Page 67 of Stardust Child

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. And for whatever my mother did, too. For what happened to all of you. She told me you were innocent, she did, she told me over and over. And I will try—I can never make it up to you, but I will help Remin. I will be a good wife. I love him too, very much. I will learn—”

But there, words failed her. She couldn’t confess now, not after what Remin had said. She could not tell him she had lied to him after he told them how he loved her. Her breath caught.

“I will…I will be a good lady to him,” she finished lamely. “I’m sorry.”

“Youdidn’t do anything wrong,” Remin said pointedly behind her, drawing her back to him. “I told you, you don’t need to apologize. But I will make that promise, too. I will make up for the wrong that I’ve done.”

“But you’ve already done so much…” She let him pull her onto his knee and there was a fluttering feeling around them, as of wings or shifting feet, as if the spirits were drawing close to listen. She couldn’t let them think so ill of him. “Mother, he sent Sir Miche to bring back the entire Aldeburke library for me, and he’s buying me a horse, an Anglose, and you should see the manor we’re going to have, a man named Sousten Didion is building it…”

She was sure he hadn’t told his family even half of what he had done. He never thought anything he did was remarkable. But they needed to know what a good man he was, and that it was understandable that he had been wary of her at first, and how very proud of him they should be.

“You didn’t tell them about the wall, or Wen’s kitchen,” Remin interrupted, before she could get to the tourney and how he had foughtfourteen men by himself. She was sure his father would like to know that, though his mother might be less pleased. “I had to go deal with a problem in one of the villages, and I wasn’t gone a week before she turned half the town upside down. When I got back, I wasn’t sure whether I had the right cottage. I wish my knights were half so organized.”

It was so odd to hear herself praised, it almost felt as if he were speaking of someone else. But she had done those things, it was true. Ophele couldn’t work out the math. How did they balance against the crimes of her parents? Against the weight of her deception? As soon as she could, she told them more about him, and Tresingale, anxious that they should know that he was giving his knights lands and titles to settle the valley, to make more towns. That he was helping his soldiers to learn trades. That he was building things. Their voices tumbled over each other, praising each other, excited about the work they were doing, and all of it was a sweetness as keen as a blade.

Her cheeks tingled. Her nose felt cold, as if that white smoke had drifted to her from a glacier. The feeling of those gathered sprits was as real as the tip of her nose, each of them so distinct that she thought she might learn to tell them apart, in time. And she kept searching for anger among them, waiting for the deluge to fall on her head. Had they misunderstood when she told them who she was? Could they not see her properly? Was there something wrong with the incense?

“…river traffic,” Remin was saying, excited as always when he spoke of his plans for the valley. “Next year, we’ll begin building an academy. We might as well do something with all those books.”

“I want to learn,” Ophele tried, the merest beginning of the truth. “Once I have the books, I’ll learn everything so I can help. He asked me to study the devils, and I like it. I’ll learn to do it properly.”

“I know.” Remin gave her a proud glance. “We’re going to be building a port soon, even though we’ll have to dig through the Cliffs of Marren to reach the water. Who else will inform me about exotic fruits from across the Sea of Eskai?”

“I will,” she said, startled into a smile. “It will help?”

“It will. We’re going to build together the rest of our lives,” he said. “And even then, we won’t come close to filling the valley. But our children will carry it on for us. We’ll teach them how to build, too.”

“Not yet,” Ophele said quickly, her ears blazing. There was a cacophony of rejoicing amongst the spirits. “I’m not, yet.”

She still hadn’t had her bleeding yet. Remin’s arm tightened around her. The thought of having a baby was both exciting and frightening, and she would do it for him, though she wished with all her heart for someone like a mother to tell her how it happened, and how she would know when she was with child, and what would happen when she had it. But there was no such person. Her father had taken away every woman that should have been there to explain it to her.

“I want to,” she added, looking up at Remin. “I do…want to. If we have a boy, we could name him Victorin. If you want.”

“I would like that.” His lips brushed her forehead. “We could name one of the girls after your mother.”

“Oneof the girls?” she repeated.

“I want a dozen,” he said cheerfully. There was a burst of consternation among the spirits. “Six girls and six boys. There’s still Clement, Bon, Rasiphe, Ludovin, and then my father and our grandparents—”

“Twelve?” Her voice squeaked. The idea ofonebaby was overwhelming. “Twelve? How—how would we…twelve?”

“Once you have enough of them, they start raising each other,” he assured her, and she saw the mischief lurking in his black eyes. “And all of them with eyes like their mother.”

“Black eyes,” she countered, unable to suppress a smile. She could imagine the outline of this little spirit, too, Remin’s son. A little boy with black hair, a miniature version of his father. Oh, how she would love him. And as Remin teased her about the family they would have, and boasted about her, all she could feel from the spirits was love and joy.

Had she managed to deceive them after all? Ophele had to look down to hide her expression, trapped in a vortex of fear and guilt and shame, because she didn’t know what to do with this outpouring of love. It could not be for her. It would evaporate the instant they knew the truth. In her head was Lady Hurrell’s voice, so real and present, it was as if Ophele had summoned her through the sacred smoke.Little mouse. Liar. Bastard.Ophele was only married to Remin because the Emperor had wanted to hurt him, to chain him to a wife who would hinder rather than help him.

Which was worse? Continue the deception, or confess all right now? It would humiliate him if she did that, and right after he had praised her to his family, but how could she sit and listen, knowing it was all a lie? He would hate her, he would never trust her again, she could just imagine the look on his face, the warmth draining from his eyes, and hear that terrible cold fury in his voice again. Stars, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, the thought of it made her want to be sick—

Remin’s voice never stopped as his big hand caught her and drew her into his chest, as if he had sensed her turmoil. And she had never been so grateful just to hide. For a long time, she breathed his warm, familiar scent, dispelling some of the cold giddiness of the incense. Gradually, her thoughts stopped chasing each other so frantically.

She always ended up in the same place. By now, the length of her deceit was almost worse than the thing she was trying to conceal. And she was too much of a coward to confess it. Next year, when she had learned to be a lady and was carrying his child, then she could say it. Then she would confess and beg pardon as forthrightly as Remin had.

It would be her last lie. The biggest and worst of them, maybe, but she wasn’t brave enough to do this now.

“All right?” Remin murmured, and she nodded, lifting her head.

“The smoke,” she said, trying to smile for him. It was not a lie.

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