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Chapter Fifty-Five

Three years later

Aurelia

Q ueen Anahi and her family arrive for the Unity Festival first. The elegant carriages crafted from the same sleek but sturdy wood as Rione’s famous ships roll through the imperial estate’s gates and over to the white-washed palace that overlooks the orchard.

As the queen of Rione once greeted me on arriving at her home, I wait to welcome her with my husbands, my guards, and a bustle of staff around me. Even though we’ve conducted this festival twice before—and hosted other visits in between—my pulse kicks to a faster pace.

Anahi accepts the footman’s hand to help her down from the vehicle and bobs her head to me—a little lower than is really necessary when we’re theoretically on equal ground now. Old habits die hard… but they are fading faster than I dared to hope.

I dip my own head in return. “I hope your journey was smooth and swift.”

The queen smiles at me more warmly than she offered on our first meeting. “It was, and made all the more enjoyable by anticipation of the festivities to come.”

Lorenzo steps forward, and his mother squeezes him in a quick but emphatic hug. He clasps his father’s hand before his sister grabs him in an embrace of her own.

When the crown princess draws back, she clicks her tongue at her brother. “You need to come visit us again soon, Lore. A Rionian shouldn’t go too long without being on the sea.”

He grins back at her and flicks his hand in a gesture of agreement.

We’ve barely seen the Rionian party into their traveling palace before a page informs me that the Cotea convoy has been spotted. I hustle over to their accommodations, where the walls and windows boast various adjustments the avid innovators have made during their visits.

King Stanislas reunites with his son a little more stiffly than Lorenzo’s family, but Bastien beams as they shake hands and ducks down to murmur to his little niece and nephew.

Neven joins us only just as the Gorician carriages pull through the gates, his cheeks a little flushed and his neck sporting a faint blotch that he jerks up his collar to hide.

Raul raises his eyebrows at his younger foster brother. “‘Sparring’ with your captain again, were you?”

Neven mock-scowls at him, but the gleam of his eyes reveals his good humor.

After three years together, he and Evando haven’t yet gotten bored of their playfully antagonistic relationship.

In fact, they enjoy it so much they moved into shared quarters in the palace last summer, to no one’s surprise.

Queen Dafina fusses over her son until Neven’s blush has darkened, and then we’re rushing over to welcome the Lavirians, who certainly won’t appreciate a lapse in hospitality.

Queen Benvida descends from her carriage with a bearing so regal it’s almost imperial.

When her gaze flicks over my gown, I’m glad I let my maids truss me up in one of my most ornate.

I wouldn’t want the queen of Lavira to feel I’m failing to give her visit the proper respect.

As servants dart around bringing immediate refreshments, Raul teases his mother about whether she’ll have any room for dinner. She tuts at him with obvious affection. “Knowing the kinds of feasts the imperial chefs whip up, you can be sure I come ready to indulge.”

By the time the last line of carriages rattles over the cobblestones into the palace grounds, I only have Marc left beside me out of my husbands. But I can’t resent the princes’ time with their families when my heart is lifting at the thought of seeing my own.

As the Accasian procession draws up to the rugged stone palace built in my former country’s honor, Marc lifts my hand to press a kiss to my knuckles. “Take all the time you need.”

I maintain some standard of imperial decorum, clasping Father and Mother and then my sister in quicker hugs than I might have otherwise, blinking firmly at the happy tears that try to form in my eyes.

I can’t stop a wide grin from stretching across my face as I personally escort them into their temporary home.

My two-year-old nephew gasps and claps his hands at the dark wooden interior, as if this is the first time he’s seen this replica of Accasian architecture before. He was barely more than a baby the last time he came, so as far as he’s concerned, it probably is.

Father watches his second grandchild with a fond gleam in his eyes before taking in the halls and the room I lead him and Mother to with undisguised awe of his own. He beckons me inside, and my guards hang back beyond the door.

In the privacy of the royal chambers, I squeeze my parents as tightly as I wanted to before. Father kisses the top of my head and then gazes at me with so much admiration a glow lights in my chest.

“You’ve really done it,” he says quietly. “Year after year, you’re building something new here—and I don’t mean the palaces.”

I grip his hands. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He makes a soft scoffing sound. “I didn’t believe in you enough when you were finding your way. I was so nervous… I should have trusted that you’d carve a path somehow or other.”

A lump rises in my throat. “I had plenty of doubts too. What matters is that we’re here now, setting our own courses and bringing our people with us.”

The new festival I founded is celebrated all throughout this half of the continent, but I think nowhere quite as energetically as in Vivencia’s central square.

The city folk and visitors from across the country flock around the refreshment tables and the musicians, pausing here and there to peer up at the monument that towers in the center of the space.

Even while I stand on the imperial platform at one end of the square, too far away to decipher any of the names carved into the mottled marble, a fresh pang reverberates through my heart when I look at it. For all I’ve built, I still mourn the lives we lost in winning our peace. Too many of them.

Never again.

The highlight of the Unity Festival in Vivencia are the demonstration tents set up along the edges, dedicated to our allied countries.

Every year, the royal families bring with them the latest examples of their most valued crafts and trades.

Darium nobles and merchants decide on new purchases for the year, and the representatives of the outer territories strike their own deals with each other.

And it’s not just the other countries bringing their people and goods to us.

I spot a young man talking with one of the Goricians while motioning to the marble display model of a temple.

From his eager gestures and the way his face has lit up, I suspect he’s going to find himself an apprenticeship with the master stoneworkers before he leaves the square today.

Over by the Accasian tents, a girl of maybe twelve is exclaiming over the newest line of horses one of our breeders has been cultivating. Perhaps in a few years, she’ll be following my footsteps backward to the country of my birth.

How funny is it that by releasing the conquered countries from the empire’s oppression, we’ve become so much closer knit than we ever were when we theoretically lived as one.

Over recent months, I’ve made tentative diplomatic overtures to the countries on the other side of the Seafell Channel. Perhaps at the next Unity Festival, the kingdoms of Silana or Icar or Bryfeen will trust us enough to send their own representatives.

Someday the entire continent might be unified again, through bonds of friendship rather than domination.

Lorenzo takes up his vielle and joins the melody the court musicians are playing, and more of the civilians take to dancing. Coraya prances around me, swishing my skirt as if it’s her dancing partner.

I scoop up my daughter and spin her around, reveling in her delighted laugh. She squirms around to reach for Raul, who doesn’t hesitate to oblige her unspoken demand. As he swings her onto his shoulders, she giggles and digs her hands into his hair for balance.

“Now dance, Papa Raul,” she orders him.

As the prince of Lavira bobs her through a rough jig, Bastien comes up beside me. He dips his head to kiss my cheek.

I revel in that sensation too—not just the brush of his lips but the total comfort he shows and I feel at showing such affection before all our people.

In the wake of the civil war and all the changes that’ve followed, the empire’s citizens have barely blinked at my on-going relationship with the four men they don’t know are confirmed as my husbands.

We’ve discussed carrying out a public marriage ceremony in a few more years, once we’re absolutely certain it won’t harm my position as empress.

But Coraya has been calling all of her fathers “Papa” along with their names for the past year, and I haven’t heard a single suspicious word about that fact either. Possibly because for whatever reason, it started with Raul, and the entire court is aware he couldn’t possibly be her birth father.

When he sets her down, she runs to Bastien next and tugs on his hand with a cajoling gaze. The prince of Cotea laughs, but he’s never been able to resist our daughter.

“Only for a minute,” he tells her. “We don’t use our gifts frivolously.”

“Much,” Marc murmurs, easing closer behind me, but his tone is only amused. He sets his hand on the small of my back. We watch together as Bastien summons a cushion of air to lift Coraya a foot off the ground, as if she’s flying .

The sight of a familiar face amid the nobles around us draws my attention away from my daughter momentarily. I raise my hand to beckon Bianca over. “You made it in time!”

My friend pats her looping hair and aims a wry smile at me. “You know, I do appreciate being mistress of my own estate, but it gets rather boring being there for long. A little peace here and there is plenty. Who could want that over the drama of court life?”

I laugh. “Fair enough.”