A/N: Another chapter. In this chapter we meet Nimiar's namesake (yes, I changed the spelling of the name slightly, as you may notice) who is suspiciously familiar—as a matter of fact, she acts quite a bit like Pride and Prejudice's Mrs. Fanny Bennet! (cough cough—and if you haven't read P&P you're seriously missing out.) She's also Ermliana's mom.

There's also a heavy dose of angst in this chapter. A little like Leia Organa from Star Wars after she's been tortured by Darth Vader, Elestra has serious problems whenever Debegri talks to her and is quite afraid. However, she is certainly cheered up by the arrival of Mrs. Bennet—er, Lady Argaliar.

Yep. Enjoy. Don't own.

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

At one point during his visit, Alaerec and I went out on a long ride. We packed a picnic luncheon and left before dawn, hoping to reach a small abandoned military fort in the forest by third-gold.

The ride there was silent, quiet, but in a peaceful way. It was not awkward; it was simply that we didn't feel like speaking. At one point we had a race that ended when I was thrown into a muddy creek and Alaerec laughed so hard he nearly fell off his horse. But mostly it was quiet, and I liked it. It was whole, complete, right.

However, I did have some questions to ask him about our plans for—well, I wasn't sure what to call it. The Revolution, I guessed. And I wanted to talk.

And so, as we sat on the wall of the fort, eating our lunches hungrily, I quietly asked, "What should I do about…you know?"

The corners of Alaerec's mouth turned up slightly. He took a bite of cheese, chewed, and swallowed. Then he said, "Have you told your brother?"

I had just taken a bite of cheese myself, and I shook my head. "Too young," I told him as I swallowed. "He's only eleven."

Alaerec nodded. "After you left, I told Ermliana. She agreed, and, since she doesn't have to worry about lands, she'll stay at Court whenever we're gone and keep us informed. She already writes monthly letters to my parents in Renslaeus."

"Why don't you?" I asked.

"Mother wants the gossip, too," Alaerec responded dryly. "What do I know of gossip?" I laughed.

We sat in silence for a moment, and then I asked, "What should I do?"

Alaerec frowned. "History. Learn as much as you can about past wars and what places different people and counties had in the government. For example, the Merindars have been draining Tlanth of funds ever since they took power, but the Calahanras family and Tlanth have in intermarried twice in the past five hundred years. At one point seven hundred years ago, there was an Astiar king. Tlanth is much poorer than it used to be. Your friend Timerius will have problems when he becomes Count. Just know. Read your family histories. They make excellent reading material when you are very bored. We have to be wise in the ways of the past to make the ways of the future right. Read philosophy. Political philosophy. Satires of the government. Those sorts of things." Alaerec paused for a moment, and then added, "And one more thing. This is the most important, I think. Develop a persona. A carefree persona. I would say foppish, but that typically refers to a male. But you know. Shallow. It shouldn't be too hard for you considering how much you enjoy acting."

I nodded. "We're not doing anything?"

Alaerec smiled a little and shook his head. "Elestra, there are three of us. What would we do?"

I remembered that fact suddenly and ducked my head, chastised. "Oh. I forgot."

Alaerec slipped an arm around my shoulders and I leaned against him. "It will take a long time," he said softly. "We will fight probably far into Galdran's rule but we will stop it, Lessie, I promise."

"I promise, too," I said. "I promise, too."

After a month and a half spent at Tanliff-Savona, Alaerec, Jhussav, and I left for Athanarel again.

It was odd. Though I was greeted by Ermliana, my staff, and my old familiar rooms in Residence, I didn't feel like I was coming home. Oh, I mean I was happy that Ermliana was there—ecstatic, even—and it was wonderful to see my staff again, and the rooms were as beautiful and perfect as ever, but it was nothing like coming home to Tanliff-Savona. Tanliff-Savona was home.

It was then that I knew that Athanarel could never be home. And that revelation both scared and shocked me.

After my father's execution, Court was not a thing I looked forward to. Especially with the new styles. The gown was flimsy, with just a shift underneath, and I felt like I was in a nightgown. In fact, compared to my brand new undergarment of a Court dress, I actually liked the old style, with all its many jewels and blinding gaudiness.

"How did the styles change so fast?" I hissed as I stood next to Ermliana in a corner of the throne room.

"Meni Thorniv of Kestrel, the leader of fashion, remarried and left just after you did. Lady Morish of Chamadis, my fourth cousin, I think, took over and she thinks she looks—ahem­­—better in things like this." She picked a ribbon off her gown and flicked it out, watching it float gently back down onto the surface of her skirt. Then she discreetly pointed to a tall, willowy woman at the front. The floaty gown clung to her many curves. I glanced at Ermliana and we rolled our eyes, trying not to laugh.

But I digress. Court was not enjoyable. Lourden enjoyed the occasional mocking look over in our direction, as if he knew that I feared him desperately. Debegri was much more open; most days he 'accidentally' bumped into me and inquired after the health of my father. The first three times he did so I burst into tears and fainted, and even months after it was difficult for me not to run off to my rooms sobbing.

I was lonely. I was afraid, even, a little.

Debegri's anger was whole; I don't think he could ever get enough revenge for my moment of wrath and consequent destruction of Marscopa. As I tried to settle back into the Court routine, I came to terms with the fact that Debegri loved Marscopa, and while his feelings may have been unrequited, they still existed. And he was angry. As angry and sad as I was, but—

When I reasoned it, I couldn't see the difference between us. Only that in a moment of rage I had provoked him and he had destroyed my mother and then he had still been angry.

And now he still was angry.

I was, too. But now I was afraid as well. Because I was too cowardly to seek revenge against him, and he—well, he wasn't.

For the longest time—my whole, life, in fact—I had enjoyed being one of the few young people at Court. Even now, I still was, though the generation of older Court leaders was slowly dying. Why, Morish of Chamadis was barely thirty-eight when five years ago the fashion leader, the Countess of Hordin, had been forty-five. Being one of the only children at Court had given me the freedom to explore, the freedom to spy, and, because of it, I enjoyed solitude.

But now I simply longed to blend in. To be somewhere where Debegri couldn't find me alone and hiss in my ear as he passed.

He tried—other things, too, the first time we encountered each other in a hallway. But I screamed and he ran, leaving me clinging and sobbing to the bust of Queen Thereaz.

It was as though being here, where everything had happened, made the grief raw and horrible. When I had been in Savona, I was sad, I missed him, but here I was a mess of tears and fear.

Then I discovered the one place I felt safe in: the library.

No one went to the library; or at least no one of importance to me, so I felt safe. I read there—histories, Court reports, the things Alaerec told me to read. I also read about fashion, past fashion and today's styles and I read plays to copy the shallow women in them. I practiced flirting on Alaerec. I talked gossip with Ermliana. We laughed sometimes, but mostly it was serious. It was so strange to do things that were supposed to be fun, like practicing silly acts of courtliness, but make them not fun. But Alaerec and Ermliana and I spent our time in the library, and it became my safe haven, my home away from home.

And so the months passed easily, or easier than I had hoped. Until preparations for Ermliana's Flower Day began.

Ermliana was excited. She enthusiastically had fittings for a dress, and her mother, who lived with Lestran and Liselia and whom I had met twice, even came to Athanarel to help with planning.

"Oh, Ermliana!" she shrieked when she arrived. "I missed you so much!" She enclosed my friend in a tight hug.

"You always could've visited, Mother," Ermliana choked out.

Lady Neemiar Argaliar was a woman of medium height and plump build. She was nearing sixty-five and had not aged well. Her hair was an unappealing mixture of gray and muddy brown and her face was lined and wrinkled. But it was obvious that she had been attractive as a young woman, albeit annoying.

When Lady Neemiar arrived, I stood between Lestran and Alaerec, Lestran, who had been notorious at Court for having problems with small children (they liked him a lot, and he—well, he didn't like them a lot back), and was holding his squirming four-year-old son, Johann. He leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "Johann is insistent he'll name his daughter after her. I can only hope she will turn out better."

Alaerec snorted, but when we looked over at him his face was impassive. Liselia, meanwhile, on Lestran's other side, was having problems containing her laughter and I was coughing into my hand.

"Perhaps," I whispered back, "he will not have a daughter at all."

"Ah," Lestran said, "wouldn't that be nice?"

Liselia coughed into her hand. Alaerec let a small smile cross his face. We all turned out attention back to Ermliana and Lady Neemiar.

"And I hear," the old woman was saying, "That you are quite close with Alaerec Renslaeus, the Marquis of Shevraeth and heir to Renslaeus?"

"He's a very good friend, Mother," Ermliana said through gritted teeth.

Lady Neemiar leaned in to Ermliana and said in what was supposed to be a whisper, "He's a very good match, Ermli. I'm proud of you."

Ermliana flushed crimson. Lestran and Liselia struggled not to laugh. I snorted and dissolved into a fit of badly concealed giggles. Alaerec went a slight pink color. Life, did that man ever blush?

"Ermli?" I hissed to Lestran. He shrugged.

"No, Mother," Ermliana said smoothly, her face suddenly calm and eyes laughing. "I'm afraid his heart belongs to someone else."

I was suddenly sober and as red as Ermliana had been a moment ago. Alaerec went a darker pink.

We both knew what she thought. And though I doubted it was true, over the months I had begun to wish it so.

For my thought that I was merely unnerved by Alaerec's presence because I was a lustful adolescent were shattered when I returned to Court. There were many handsome men here in Athanarel, yet I felt nothing for them. And so I mused on what it was—and it was there.

Maybe it was love, and if it was, it had been there, buried deep in my heart, for a long time. But maybe it was just a crush, and if it was that, it would rear its ugly head and then vanish.

But I had no doubt that it was unreciprocated. I was not even past my Flower Day, though I could flirt if I wished to. Alaerec, meanwhile, was twenty-two, and I had no doubt that he would not want his best friend almost six years his junior.

And so I reasoned if it was love, I was doomed.

And so, as Ermliana's Flower Day neared, I decided that I was confused and exhausted and afraid and I needed amusement.

So I became friends with Lady Neemiar.

It was the proper choice. Lady Neemiar was just what I needed to take my mind off Debegri and Alaerec. It was hard for me to keep from laughing in her presence, but it was also a good way to keep up my new façade of shallowness. Apparently Lady Neemiar was quite popular amongst the ladies of Court—when she came to Court, that is. We had tea in her rooms after Petitioner's Court every day, and many of the leaders in fashion came to eat with her. Ermliana and I did as well.

The first several days I had tea with Lady Neemiar, I was quiet and, secretly nervous. I laughed at all the right times, and kept a smile on my face consistently, but I was always afraid someone would talk to me and I wouldn't know what to say. I did receive careful apologies the first few days from women my parents knew, but nothing more.

But five days after Lady Neemiar's arrival and four after my first day at tea, the conversation turned to one of the many forbidden topics—the King.

Alaerec's mother—Lourden's half-sister (she was his mother's eldest daughter, who had remarried the king after a previous marriage)—who was in Athanarel for the first time ten years, said, "I cut all affiliations with him after I married. I think he's always been touched in the head—insanity runs in the Merindar family."

"Perhaps," Meni Jeron of Orbanith-Kinsland said diplomatically, sipping her tea, "his wife's misdeeds and consequent dethroning have broken his heart and he simply lost his mind. It's not unheard of."

There was a chorus of agreements around the room. Even Alaerec's mother had to agree with that.

I felt a nudge in my side. Ermliana was giving me a look. Say something, she mouthed.

"Yes," I agreed quietly. "That might be it but—" I was momentarily startled as fifteen pairs of eyes turned towards me. I took a breath and continued. "But the Merindars have made it so that the King has absolute power. Think of two hundred years ago, when the Calahanras family was in power. There was a King, and he had absolute power, but the Court could overrule him in cases of insanity. When the Merindars took over, after the last Calahanras king died and his sister moved to Sartor, they slowly changed the rules, refusing the Court any chance to override the King's decisions. We can't do anything."

My monologue was met with stunned stares and a few dropped jaws. I resisted the urge to mimic them.

After a moment of silence, Alaerec's mother poured herself another glass of tea and said, "Well said, your grace."

I managed to dip my head gracefully and the moment was gone, leaving me feeling both vulnerable and triumphant.

It wasn't until I was back in my room that I realized that the shallow Elestra wouldn't have said something like that. I felt as though I had let down Alaerec, and I knew I had to tell him.

Unfortunately, he reached me first.

A/N: Yep. It's a cliffie!

Sorry; I just got back from a nine-day choir tour and am suffering from severe sleep deprivation, acaffeine high (I mean, come on! no chocolate of Coke for nine days; of course I just drank two bloody liters of the stuff!),and Disneyland overload. So I'm kinda loopy. I'll try to update soon, I'm not sure when, though; I'm really busy. But it'll be July 16, at the earliest, so see ya then.

And, of course, don't forget to review!

Signing off,
nebulia