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“I think I have a lead,” Kat declared as she strode into the inner sanctuary of the command tent—then froze in her tracks.

For a gut-wrenching moment, she thought she was too late.

The prince was slumped flat on his face in the middle of his correspondence and hadn’t moved an inch despite the bluster of her entry.

A second before she swept in to check for a pulse, he peeled his head up from his desk, a golden seal coming along for the ride plastered to his cheek.

He picked it off with a scowl, then flicked it back down on the pile of letters.

“Ah, Katrien. Sorry about the mess. What was it you just said?”

“I think I have—”

“I’ve just gotten some mail, as you can tell,” he interrupted.

“Actually, this concerns the ma—”

“A letter from my parents has arrived.”

Kat stilled, all thoughts of couriers and conspiracies shunted abruptly backward.

Adrien, for all his grand ideas and outlandish, expensive maneuvers, rarely communicated directly with the crown.

She’d gotten the sense that his sequestered upbringing had created a distance between the prince and his parents, one both parties were struggling to navigate in the new world where he no longer needed to be kept a secret.

With the physical distance between the royals shrinking on their approach to Rusta, Kat should have been bracing for this moment.

And probably should have gotten her thoughts in order beforehand.

Royalty was one thing when it was Adrien.

Prior to the Battle of the Mouth, Adrien had no say in policy, as it would interrupt his two highest priorities: cultivating one hundred tokens and making sure no one knew he existed.

With the king and the queen, it was different.

If it hadn’t been for them, Kat never would have gone to war in the first place.

Three years in, it was difficult to latch onto the seething resentment she’d felt toward the crown when she was first drafted.

There was no going back to the person she was before she’d been called up to fight—and that left her stewing in a far more complicated emotion that couldn’t be boiled down to a simple approval or disapproval of the current royals.

So she fought to school her features and asked, with as much neutrality as she could muster, “What did they write?”

“You know, of course, that our arrival in the capital will culminate with a ball to celebrate my victory and introduce me properly as their heir.”

“And you’re saying this like it’s a death sentence because…”

“Because they’re insisting that it would be best for everyone— for the greater good of the realm, as my father’s written here—that I declare my intentions to wed that very same night.”

“Ah,” Kat replied tactfully. “That seems…sudden. At least, in my simple commoner’s perspective.

” Granted, half the shadow plays her mother had raised her on that involved princes ended with the gallant young man falling helplessly head over heels in love at first sight and packed off to swear vows at the hosts’ altar not long after, but Kat had outgrown that romantic notion of royalty years ago.

“Believe me, I find it sudden too. But they think it would be good for morale. Optics. Whatever you call it. Apparently what I’m doing with the road project—which, may I remind you, concretely benefits all people of Telrus —isn’t high-profile enough.

They want something with more staying power in the minds of the rabble, and the only thing that will satisfy them is a royal wedding. ”

Her thoughts snagged on rabble, but Kat did her best to nod along sympathetically. “Something tells me this isn’t how you envisioned your marriage.”

“Envisioned what marriage?” the prince countered with a frustrated flap of his hands. “I thought I was doing something good, something productive. I don’t know what the rest of my life is supposed to look like, but it can’t be just…this. I should get some say in it.”

Must be terrible, she thought, to have your plans for your life thrown totally off course by a royal decree.

Kat wrestled the sentiment down before she could get herself in trouble.

“It sounds like they’re giving you options, at least,” she said instead.

“And I may have a lead on which one of your options might be trying to kill you.”

She’d thought it would cheer him, but Adrien took the news like a soldier taking a fatal wound, careening forward into the scattered correspondence with a despondent huff. “Could you tell whoever it is to hurry up and get it over with?” he groaned.

“Your Highness,” Kat chided.

He rolled his head to prop himself up by the chin.

It struck her all at once how dangerous this was—both that the future ruler of Telrus was showing his belly and that she of all people was the only one to bear witness.

“Sorry,” he said, another damning piece of weakness Kat was stuck with.

“I’ll endeavor not to throw away all your hard work, though I am tempted severely.

You must understand, simplifying the choice to people who don’t want to kill me will not simplify it to any options I’d prefer. ”

“You favor none of them?”

He sniffed. “Maybe I’ve soured on the concept because I’m sick of the people who should be my closest friends courting me for political power, but I don’t see a lot of appeal in the notion of favoring anyone. It’s times like this I envy you.”

“Envy me ?”

“I imagine for the peasantry it’s relatively uncomplicated. You don’t have to do anything, whereas there’s an entire kingdom riding on me striking the right political alliances.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not complicated.”

“Oh? Enlighten me.”

The imperative hit like a slap, waking Kat up to the fact that the conversation had somehow spun around to focus on her.

“Well, it’s…it’s…” she floundered. “It’s nowhere near the scale you deal with, but the problems remain the same.

How do you find someone who can be your partner through thick and thin?

How do you forge a life that supports that partnership without sacrificing the things that are most important to you?

How do you commit to a person and every possible future they carry inside them?

How…” She caught herself rambling and trailed off as she realized Adrien was staring with a suspiciously canny look in his eye, his chin now cradled on his interlinked fingers.

“No, go on,” he said. “This is so much more interesting than my problems.”

“Your problems impact the whole of the realm.”

“Yes, but my problems are math problems at the end of the day.” He leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “Tell me, Kat, have you ever been in love?”

“I…I don’t…” she said, reeling. “I don’t get to—”

“Come now, I don’t get to. You, on the other hand, what’s holding you back?”

Kat sobered. “Three years at war, for a start,” she said, her tone severe enough to catch Adrien’s gossipy air by the throat.

“Nothing’s promised on that battlefield.

Many of the soldiers I fought alongside when I was first drafted three years ago are dead now.

The bonds we forge—they’re fierce, but they’re fragile.

Anyone could be taken from you at any moment. ”

“Sure, but people want what they want, even when they know it’s delusional,” Adrien countered. “Actually, especially then. My companions are proof enough of that. At least, the ones you’re certain aren’t conspiring with demons to kill me.”

Kat dove on the out. “If my suspicions are correct, we might be able to narrow it down to two.”

“Oh?”

“For as long as we’ve been on the campaign, Celia and Daya have been fighting about the couriers, but have you ever looked into why they need to send so much mail back to their legions in the first place?”

“Well, half of nobility is creating the impression that you’re very busy to cover for your life of leisure,” Adrien said, but his expression had gone thoughtful.

“You’re suggesting they’re leaking information to the enemy.

Schedules, troop positions—it could all look quite innocuous if we interrogated their mail habit directly. ”

“And if you were to put a hold on their access to the couriers?” Kat asked.

Adrien nodded. “Then we could pay close attention to them. See which one of them it upsets more. It’s not a foundation for an accusation, but it could prompt whichever of them it is to act in more obvious ways.”

Kat had a brief, dizzying moment of unreality at how easily he had taken the suggestion.

Having Adrien’s ear was a dangerous game of chance—one in which sometimes she was ignored and sometimes her words shaped the future of the kingdom.

She never knew when to press her luck and when to hold her tongue.

All she knew for sure was that her efforts would be thankless.

“And if what you say is true, then I have two safer options to consider in the effort to appease my parents’ whims,” the prince mused. “Not that either of them is appealing.”

“You truly couldn’t see yourself wed to Faye or Bodhi?”

Adrien grimaced. “I don’t think either of them realize what being wed to me would entail. They’re far too ambitious. During wartime, it was useful—it’s what pushed all of us through High Training. It’s the reason we’re all loaded with gold.”

The reason you’re loaded with gold is because your family had gold to load you with, Kat restrained herself from interjecting.

“I can’t see them being content with a lifetime as an Augustine’s right hand, beholden to the duties of my line. They’d be setting aside all the work they’ve done, demoting themselves, shrinking themselves. It’d kill them in all the ways that mattered.”

“Even Faye?”

“Oh, especially Faye. Faye may try to make herself useful to everyone at every possible opportunity, but you should have seen her apply that same diligence in High Training. She lagged behind all of us for the longest time, but there was this moment where it clicked for her that if she didn’t get her act together, the rest of us would be carrying her —and she couldn’t possibly abide that.

There was a period where she was picking up a token a week trying to scramble up that distance. ”

“Doesn’t sound half bad to me,” Kat offered.

Adrien shook his head. “No, she’s still deathly afraid of inconveniencing anyone. There’s just a rare alignment of the stars sometimes where that works out in everyone’s favor.”

“And what about Bodhi?”

Adrien let out a decidedly unprincely grunt.

“He’s my parents’ favorite, that’s for certain.

A formal link between the royal houses of Telrus and Vaya would put aside many fears on both sides of the border.

The Southern Reach was an essential ally during wartime, when much of our farmland was lost to demon raids.

In peacetime, we’re now a grossly overmilitarized neighbor, and the Vayan crown is just as eager as I am to see our forces cut back down to a rational size.

Marrying Bodhi would reinforce our commitment to alliance—at least, that’s what my parents keep telling me,” he finished, plucking at the letter on his desk.

“So you won’t do it, simply because they want you to?”

Adrien scoffed.

“He’s the kindest, most decorated, and most handsome of your options.”

“I can’t be seen with a king consort who’s better looking than me. Pass.”

“Well then, if we suspect Daya and Celia of collaborating with demons and Bodhi’s far too good of an option for you to ever pick him…”

The prince frowned. “Faye?” he said with a sudden, serious weight.

“Faye,” Kat agreed. If she had the prince’s ear, she might as well use it to push him toward the Duchess of Halston, the humble, hardworking young woman who’d cultivated every single token at her disposal to the outside edge of its capacity, who’d spent her formative years in the shadow of far greater Aureans and never let it stop her.

And if Faye had meant what she said about rewriting the rules, it couldn’t hurt to do her this favor and put her in a position that made it possible.

It was no fairy tale, no shadow play, no grand romance—only mercenary logic, perfectly suited to the machinations of royalty.

Adrien gave her a long, considered look, and for a moment Kat wondered if she’d finally overstepped. Royalty could be mercenary, but she wasn’t royal, and maybe it wasn’t her place to think like them.

“Perhaps I’ve been thinking about this all wrong,” the prince said at last. “My parents have tried to box me into the confines of their expectations, but that hinges on me accepting their premise in the first place. They’ve never been out among the common people like this.

They’ve never seen things from your point of view, and so they lack perspective. Maybe I can give it to them.”

Kat would never dare say it out loud, but it was remarkable how far Adrien had come from the flippant princeling who barreled into their camp with his grand delusions of a better world. He might even be a good king one day, if such a thing was possible.

“But of course, there are more immediate and pressing concerns,” Adrien declared, drawing his finger down the page and tapping a word twice. “Ball in my honor. No matter what unpleasantness precedes it, it will be the party of the century. We must alert the tailors at once.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” Kat replied.