They found the yellow tent with the blue sun not far from the line of picketed horses and cattle that marked the western edge of the field. Carryn’s cousins were a boisterous lot. They barely fit on their allotted square of land with all their people and goods, but they were more than happy to welcome Carryn and her bunch at their table.

They served a meal of roasted mutton, spicy cabbage stew with pickled beets, wrapped logs of herbed goat cheese, and gooseberry and cream pies. It was a simple meal but filling. But the best part, in Lyssia’s opinion, was the rounds of fresh baked rye bread that smelled faintly of the wood oven used to cook them and the pot of jam and butter that accompanied them. Tall cups of warm goat milk and cider made from bruised apples and barley mead were passed around.

Lyssia insisted that Carryn be given the seat of honor at the center of the table, where she would be able to enjoy the attention of all the older cousins. She inserted herself, instead, among her younger cousins and won their favor by using her longer reach to secure extra pies for their side of the table.

The mixture of awe and sugar-bliss on their faces as they accepted her pilfered offerings did not make her feel uncomfortable. Food took center stage soon enough, and she was left to enjoy her meal without trying to avoid awkward moments of eye contact over her plate. She kept her ears open for any mention of her mother's name, but everyone seemed content to keep the conversation centered around that winter and the coming spring.

Azerian and Roakev loitered outside the tent until she had found her place, and then perhaps making up for their lack of attention on the road, they attempted to squeeze into seats on either side of her. Shoulders and legs pressed together and heads bent close, Lyssia did feel closer to them than she had in a long time. They didn’t last five minutes before an older cousin, laughing good-naturedly, separated them.

“Drottine” - he paused to nod respectfully to her - “boys, we rarely see you. You can give us a few hours of your time. No worries. You’ll be reunited with each other soon enough.”

Azerian drifted back toward his mother and picked a seat where he could join in her catch-up conversations without being reprimanded for sitting too close. Roakev was drawn into a discussion with the only other cousin there who appeared to be close to their age. Lyssia had no idea what they were talking about, but it did not take long before he relaxed against the table and stopped shooting glances her way. Lyssia was instantly grateful for the other boy for helping to put him at ease.

People began to disappear from the tent as soon as the food was consumed, but Lyssia pretended not to notice. It was getting warmer. She took off her cloak, spread it on the ground to protect her legs from the grass, and pulled her youngest cousin onto her lap.

“Let me braid your hair back,” she offered.

The girl wiggled impatiently but did not move from her seat as Lyssia divided her hair into sections and got to work. After she was done, her sister wanted to have her hair braided. A few of the older children approached her as she twisted the last piece of curly brown hair into place and asked if they might paint her.

She was confused at first until they showed her the designs they had painted on their faces and arms - roughly drawn trees and flowers, barely recognizable animals, and squiggly lines that meant nothing but made Lyssia smile. She had only the one mark on her wrist, and they saw her pale arms as a valuable canvas.

Lyssia could not deny them their fun. She agreed to sit still while they used a pot of sticky berry stain to draw bright red and purple designs from her wrist up to the edge of her capped sleeves. They laughed and talked over each other, eager to share their life stories with their new friend. Lyssia did not mind all their chatter. It rather pleased her that she had managed to gain their friendship so easily.

Still, this part of her afternoon had to end, and soon if she was going to have any time to explore outside the confines of this one tent.

She thanked the children with genuine delight when they were done and was obliged to be led around by the hand so they could show off their artwork to the adults present. Carryn caught her eyeing the wide entrance to the tent, planning her escape, and managed to extricate her from her young cousins’ hold.

Lyssia could have slipped out behind Carryn’s seat right then, but she hesitated, suddenly guilty at the thought of leaving her aunt behind. Carryn looked back at her, sensing her loitering presence, and reached for her hand to give it a squeeze.

“Go on, love. Just be careful.”

“You don’t want to come?”

“I’ll go walk about in a bit. Have your fun.”

Lyssia gave her aunt’s cheek a peck and asked, “Is there anything I can bring back that would make you smile?”

“Honey, if you can find someone who has any left to trade.” She pulled an apricot-colored piece of linen from her pocket and flipped it over to show her the bee embroidered in delicate yellow and black stitches. “It’s a small offering, but perhaps…”

“Oh, I doubt anyone would say no,” Lyssia said, accepting the linen cloth. She folded it carefully and slipped it into her pocket. She started to make good on her retreat, but the moment before she disappeared around the corner of the tent, she looked up and locked eyes with Roakev.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no.” She half walked, half ran to the nearby picket line where she had left her bags beside her horse.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Lyssia jumped, dropping her bags on the ground. Her cousin’s approach, while stealthy, had not been unwholly unexpected. She didn't know why she was so jumpy.

She stared down at her bags, half-expecting with her luck that everything would have spilled out on the ground. Thankfully, nothing seemed to damaged. She stuffed Carryn’s embroidery into the top bag, shuffled them both into her arms, and turned slowly to face Roakev’s suspicious frown.

He was not alone. Azerian stood with one hand encircling Roakev’s arm, keeping his grasping fingers from reaching her.

“I knew it!” Roakev exclaimed.

Lyssia flinched and took a step back. She opened her mouth to respond, but Roakev rounded on Azerian before she could speak.

“I knew you two were planning to sneak away. Always whispering. Always planning things without me.”

“Ro, I...he..well, I…”

Roakev ignored her stuttered attempt at an explanation, but Azerian shot her an unreadable glance behind the other's back. His eyes shifted over toward the tents, back to her, back to the tents.

Realization slowly dawned for Lyssia. He was telling her to run. She shook her head. Why would she run from Roakev? She would just have to reason with him.

“I bet you didn’t even think about inviting me when you planned to come here today. You just thought it would look more proper if you had me along."

“Roakev---”

“Well, that’s simply not true,” Azerian said, and he seemed genuinely offended. “She was sneaking away from both of us, you dunga.”

Roakev glared at the insult before turning a wary eye to Lyssia. “Were you?”

“Was I...what?”

“Sneaking away from both of us.”

Lyssia hugged her bags closer to her chest, anticipating his attempt to grab them. “Yes, I was. And of course I meant to invite you from the beginning. I feel safe having you watch over me...from a distance.”

“No.”

“But I was thinking---”

“No!”

“At least let her make a proper request, Roakev.”

Roakev rounded on Azerian again, thumping him in the chest with a fist. “Hmmpff,” Azerian groaned and rubbed his hand over the area, but that did not seem to mollify Roakev’s anger.

“You should be trying to stop her too. You made her father the same promise I did.”

“Yeah, to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. She won’t. You just have to have a little bit of trust.”

“I believe your exact words were, I will never leave her side.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The two paused for a moment, locked in a silent battle that Lyssia could not see. She glanced in the direction Azerian had indicated earlier and considered slinking off while they were both preoccupied. But she stayed glued to the spot until, finally, Azerian shook his head and looked down, conceding defeat to the staring contest.

He stuffed his hands into unseen pockets on the inside of his cloak and shifted his weight onto his back foot, rubbing at one ankle with the other. “I didn’t really say how close I would be standing to her. I mean...you know...just that my eyes would be on her.

"And besides, that wasn’t the only promise I made,” he said in a chipper voice, stepping forward to sling his arm around Lyssia’s middle and give her a big squeeze. “I made a promise to my Drottine. She's almost as important as the Kongr. And I never break a promise.”

“Please, Ro,” Lyssia said, eager to reinsert herself in the conversation and stop them from talking about her like she wasn’t there. She made a point of stepping away from Azerian, putting the same distance between herself and both of them. “You don't have to turn your back on me, but I need to walk the Mart as if I’m alone. I need to interact with everyone on my own terms, without having a guard breathing down my back and watching my every movement. That’s why I left my father’s escort behind. You know that.”

“Lyssia...I understand. I do,” he repeated when she sighed. He crouched slightly so that they were on the same eye level. She was not comforted by the look in his eyes, but she straightened and met him straight on, responding to his attempt to connect with her on her level. “But if you think eyes are not going to follow you around - handsome and fearsome escort or no - you will be disappointed. And I don’t want that for you.”

Azerian snorted. “Fearsome and handsome. Which one are you? The fearsome one, right? And I’m the handsome one? That makes sense.”

Roakev ignored him. “You’ve been building this trip up in your mind, thinking it will change things somehow to get this tiny bit of freedom. But it won’t change anything, Lyssia. It won’t, and I don’t want you to think---”

“You let me worry about that, Ro.” Despite his argument, she smiled. The care in his voice was so obviously genuine that she could not help but soften her stance. “Whether I’m disappointed or changed or” - she shrugged - “whatever. I would be so, so thankful if you would give me some space. Have a little trust, like Az said. I would let everyone know how grateful I am to have such a loving, understanding, handsome cousin and protector. I will sing your praises among the Karls and Jarls and to every pretty maiden I meet. I will sing of your kind eyes, Roakev-ami. Your wise brow. Your---”

“Enough.” Roakev slapped a hand over his mask, shielding his gaze. “Go!”

“Thank you!” Lyssia darted out behind the next tent before he could change his mind.

“Lys!” Azerian called after her, jogging to catch up. “He will be watching. Me too. Promises.” His teeth flashed bright white against his brown mask for a moment, and then he leaned forward, his voice dropping into serious tones. “There was another promise I made about a certain foreign trader who may or may not be here today and may or may not be able to help you send a missive to a certain person.”

“You know, you’re really not helping our case here against whispering behind a certain person’s back.”

They both looked to see if Roakev was watching them. He was, and his arms were folded like heavy chains before his chest.

“Just get to the point," she said, bouncing impatiently on the balls of her feet.

“I don’t mind taking the letter now and seeking the trader out on my way to the nearest cider stand. I know you get nervous about this sort of thing.”

“No, I want to do this. Besides, I want to meet this trader of yours. I’d love to hear the story of how you two became acquainted.” Her voice dripped with suspicion, and he quickly changed the course of the conversation before she could press the subject further.

“You just don’t want me to read your letter.”

“Of course not! It’s private.”

“It’s not like you’re giving any great Ilvanian secrets away. It’s probably just full of weather observations and girly poetry and bleh…"

His weak attempt at guessing the contents of her letter made her giggle. “Oh, no. We mostly talk about boys. Your name comes up a lot."

“You only get two letters a year. I hope you’re not wasting all your space on me.”

“Of course not,” Lyssia said, business-like again. “Where can I find your trader?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s here today. Look, I’ll keep an eye out for him, and I’ll signal you. He’s got really light hair, ultra-blonde. No beard. A scar on one cheek. He's probably not covering his face. He's got like a wide...squished...really flat nose."

Azerian pressed against his mask over his nose picturing his friend's face and then tugged on the edge of his shirt. "And he's usually dressed...Let's just say he does not blend in well.”

He waved a hand in the air and took a breath to continue his description, but Lyssia had heard enough.

“Noted. Thank you for your assistance.”

Azerian gave her a jaunty salute and stalked off. Lyssia set her feet in the other direction and tried to forget about everything but how thankful she was to be at the Mart.

She went out in search of honey first, pausing only briefly to acknowledge the over-enthusiastic greetings of those who took note of her passage. With her bags in hand, she could not continue hiding the mark of Ilvana on her mask, and the berry tattoos did not help her blend in either. She smiled at everyone she passed, trying to call back up the invisible mask that she had worn while conversing with the cart driver and his daughters.

Lyssia didn't stop until she found a tent owner who was willing to part with a good-sized covered container of the sweet liquid gold that was Carryn’s favorite treat. She offered one of her homemade necklaces in addition to her aunt’s embroidered bee and watched in amusement as the tent owner tried to decide what to do.

She had already refused his offer to give her the honey as a gift. Was she offering a fair trade? Could he ask for more if he thought she wasn’t? Could he refuse one of her offerings without offending her? Every question and emotion was plain on his face, and Lyssia drank them in.

Finally, he agreed to her terms. They had conducted the whole trade with his eyes steadfastly glued to her hands. When he passed her the container of honey, his eyes slid up to meet hers. He saw the excitement in her sparkling eyes and the wide curve of her smile and heartily returned her farewell with a blessing of health and happiness.

“Vas heill et adhuil, Drottine,” he said, grasping the hand she held out to him between both of his and kissing her knuckle. She allowed him to linger over the moment, trusting that the account of those who watched them would follow before her.

With that thought in mind, she lingered at the next tent to converse with the woman who stood behind the table. She was holding a babe in each arm and was more than eager to talk about how excited she was to be at the Mart. Lyssia ended up trading her a jar of apricot preserves for a small package of salted strips of pork meat and winked as she walked away, slipping them into her bag for later.

Roakev was right about one thing. Lyssia had thought about this first day of Eda-Yute a lot. But she knew that no matter what happened, she could not be disappointed by today. She wished she knew how to explain that to him.

It was the simple fact that she didn't expect anything to change tomorrow. No more so than Winter turned to Spring every year.

She would have an increase in hunts and helping the villagers plant crops to look forward to once Eda-Yute and Aon-Yute was behind them. She’d be strictly supervised of course.

But she was not supposed to think about that or about tomorrow or anything else but right now. She was not expecting change. She was not even expecting happiness. She had fought for the chance to come to Mart today just to get a taste of the contentment she had felt in her vision. For all the effort she had put into getting here, surely that wasn't too much to ask.

With her expectations set so low, how could she be dissapointed?

Lyssia glanced up and saw Roakev watching her from two tents over. She wiggled her fingers in his direction and turned her back on him.

She wandered among the tents, sucking on a honeycomb and staining the lips of her mask. She offered greetings and blessings freely and declined gifts with a polite duck of her head and crossing of her arms. Her feet tried to glide over the grass, but grass was not really made for gliding, and neither were riding boots. It took a conscious effort to allow herself to just walk, but once she did, she felt immediately foolish for her attempts to put on any airs of grace.

She found someone else willing to trade the wrapped skein of undyed thread she’d brought alone - very useful to his trade, he assured her - for a smaller container of honey, combless this time. She traded a second jar of preserves and an embroidered picture of a v-shaped flock of birds winging through a bluish-gray sky for a hard wedge of cheese wrapped in oilcloth.

The apple seller had found a spot to set up his barrels into a makeshift stall beneath a green tent darned where it had worn thin around the edges with tan patches. He had set up his daughters before the tent to call attention to the apples and entertain passerby with songs.

The older daughter waved eagerly when she saw Lyssia across the path, and she wrapped her hands around Lyssia’s arm as soon as she was near, tugging her back to the barrel she had been using as a singer’s podium. She dropped her hand quickly, grimacing at the sticky berries that came away on her fingers. Lyssia laughed at the expression on her face and rubbed at the smeared tattoo, licking the patch of bright berry that came off on her finger.

“Isi!” her younger sister exclaimed in a near imitation of the tone their father had used when Isi almost fell out of the cart. Lyssia turned fast enough to see the look of pointed reproach that flitted across her features before she ducked her head and hid behind her curtain of dark hair.

Lyssia threw her head back and laughed louder, dispelling any thoughts of her being mad at Isi's familiarity. Isi led her over to the barrel she had been using as a singer’s podium. She leaped back onto the lip of the barrel and held her palm out. Lyssia obediently stepped close so the girl could make a show of laying her hand on Lyssia’s forehead and blessing her a second time.

The witnesses did not bother to hide their whispers behind their hands but stared and pointed openly. When the younger girl, without looking up, set her fingers to dance across the strings of her instrument in a musical fanfare at the end of her sister’s blessing, they applauded.

Lyssia agreed to stay for one song. She perched on the edge of an upturned barrel and stomped her feet along to the upbeat folk tune. When the song was over, the girls’ father agreed to a like trade - her last two jars of homemade apricot preserves for two jars of his homemade apple butter. A crowd of people swarmed his tent after that, and Lyssia beat a hasty retreat.

A woman a few tents down sat alone at a stall that displayed only raw and pickled turnips. She wore a thin black mask over her face. It was simply designed and free of any ornamentation - a mourning mask, though it was a celebration day.

The woman lifted the mask free to blot at her forehead with her sleeve. Staring at her thin face, Lyssia realized that turnips must be the only thing she had in abundance. She had nothing else to bring to share, but she was still here.

Lysis waved one last time to the girl singing from her perch and made a beeline for the woman, but before she could get to her, two groups stopped to examine her wares. Lyssia waited for them to pass on and was surprised by the goods that had been left in place of procured turnips. The woman scooped them off the counter and into a box that was far from empty.

Lyssia let her gaze pass by the woman with the proud brow and the tent that smelled like turnips and walked on. They were a stubborn people, but they looked after their own.

**********

Satisfied that her greedy stomach would soon be filled with the treats she had squirreled away, Lyssia made her way...