Lady Alma Read online




  Lady Alma

  Salarian Chronicles Book Two

  A. G. Marshall

  To Aunt Joy

  Because you’re twice as spunky as Alma.

  Thank you for telling us your stories.

  Copyright © 2018 Angela Marshall

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Avanell Publishing

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Map of Castana

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Author’s Note

  Special Offer

  About the Author

  Author Interview

  Acknowledgments

  Rook and Shadow Preview

  Map of Castana

  Map of Castana

  Chapter 1

  Rose bushes stretched for miles in all directions. They covered the gently sloping hills, forming deep red ripples in a sea of green. The sinking sun cast a warm glow over the countryside. In the north of Castana, estates like this grew grapes to make wine. But in the Garden District, they grew roses.

  “This is a disaster,” I said, turning away from the window. “No one came.”

  Tía Teresa nodded and brushed a strand of silver-gray hair away from her face. She wasn’t really my aunt, but I called her “tía” anyway as a sign of respect and affection. Officially, she was my seamstress.

  “You will look beautiful, at least,” she said.

  I turned to the mirror as she laced a corset over my chemise. It pulled my waist in, made me stand taller, and gathered the cotton fabric beneath it. I looked pretty, but not formal enough for a wedding. My dark hair was loose, restrained only by a wide band of lace. My dress hung on a dressmaker’s form across the room. The pale green silk complimented the surrounding rose gardens, but it should have been trimmed with ribbons and flowers at the very least.

  “They should be married in Castello!” I said. “King Benicio himself would attend.”

  “And Prince Lorenzo?” Tía Teresa said with a sly smile.

  “A noble wedding in the capital city? Everyone would be there, Tía.”

  My cheeks burned. I had never met Prince Lorenzo, but I wanted to. Every girl in Castana did, noble and common alike. The wedding would have been a perfect excuse. Tía Teresa whistled as she shook the wrinkles out of my gown and pretended not to notice my embarrassment.

  Someone knocked. Tía Teresa snapped her fingers, and the silk gown appeared on my body in a wave of magic. She waved her hand, smoothing the fabric with a spell before she opened the door.

  Father entered, and I smiled in spite of everything. He looked handsome even if his clothes were too simple for the occasion. As head of the Merchant Guild, his jacket should have been made of velvet.

  As a commoner marrying a donna, he should have worn shoes with ruby buckles.

  At least his gold Merchant Guild medallion added sparkle.

  At least he looked happy.

  “Oh, my Alma,” he said, taking my hand. “What a beautiful donna you make!”

  He twirled me around. The full skirts of the green gown flared like a flower.

  “Papa, you can’t call people donna when they aren’t!”

  “You’re my donna. May I take her, Teresa? The ceremony will start soon, and I’d like a moment.”

  Tía Teresa nodded and waved her hands. Golden slippers appeared on my feet. My house shoes settled on a shelf across the room. She patted my shoulder as I walked past.

  I followed Father out of the house, an unassuming stucco structure with a sloping thatched roof. Wooden beams polished by age peeked out of the thatch, and rose bushes climbed the walls. It looked more like a farmer’s cottage than a donna’s mansion.

  We walked through the rose fields. I kept close to Father to avoid catching my dress on the thorns. My golden shoes slipped in the loose dirt. There would be no time to polish them.

  I sighed with frustration.

  Father sighed with contentment.

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it, Alma?”

  I examined the field. Even though they grew in dirt, the rose bushes did have a certain charm. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call them beautiful.

  “I could spend every evening like this,” he said.

  I flinched.

  “Every evening, Papa? In the rose fields?”

  “Well, I certainly don’t want to get married every evening.”

  He laughed. I joined him, but my chest felt hollow.

  “We have a rose garden at home,” I said. “Several rose gardens.”

  He shook his head.

  “It is a raindrop, and this is the ocean.”

  He paused for a moment, as if gathering resolve for a difficult task.

  “How would you like to live here, Hija? To wake every morning to the scent of roses and sunshine?”

  “Live here? In the Garden District?”

  I would hate it.

  Before he met Donna Senona, Father and I had understood each other perfectly. But lately he seemed like a stranger. The man who had trained me in social graces so I could marry well and gain a noble title would never suggest leaving the capital city for a garden.

  The sound of footsteps interrupted our conversation. My soon-to-be-stepsister Rosa sprinted toward us. I suppose I should say Donna Rosa since she had already come of age and inherited the title from her mother. But when I looked at her, the title wouldn’t stick. She looked nothing like a donna. That’s what happened when you grew up in the Garden District. You didn’t know how to behave properly.

  “The judge wants you,” she said, panting. “He needs to speak with you before the ceremony.”

  Father squeezed my hand and hurried towards the house. I stayed and examined Rosa. Her simple green gown was nearly identical to mine, but she didn’t wear a corset under hers. Her hem was dirty, and she had insisted on full-length sleeves made from thick fabric. Patches of perspiration under her arms showed where she had sweat through her chemise. Her skirt was wrinkled. Someone had twisted yellow roses into her hair.

  Real roses. They must have put them in hours ago.

  “Your roses are wilted,” I said. “Do you want me to help you pick fresh ones?”

  Rosa shrugged.

  “Or you could borrow some of my lace,” I said. “We could match.”

  I gestured to my lace headband. Given how much Rosa was sweating, the lace would be ruined. But it would be worth it to help Father’s wedding look a little better.

  Rosa pushed a wayward rose back into her hair. Half the petals came off and fluttere
d to the ground.

  “It doesn’t matter, Alma. No one will notice.”

  In a way she was right. It didn’t matter because no one would be there. No one refined enough to know the difference, anyway. Even our next-door neighbors, our closest friends, were not willing to travel all the way to the Garden District for the ceremony.

  I followed Rosa back to the house, lifting my skirt to keep the hem out of the dirt. Rosa was taller than me. Much taller, and thin as a vine. I had to jog to match her pace. Beads of perspiration formed on my forehead.

  I wiped them away with a single finger and shook my hand, flicking the sweat away so it wouldn’t stain my gown.

  Tía Teresa grabbed us when we reached the house.

  “You’re late,” she hissed. “The musicians are already playing!”

  I gasped.

  Rosa shrugged.

  Tía Teresa dabbed my forehead with a linen cloth as we hurried through the house. I heard the musicians as we neared the courtyard. Wide double doors showed a few rows of chairs set on the grass. Father stood next to the judge under a tree.

  Donna Senona hid behind the door. She wore a simple white silk gown trimmed with red lace. Her hair should have been piled on top of her head, but instead it was gathered low at her neck. She didn’t have any decorations in it. No jewels. No lace. Not even wilted flowers. Tía Teresa and I had offered to help her get ready, but she had insisted her tailor could handle it.

  She had been wrong.

  She wrapped Rosa in one arm and held the other out to me.

  “My hijas,” she said.

  My daughters.

  I glanced at her outstretched arm and shook my head. The embrace had wrinkled Rosa’s dusty dress even more. She looked completely disheveled. I put my hand in Donna Senona’s and squeezed it gently so I wouldn’t wrinkle her lace gloves.

  Donna Senona’s smile faltered, but only for a moment.

  “Go now,” she said. “Poor Arturo will think I’ve changed my mind.”

  I wished she would. Before he proposed to her, Papa had promised me that nothing would change. But that was impossible. He had changed already, rambling about roses when he should be focused on returning to Castello and representing the Merchant Guild to the king.

  Was there a way to change Donna Senona’s mind? To stop the wedding?

  Tía Teresa watched me with narrow eyes.

  “Best behavior, Alma,” she said.

  I nodded and walked beside Rosa. We entered the courtyard just as the sun met the horizon. The sunset added a touch of beauty to the setting, but it still looked drab. The guests smiled at us. I passed them with my head held high. Farmers, guild apprentices, servants. They were not the sort of people who should bear witness to a noble wedding.

  I focused on the judge standing next to Father. At least he looked distinguished in his long black robes.

  Rosa and I walked slowly down the aisle until we reached the end. When I got closer, I realized the judge’s robes were wrinkled and dusty, as if he had walked here on a country road.

  He probably had.

  Papa winked at me as I took my place beside him. Then he winked at Rosa. She winked back.

  This was all wrong. We should be in the castle! A woman of Donna Senona’s rank should be married in the throne room. King Benicio should officiate. A noble wedding wasn’t worth anything unless the king was there, and all we had was a country judge with wrinkled robes.

  A breeze blew through the courtyard when Donna Senona entered. It rustled her gown and carried the scent of roses from the fields below us.

  Her smile radiated happiness and warmth. The breeze pulled her hair loose and swept it around her face. Plain brown shoes peeked from beneath her skirt each time she took a step. Her neck was bare.

  Where were her gems? A donna should wear her family’s gems on the day of her wedding. Why did she have so little respect for tradition?

  The judge cleared his throat.

  “Arturo, before you pledge your life to Donna Senona, I must ask you to make a vow to Castana. Do you agree?”

  Father nodded, not looking surprised. This must have been what the judge wanted to speak to him about earlier. I leaned closer, interested in spite of everything.

  “You have served Castana well as head of the Merchant Guild, but you must leave that behind as you enter the nobility. Do you swear, as a nobleman, to abstain from using the magical arts you have learned in your guild?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you swear to use your talents to aid the governing of Castana however the king requires?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you understand the penalties you will pay if you forsake this vow and use your magic for any reason?”

  “I will forfeit my titles and land to the crown.”

  “And you accept this responsibility? You agree that, as a nobleman, you must protect your health by abstaining from magic so you will remain fit to govern?”

  “I do.”

  “Then let us proceed with the wedding.”

  They proceeded.

  The judge finished the ceremony just as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. The crowd’s clapping interrupted my daydream of returning to Castello. I couldn’t wait to get back to civilization where people knew what mattered.

  Crickets chirped as a Light Guild apprentice lit lanterns around the courtyard with a snap of her fingers.

  Crickets! Insects at a noble wedding!

  We should be freshening up for a royal ball now. We should be entering the castle ballroom as an orchestra performed. Instead, a lone violinist played a country dance tune while Father and Donna Senona spun around the grassy courtyard. They never took their eyes off each other. If they had, they might have noticed how wrong everything was.

  Father was Don Arturo now. He deserved more respect than anyone here was capable of showing.

  I looked for Rosa. She danced by with an elderly servant I recognized as one of the gardeners.

  Dancing! With a servant! A donna dancing with a servant who hadn’t even passed his apprenticeship. I moved next to Tía Teresa and flicked my head at them. She let out a small huff of disapproval.

  “You’re more noble than any of them,” she whispered.

  “And yet I’m the only one without a title.”

  The music stopped, but Father and Donna Senona kept dancing. The violinist laughed and started another tune.

  I really should call her Mother now. Or at least Stepmother. But that felt false. She wasn’t my mother, and I didn’t need her to be. After my mother died, Tía Teresa and Father had always been enough.

  The newlyweds finally stopped dancing and turned to the crowd.

  “We thank you all for coming,” Father said. “You have made me feel completely welcome here!”

  The guests cheered. Loudly. Wedding guests shouldn’t cheer. Proper wedding guests would clink their glasses, but no one here had anything to clink. They kept cheering until Donna Senona raised her hand to silence them.

  “As you know, Arturo’s responsibilities call him back to the city tomorrow. Of course, I’m going with him.”

  Don Arturo. He was a don now.

  “But we will return soon,” Father said. “As soon as circumstances allow.”

  I looked up.

  “In time for the harvest, at the least,” Donna Senona said. “You didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun, did you?”

  The servants cheered again. The violinist struck up another tune, and everyone danced in celebration.

  The courtyard closed in on me. Had Father lost his mind? Rambling about country life before his wedding was one thing. Announcing plans to return to servants was quite another.

  By the harvest. When did they harvest roses? Soon, if the full blooms around the estate were any indication.

  This was not the plan. This wedding was supposed to be goodbye to this dreadful place. Goodbye to the Garden District, and back to Castello and civilization. So what if it was an ocean
of roses? It was a desert for everything else.

  I had assumed that Donna Senona and Rosa would move to our estate in the Merchant District. Given enough time in Castello, even Rosa could learn proper behavior. Donna Senona’s steward could oversee the harvest, when the souls of the roses would be extracted to create Rosas Rojas. What could she add to the process? As a donna, she was forbidden to learn magic. And surely the servants knew their jobs. Surely they could complete the harvest without her supervision.

  She would realize that once she settled into our estate.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Father pulled Donna Senona close and kissed her. She was tall and slim like Rosa. A mere bud. He was almost as tall as her, but quite portly. Fully bloomed, to put it in polite terms.

  They might have looked well together if they had been wearing more elegant clothes.

  I balled my fists around my skirt, crushing the fabric and not caring how much it wrinkled. No one would notice it anyway. As much as I wanted to, there was no point trying to deny it.

  Everything had changed.

  Chapter 2

  I held back a sigh of relief when our carriage rolled through the wrought iron gates in front of our estate. Unlike the dirt paths in the Garden District or the rough cobblestones of Castello, our driveway was smooth, polished marble. Worn lines marked the path that years of carriage wheels had carved into the stone. So many visitors. So many noble, important, wonderful visitors.