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Chapter Thirty-One

Lorenzo

M other reads the letter again, a small smile playing with her lips. I’d be happier that she seems happy if her mood hadn’t shifted the moment I made my presence known to her at the palace, before she even knew why I’d come.

I expected concern and questions about whether I’d really thought this quest through. Insinuations that Aurelia has manipulated my emotions. Instead, the queen simply seems pleased to have me here.

When has she ever been really pleased with me since the sacrifice I made that took my voice with it?

“Well,” she says now, setting the letter on the small table. “That’s certainly something worth keeping in our back pocket.”

She doesn’t think it’s worth acting on right away? Did she understand what Aurelia’s asking? I’d have thought she’d have been the most prepared out of all the royal families after the vague but emphatic message I sent earlier.

I scratch my pencil across one of the papers from the stack next to me. The brazier that fills the high tower room with its thin heat crackles, waiting to consume my words once my mother has read them.

If Rione is going to offer our aid, it needs to be soon. It’s unlikely to be long before war breaks out.

Mother considers the note and flicks her fingers to consign it to the flames. “We needn’t worry ourselves with that. There are much more straightforward ways of gaining our freedom that don’t rely on an empress’s promise.”

My stomach twists as if it’s been snagged in seaweed. I scrawl out more hasty words on a fresh paper. What are you talking about? She’ll follow through—she’s given you the means to guarantee it. Tribune Valerisse isn’t going to offer any promises at all.

“Oh, I’m not interested in hearing from the tribune either.” Mother sits back in her chair, her gaze sliding away from me across the white-washed walls, and I wonder abruptly why it’s just her and me in this meeting.

When she first ushered me up the tower stairs, I assumed she wanted to hear the message I’d come to deliver right away, that there wasn’t time to gather my father or sister from whatever was occupying them.

But I’m getting the impression that Aurelia’s letter hasn’t made all that much difference after all.

Mother’s had something in mind since before I arrived. My appearance may have propelled her onward faster, but on a route she was already following.

Is it a route she doesn’t think her husband or her heir would fully approve of?

I press my pencil more firmly against the next paper. What are you planning ?

What could possibly be a better option for our people than the freedom Aurelia is offering?

We’re in a far better position than the other conquered countries—we might send a host of soldiers only to find the battle is won before they reach it and risk their lives.

Our distance, across the sea strait from the rest of the continent, has always afforded us a little extra security from trouble on the mainland.

Mother sets her elbows on the table and rests her chin on her folded hands.

A trace of the sadness I’m more familiar with crosses her dark face.

“You don’t need to worry about that. I’m just glad she sent you back to us, whatever her reasons.

Now I have no reason to hesitate—the empire can’t use you to punish us. ”

The strands of tension squeeze tighter around my gut. Is this what actual drowning feels like?

She’s always trying to protect me, as if I’m not caught in the middle of this whirlwind of politics whether either of us likes it or not.

As if I haven’t been handling myself through it for the sixteen years since I was wrenched from my home—years that recently included the overturning of not one but two emperors.

I know the situation in Dariu far better than anyone here , I write. If you’re going to take action against them, you should let me weigh in.

The queen’s gaze softens even more. “Oh, Lorenzo. I think you’ve given enough for our family already. We’ll set you up in your old rooms, make sure you have every comfort I’d imagine they denied you in that wretched palace.”

She tosses my last paper into the brazier for me and stands. It’s a dismissal—she thinks the important part of this conversation is over.

She thinks I’m never going back to Dariu.

I stare up at her, my hands balling, and a jolt of certainty crackles right through the center of me .

I already knew how far I might have to go to convince her of Aurelia’s message. I just didn’t realize it’d be because she had pre-existing plans that could lead to an even greater catastrophe.

In my own cunning ways, I’ve stood up to soldiers and emperors. I helped put the woman I love on the throne. I’m a gods-damned force to be reckoned with.

Hiding that from my family now looks to be much more dangerous than revealing myself.

I push to my feet too, drawing myself up so I’m slightly taller than her, my stance steady. And I project the illusion of my voice straight into her head.

“We’re not finished here. You need to tell me exactly what you mean to do.”

Mother freezes other than the drop of her jaw. She stares at me in silence for several thuds of my suddenly racing pulse. “Lorenzo. You…”

I keep my mouth firmly shut so there’s no doubt about my voice being gift-driven.

“I have a lot more of a gift than I’ve let on.

There are plenty of things about me that you don’t know.

Because I’ve been playing this game of politics for years right in the thick of it, and I couldn’t risk jeopardizing everything I was working toward by letting my secret get out.

But it sounds like you might be about to jeopardize it all right now anyway. ”

“I— You—” Understanding dawns in her eyes, and her posture relaxes slightly. “You are dedicated to Inganne. It’s all illusion. Just more than music.”

I nod. “It’s anything I need to conjure. I did sacrifice an awful lot. It was a little too easy to convince everyone I was enough of an idiot to swap my voice for nothing more than extra artistic talent.”

Her mouth tenses against a wince, but then her expression brightens more. “Then it’s even more wonderful that you’ve come back to us. There’ll be so many ways you can help?—”

And there it is. She’s already jumping straight to how she can use me for her own ends.

I cut her off, letting my illusionary voice flatten. “Help you with what ? What are you planning?”

A fierce smile curves my mother’s lips, one I don’t like at all.

Determination rings through her voice. “We have the perfect opportunity, Lorenzo. You haven’t been here to see it.

First, a handful of the imperial soldiers vanished after word of the tribune’s declaration reached us.

Then so many more were summoned to bolster the reserves around Vivencia.

The governor and his ranking officers have tried to cover up the loss, but we estimate there are no more than a quarter of their usual numbers left. ”

My stomach bottoms out. I can already see where she’s going with this line of thinking.

Aurelia—and Marc and Axius, advising her—must have assumed that as long as they kept some military presence in Rione, my people were too down-beaten after the last uprising less than a decade ago to attempt another.

No doubt the high commander hoped to end the threat of civil war quickly and return regular forces to our island country.

None of them, not even Aurelia, could fully understand just how much fury our queen has been hiding behind her royal composure. Not even Aurelia knows what it’s like to see hundreds of your citizens strung up around the city like hogs in a butcher shop.

Mother knows she may never get another chance like this again. Of course she’d jump on her first opportunity.

Except she didn’t quite. She hesitated until my arrival… it sounds like, because she was worried what would happen to me if she rebelled while I was in Darium custody .

A lump rises in my throat, but her consideration of my safety doesn’t make a difference now. She thinks that with me here, she can rush ahead without any dire consequences.

“You’re going to order our soldiers to turn on the remaining forces and slaughter them,” I guess. “And hope that Dariu is too busy fighting with itself to intervene until it’s too late.”

A sharp laugh leaves my mother’s mouth. “They will be. We’ve been marshalling forces, and they haven’t had enough presence here to notice a thing.

I have men ready with a message that’ll send the governor hustling off to the other side of the country, and the moment he’s gone, we can sweep them all out of Santia and the rest of the island.

Once we’ve cleared our territory, we can defend the strait so they never get another foothold. ”

It's a clever plan. It would probably work.

And it might ruin the chances of us ever being at peace with Dariu rather than in a constant state of potential war. It would definitely ruin Aurelia’s chances of handing back true sovereignty to my foster brothers’ kingdoms.

The people of Dariu will never accept the ceding of other territories right after they’ve been violently thrown out of one. Aurelia would look weak rather than wise.

My mouth twists. “Don’t you see that the empress is offering us something better than that? We could rule Rione again as allies with Dariu, without needing to defend the strait or see more of our people die in attempts to reconquer us.”

Mother waves her hand dismissively. “One is a sure thing. The other—Empress Aurelia has her own goals. I’m not going to let my people down by giving up this one opportunity for another that may never materialize.”

I resist the urge to smack my hand against the table for emphasis. “You’re letting them down by turning against the only imperial ruler who’s actually cared about us.”

That sad look crosses Mother’s face again. “You really believe that, don’t you? If you’d been through as much as I have—do you have any idea what she’d have done with you if she’d discovered your true gift?”

A stunted laugh hitches out of me. I meet my mother’s gaze with a smile nearly as sharp as hers.

“Mother, I told Aurelia a year ago. I helped remove Marclinus and put her on that throne. She’s had a thousand chances to exploit me, but she’s only ever worked toward getting to where she is now—where she can set the empire free. ”

The queen goes still with her lips parted. “You told her before me ?”

I motion at her much as she waved my concerns off moments ago.

“Because as soon as you found out, you bowled over anything I have to say to use me for your own ends. No, I haven’t lived as long as you have—but I’ve lived in the Darium court for sixteen years longer than you’ve spent there.

I know those people. I know Aurelia. For once, can you believe that I might be seeing more than you can, not less? ”

Through the space of one breath and another, we simply stare at each other. Mother’s jaw tightens. Is she going to dismiss me all the same, stalk out of here and set her violent plans in motion no matter what I say?

I have to keep trying. “Aurelia hates the empire just as much as you do. She’s who you were when you were my age, seeing the injustices dealt against her country and aching that she couldn’t do anything to stop them—except she found a way.

And she’s taken that way, no matter how much it’s cost her. ”

“I don’t see that it’s cost her all that much,” Mother says tartly. “She’s sitting on the highest throne in the continent.”

My teeth set on edge. “If you could just talk to her, properly…”

A glimmer of inspiration lights in my head.

Maybe she can. Not by trekking across the strait and half of Dariu to meet Aurelia in Vivencia, but there is another option, isn’t there, if what Mother said is correct?

“You can,” I go on. “Put that first part of your plan in motion. Get the governor out of his house. He has a messaging mirror linked back to the imperial palace there, doesn’t he?

We reach out to her, and you see what she says…

And if you still don’t like it, you can send us to war against her rather than for her. ”

Mother hesitates only a moment longer. “I would have started this way regardless. And there are… clearly some things I didn’t know. I can admit that. Let us see. Although you realize that breaking into the governor’s castle is a declaration of war right there?”

A warmer smile touches my lips at the growing acceptance in her voice. Maybe I can set this mess right after all.

“My gift can get us in without anyone being the wiser. Send him off, and I’ll take care of the rest.”