“Yes, I forced Mrs. Vennala to let me in,” Luka said. “We need to talk.”
Maya nodded at her maid, who left with a bow.
“Please, don’t put off your meal on my account,” Luka said, frowning when Maya made no move to uncover her tray.
“I’m sure whatever you have to tell me won’t take long,” she said, crossing her arms.
“Won’t you even do the courtesy of listening to me in patience?” he growled, goaded by her obvious impatience for him to be done.
“You have wanted solitude ever since you arrived here in Kamenev,” Maya shot back with a frown. “You holed up in your estate because you didn’t want to go to the capital and deal withpeople, so why are you complaining now? My two weeks are almost up, and I shall finish this before then, I promise you that.”
“What isthis?” Luka asked, limping closer to her workbench. Her eyes glittered as he took in the shoe like object on her bench, frowning as he looked at the pieces. “Is this—?”
He’d seen prosthetics before, wooden toes that soldiers wore that allowed them to ride as a mounted warrior, or that allowed them to strap a shield to their amputated arm.
She nodded at his half-formed question. “Yes, it’s an invention designed to help you regain the ease of movement in your left foot. A prosthetic.” She pointed out a steel plate, and two little mechanical toes that had been fixed to the leather of the sock, thatflexedas she pulled on a thin wire on the outside of it.
He stared, then looked up with wide eyes, lost for words. In all his years, he’d never seen a prosthetic capable offlexingits joints and muscles, just as a real limb might.
“You may not be able to run as you used to, but you will be able to ride. Maybe even fence again.”
The words sent a thrill running through him as the thought about the future, for once, without dread.
But then, the flash of happiness was choked by a bitter thought.
“You said you didn’t see me as something to be fixed,” he said accusingly, staring hard at her.
“I didn’t,” she shot back. “I don’t.” Maya shook her head. “This is just…my way of atonement.”
“Atonement?” Luka’s eyebrows shot up as he stared at her. Maya, who had always looked him in the eye during their disagreements, was looking down at her invention now, her shoulders stiff with tension.
“What on earth are you atoning for?”
Maya didn’t speak for a moment, before she looked up at him with tortured eyes. “Your body armor. The one that cost you your foot. The one thatImade and sent you to battle wearing, without providing you proper protection against spell damage. As if I were atrueartificer, who understood metal and magic alike, instead of being just a jumped-up half-breed girl without any magic of her own!”
Luka stared at her with his mouth open. “Who on earth has been saying such things to you?” he demanded. “Who called you a half-breed?”
Maya waved a hand dismissively. “That’s not the point here—”
“That IS the point,” Luka shouted. “If anyone at court has been giving you a hard time because of your Sunvaaran parentage—”
Maya stared at him, her mouth opening and closing, as a flush stole over her cheeks, before she said feebly, “It was just a few comments here and there—”
“—when we’re actively working at building an alliance with the Sunvaaran Empire—and—and Telluria is therealenemy we need to worry about, anyway—”
“—it was just idle chatter among some of the noble men—”
“—bloody small-minded idiots, the lot of them—”
“—nothing serious—”
“—then why are you worrying about it?”
“What?” Maya said, shaking her head. Their conversation just now seemed to have confused her, though Luka felt very clear in his mind.
If—no,when—he went back to court, he was going to root out all those people who’d been rude to Maya and get themexiled. He would ask Baron von Rakhmonov for a list, he was sure the diplomat would know who was in dire need of a few years in the countryside. The man may be a patriarchal, prejudiced old man, but there was no doubt he loved his children and brooked no gossip about them. Or their parentage.
“If the comments about your parentage were truly nothing to worry about, then why bring them up now? Why are you atoning for your half-Sunvaaran blood?”
