Chapter 711: The Offer

The chamberlain’s black bell still hung in the guesthouse doorway when Didi reached up for her grey cloak. Hajin caught her sleeve before her fingers closed on the wool, his grip warm, careful, impossible to shake.

"Let go of my sleeve, idiot, you are creasing it," she said, tugging against him.

"He said alone, Didi, nobody told me I had to like it," he said, not letting go.

"I’m a princess, I can walk into a trap by myself."

His thumb pressed once against the inside of her wrist, then his hand opened, very slowly.

’He is letting me go, I hate that he does it so well.’

"Wait for me, idiot."

She tugged the worn leather glove from his right hand without asking, pulling it onto her own fingers. It hung loose at every knuckle, smelling of chain oil and candy, which she refused to explain aloud.

He stared at his bare hand, "That’s my glove."

"It is a token, every knight gets one from a lady, now you are a knight," she said, lifting her chin.

"I’m not a knight, I’m a—" he started, as the bell rang a second time behind her.

Vella leaned in the balcony door with her wine, "Bring it back, darling, he only owns the one pair."

Behind him Juna stood in the hall, arms folded, pretending she was not listening to any of it. Loccy waved a bun at Didi from the stairs, the only honest farewell in the house that night.

Juna bared a fang at the chamberlain, "If he keeps you past midnight, I am coming down there with teeth."

"Nobody is keeping anybody, I am a guest, not a pudding," she said, sweeping past the chamberlain.

Chamberlain Dusk led her down a corridor of black glass, wheezing a funeral ode under his breath. Every lamp they passed dimmed as she walked by it, frost feathering the floor behind her slippers.

"May your audience be brief and your grave be long, Highness," he wheezed, bowing her through a door.

"Your blessings sound exactly like threats, Chamberlain."

"In Kuroyomi, Highness, that is the kindest thing about them," he answered, closing the door behind her.

The Cradle Throne filled a cavern wide as a valley, a bassinet of black glass as large as a hill. It rocked on a curved base with a slow creak, each sway stirring the unborn stars that glittered far below.

Ibaran sat on the rim with his feet dangling like a boy on a bridge, pouring tea.

"Little crown, you came," he said warmly, "I confess I poured your cup an hour ago just in case."

"Your chamberlain would not stop ringing, that is the only reason I am here."

"Of course, dear," he said, patting the rim beside him, "sit, the glass is warmer than it looks."

The pale-wood crook lay across his knees, worn smooth at the grip, never once lifted in her presence. Didi sat as far along the rim as dignity allowed, the borrowed glove tucked under her other hand.

She took the cup, "Plain, I assume, you remembered."

"I remember every cup I ever poured, dear, it is the one talent age improves," he answered, smiling into the steam.

He turned his cup toward the Bright Dark, where the field of unborn stars rolled out past any horizon. Spires hung from the ocean roof like candles, their windows lit, each one a house waiting for a mistress.

"Everything below the Stair is mine to give, little crown, I would like to give it to you," he said, as if offering a biscuit.

"A hole in the ground with pretty lanterns, how generous of you," she sniffed.

"A continent, dear, with ten thousand nights in it, every one of them yours."

’A whole country, offered like a slice of cake, my hands are not even shaking, I checked.’

Her cup trembled once, frost ringing the tea before she stilled it with her will alone. Ibaran politely pretended not to notice, which was somehow far worse than any single pointed finger.

"I have a kingdom already," she said, blowing on her tea, "it has mud, taxes and a rude baron."

"A kingdom that never built you a bedroom," he said, sipping.

"Hmph, Silverwood built me a cell with a nicer name, what of it?"

"Come and see what I built, dear, before you decide what to sneer at," he said, rising with the crook hooked over one elbow.

A door in the bassinet’s base opened onto a nursery the size of a ballroom, lit by one candle. A cradle stood in the center under a lace canopy, a shelf of wooden toys lined up beside it.

He brushed the dust from the shelf with one finger, "These were carved before your Kingdom had a name, dear, the horse is older than its first king."

Didi lifted the horse from the shelf, "It only has three legs."

"Your great-great-grandmother chewed the fourth one off... I never had the heart to mend it."

Didi turned the little horse over in her gloved hand, its paint worn down to bare wood. Somewhere in her chest a door she kept locked began to rattle hard against its own hinges.

"Why would you keep a room for a child who was never born here?" she asked, not looking up from the horse.

"Not yet born, dear, I never said never, I only ever say not yet."

"Tch, that is a riddle, not an answer," she snapped.

"The bed is aired every spring, the lamps are trimmed, the horse waits, that is my answer," he said, touching the lace canopy.

Frost crept out from under Didi’s slippers across the nursery floor, whitening the rug one thread at a time. Ibaran watched it spread with the fond patience of a man who planted the seed himself very long ago.

"Sit in the cradle at dawn," he said, nodding toward the canopy, "let the Throne crown you, and my little sister-throne dies before breakfast."

"The Silence, the thing that ate the island over Silverwood?"

"She eats out of hunger, little crown, a crowned Birth drinks her dry in one swallow."

"You would kill your own sister to put a crown on me," Didi said, her voice gone thin.

"I would end a hunger, dear, there is a difference, she would thank me for it."

Didi set the cup down on the shelf before the frost could climb into the tea.

"Why me," she demanded, turning on him, "you have four thousand grandchildren with my face, pick one of them."

He stirred his tea, "They are branches, dear, you are the trunk, the line runs straight from my cradle to yours."

"That is not a thing a person can be."

"It is exactly the thing you are, my child-line, the ripest fruit in four thousand years," he said gently, as if handing her a sweet.

’Ripe, he says, like I am something that gets picked off a tree.’

The word sat on her tongue like a seed, bitter at the edges, sweet at the center.

"And Hajin," she said, keeping her voice flat, "what happens to him if I sit in your cradle?"

"Nothing he does not want," Ibaran said, with a smile like sunlight on a knife.

"That is the worst answer I have ever heard," she said, her gloved fingers curling.

"It is the only true one I own, dear, I have never lied to a grandchild."

He said it the way a grandfather promises a child that the dog only went to live on a farm. Didi felt the glove on her hand, worn leather shaped by his fist, far warmer than anything in the room.

"He told me once that nobody ever asked me what I wanted," she said, "and he asked."

"Then let me ask too, little crown... what do you want?" he said, lowering himself onto the edge of the cradle.

The worst part was not the offer, it was the hunger that rose to meet it inside her. He offered a family that kept her bed aired, a place with her name carved over the door.

’I want it... the horse, the lamps, the aired bed, I hate every inch of myself for that.’

"I-I need to think," she said, the stutter escaping before she could freeze it.

He settled back against the cradle’s rim, "Of course, dear, think until dawn, it will still be rocking."

"And if my answer is no?"

"Not yet, little crown," he said, sounding almost sorry for her, "you may only say not yet, nobody down here has ever managed the other word."

She set the three-legged horse back on its shelf with far more care than she wanted him to see. Her reflection in the black glass wore a crown of frost that she never put on her own head.

Footsteps hammered down the corridor outside, bare feet slapping glass, fast and uneven.

The nursery door banged against the wall, "Highness, you have to come now—"

Cessy stood white-faced in the doorway, then saw the king and dropped into a bow she never finished. Her hands shook hard against the doorframe, red nails chipped, her silk robe thrown over a plain nightdress.

"Lady Kessarine, you are pale, has somebody died without telling me?" Ibaran asked.

"Nyra’s bed in the guesthouse is empty, Majesty, the side-room door stands open, the blanket is still warm," she gasped.

She stood so fast that the frost on the rug cracked under her feet like thin ice.

"Where is she?" Didi demanded, already moving.

"A lantern-boy saw her horns on the lower bridge, walking toward the Cradle... asleep, and smiling."

Ibaran set his cup on the cradle’s rim, "Then she is nearly home, how lovely, somebody should warm the milk."

Didi looked at the horse, then at the king, finally understanding that he kept more than one bed aired.