“What about your brothers and sisters?”

“My brother Skander—he’s sixteen—works in the stables, but he’ll be training for the White Guard soon. My brother Tarn is an armorer’s apprentice. Linnet—she’s thirteen—works with the gardener. Some of the little ones work with the gardener, too, during the summer, but this time of year, it gets too cold, so they can’t stay out for long. Top-floor work is better. And there’s schooling in the mornings.”

“What sort of schooling?”

Greta frowned as if the question made no sense. “The usual. Reading, writing, doing figures.” She made a face. “History.”

Kham’s brows raised in genuine surprise. “Where I come from, Greta, there’s nothing usual in that. Only the merchants and the nobility educate their children.” It was a long-held belief of many a Summerlander noble that their farmhands and manual laborers had no need for books and mathematics. Education tended to give the menial classes “ideas” that caused all manner of societal problems. “And, history is fascinating.”

“I could never like it.” Greta shook her head. “All those battles and kings and dates. Deadly boring.”

“Oh, no,” Kham objected. “All those lives, those heroes, those tales of great adventures and sacrifice. It’s the very furthest from boring anything could ever be.”

“If you say so, Your Grace.” The young maid looked unconvinced.

“I shall prove it to you. When is the next history lesson?”

“History is every Thorgyllsday at ten o’clock.”

“Excellent. Next Thorgyllsday, you will escort me to wherever these lessons are held, and I’ll share a bit of history from my country that I promise you is anything but boring. It’s the story of Summerlea’s greatest king, Roland Soldeus.”

Greta didn’t look too enthusiastic about the prospect, but Kham attributed that to Greta’s self-professed dislike of history. She’d wager not one of these Winterchildren had ever heard the epic tale of Roland Triumphant. She had no doubt they’d love it as much as she did once.

The prospect of sharing Roland’s valiant tale kept her smiling all the way to the dining hall, where the sight of Gildenheim’s assembled nobles greeted her like a splash of cold water in the face. As the footman rang a bell and announced her arrival, Kham doused her smile and took a deep breath, girding herself for yet another mealtime ordeal.

The next week fell into a stultifying pattern. Although Wynter ate his evening meals with the court and visited her bedchamber nightly, she saw very little of him during the day. Her attempts to get involved in the actual running of the palace were politely but firmly rebuffed, leaving her to fill her time as best she could. She spent her mornings exploring the upper levels of the palace and talking to the children or sitting in on their lessons. Then came the interminably long luncheon and tedious social hour with the ladies of the court, followed by an hour spent walking through the gardens and feeding the birds—which might have been blessedly private and peaceful had not several of the ladies and several White Guard taken to accompanying her. In the afternoons, she wandered about the palace and tried to get to know the servants and Winterfolk who lived and worked in Gildenheim.

Then Thorgyllsday rolled around, bringing with it the much-anticipated history lesson. Khamsin sprang out of bed, eagerly donned a royal blue gown that had belonged to Summer, and raced upstairs, her copy of Roland Triumphant clutched to her chest. When she entered the little classroom, however, instead of a roomful of children waiting for their lesson, she found empty chairs and a history teacher who informed her that all the children had been called away to tend other matters.

“How disappointing,” Kham said. “Perhaps I could come back next week.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” the history teacher informed her, “but if you intend to teach them about Roland Soldeus, I expect their mothers will have work for them next week as well.”

She swallowed hard. “I see.” All week long, she’d noticed that some of the children had been disappearing from the classes, not to return, but she’d assumed that they’d just been reassigned to work in other parts of the palace. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was the reason they’d been withdrawn from the classes. “What if I were to teach them about one of Wintercraig’s heroes instead?” She didn’t know any stories about Wintercraig heroes, but there was a big library in the palace. Surely there must be something she could use in there to excite these children about history.

“I don’t know, Your Grace,” the teacher said. “Perhaps it’s best if you leave the education of Wintercraig children to Winterfolk.”

Kham stumbled back. There was no misunderstanding this message: She was a Summerlander, and she was unwelcome here. “Of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Mortified, Kham spun on her heel and walked rapidly down the hall towards the stairs. All the way, she fought a losing battle with tears and had to duck into one of the abandoned bedrooms to hide when the dam burst and the flood of hot, salty wetness spilled down her cheeks. She’d faced rejection before, and plenty of it, but she couldn’t remember the last time anything had wounded her like this. This rejection was personal, and it bloodied her in places she’d thought long ago inured against hurt.

She cried until her tears were spent, then wiped her eyes and sat locked in the room until her face was no longer blotchy or swollen, and her eyes lost their puffy red rims. When she finally emerged from the room, half a dozen servants loitering about in the hallway scattered like mice. Kham watched them go with a hardened heart. She’d offered these people friendship, and they’d thrown it back in her face. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.