"All those years,' you wrote to her."
"Not an easy thing-I had to have the letters smuggled into and out of Eastmark. Father would have had a fit if he'd known. He was not a forgiving person," he said with a thin smile. "When I learned of her death, I grieved alone. Father had held her funeral years before-when she married an outlander."
Old anger flared up inside Kiara. "Why was that such a crime? Mother wouldn't speak of it, but how could that bring the Winter Kingdoms to the brink of war?"
Kalcen looked at the fire for so long that Kiara was afraid he might not speak. "East-mark is an old kingdom and a proud people," he said finally. "The Kings of Eastmark can trace our lineage back to the ancient days, to the warlords of the Southern Plains. The old tales say that when our people found the lands that would become Eastmark, they brought with them the Stawar God, one of the Old Gods who are lost now. The Lady wouldn't grant us peace until the Stawar God consented to be her consort. That's why we worship the Lover. The memory of the Stawar God has faded. But he gave us His skin as a token to remember who we are.
"The old legends say that you can tell the honor and the strength of a man by the darkness of his skin-that those who are most like the fierce, wise, brave Stawar God are given His mark. And for generations, although East-mark allowed others to serve and live and trade in its kingdom, intermarriage with an outlander was punishable by death. We were jealous guards of the Stawar God's mark."
Kiara was acutely aware of how pale she seemed in comparison to Kalcen, although in Isencroft she was as tawny as those who made their living out of doors. "It was unthinkable when Viata ran away with an outlander, even one whose reputation was as fine as Donelan's. Father couldn't believe that someone not of our blood could be as brave, as wise, or as strong as the sons of Eastmark." He met her eyes apologetically. "There's a word in our language I won't repeat. But it summed up what Father believed of outlanders."
"Sathirinim" Kiara murmured, and Kalcen flinched as she said it. "Corpse flesh. I heard the Eastmark ambassador say it once to Mother, before she banished him from the palace."
"Old ways die hard, Kiara," Kalcen's dark eyes searched hers for understanding. "I make no excuses for Father. He held his beliefs sincerely. But he was sincerely wrong." Kalcen took her hand in both of his. "It was the threat of war with Margolan that made Father back down. Even in his last years, he dreamed that he might somehow spirit you away from Isen-croft and marry you to one of the Eastmark nobles, reinstating the blood." Kalcen looked down and shook his head. "I knew my sister. I knew that Vi would choose a good man, a man who would be as fine a king as our ancestors. Later, when I was grown and went to battle, I saw that our hired outland troops bled the same color as our own, and fought with the same valor. And 1 knew that the measure of a man couldn't be taken by the darkness of his skin.