline what little provision he and Reggen’s allies could provide for the
uten’s
trip. Then he said, “When the duke’s messenger arrived, I acted like a frightened boy. I promised my sister to a champion who could defeat the giants. And when I heard shouts from the street that someone
had
defeated the giants, I didn’t try to confirm the rumors. I wasted no time. I declared that person champion and awarded him my sister’s hand in marriage.”

The king looked around. “It was the most fortunate mistake of my life. I cannot take any credit for what followed.”
He extended a hand toward me. Galen pushed me to my feet and made me stand. The humans applauded. The giants stamped their approval until both the king and I could hardly stand.

“The champion of Reggen—”

“—and the
uten
,” added Volar.

“—and the
uten
,” continued the king, “requested a small corner of the castle as a reward. But it does not seem enough.”

The king looked toward me and smiled. Grinned, actually. Galen was shaking his head, trying to say something, but King Eldin continued. “I could not give Saville my sister’s hand in marriage, but it seemed only fitting that she should marry close.”

I turned to Princess Lissa, who looked at me, eyes blazing with—I couldn’t place it. And then Galen was waving his hands, telling the king to stop.

But the king did not. “It is my pleasure to give Saville my cousin Galen Verras.”

I dropped back to my seat, amid roars of approval, wondering what horrible mistake the king had made. Sky above, Galen had been trying to tell the king to stop, and now—

Galen bent over me, eyes frantic, trying to tell me something. But I couldn’t hear him over the roar. I buried my face in my hands and waited for the furor to stop.

“Hylag!”
I could barely make out Galen’s bellow, but Hylag’s hearing was far better than mine. The next moment, he’d plucked Galen and me into the air. It took him a while to
pick his way through the human crowd, but once he had cleared it, he strode out along the Kriva until all that could be heard was a low hum. Then he set us down and walked a few steps away. He stood with his back to us, arms crossed, as if guarding our privacy.

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