Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (15 page)

“To Brynduvh with you, of course.”

The scent of night blossoms filled
the room. “So you say.”

He leapt from the chair. “I do say!
I won’t beg you, Aunt, even if that’s what you expect me to do.”

She rounded on him with a rustle of
silk. “I don’t expect you to beg, Nathryk. I expect you to do as you’re told.
You’re not king yet, my boy. We have preparations to make—”

“—and assassins to place, bottles
of wine to poison, and what else?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. No one is
scheming against you.”

“The hell you aren’t!”

She drew back her shoulders, raised
her chin. “Paranoia is a poor way to begin a reign.”

“Then give me what is mine! Or I
shall take it.”

She answered with a slow nod and a
scoffing snort, then hurried for the door. “You never did learn your place.”

Nathryk seized her by the arm and
spun her into the wall. Her breath whooshed from her with a grunt. “
You
stand in my place!” he bellowed in her ear.

“Let me go!” Her fingernails gouged
grooves in his forearm. Dots of blood bloomed on his silk sleeve.

“Your Majesty,” he insisted. “Let
me go,
Your Majesty
. Say it!”

“The Abyss take you!” she cried and
drove her foot into the side of his knee. Pain lanced through his leg. He collided
with the back of an armchair and lurched after her. Her fingers grasped the
knob, but Nathryk drove his shoulder into the door and turned the lock. Ki’eva
backed away, fear ripe in her darting eyes. The servant’s entrance. She ran for
it, but Nathryk threw out a foot. The dignified Princess Regent gasped and
toppled face first onto the rug. Her fingernails clawed the woven flowers, but
she didn’t scramble up fast enough. Nathryk flipped her onto her back, saw her
lip bleeding and he’d not even struck her yet. Her palms barraged his face and
her knees pummeled his ribs, but he caught her wrists easily enough and drove one
knee between her thighs, then the other. His tongue swiped up the blood on her
lip, and it tasted coppery sweet in his mouth.

Ki’eva shrieked in outrage.
Smashing a hand over her mouth, Nathryk said, “It’s just you and me now, and who’s
going to stop me? I’m the Great Falcon, whore!”

A
rryk was desperate to have
things back to normal. He doubted ‘normal’ would ever come again, so he grasped
onto what he could. In the library, he listened to Master Graidyn read two
documents on the punishment of criminals. One was Fieran, one Aralorri. There
were hardly any discernible differences.

“Hnh, Brother Realms,” Arryk
muttered, and Graidyn looked up from the documents. “Why can’t we get along?”

The old tutor nodded sagely. “There
is a great deal of determination that goes into such prolonged hatred,
Highness. For one side to give in would mean swallowing a vast amount of pride
and leaving itself vulnerable to an enemy who may choose to keep hating.”

“Was war and conquest the only way
my father could achieve what he wanted?”

“Who can say, now?” Grief strayed
into Graidyn’s red-rimmed eyes. “Given the results, war might not have been the
best way after all.”

How then? Could the reunification
of Westervael ever be achieved? Such a bold, grand dream. It took a bold man to
dream it, and a bolder plan to accomplish it. War should have been the easy,
direct way, if costly. But a thousand things had gone wrong. War, Arryk had
read, was the result of failure, of one kind or another. Was it true? Could a
good thing come from something terrible? How could unification of two peoples
follow those people slaughtering one another? No, his father meant to conquer,
not unify. Uniting the Brother Realms, truly uniting them, would take a
different kind of vision. Nathryk didn’t have it, nor did he care to.

Heavy stomps and muffled thumps
shook the ceiling. The occasional gruff shout descended as well, though the
words were lost. With a pained sigh, Arryk said, “They’re fighting about it
again. Poor Aunt. I don’t envy her that battle.”

“Nor I, Highness. She’ll have some
peace after tomorrow, Goddess bless her.”

“Aye, but we won’t.”

A shriek shuddered through the
library, and a shadow darted past the window.

“Mother’s mercy,” Graidyn cried,
pushing himself up from the table. He ran to the window and shoved back the
pane. Arryk peered over his shoulder.

On the cobblestones below, Aunt
Ki’eva lay twisted in an unnatural heap. Blood pooled in her golden hair and
spread in dark clouds in the puddles of rainwater. Her toes were bare and
somehow gruesome in their nakedness. Washerwomen at the well and soldiers from
the gatehouse rushed to her, shouting.

“Get up,” Arryk breathed, an
eight-year-old boy again screaming into the wind and surf, and keening shullas
wheeled overhead.

“There!” Graidyn said, leaning out
the window and pointing upward. Arryk didn’t dare lean out and look. He backed
from the window, a band of panic tightening around his throat. His tutor
whirled from the window. “Nathryk. Did you see? His face reflected in your
aunt’s windowpane.
He
did this. Highness!” Graidyn shook Arryk by the
shoulders. “Stay here, do you hear me? I’ll get Rance.”

Arryk reached for his tutor, but
too late. Graidyn rushed from the library. Stay here? Yes. With his back to the
wall. Arryk slid into his writing desk and watched the door. Frantic voices
rose from the courtyard, Lady Eritha’s among them. “Highness!” he heard. Was it
Istra calling for him? Feet pounded past the library. Not Graidyn. Not Rance. He
shouldn’t be sitting here, he decided. He should be running. Yes, to the
nearest port. His racer was just the thing. She’d carry him to safety, and then
he’d sail far, far away.

He was halfway out of the desk
chair when a shadow filled the doorway. “Rance?” he asked.

“No,” Nathryk drawled, emerging
from the corridor. Arryk slid back into the chair, a cold certainty seeping
through him.

Nathryk peered over his shoulder to
see if he’d been followed. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, and
his breathing came short and fast, as if he’d run all the way.  

“Is it my turn now?” Arryk asked.

A dazed, excited gleam glinted in
Nathryk’s black eyes, like light on a razor’s edge.

Arryk’s teeth chattered he shook so
hard. “I ex-expected assassins in-instead.”

Nathryk glided between the shelves.
“Did I send assassins for Bhodryk?”

“No, brother.” Will it hurt?
Please, Goddess, don’t let it hurt.

“Both of them,” Nathryk mused,
pausing only four feet from the desk, a wistful smile on his face. “So beautiful,
bodies twisted and broken.” Was he reveling in that image? Yes, taking deep
pleasure in it.

It has to sting
, Istra had
said. Arryk nodded to himself and casually dropped his left hand into his lap,
felt for the dagger. The sheath was empty!

Nathryk saw the surprise on his
face and grinned. “Is this what you’re looking for?” He pulled the dagger from
his belt, flipped it in agile fingers. “I found others, too. How many more have
you planted? Tsk, tsk.”

Arryk panted, all his efforts to
rein in his terror withering fast. “Is that how you killed Aunt Ki’eva?” The
idea of her striking the stones while still alive was too much to bear. But she
had screamed, hadn’t she. Arryk gained his feet, slowly, so lightheaded he felt
as if he floated out of the chair.

Nathryk pretended to be offended by
the question. “Aunt Ki’eva
jumped
. Couldn’t handle the rigors of office,
you know.” He snickered. “And you? No one will even miss you.”

Arryk sprang around the desk,
twisting from his brother’s reaching hand, and raced for the door. Nathryk’s
voice pursued him, so close: “I had other plans for you, but never mind.” A
grip on the back of Arryk’s shirt stopped him, and he spun to the side. The
blade meant for his spine bit deep across his ribs. He howled and muscled an
elbow into Nathryk’s face. Bone cracked, and Nathryk dropped the dagger to
grasp his broken nose. Arryk dived for the blade, but Nathryk’s knee thudded
into his side, sending him sprawling. “Come here, you little fucker.” His fist
closed about Arryk’s shirt front and lifted him off the ground. A quick glimpse
showed Arryk the blood oozing from Nathryk’s nose, but those strong arms spun
him about, wrapped him up tightly, and lugged him toward the open window.
Sunset hues and the outer wall swam sickeningly near. Bellowing a refusal,
Arryk flung out his feet, braced them on each side of the window casement, and
shoved back with every ounce of terror he possessed. The brothers collapsed in
a heap. Arryk rolled free, saw the dagger just out of arm’s reach and scrambled
for it. Nathryk’s hands were only inches behind, reaching, clawing. He seized
Arryk around the nape, smashed his face to the floor just as Arryk’s hand
closed on the leather haft. He flailed madly, tasting blood and dust, and
hoping the blade would catch something, anything, and convince Nathryk to let
him go. Goddess, his neck was going to snap.

The blade bit. Nathryk swore. The
pressure of his hand let up just enough to let Arryk turn and jab again. Nathryk
leapt aside, ran for the library door, but stumbled sideways into a bookshelf.
Books and scrolls rained down around him.

Coughing and gasping, Arryk pushed
himself to his knees, dagger poised, but Nathryk clutched his own throat. Blood
spurted between his fingers. Black eyes grew wide with denial, and a hand
reached out, frantic. Arryk dropped the dagger and rushed to him. His hands
worked vainly to stop the flow. Nathryk tried to shove him away, but Arryk
persisted. Blood pumped through his fingers. “Stop!” he shrieked, but the blood
kept coming. “I didn’t mean to!”

“Arryk!” Heavy boots pounded along
the corridor, and Rance barged into the library. Master Graidyn followed,
gasping and flushed. They gaped in horror at the spectacle of both princes
drenched in blood.

“Help us!” Arryk cried.

Rance dived to his knees beside
them, but what could he do? Graidyn’s face wrinkled up with a smirk, and he
took a step back.

A gurgling sound escaped Nathryk’s
lips as he tried to draw breath. He expelled a mouthful of blood, and his eyes
glazed over. The fight ebbed from his body, and he slumped to the floor. His
lifeblood spread in a dark mirror around him.

Arryk crab-crawled away, leapt to
his feet. “I didn’t mean to! He was going to throw me out the window!” He
turned in circles, bellowing wordlessly, until Rance grabbed him and held him
close.

Over Rance’s shoulder, Arryk saw
Graidyn staring at Nathryk’s body, his mouth moving in silent calculation. At
last he nodded and said, “Rance, your sword.”

Rance turned, hand going for the
pommel. “What about it?”

Graidyn tapped his belly. “Drive it
here.”

“What? No!”

The tutor’s smile was peculiar as
he turned to Arryk. “You will not be blamed for these deaths, Highness. You
will be king unblemished.”

Understanding dawned in Rance’s
face. He unsheathed his sword.

“No!” Arryk cried.

Rance lunged. Master Graidyn
crumpled forward into his arms. Sickened, eyes welling, he lowered his old tutor
to the floor. When Graidyn’s gasps stopped in his throat, Rance closed his eyes
and reached for the dagger.

“What are you doing?” Arryk’s
throat was raw with screaming.

“What’s best, Highness.” With
tenderness, he wrapped Graidyn’s knotted fingers around the dagger’s haft, then
glanced up at Arryk and insisted, “Graidyn killed your aunt and your brother
both, do you understand? He hated them both and killed them. Nod if you hear
me, Arryk.”

Arryk nodded. His teeth were chattering
again.

Feet, many this time, hammered up
the stairs at the far end of the corridor. Istra’s golden head rose into view.
Her father followed, barking, “Find them!”

Lady Eritha and half a dozen of the
Princess Regent’s guard started to disperse into the rooms to each side, but they
stopped when they saw Arryk standing on the library threshold. Eritha’s hand
flew to her mouth at the sight of the blood soaking his shirtfront. Istra ran.

Rance stepped over the bodies and
hurried to intercept his sister and the others. He mumbled many lies.

“But Nathryk, I saw him!” Istra
declared.

“No, you didn’t,” her brother
insisted. “It was Master Graidyn you saw in the window, and that’s the end of
it.” No one else argued.

No one but Arryk.
I killed him
,
he thought, staring at his hands. He wiped them on his pant legs, but blood
clung to the creases of his knuckles and palms.

A great rustle echoed under the
vaulted ceiling as Lady Eritha, her son and grandchildren and all six guardsmen
descended to their knees. “All hail the White Falcon,” said Eritha.

No!
Arryk wanted to shout.
Get
up!
But he had no more shouting left in him. He looked to Istra for help;
she was smiling at him and gave him a tiny, brisk nod.

He clamped his jaw to make his
teeth stop chattering, swept the fear and sorrow and horror from his face, and
thought of his father. Standing over the bodies of his brother and his beloved
tutor, he raised his chin, and his subjects lowered theirs.

~~~~

“Gold
trickles down from the mountains in streams alongside rivers of dwarven blood.”

—Brugge,
Master Thyrvael,

Assembly,
987 A.E.

K
elyn no longer indulged in
wine, but with the debris of Assembly strewn throughout the keep and across the
grounds, and with the sudden silence ringing in his ears, he was sorely tempted.
The household staff drifted about the corridors and rooms, stiff and dull-eyed,
collecting stray tea services, gathering sheets for washing and sweeping up
random riffraff left by hundreds of careless highborns. The last of them had
ridden out by noon, kicking up long trails of dust on the King’s Highway, but
it always took Ilswythe several days to recover and pick up its routine again.

“This is always the sweetest part
of Assembly,” Rhoslyn said, pouring herself a glass of brandy. She spoke
softly, no more wishing to disturb the silence than Kelyn did. “Sure you don’t
want one?”

She poised the bottle over a second
glass. Kelyn sank deeper into his chair, feeling as beaten and weary as his
horse-breakers after a long day with a new stallion, and held his thumb and
forefinger a half-inch apart. Rhoslyn handed him the glass; it had more than a
smidgeon of brandy in the bottom.

Kelyn gulped, grateful, then laid
his head back, closed his eyes, and basked. The windows lining the solar had
been opened to let in the freshening spring air. The breeze stirred the scents
of rosemary and lavender, thyme and chamomile from Alovi’s shelves of herbs.

Rhoslyn’s voice broke the
stillness. “Need something, Eliad? Looks like you could use a drink, too.”

Raising his head, Kelyn found his
former squire lurking on the threshold. Indeed, he looked lost and shaken. “What’s
wrong?”

He returned a sullen shrug. “Now
that I’m knighted, what do I do? Laral got to return home to Tírandon and get a
wife after his knighting. I can’t very well ride to Bramoran and train for an
inheritance, can I?”

Kelyn set aside his brandy glass
and exchanged a grin with Rhoslyn. “Well—”

Eliad’s rant wasn’t finished,
however. “And there’s no bloody war to jump into and prove myself. The only
option I can think of is hiring myself out as a mercenary in some foreign mess
that I don’t care about anyway. What was it for, all that ceremony yesterday? A
stupid waste of time, all those years of training.” He plopped himself down on
a footstool, pouting as no proper knight would admit to doing.

“I thought you wanted to be one of
the Falcon Guard,” Kelyn prodded. All his life, Eliad longed to rise above the
cold, hard fact that he’d been born eleventh of the king’s twelve bastards. His
father had shown him unwarranted favor by granted him a position as Kelyn’s
squire. Eliad had trained hard, determined to earn a knighthood and the respect
of men.

Kelyn’s reminder, however, only
made things worse. “My father has to choose me, hasn’t he? Just like he chose
you once upon a time. But that was after you had plenty of chances to prove
yourself.”

“Well, go start a war, if that’s
the way you feel. There’s always some ambitious idiot willing to fight on the
other side.”

“Kelyn,” hissed Rhoslyn. She pushed
herself from her chair to pour Eliad a drink. Lowering it into his hand, she
said, “There must be many ways to prove yourself to the king.”

“My thanks, Your Grace. But being
stuck in the Falcon Guard isn’t what I want anymore. I wouldn’t live at court,
surrounded by all that hoopla, if my life depended on it. I don’t know what I
want. Well, I
do
, sort of, but that’s the problem.” The common malaise
after achieving one’s dreams was finding another to aspire to. Eliad watched
the brandy swirl in the bowl of the glass. “I’ve saved every copper of my
allowance, did you know that?”

Kelyn knew that Rhorek bestowed a
small annual allowance upon each of his illegitimate children, but he never
asked what Eliad did with it, just assumed he squandered it, as all boys do, on
sweets and temporary amusements in town. But come to think of it, he’d never
seen Eliad with any of those things.

“
Every
copper?”

“I’m a rich man, Kelyn, and what
for? You even
gave
me a warhorse, so I have even less to spend it on.”

“I can take the horse back, if that
will please you.”

“No!” Eliad exclaimed, then shook
his head, abashed. “I didn’t mean to sound—”

“Stop toying with him,” Rhoslyn
scolded.

Kelyn chuckled and dragged himself
from the coziness of the armchair. “I’m sure we can think of something for you to
do with your vast fortune, noble knight. Come with me.” Leading Eliad across
the courtyard, Kelyn added, “I spoke with your father this week. He’s watched
you more closely, I think, than you’re aware.”

Eliad glowered, doubting it. Those
hazel eyes and broad cheekbones were all Rhorek’s.

“He told me how proud he was that
he knighted you this week, of all the squires. So when I asked him for a
certain favor, he didn’t fuss.” Kelyn entered the gatehouse and climbed the
tower, around and around, and emerged atop the battlements.

“
What
favor? Aw, Kelyn,
c’mon.”

How delightful to see Eliad whine
over something worth whining about. Kelyn held his silence while he ambled
along the crenels and came at last to the northeastern tower. With a gesture,
he dismissed the sentry stationed there. Below, the meadows, rich with sheep
and kine, stretched away to the tumbling white waters of the Avidan River.
There on the distant hill was the stand of trees that he, Kieryn, and Rhoslyn
had raced to when the world was still a safe, unsullied place. Farther north,
the Silver Mountains reared up purple shoulders, and to the east, the
snow-cloaked chain of the Drakhans marched, rank upon rank, farther than the
eye could see. At last, Kelyn said, “I asked him for the privilege of retaining
you as my vassal.”

Eliad barked incredulous laughter.
“Privilege?”

“Aye, you’ve never failed me.
Always seen to my needs as duty called, and in return, I intend to take care of
you.” He swept an arm in an arc that encompassed his lands. “Choose.”

Eliad stared. “A landed lord? Me?”

Kelyn grinned, pleased at his power
to shock. “I’m giving you any tract of land you desire. Preferably one near the
border, way over there, so I don’t have to listen to your whining every day.”

Whirling, pacing, pressing his
fists to his forehead, Eliad could hardly restrain himself. At last, he speared
a finger toward the northeastern horizon. “I want that.” At the end of his
finger, Mount Drenéleth spiraled into the sky, its wild, forested flanks
teaming with game and silence.

“Lord Drenéleth? A nice ring to
that. Will you have enough to spend your coin on now?”

Beaming, Eliad said, “I shall build
a hunting lodge, and I expect you to visit often, m’ lord.”

Kelyn clapped him on the back.
“It’s good, then.”

~~~~

C
arah stuck out her tongue.
“Nnnah!”

Kethlyn grit his teeth. “Stop it,
brat! And stop following me!”

“You can’t make me. It’s my
birthday. I can do whatever I want.”

All morning Carah had trailed her
big brother from one end of the fortress to the other. There was no escaping
her. He tried losing her in the towers, but she caught up to him on the wall,
skipping carelessly close to the ledge. She even found him hiding among the
sacks of flour in the pantries. He fled through the servants’ quarters, but she
cornered him in the corridor. Now they stopped outside the nursery, and Kethlyn
dug his fingernails into his palms swearing he’d waylay her.

Delicate pleats gathered between
her dark eyebrows. “I
told
you, you should’ve taken me on the kitchen
raid. That’s what I wanted for my birthday. But you left without me. You never
take me on kitchen raids. Now I’m not going to leave you alone for one second.”

“You’re a nuisance!” he screamed in
her face. “You don’t act like you’re six. You act like you’re still five. You
should act more grown up, like me.”

“I
am
grown up,” she said,
smug. “I have a new dress to prove it. And lots of other presents, and one day
for my birthday, Mum and Da will give me Ilswythe. Mum said so yesterday. And
after they give me Ilswythe, they’ll give me Windhaven.”

Kethlyn could ignore his sister’s boasting
only so long; the last statement proved too much. His head snapped around, and
he shouted, “Windhaven is
mine
! Evaronna will have only one duke, and
that will be
me.
”

“But Mum said—”

“She didn’t say she’d give you
Windhaven.” But what if she had? Was Carah telling the truth for once? He
didn’t believe it. Mum took
him
to Windhaven every year, and Carah got
to visit only sometimes, when Da brought her. Surely that meant something.

Carah shrugged, unaffected. “I’ll
be Duke of Ilswythe then.”

Kethlyn groaned. “You can’t be a
duke. You’re a girl.”

“What’s Mum then, stupid?”

“Mother is a
duchess
. That’s
how things work, dumbface. Boys are dukes. Girls are duchesses. But you’ll just
be a
lady
. Ilswythe doesn’t have a duchess.”

Carah crossed her arms and pursed
her lips, half pout, half stubborn determination. “I’m not a dumbface. And I
can be a duchess if I want. It’s my birthday, so there!” Her tongue stabbed at
him again.

Kethlyn dealt her a shove. She toppled
onto her bottom, skirts and curls flying. But in accordance with the timeless
law of sibling rivalry, Kethlyn exacted his revenge at the very moment his
mother rounded the corner.

“Kethlyn! What have you done?”

He rounded on her, blue eyes
flaring. “It wasn’t my fault! You didn’t hear what she said.”

“I don’t
want
to hear it,” Mum
declared, quick angry steps kicking up the hem of her skirt. “I’m sick of the
ugly things you two say to one another. Just stay away from her.”

“I tried! You don’t get it. She’s a
pain in the arse!”

Kethlyn clamped his mouth shut a
second too late. Mum’s eyes popped wide. “From which of your father’s soldiers
did you hear
that
?” She waved him to silence before he could choose from
the dozen names that popped into his head. “Never mind. Just get to your
studies. Etivva must be waiting for you by now.”

“But, Mum,” he whined, going limp
in the spine and wriggling at the thought of such unbearable, unending torture.

“Move, soldier!” the duchess
commanded, her finger as sharp and unyielding as a lance.

When he finally stalked off,
scowling and mumbling, Rhoslyn turned to Carah. She had primly plucked herself
off the tiles, and now opened her mouth to accuse her brother. Rhoslyn cut her
short with a sharp jab of that finger. “And you, young lady, stop tormenting your
brother. Who do you think you are?”

“But it’s my birthday.”

As if Rhoslyn could forget. Her
daughter sang of this day’s approach for weeks beforehand, prizing her birthday
above all other days of the year and not only because her parents had once been
foolish enough to institute the no-punishment-on-your-birthday law. “We made
the law, we can unmake it in the blink of an eye, my girl. I’ll swat you
myself. Understand?”

Carah twisted side to side, cheeks
flaring. “Yes.”

Rhoslyn lowered her finger. “Go put
your new dress on. Your Uncle Thorn just rode through the gate.”

Carah sucked in a mouthful of air,
and her blue eyes lit in a manner more celestial than human. She darted past
her mother, crying for all to hear, “Uncle Thorn’s coming!”

Rhoslyn called after her, “Walk!
‘Lady,’ hnh. And no more shouting, for the Mother’s sake.”

Carah squirmed in excitement, and
her measured walk soon turned into a hopscotching of the tiles. “It’s my birth-
day
.
It’s my birth-
day.
”

After Thorn embraced his brother,
kissed his mother, and bowed to the duchess, he finally acknowledged the
strident little burden tugging on his sleeve.

“Uncle Thorn, what did you bring
me? Do you like my new dress? What’d you bring me?”

His niece looked like a doll come
to life in layers of lace and blue silk. Black curls tumbled down her back, and
that porcelain complexion had to be brushed with a careful finger to be
believed. Thorn dropped to a knee, fished inside his satchel, frowned, and sat
back on his heels. “Now, what did I do with it?”

“With what?” Carah pleaded. “What
is it? Where?
Where
?”

Thorn shook his head, the four gold
stripes in his dark hair catching the light of the stained-glass lamps. “No, I
must’ve left it somewhere.”

Carah pulled on his arm. “No, you
didn’t. Look again.”

He
snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I left it in someone else’s care.
Saffron?” Without appearing to anyone, the fairy handed over the gift. A
delicate silver chain seemed to descend from thin air and coiled in Thorn’s palm.
A silver pendent in the graceful shape of a fairy glittered on the chain; in
the fairy’s tiny hands lay a blue seed pearl, as if the silhouette held a drop
of dew.

Carah’s
mouth rounded in an oval of wonderment, and she reached an eager hand for the
necklace, but Thorn drew it back, closing his fist. He cautioned her, “This
silver was shaped by Elaran artisans, and the necklace was blessed by the Lady
of the Elarion herself. It’s meant to protect you when Saffron can’t be with
you. Now, I think you’re old enough to take care of a gift this precious. Am I
right?”

Carah
gasped, “Oh, I’ll never take it off, Uncle Thorn. I promise and double promise.”
Only then did he secure the necklace around her throat.