The next morning, Kel made good on her promise to herself to resume her dawn glaive practice. She thought to leave Tobe sleeping, but he slipped out of the chamber behind her, Jump at his heels, as she tried to quietly leave. "Peachblossom could do with some extra attention," he said, by way of explanation. Kel watched them head inside the stables, knowing he'd be happy in the horses' company, and headed to the deserted practice yard she had spent so much time in as a page.
She fell quickly into the familiar, smooth movements of the Yamani pattern dance, her glaive sliced through the air around her with barely a sound. For a few minutes, she focused only on her movements and breathing, allowing her mind to empty itself of all thoughts other than the awareness of her own working muscles and the calm rise and fall of her chest. Only once she finally felt calm and focussed for the first time in days did she allow herself to think of what she had witnessed in the dream and at the ball.
Now, stop being so silly and jumping at shadows, she told herself. First I had a bizarre dream that the Chamber showed me something terrible happening to Shinko and Tortall. That was just a dream. It's not like I haven't had bad dreams about the Chamber before. It's probably just the effect of being back in Corus. Then I saw Shinko space out last night. She was probably just tired, or it was a trick of the light. And then I saw Sato noh Akazome at the ball. She may be a little odd, and I don't really understand how she went from being renowned for hating all foreigners to being apparently happy to be here in Tortall, but that doesn't mean she's at all suspicious.
Her glaive swirled in front of her as she moved into the second, more complex, sequence of steps. And what do I even have to be suspicious of? She pushed away fear and worry, along with irritation at the cryptic nature of the Chamber's message, letting the emotions flow away with the motion of her glaive. A stupid dream, that I can't shake for some reason, she told herself. There is no threat. She switched to a sequence of defensive moves. I need to stop being so on edge and enjoy seeing everyone again. Despite her attempts to forget the dream, though, nothing was working.
By the time she had finished the final sequence of the pattern dance, she felt a little more like she knew what she should do. I don't trust the mage, she decided. I'll have to watch out for her, 'til I know if that's just gut feeling or justified. And I'll spend more time with Shinko. Maybe seeing her be perfectly normal will help me forget what I saw in the nightmare. Pulling a handkerchief from inside her jerkin, she wiped off the handle of her glaive carefully. I really need to decide what I'm going to do after Midwinter, she thought, annoyed with herself for feeling so rattled by a bad dream. I'm probably getting bad dreams because I don't know what my future holds. She sighed. I wish I could just go and visit the Chamber, even if I would rather never go inside the cursed thing again, she thought. Then I'd know once and for all that it was just a dream. But with the Ordeals happening every night until after Midwinter, there's never a time when the chapel is empty for long.
As she crossed the yard, a small shape fluttered across from a window ledge and settled on her shoulder. She fished in her pocket for the dried cranberries she usually kept there, and offered one to the sparrow. "Hello Nari," she said softly. The sparrow pecked at the cranberry, chirping appreciatively. Kel had made sure to always have dried cherries or raisins with her for her feathered friends, ever since the sparrows' bravery at Rathaussak. At that, a thought occurred to her - something that would help her convince herself once and for all that nothing suspicious was happening. "Will you find the others, Nari?" she asked the sparrow. "I think I need your help again..."
After explaining to the sparrows how they could help her, by letting her know if Shinko did anything unusual, or if Sato the mage went near Shinko's chambers or anywhere else a visitor to the palace wouldn't normally be, Kel decided she also needed to pay a visit to Lalasa. Her former maid was still friends with many of the servants in the palace, and servants often saw things that nobody else did - particularly because many people did not pay attention to servants being nearby, forgetting that commoners were just as much people as nobles were.
Lalasa was pleased to see her, and nodded seriously at her request as they drank tea together at the back of her small shop. "Certainly, Lady Kel," she said, after Kel had explained. "If I tell them it's a favour for you, they won't ask why, and they won't tell no-one, either."
Kel sighed. "You know, you really can just call me Kel," she said.
Lalasa grinned. "Of course, Lady Kel." She poured them both another cup and carefully stirred a lump of sugar into her own. "But do you really think this mage is a threat to the princess? I thought the war was over."
"I'm probably just being over-cautious," Kel replied. She hadn't told Lalasa about the dream, only that she was suspicious of the mage's intentions. Still, she really did hope that she was wrong - she would hate to find that anyone from the Yamani Islands really did have ill intent towards Tortall, especially after all her parents' hard work, and for Shinko and Yuki's future lives there. "But until I'm sure if I am or not, tell your friends to let me know if they see the mage doing anything suspicious. Especially if she's doing it anywhere near the Prince and Princess, or the King and Queen, for that matter."
Lalasa looked somewhat wide-eyed at the topic of their conversation, but she had certainly changed beyond recognition from the scared girl who Kel had first met as a new page. This Lalasa was confident in a way she hadn't been even when Kel had left for the North, a business owner who was now even taking on extra staff to manage all the work she brought in. Recognising this transformation made Kel smile, and she changed the subject to happier matters. "Now tell me about the work you've been doing for Queen Thayet. A little bird tells me you made her dress for the Prince's wedding..."
The next few days passed by without any sign that the Yamani mage was doing anything out of the ordinary, aside from displaying the kind of innate understanding of the Tortallan language and manners that Kel would usually only expect from Shinko and Yuki - and certainly not from someone who, when Kel had last known of her, had been utterly against learning anything outside of Yamani magic and traditions. While that in itself seemed odd, neither the sparrows, nor Lalasa's friends in the servant's quarters, spotted anything unusual about Sato's behaviour or movements around the palace. Kel even enlisted Tobe and Jump to let her know if anything seemed strange around the stables and palace grounds, where Tobe had been happily enlisted by Stefan Groomsman to "put some sense into" some of the pickier stallions among the palace horses, as he put it. But nothing odd seemed to be happening at all.
Kel would have been able to convince herself that all of the nervous tension she couldn't shake was just the result of a meaningless nightmare. Except that something really did seem off where Shinko was concerned. Kel made a point to try to spend as much time with her as possible, and concerningly, her strange moment of blankness at the Opening Ball seemed to be just the start. At dinner the next night, Kel sat opposite her and Roald, and was dismayed to see her friend once again, for a moment, seem to disappear - quickly enough that Roald barely noticed, only asking her if she needed some water. Kel, however, saw not just Shinko's face fall, but also the moment of confusion in her eyes as she came back to herself. It was truly as if, for a few seconds, she was not in her own body.
Unfortunately, Kel couldn't spend as much time with Shinko as she wanted, and with increasing frustration, never got a chance to spend time with her alone. When she went down to the yard to practice with her glaive and think things over the next morning, she was pleased and dismayed to find Queen Thayet, Buri, her mother, Shinko, and Yuki waiting for her.
"I spotted you coming back yesterday morning, and thought it would be an excellent idea to join you," Thayet said, half apologetically, half mischievously. "It's been far too long since I last practiced with a glaive, and I'm sure I'm horribly out of practice, but there's no time like the present to catch up!"
Her mother simply grinned at her, and Kel resigned herself to losing her thinking time. Still, she had missed these morning sessions. It seemed the others had too. They pushed each other hard - despite Queen Thayet's insistence that she hadn't practiced in years, she held up well against the others - and by the time they finished Kel was sweaty and smiling. As they headed out of the yard together to clean up before a well-deserved breakfast, she realised cheerfully that she had not noticed Shinko having any kind of "moment", and she had almost forgotten about the bad dream and her unshakeable suspicions.
The rest of the day and the following days leading up to Midwinter were better. Aside from noticing that Shinko almost always had a moment of blankness over dinner (when, Kel's suspicious mind noted, the Yamani mage was always present nearby... But then, so was half the court), Kel's days were almost too full to dwell too much on her ongoing internal argument as to whether or not she was imagining trouble where there was none. Glaive practice took up all the time before breakfast, and invariably after breakfast was over, one or another of her friends would seek her out.
First, it was Owen, determined to test his skills with a sword against hers "now that we're both proper knights" as he explained. He was far better than he had ever been before, too, and Kel lost one bout and won the other, after which Owen breathlessly and laughingly declared it a draw and insisted on buying her a drink - which Kel insisted be the warmed, spiced juice that was popular in Corus around Midwinter, rather than anything alcoholic.
The same day, Merric, who had watched their morning duel, challenged her as well.
"But you've been fighting beside me for the last three years," Kel said, bemused.
"Ah, I see, you think you'll lose," Merric said with a teasing grin, and Kel sighed as Neal immediately started taking bets. She knew Merric's fighting style intimately, and he hers, so their duel was even closer matched than hers with Owen. It would have been another draw - Kel winning the first bout, Merric the second - but Neal insisted "for his patrons" that they declare a winner. Kel won the final bout with a lucky thrust that left Merric unbalanced, after which she took him down with a quick kick to the shins.
"That was definitely cheating," he said, but with nothing but good humour in his voice. They shook hands and walked, both grinning, over to where a small crowd had formed around Neal, including Roald and Shinko, Yuki, and Buri and Raoul.
"You just won me a gold noble," the latter said, winking at Kel, who did her best to look outraged.
"You bet on me?" she said, raising an eyebrow at her former knightmaster, as Roald slapped her on the back in congratulation.
"Good fight!" he said, approvingly. "Now, I did say I'd take on the winner..."
Kel raised an eyebrow. "Well, you'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm supposed to be on holiday!" she said firmly. Or I was, until I started jumping at shadows… Even that thought couldn't mar her cheerful mood - at least until she suddenly noticed Shinko next to Roald, and felt that now familiar sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. Once again, her friend was pale-faced and staring, and in the second before she suddenly blinked and turned to Roald, Kel could have sworn that she had seen her friend's shadow moving - even though Shinko had been standing stock-still.
"Are you cold, my love?" Roald asked with concern, seeing Shinko's pale face. For a moment, Shinko again looked confused, as if she didn't quite know where she was, but then she nodded.
"Time for some tea, I think!" Roald decided, cheerily, and grinned at Kel, not noticing that her face was now almost as pale as Shinko's. "Tomorrow, Kel - although you shouldn't all wear yourselves out before the Midwinter tournament!"
"Tournament?" Kel mouthed to Neal, confused, as they followed the Prince back into the Palace.
"Jousting tournament, on Midwinter Day!" Neal replied. "It was announced at dinner last night - don't you pay attention at all, Mindelan?"
Kel elbowed him for his haughty tone, but Merric's words from behind her caught her by surprise. "I've already entered us all, anyway," he said. "It'll be like old times!"
From her left, Raoul laughed. "None of you could beat Kel back then - I'm sure that won't have changed now!"
Kel groaned. "No more betting on me!" She tried looking pleadingly at Buri, but the K'miri woman just grinned at her.
Before Midwinter and the tournament arrived, Kel did her best to continue watching Shinko. Something in her gut told her that if anything would happen, it would be on Midwinter, the shortest, darkest, and coldest day of the year - but since she still had no real idea of what, exactly, she was looking for, she hoped against hope that she would get some kind of clue before then. Still, she tried to convince herself that she was just imagining what she had seen. Or perhaps Shinko was pregnant, and Kel was just reading things into totally ordinary behaviour? For the most part, though, she still managed to enjoy herself with her friends.
She duelled with Roald, who beat her - although he claimed she had gone easy on him - and in the afternoon found herself cornered by Quinden of Marti's Hill, who she had last seen on her way to Rathaussak, when his patrol had passed them by without even noticing their presence. On her return to Tortallan soil, she had reported it - she'd had no real choice, since if they'd been the enemy, both Quinden and all his men would have been dead. While it was up to Quinden if he wanted to hurry along his own death, leading the men under your command into what amounted to a self-made trap was something she couldn't overlook. It seemed that her report had been the final straw for Quinden's position as a patrol captain, and he had spent the remainder of the Scanran War acting as a glorified clerk at Fort Mastiff.
Quinden, however, seemed to hold her fully responsible for his punishment. "I hope you're happy, lump," he hissed. "Got them all fawning over you now. Who did you have to take to your bed for them to name you the hero?"
Kel felt cold anger fill her chest, but let her Yamani mask settle over her features until she could feign disinterest. "If you're looking for someone to blame for your own lack of heroism, you should look in a mirror," she retorted calmly. "I've only done what any good knight would." And none of it involved anybody's bed other than my own, she thought a little sadly, remembering her stunted romance with Cleon, and Dom's handsome face.
For a moment, she thought Quinden would challenge her like the others - although she doubted any duel with him would be friendly at this point - but he grunted, and stalked off angrily, leaving her wondering what she could expect from him if she saw him outside of the Palace.
She shrugged off the thought, and, realising she had not seen Shinko all day, went to find her, and ended up drinking Yamani matcha with the princess and Yuki. Shinko was her usual self until just as Kel was leaving - when again, her face paled, her mouth drooped, and, even more alarmingly, her shadow twitched away from her, as if it were trying to escape. After a second, Shinko coughed, and Yuki, who had been tending to the tea, asked if she was all right in a voice which told Kel she had noticed nothing really amiss.
As Kel left Shinko's chambers, she noticed Sato, hurrying away down the corridor.