Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [13]
Tasha was training as a Sorceress, Tanya as her father’s Seneschal, and Galya as his…distraction. Among the brothers, middle son Yerik was the male counterpart to Tasha; Vitenka hard at work already as the Steward—at the moment, sisters Svetlana and Inna were not sure what they wanted to do, but given their bent for diplomacy, Katya foresaw both of them happily making alliance marriages, so that they could go exert their influence in another of the Sea Kingdoms. Which was also what Leonide might do. The highly amusing analog to Galya was the other sort of distraction, the irritating kind—seventh son Fabi had virtually leaped into his Traditional role of the Wise Fool. Fortunately for Fabi, the Tradition of the Wise Fool was not so strong nor demanding in the tales beneath the waves as it was on Dry Land. It allowed him the luxury of being the artistic sort of Fool, the dreamy kind, whose wit was admired as well as just barbed enough to serve as a correction. Fabi was a poet, and a good one. He was, Katya thought, entirely in love with words. In a way, she pitied the girls who yearned after him; they could never, ever compete with poetry to claim his heart.
There was no analogous position to Wise Fool for a seventh daughter, for which Katya was very grateful. Like the rest of her siblings who were not “destined” for a particular life, she had been able to choose, with her father’s guidance, what it was that she wanted to do.
It had not been the most obvious choice and, in fact, had she not been blessed with a very particular sort of magical ability, it probably would not have been possible.
“Your magic is still as strong as ever?” the King asked his daughter. “You still have no difficulty?”
“Stronger and easier to wield, Father,” she said with confidence. There were, of course, always doubts when one first came into a magic. It could leave, or change, or fade instead of strengthening. But once one passed the magically significant milestone of the twenty-first birthday, as Katya finally had, it was generally stabilized for good and all.
This was important, since Katya’s form of water-magic, though not nearly as powerful as her Sorceress-sister’s and virtually identical to it in such things as “calling water” or forcing water creatures to obey her at need, did one thing that none of the rest could do.
She could walk on the Drylands without precautions or a second thought. That was the gift that touch of Siren’s blood gave to her. Beneath the waves, she breathed the water, while above it, she breathed the air. Transitions were effortless and instantaneous.
That, combined with her appearance—tiny, white-blond, like an exquisite and fragile doll—made her the ideal secret agent for the Sea King in the Drylands as well as within his own Court.
He had been the first to suggest such a thing, when she’d brought some of her uncannily accurate observations to him when she was only nine, though he had not proposed anything of the sort at the time. “Keep watching, my cunning little vixen,” he had said. “Keep watching and come to me and we will talk about what you have seen.” She had nodded, pleased that she had pleased him. On her thirteenth birthday, he had told her what she was actually doing. On her sixteenth, he asked if she wanted to continue. On her seventeenth, he’d had sent her to the Drylands for the first time. No one else had known what she was doing. Not even her mother. She had returned with the information that wreckers were taking ships and blaming the Sea King. With that, her father had stopped a war before it started.
Now she had passed the last hurdle. Now that they both knew that she could go anywhere, any time, the King would be free to send her anywhere he needed her.
“Well this should be interesting for you,” the Sea King said, nodding with satisfaction.