A Throne for Sisters. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ