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“Why do you insist on hurting , but he knew the danger in it

“Sister,” the boy began, “she is not what you think—”

“I do not care what she is! She has not broken the rules of her house—she does not have a house to disobey! It is you who have defied me and the Sultan, who have kept the wives in a constant panic, like birds chasing after seed!”

Of course they had done no such thing The hares of the ely unnoticed How could he be so special as to be missed by anyone save Dinarzad, who hated hi in their halls like lionesses, occasionally swatting an errant cub The aruards and older sisters on the brink of e kept the brood in check, and it htly absence

“What are you doing out there with her? You e where it is ht Why can you not behave as you ought to, as a noble son ought to? How can it be worth all of this just to sit with another child under the stars?”

The boy saw his chance to irl’s story and make her see how his heart strained towards the Garden like a horse who senses home is near, it became jumbled in his mouth No matter how he tried, he could not irl unspooled froe, black thread

“Dinarzad, let irl that no one loved, and she was called Snow She lived in a town by the sea, and one day another wo her an orange because both of the nets and Snow caes Or—yes, I think that’s right The worid—that’s important, you know—told Snow a story about how three s took her away to a holy city and then the dog-men told her a story about a terrible lady called the Black Papess, who could drive -headed men and made them eat their brother—”

“Have you gone mad, child? Has she cast some spell over you and softened your brain like an apple in the rain? I will hear no more of this”

The boy protested, but Dinarzad would not listen She seized hied him across the courtyard under the sunshine of the new day, clean and bright as washed linen He did not cry—at least he told hih tears streaers were very thin, and curled like the claws of a starving hawk She hauled him behind her and into the stables, which stunk of horse sweat and dung, depositing hireasy hair and enore hands, knuckled like the roots of an elether at the level of his eyes into one massive fist

“Treat hi

m no better than one of the ht you will both be whipped,” announced Dinarzad curtly She turned on one flawless heel and left the stable in a flurry of violet silk and black braids

The boy stood and brushed himself clean of the bits of hay that stuck to the floor and now his shirt He was careful to look as contrite as he could, though of course he was already planning to slip out as soon as the oldHe could see the htening, re about him

“That one’s a she-dragon and no doubt about it,” the blackse knuckles with a sound like the breaking of stone pots “Firstborns are always trouble Ask me, they should expose the first brats out of the Sultan’s wos, she’d have been Sultan herself—no doubt that’s why you trouble her so”

“But I’m not to be Sultan,” the boy protested “There must be dozens of sons ahead of me! If I were the heir, they’d have told me by now! I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to run around the Garden—or put to work in the stables!”

“Look who knows so much!” the old man chortled “The servants always know ten tiuesses Mark me, boy—you shoe the horse today that you’ll ride tomorrow”