A/N: If you recognize it, it isn't mine.
I wrote this as the beginning of a series of stories about princesses who take charge of their own lives. I'm calling the series Runaway Pawns.
Up Next: Lianne of Conte
Thayet won't climb because she's afraid that someday, when she's lost everything, she will be tempted to jump.
Kalasin climbs because someday, when she loses everything, she will be able to fly.
But now, when everything is hers, the wind flows around her, carrying the sea breeze and the birds that she can fell calling to her. jump, they say, we won't let you fall jump and you can fly free from the cruel boys who tease you and the old ladies who think you savage and the knowledge that someday you will marry someone you don't know don't love and leave cool sea breezes behind forever.
But everything is hers now, and the cruel boys and old ladies can to naught but talk, and someday is a long way off. Right now there are best friends and siblings and a picnic waiting down below. So Kalasin tells the birds, not this time, my dears, not yet.
Hundreds of miles away, a goddess hears and is pleased.
She plays with Thom of Pirate's Swoop and her brother Roald, and they let her, because even though she is a year younger and a girl, she runs like the wind and when she jumps, she goes higher and comes down softer then they do.
Btu then Thom goes off to the university and Roald goes into page training. So she finds new people to play with, and decides to follow her brother into the pages wing the next year.
She practices on horses and with lifting heavy things; she practices with a staff and with a fake sword, watching pages, squires, knights, Riders, and Own so she'll know what to do. And the next summer, when her family is together with the Lioness's family, she tells everyone that she wants to be a page.
Alanna and her mother and Roald smile. Her father frowns.
She doesn't join the pages that fall or any other.
She climbs Balor's Needle and tries to decide if the time has come to fly. It hasn't, not yet. She will fight, even if she has to dig to the depths of Corus to find a teacher.
She doesn't. Alanna is happy to teach her to fight. Alanna is a tough teacher, but Kalasin is a quick student, and while she'll never be as good as she could have been, she'll always be able to defend herself and her people with her own two hands.
Alanna also teaches her to heal, and therein her heart lies.
Having decided never to ask anything of her father again, she begins begging her mother to let her study healing at the University. She's fifteen, but she'll learn quickly, it isn't quite too late.
Her mother, still mad at her father, agrees, on the condition that Kalasin acts less mad at her father in public.
"I know you're mad at him. I am too. But you must not show it in public. Someday, you will be an Empress. You must be able to mask your true emotions. Think of this as practice."
Kalasin agrees. At the moon festival that year, the festival of the goddess, she announces to all that she will be learning to heal at the university.
Her father frowns again, but she has announced and been met with approval, so there is nothing for him to do but congratulate her on a wise choice.
But then she greets him with, "How do you do, your majesty," and her realizes that this means she'll talk to him, he really has nothing else to say.
She hears about Keladry of Mindelan and cries in the night.
At the university, it is quickly discovered that she does have previous knowledge of what to do, and she is advanced to her old friend Thom's class. She makes friends with him again, and soon they spend as much time as possible together. For almost two years, she climbs the Needle to tell the wind not yet someday but not yet i don't have everything but i have enough.
Then her father tells her that her betrothal has been finalized. In two years, when she is nineteen, she will travel to Carthak and marry Emperor Kaddar.
She climbs the Needle again, thinking that it might be time to fly. But when at the top, she hears the wind whispering, no not yet you will never do anything you do not wish to do sister of mine
She waits. She goes to classes, she prepares to leave, and she cries every night in her bedchamber, where none can hear her but the wind she loves so well.
Then something terrible happens. She falls in love. One day, she's talking to Thom as usual, and then suddenly he looks just a bit more handsome, just a little bit more perfect. And he smiles and she feels her heart melt.
That night, she climbs the Needle again, but the salty air whispers to her, this isn't the right time to fly you won't change anything now you should let yourself love the boy only for a little you will fly long before the other boy matters
So she loves Thom silently, until one snowy cold day, they are huddling together to keep warm and he kisses her, and she kisses him, and the next morning she realizes that she wasn't wearing a pregnancy charm and she panics and dresses hurriedly, but it is too late, because she can't leave him now, can't go back to loving him in silence and crying in the night, so she sits and stares out the window of his room, and the wind, kinder then it has ever been before, tells her, in nine months, my sweet, it will be your time to fly, with your child clasped in your arms, and for the first time she dares to ask, will i die, afterwards, and the wind replies, all others would but you will not you and your babe will be carried safely to me, and Kalasin realizes with a flash of divine inspiration that her wind voice is a goddess, her patroness, and she isn't afraid, because what can hurt her when she and her baby will fly?
Thom wakes up. She tells him that she's going to bear a child, and that unless he wishes otherwise, she won't tell anyone whose it is. It tears Thom's heart, but he agrees, knowing that to sleep with the betrothed princess is probably an offense that could be considered treason. And what good will he be, exiled.
They go back to their lives before they loved each other, and Kalasin climbs the Needle to talk to her wind goddess every day. She doesn't talk about flying anymore. Instead she asks about her family, her friends, her betrothed in Carthak, and Thom.
The goddess knows all, because she is the wind, and the wind touches all.
Kalasin finds out that her grandmother loved to weave cloth and race horses, and her sister Lianne is trysting with the Rogue of Corus, and the Rogue, in the tradition of Rogues loving the worst people possible, has fallen in love with her. She learns that Shinko, who is to marry Roald in a few years, writes letters and rips them up- that's right, she was a traded princess too, was she not? Her betrothed in Carthak is a quiet, serious man of great piety and intelligence. He is in love with a university student, but being dutiful, is doing nothing about it, because he must marry Kalasin to help his people.
She thinks of the child growing inside her, and feels nothing but guilt. And love for Thom. Thom!
Thom is spending his time pacing in his room, the goddess says, trying to figure out what to do. He wants desperately to spend time with her, but arousing suspicion is the last thing either of them needs.
She's hiding things easily enough at first. She doesn't tell anyone about strange cravings, and though she is putting on a few pounds, her figure is just the right shape to hide it. She wears loose shirts and breeches, and when she must wear dresses, she wears the flowing summer style, because it early summer, and she'll get a few odd looks, but people will leave her be.
Then one day, five and a half months from that wonderful night, from the mouths of babes comes her undoing. Her little sister Vania toddles up to her and says, "Kawwy? Youw tummy looks wike Aunty Daine's b'wore she had bawby Sawwa."
Her mother, watching, turns white. Kalasin knows that her mother has figured things out, with a little help from Vania. She makes her excuses and climbs the Needle again, to talk to her patroness before she talks to her mother.
tell your mother that you loved the man you love the child and you won't tell her anything more i will make you immune to truth spells and a pregnant woman will not be tortured trust in me and don't let harsh words break you and in four months you will fly to me you and your daughter the goddess tells her.
Kalasin is mulling it over when a page in the palace uniform comes up the steps of the Needle, panting, and informs her that the Queen requires her presence.
She goes to see her mother, feeling just a bit afraid. Her mother would never hurt her, but she will want to know more than Kalasin will tell her.
"How long?" is Queen Thayet's first question. "How long have you been carrying an illegitimate child?"
"Five and a half months." Kalasin replies, unrepentant.
Thayet looks shocked. She had only managed to hide her pregnancies three months. Alanna had made it to four and a half with Thom, and then George figured it out. Kalasin- Kalasin the intelligent but absent girl who always made you feel as though you commanded only a portion of her attention, the girl who could be so absorbed in her thoughts that she walked into things- had hidden hers for the larger part of the pregnancy. How had she kept it from the man? Speaking of which-
"Who fathered it?" the Queen demands stormily.
"The baby's father and I thought it best for the welfare of all concerned if that detail remained undisclosed," Kalasin says.
Thayet is no fool. She knows Kalasin has been thinking about this, she has to have been. She knows that Kalasin knows that if she gave the father's name, he could be exiled, imprisoned, or executed.
"If you don't tell me, other people will try to get it out of you. It would be easier to tell me." Thayet said calmly.
"No." Kalasin said. "I won't tell. If I tell, what will happen? I'm betrothed. To a man I've never met, who by all reports is just the sort of man I'd never love, but still betrothed. And my life has been centered around becoming betrothed, hasn't it? I mean, I couldn't train as a page, I couldn't join the Riders- not that I'd bothered asking, but can you honestly tell me you'd have said yes? I had to beg Alanna to teach me how to keep off attackers, because one day someone under my protection might be attacked."
Her hand moves to her stomach, almost unconsciously. Her voice is like ice and arrows and cold wind that leaks through clothing and fires and chills you to the bone. "I will be able to fight for myself and others. But Alanna said I could have been great. I could have been amazing. I could have mattered."
Her voice drops to an almost whisper. "But I had to be married off to he highest bidder like some sort of slave, and for what? I fell in love, I did what people in love do, and my pregnancy charm wasn't there. And now its all a waste, and I won't be a fighter or a slave, just a mistake. Someday, Roald will be remembered for diplomacy, and you for beauty, and His Majesty for great changes, Liam for his… well, he is certainly going to be remembered. Vania for kindness, and Jasson for being fierce. Lianne will be infamous to some and idolized by others, if she succeeds with what she's doing now, and she will, and in that family of the great and terrible, who will I be? The one who wasn't good enough to do as told, the one who wasn't brave enough to get what she wanted, the one not cruel enough to kill a baby to keep her country? Let's face it, Mother dear. I am eighteen years old, and I am an embarrassment."
She hadn't realized just how much everything hurt her until she said it like that.
Thayet just looked shocked. She thought her daughter had gotten over the page thing. Well, okay, she hadn't-it was almost eight years later and Kalasin had yet to talk to Jon except when necessary in public. She'd had no idea that Kalasin felt responsible for people's welfare, or that she'd hated the idea of marrying someone she'd never met. She was a bit curious about Kalasin's informants. She was very curious about the references to Lianne. But right now, her pregnant and overwrought daughter was sobbing and rocking.
"You aren't an embarrassment. You are a clearly resourceful young woman- you have informants on your betrothed?-who has never before complained. You are also pregnant, which tends to make people emotional and you're smart. Smart enough to know that right now, the best thing to do would be to clean up, stop crying, and talk with me about what we are going to do now. Obviously we need to dissolve your betrothal. We also need to tell your father. And the rest of the family. And Kalasin? I can't promise that no one will ask about the father. I very much can't promise that there will be no talk about this. You know that I'll do the best I can, but…"
Kalasin pulled herself together and sorted out what to tell her mother. "I understand. I've made my own arrangements for some things. After I have the baby, I'll only be around for a bit more, then the baby and I have plans. And Carthak won't be to displeased, because my informants have informed me that the Emperor is in love with a student at the university there. He, being less brave and less impulsive then I, has done nothing, but he would be quite pleased to walk free of the betrothal. I can deal with harsh words. I'll never tell who the father is. The gossips can talk all they like. The hardest bit will be telling His Majesty. I want Alanna there; a healer's opinion might be needed. Maybe one day when we're having a private dinner, you can just fling out a reference to the baby? Like asking me about names or if I think it'll be a boy or a girl? Or I could just leave a healer's report on his desk and hope that he has Uncle Gary read it, so he gets the pleasure of informing His Majesty. I think just telling him is too scary to contemplate. And also won't be nearly as funny. What do you think?"
Thayet should have insisted her daughter tell him. But she honestly admired her daughter's stubborn streak, and it would be a shame to make her talk to her father in private for the first time in seven years over something that would make him mad.
Kalasin wanted to keep on not telling him. But that was not happening.
"I think we should do it in style. When I was pregnant with Jasson, I told him in the middle of a terribly boring state dinner. He spit wine all over Raoul and Alanna, who he then had to face on the practice courts. I think the best way for us to do it would be to invite everyone over for something or another, your birthday, maybe, and by everyone, I mean Alanna's family, Raoul, Buri, Numair, Daine, Gary and Cythera, and all your siblings. Then with everyone there, we can both drop hints right and left. If no one guesses it by the end of the evening, then I'll stand up and shout at Alanna could she please examine you, your acting strange, and then she examines you and announces that you're pregnant to all." Thayet schemed.
"We should get Alanna in on this. She'll love it. Lianne too. Lianne has a lot going on, more than me, and this will make her happier than anything, a trick to play."
"One day, you are going to have to tell me about Lianne."
Her mother was so kind that Kalasin began to wonder if she wants to be gone forever. She runs up the Needle, noticing that it's harder than usual, and talks to the wind. will i ever come back to visit i want to see thom again and vania and mother i want to know how lianne and the rogue work themselves out but most of all i want to leave can i come back for visits afterwards though
The goddess replies gently i was wondering when you were going to ask you realize that i never told you who i was i am chavvi west wind the k'miri horse lord according to k'miri tradition and travel schedule west is in my charge in fall i will need you in the summer to prepare for my season and during my season and in winter so the greater part of the year must be spent with me but from the equinox to midsummer i will not need you i will send you back to tortall or anywhere else you like from the equinox to midsummer your time is your own i won't need you forever either you will be my sister and my companion and share my burdens and joy until you are older and wish to settle then i will give you gold and weapons and dress you in the finest clothes money could buy and bring you to the place you choose form there you will have some of my power and some of my love and i will protect you form harm but your doings will be your own does this arrangement agree with you.
It did. Kalasin, fears neutralized, stays on the Needle to feel the wind and talk to Chavvi West-Wind, her patroness.
A week and a half later, her birthday arrives, and thus the day she has to proclaim to all that she is having a baby. It also seems a good moment to tell everyone that after she has the baby, she and the baby will be leaving Tortall. She knows, without being told, that she won't tell them where or how, but she will tell them, so they won't have to cry over her.
She sends Thom a note, informing him that she will be telling everyone about the pregnancy in rather spectacular fashion at her birthday party. She tells Alanna –who doesn't look surprised and gives her a knowing look-, Buri- who almost faints before cheerily informing her, "Well, I suppose you were going to get out of arranged marriages somehow. Your mother did, after all."-, and Lianne- who looks at her with envy, and says, "I wish I had gotten there first. I'll just have to pull another surprise out from somewhere, because I've got a life to live out side these walls. "- all of whom agree to help with the announcement.
Finally, her birthday arrives. Kalasin is turning eighteen. If her life had been going as she wanted, she'd be going into the Chamber of Ordeal in the coming year. Had her life been going as her father wanted, she'd be off to Carthak to be an Empress in a year, sold like an animal. Her life the way it is, within the year she is going to have a baby, go off to serve a goddess, and fly within the year.
She goes up the Needle one more time, to tell Chavvi of the plan, and to be encouraged.
everything will be alright you will tell your family and then you will last three months, and then you will come to me just in time for my season and we will fly and dance and heal and ride until you want to drop but you won't because you are my sister in spirit and you will not break all will be well Chavvi tells her. And Kalasin replies three months is a long time sister and i will last that long but will i be okay i know that i did damage the carthaki alliance but i love someone else and so does he and neither of us wanted it much anyways so it should be fine but what if it isn't
Chavvi laughs in a way that only a wind goddess can laugh, sounding light and breezy, and yet powerful and imperious at the same time. you worry too much sister focus on today and then we can deal with tomorrow together
Encouraged, Kalasin goes to put on a loose, summery dress, in a shade of blue to match her eyes, that will conceal the fact that she is almost six months pregnant, but to someone observant, or someone who knew, the fact that she is pregnant will be undeniable. Then she puts on nice sandals and a little pendant with Chavvi's symbol that she'd bought in a market, pulls her self together, and braces herself for the scariest moment of her life.
At the party, things go smoothly enough. Buri, Alanna, and Thayet hint shamelessly about the baby. Lianne is subtler, but her remarks go deeper. However, the only one who realizes is George, and he whispers to Kalasin, "Congratulations lass, you managed to keep something from me. This is going to be a marvelous joke on Jon. I hope that man was a good one."
Meanwhile, Alanna is watching her eldest son watch Kalasin, and beginning to get the faintest idea of who the father is. Thayet is watching her daughter pointedly not watch Thom, and also beginning to understand. Neither of them chooses to ask.
Buri is in the middle of trying to get Raoul, of all people, to guess, by teasing him about matchmaking aunts and the need for heirs, when suddenly Kalasin decides she can't take it anymore and climbs up on a table.
"I can't take anymore of this. You all are the densest lot of people that I have ever had the displeasure of trying to make guess something. To those of you who don't know, I broke my betrothal agreement, the one made without my input, without my consent. I fell in love, and I'm having a baby in about three months. Thank you for your consideration." She climbs off the table amidst a long silence, which Lianne breaks by laughing loudly. And laughing. And laughing.
Alanna is the next to make noise. "You're braver than I thought. You actually said it! I would have thought you'd keep making these nincompoops guess. Congratulations, kiddo. I hope the kid is every bit as beastly as you were."
Her mother is grinning, Thom is trying and failing to look shocked, Buri has joined Lianne in laughter, and Kalasin is afraid to look at her father. But then George says, "I was unaware that faces could turn that color. Do you need something to drink, Jon?" in the voice of one who is completely innocent.
She has to look up. Her father's face is an interesting shade of maroon. He is sputtering, "Pregnant… but… alliance with Carthak… Empress…not see this coming…oh no." Taking advantage of his incoherency, Kalasin climbs back on the table.
"A week or so after the baby is born, she and I will be leaving the country. I'm not telling where we're going, but we'll be safe, and we'll come back within a year. Arrangements have been made, and that is absolutely all any of you are going to find out. "
Now everyone is shocked. While they're too surprised to stop her, Kalasin runs from the room. A minute later, everyone follows her, Jon and Thom at the head of the loud and chaotic procession.
(Let the record show that they only broke a few things. Like possibly 49 paintings, 18 statues, a nose, and 15 doors. )
They find her at the top of Balor's Needle. The parade slows. Not everyone is thrilled with climbing. Alanna, as a healer, isn't thrilled about Kalasin climbing, heavily pregnant as she is. But that damage has been done.
i told them about the baby then i told them about leaving then i ran away i hope they didn't follow me but i know they did please don't let anything bad happen please make it alright Kalasin sobs out.
Chavvi is sympathetic but amused. She has been taking handmaidens for centuries, and not a one of them was ever as complicated as this girl. it will be alright if they mean you harm which i don't think they will then they will have to contend with the windstorm to get to you speaking of windstorms my companions get their powers when they need them most you need yours now to help you through the next months the labor of god touched is always harder than it is for others And the goddess breathes on the girl, who suddenly is floating.
And then, while she is still six inches off the ground, the door to the Needle flies open and out comes Thom, red-brown hair glinting in the sunlight, and her father, with the strange expression on his face, and her mother, looking terrified, and Alanna, looking angry, and Lianne, looking… jealous?... and everyone else and she drops to the ground lightly and Thom is the only one to notice the floating. The goddess's last words flicker across Kalasin's mind. good luck dear one
They stop a few feet from her. Alanna starts shouting. "That was completely irresponsible. You're overstraining yourself. Pregnant women should not be doing things like that!" But Buri is laughing in the background, saying, "Alanna, you jousted and fenced and fought bandits at seven months pregnant. Shut up. "
And Thom is looking at her silently like she's some sort of goddess, which she sort of is until she decides to settle, and her father is looking sort of…. Guilty.
"Um, Kally, " He says, "So… I guess you aren't going to be Empress of Carthak. The question is, who are you going to marry?"
Kalasin looks confused, despite knowing very well what he means.
"Who got you pregnant?" he clarifies. Thom becomes very interested in the floor.
"That is none of your business. I'm not marrying at all. My new employer asks that I remain unmarried until I settle, and thus leave her employ. She doesn't care what I do, or about my reputation or about babies, but she cares very much about marriage."
"You are bearing this man a child. The least he could do is marry you."
"He offered. I refused. My new employer wants me to stay unmarried."
"Who is this mysterious employer, then, the one who forbids you to save your reputation?"
"I can't tell you, except to say that she's got more power than you. And since when did I give a damn about reputation?"
Jonathan of Conte, despite often not behaving like it, is an intelligent man. He can see that Alanna is prepared to kill him if he overstresses Kalasin. He can see Kalasin looking like she just wants to be left alone. Her head is tilted, like she can hear voices on the wind. His shoulders slump.
"So you won't marry the father, or tell us who he is? You won't tell us the name of your mysterious employer? You don't care about your reputation, or that of our family? You don't care that you and the baby could live comfortably in the palace, or be sent off? You don't want to get rid of the baby? You don't want to reforge your betrothal? You aren't afraid of being hurt or killed in your job? You don't want our help?"
Kalasin shakes her head. No.
Then she looks through them, and they get the hint and start climbing down. Except for Thom, who wants to talk to her, and George, who wants to hear their conversation.
Thom starts. "You didn't tell me you were leaving."
"Not forever. I'll be here every year from the spring equinox to Midsummer. I'll be able to talk to you through mage fire. And the job only lasts until I settle. Ten years, at the most. "
"What about our baby?"
"She comes with me. My patroness is happy enough to take children. It is a place of welcome, where I go."
"What if I want to come?"
"You can't. Thom, I love you. But you have a life here. It'll be you I come back to, every spring. It'll be you I come to, when I settle. But the goddess doesn't allow men."
"Goddess?"
tell him sister he loves you i think it alright for him to know if no one else does his father is listening but i will deal with that
A wind whips up and obscures George's hearing as she tells him, "Chavvi West Wind, the K'miri Horse Lord. She chose me, when I was just a little girl. Remember when I could run faster and jump higher? When I loved this Needle, although it scares everyone else? That was my patroness."
"Oh. Oh." And he kisses her, and all is right in the world, and between them, the baby kicks, not for the first time, but it is the first time Thom feels it. He kisses Kalasin harder.
George, having a good idea of where things are headed, leaves the tower.
A week later, an annoyed Carthaki adviser is talking to his jubilant Emperor.
"Shouldn't we be offended?" He repeats.
"That Tortall's willful, powerful princess who by all reports I could never love doesn't want to marry me? And now I can court whom I wish? Not at all."
And thus a week later proclamations go out in both lands that the betrothal between Emperor Kaddar and Princess Kalasin has been called off.
A year later, Kaddar Illiniat and Aryana Tolus are wed. The Carthaki University feels more respected than it has in a long time.
Meanwhile, in Tortall, George Cooper is doing several of the things he does best. He's creating rumors, which his spies will spread, about things he isn't really supposed to know, technically.
See, if he leaves it up to Duke Gareth, wonderful Prime Minister he may be, but the country will never find out that their princess is pregnant. And honestly, they deserve to know.
The common people find out, and they embrace Kalasin. They love the fact that their rulers have flaws. They love the fact that this girl is strong enough to defy noble tradition and let her body belong to none but herself. And most of all, they love the mystery of it.
The nobles find out, and look down their noses. Kalasin has a few defenders- Mindelan, Naxen, Goldenlake, Seajen, Queenscove, and Kingslore- but the vast majority of Tortallen nobility thinks that she is giving their daughters ideas. And she is. Kalasin's pregnancy inspires the braver girls to let their suitors go as far as they like. It enforces the idea that a body belongs to the person inside it, and none other, save the gods.
The older ones, the ones at court, scoff and sniff and look down their noses and call her things like slut, whore, slattern, and bitch. They bar her from teas and rides and all manner of other things she hates, and when they see her, they turn and walk the other way. Kalasin doesn't let it bother her.
But soon Scanrans arrive to discus the peace treaty that is in the works, and life goes on.
Kalasin and Thom meet each other in the stables, or atop the Needle, or in the library, or the kitchens. They talk, and laugh, and make love, and everything is good and sweet.
Kalasin and her father don't talk to each other. They will nod in passing, or ask courteously about each other's activities, but there is a wall between them, because Jonathan can't believe that Kalasin wouldn't save herself for a marriage arranged to further Tortall's alliance with Carthak, and Kalasin can't quite forgive him for…. For everything, really.
Then, a beautiful day in the end of August arrives, and Kalasin of Conte gives birth to a baby girl. Sloane of Conte has her mother's black hair, her father's pale skin, and eyes that are dark green, almost black really, and completely her own.
A week later, Kalasin and Sloane of Conte climb the steps of Balor's Needle alone. They have brought nothing and told no one. Kalasin looks around one last time, and then she jumps, Sloane clasped to her chest. For a moment, they are falling. Then the air begins to slow their passage, and then stops it all together. They float for a minute, and then begin to soar. Kalasin is finally flying.