Exile by Anne Osterlund Page A

of heavy red wine, and—she might as well face it—when Robert’s name had come up, she had leaped at the excuse to confront her expedition guide instead.
    After all, he had buried himself in his work at the stables. She had scarcely seen him these past weeks. The argument, just now, had been ludicrous, but even more bizarre was the way it made her feel. Humming with the interaction. Her pulse rushed, and her lungs struggled for air within her corset. This dratted dress!
    She filled her fists with the heavy fabric and tugged the long skirts above her ankles as she swept through the dirt field of her stepfather’s courtyard. She should never have put on her mother’s gown in the first place. But Aurelia had thought if she accepted the gift, it might somehow strengthen their relationship. Though no number of dresses would heal the cavity within her chest.
    It was time, she thought, as she entered the Fortress and climbed the stairs. Time to ask the harder questions.
    She tapped gently on the door, then entered the Blue Room. Her observations were now far sharper than they had been on her first visit. She saw not only the sky blue of the walls but the subtle shift from black to navy along the head of the swallow in the painting beside the window. And the way slate blended to midnight blue on the dramatic wing of the heron soaring in the opposing portrait. She noted the thin white crack along the arched neck of the cerulean flower vase and the blue-gray embroidery of a dolphin’s fin among the indigo waves of a nearby tapestry.
    Her mother was embroidering now. An emerald V along the throat of a mountain canary. For a moment Aurelia gazed down at the minute stitching with awe. Four different shades of green had already gone into that single V-shaped element. She could never have borne such exactitude.
    Nervously, she seated herself on the chair at the left side of the window, across from her mother. Aurelia knew the continued silence upon her entrance was not rejection. After all, there were now two wicker chairs where before there had been only one. But she was about to break an unspoken rule. “Mother,” she said softly. She always found it hard to speak in her regular voice in this room. “Why did you change your name?”
    Lady Margaret looked up at the personal question, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight, then dropped her gaze once again to the embroidery. “I didn’t want to be Marguerite anymore.” The answer came out even softer than the question. “Marguerite was a name chosen for me. Margaret feels less ... destined.”
    Aurelia knew well the flaws of having one’s life defined by birth, but her mother had not been born royal. “How were you destined?”
    The needle froze. “I was Marguerite of Valshone.”
    And what did that explain? “I don’t understand.”
    A strange, grim smile appeared on her mother’s face. “Well, then, perhaps some good came from my marriage’s end after all.” Her marriage. To Aurelia’s father. It was the first time her mother had broached the topic. The needle plunged back into the throat of the canary. “Have you never heard of the Right of Valshone?”
    Aurelia racked her memory.
    Her mother took another stitch. “I see. Your education must have been controlled in this matter.”
    With ignorance. Yes, Aurelia’s father had been very good at that type of control. “What is it, then—the Right of Valshone?”
    “Tradition.” Her mother began to stitch more quickly. “Dating back to Tyralt’s first real test in power. There was an attack to the southwest—”
    “The attack of the Gisalts.”
    “Yes, well, your learning has not been too dismal then. It was the first and last time Tyralt was ever attacked on the southern coast. No one has tried since.”
    “Because the mountains are so treacherous.”
    “Because the people who live in the mountains are treacherous.” Her mother looked up, then down, without slowing the rapid stitches. “The Valshone