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I stood at the door to my parents’ chambers, staring at the metal sigil adorning the dark wood and willing my stomach to settle. The enameled insignia, crafted by a master Adept’s hand, depicted a riot of lilies with thorn-bearing vines woven between. Gilt paint coated the petals, shimmering in the pale light from the magically forged lanterns lining the walls.

I lifted my hand to the sigil, then paused before my touch could activate it, my resolve faltering. Like most things in the palace, the insignia served a double function—a lock as well as a symbol, emphasizing both my family’s position and the magical resources at their fingertips. Even its motif was about as subtle as a horse dressed up in a ball gown. Lilies bristling with thorns to represent the power of House Liliana: my family, one of the nine noble Houses that ruled Damaria.

The family, according to my parents, that my very existence disappointed.

I let my hand fall back to my side. I wanted to believe the roiling in my gut was only my condition flaring, nothing to do with nerves. But I knew better. Discussions with my parents had never been something I relished. And this time, the summons was unexpected—I could only guess what I’d done to fail them now.

Maybe they just wanted to discuss the plans for my next birthday dance. It was still almost two months away, but my parents would want to be heavily prepared after the disaster of Tatiana’s most recent celebration. My sister’s latest unauthorized magical invention, something she delightedly called a tempest in a teacup, had escaped its saucer and spun around the ballroom for nearly half an hour—scandalizing everyone but Tatiana herself, who could barely breathe for laughing. My parents still hadn’t forgiven her—not for the expense of paying the Adept Guild to overlook yet another transgression, but for the embarrassment.

I could hardly do worse. Could I?

In the next room, one of the Adept-crafted clocks started to chime. Delaying longer would only make things worse. I tucked a loose wisp of hair behind my ear, settled my shoulders, and arranged my expression to conceal the nausea churning through my stomach. My condition had flared again this morning, but I’d taken a double dose of tonic before answering my parents’ summons. For this conversation, I needed to at least appear strong.

Keep your guard up, Nita always told me on the training grounds. Give them no opening. That’s how you win.

Surely discussing the details of a birthday celebration couldn’t be worse than a fencing match, much as I’d prefer the latter. I took a deep breath and pressed my palm to the sigil. A pale light glowed between my fingers, and the bolts retracted with a series of clicks. I pushed open the door with hands kept steady by force of will.

My parents sat at the small table they used for the rare occasions when they dined in private—a sight that stirred the anticipation of rebuke in my already troubled stomach. They were bent close together over a stack of parchment, conversing in lowered voices. Both glanced up as I entered—my mother impassive, my father with lips pinched, giving him an owlish look. Their rich clothes echoed the oil paintings adorning the walls: depictions of the Virtues that founded the core of the Adepts’ magical training, detailed in glowing colors. Silence, serenity, strength. Unsubtle reminders of the expectations I never quite managed to meet.

No servants attended them tonight. The matter at hand was too private to risk any gossip getting out. My stomach turned again.

“Bianca. Good, you’re here.” My mother’s tone gave nothing away. I’d learned the art of hiding my emotions under her tutelage. She nodded at the seat to her left—the place I usually occupied.

I sank into the chair, relieved that I wouldn’t have to devote energy to standing during this conversation; it would be impossible to maintain the facade of strength my parents valued while leaning on the walls for support.

My mother turned towards me. “Have you been following the situation in Gildenheim?”

I blinked, uncertain where this conversation was heading. “Of course.”

It would be difficult not to. A week ago, the queen of Gildenheim, our neighbor to the north, had suddenly passed away—leaving a sole heir, a man around my age about whom I knew little except that he was famously reclusive.

“Good.” My mother’s lips compressed. “Gildenheim is threatening war.”

That jolted me out of my attempt at calm. I sat forward, my eyes widening. “What? Since when?”

Gildenheim had long prodded at our northern border, but no true conflict had broken out between our countries in several centuries. Both sides knew Damaria commanded the resources to rebuff an invasion—at a steep price to all involved. Had our neighbor gone mad?

My father rubbed the place on his brow where fine lines had started to collect, like the surface of a cloth stretched too tight. “The new king is hungry for power. The Council of Nine received a missive this past week demanding a new treaty with radically different terms. Increased trade between our countries. An expanded market for Gilden iron and lumber—he plans to significantly develop their logging and mining industries.” My father counted each item off on one bejeweled finger after another. “And an exclusive market for the latest Adept technology.”

At that, I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from lifting. The Adept Guild that trained all Damarians with magical potential held its technological advances almost as close as its secrets. Adept-crafted magical devices—firearms, clockwork, explosives—were second only to Damaria’s oceanic trade in cementing our country’s place as a world power. It wasn’t difficult to understand why Gildenheim would want them; the country’s ungoverned magic was only one example of its backwardness. Gildenheim still had a monarchy, for ocean’s sake. But the Council of Nine would rather sink Damaria into the seas than agree to these terms.

“We countered, of course,” my mother said. “Our ambassador persuaded the king to agree to the treaty sans that particular demand, so long as we provide… insurance.”

She pushed the stack of papers towards me. A seal at the top—deep green wax with a silver stamp of a winged horse wearing a crown, Gildenheim’s royal emblem—identified the missive’s origin beyond a doubt.

I ran my eyes over the document, reading its points—written once in Damarian, again in Gilden. The terms of the treaty were much as my father had described. Until I reached the end, where a sharp, slanting hand—most likely the Gilden heir’s writing, since I didn’t recognize it—had struck out the portion about Adept devices and replaced it with—

I read the section twice more.

A noble hand in marriage.

Surely not.

I looked up at my parents, my eyebrows raised. My voice was steady, betraying none of the shock and misgiving coursing through my veins. “You want me to marry the new king of Gildenheim?”

My mother steepled her fingers, leaning back in her chair. “Better than wasting resources in a pointless war. You’re unattached and close to his age. It would give House Liliana a significant advantage to have one of our daughters on the Gilden throne.”

My mouth was dry. With my gifted older sister the more likely heir, I’d always expected an arranged marriage. But not as insurance against warfare. Not sprung on me without warning, without months of negotiation.

“But it’s Tatiana that everyone loves,” I protested. “She can get in anyone’s good graces.”

“And her preferences in the bedchamber are incompatible for this union.” My mother brushed my objection aside impatiently—it was an obvious obstacle, large enough that I shouldn’t have tripped over it. I was flexible about the gender of my partners. My sister was not. “This treaty is a delicate matter. Any source of friction could upset it.”

And Tatiana was not one to be delicate. Despite how much we resembled each other, sometimes it was hard to believe we were sisters. Tatiana cared for no one’s opinion save her own. I could never manage to do the same.

I struggled to keep the turmoil of my thoughts from both my face and my voice. To regain my footing on solid ground. “But even so, Tatiana’s the one with magical ability. Isn’t that exactly what this new king wants?” My parents might chafe at paying the Adept Guild to look the other way, but Tatiana’s talents were a point of pride for them nonetheless—and another area in which I was at a deficit.

“Precisely why it would be foolish to send her.” My father had started reading through a separate stack of papers. I was tiring my parents, taking too long to grasp the situation.

My mother tapped one neatly trimmed fingernail on the table. Her eyes met mine, and despite their rich brown color, they were as cold as a rare winter storm. “Are you refusing this match, Bianca?”

My mind stuttered. My stomach gave another nauseating twist, and I swallowed against the threat of bile.

“No, I—of course not.” The words rushed out, as if they could close the long-standing rift between us. I might let my parents down in other ways, but never in doing my duty. “But… what about my condition?”

My parents exchanged a glance laden with meaning.

Oh. My condition wasn’t a sticking point. It was the reason they had volunteered me for this marriage.

Bitterness burned in my throat, mingling with nausea from the very condition in question. I knew my parents believed I wasn’t strong enough to represent House Liliana. It was the reason Tatiana was set to inherit despite her intractability, though Damarian law allowed any living descendant to take up the succession. Of the two of us, I was the dependable one.

But only when I wasn’t sick.

Keep your mask in place. Let no one see your weakness. My parents had driven in those words since my condition first started to trouble me, and by now they overlaid my mind like scars: no longer painful, but impossible to overlook. I must hide my ailment at all costs. Other daughters, common-born daughters—they could break and bend, but House Liliana demanded untarnished steel from its descendants. Let my weakness show, allow our noble rivals to think my lineage’s power was susceptible, and I let my family down.

But it was impossible to hide an illness that could flare at any moment forever. I drank my tonics without complaint and gritted my teeth through dances and dinners, trying to force at least the semblance of health whenever politics demanded it. But despite my best efforts, despite my parents’ attempts to quash even the quietest whisper, I had missed enough public appearances, retired abruptly from enough negotiations, that rumors had started to seep through the palace walls like a cold draft. It was only a matter of time before the other noble Houses of the court put the pieces together and forged them into a weapon against House Liliana.

“You’ll hide your condition, at least until after the wedding,” my mother said firmly. “You’ve managed before. And you’ll bring your apothecary with you. If your husband asks about the tonics, tell him they’re for your cycle.”

The move was logical. Utilitarian. It was obvious, from an objective standpoint, that I was the more suitable choice. My value in the Damarian court was limited, especially since a marriage here would reveal my ailment eventually; in Gildenheim, my illness wouldn’t threaten House Liliana’s influence even if it were discovered. This was a solution that cemented my parents’ power in more ways than one—removing me from the scrutiny of their closest rivals, while simultaneously establishing a link to the Gilden throne.

And it wasn’t as if I wished Tatiana to go in my stead. Marrying a king she didn’t know—she would hate it, just as she had always hated our parents’ many strictures. Whereas I had always clung to my duty like a lifeline, doing exactly as my parents expected, part of me still hoping it would earn me their love long past when the evidence showed otherwise. Even now, I couldn’t quite bury that hope entirely.

“Will you accept what your House requires?” my father asked.

I glanced between my parents, willing myself to look strong. To be strong. Whatever my feelings about the matter, someone needed to marry the man, and it might as well be me. Better a marriage than a war—or a future sitting on the outskirts at dances I was too nauseated to attend, watching the court whisper about House Liliana’s sick daughter.

If my parents deemed marriage my only use, perhaps I could turn this alliance into an opportunity. Hope flickered through me at the thought. I would still have responsibilities—most likely more than ever before. But instead of forcing myself to attend dinners and speeches at my parents’ instruction, instead of smiling at would-be allies through gritted teeth when my stomach burned like a coal and I could barely keep my meals down… as a queen, I could choose my own appointments. Keep to my rooms, or my bed, when I was too sick to stand instead of making myself more ill by pushing through, and do so without dreading the rebuke I knew was coming at the first private moment. I would still have my flares to contend with, but in Gildenheim, I might be able to decide what shape I wanted my life to take rather than continue along the grooves worn deep by tradition.

And more than that—this was a chance to prove myself. A chance to do my duty as Duchess Liliana. To finally have my parents deem me enough instead of merely expendable.

I lifted my chin, meeting my parents’ eyes.

“I am a daughter of Damaria,” I said. “It’s my responsibility to protect our people. Of course I accept.”

My mother straightened the stack of treaty papers. “You’ll leave in seven days.”

Which meant they had started preparing for the alliance before they’d even asked me. I kept my face blank as fresh vellum, giving none of my feelings away.

“Give me a pen,” I said, my voice steady. “I’ll sign the papers now.”

I dipped the pen in deep blue ink, the color of Damaria. As I lifted the nib above the treaty, a single drop of ink fell, spattering the parchment beside my newly betrothed’s name. Aric of Gildenheim.

Tatiana would have said it was a poor omen. But my sister saw a possible future in each ocean wave, and I knew there was only one that counted: the firm road set out by duty. Responsibility called me, looming at the northern border, and I would answer.

I blotted the errant mark away and signed my name. There. A line of ink, and now I was engaged.

“Bianca.” My mother touched my elbow as I stood to leave. When I faced her, I saw a trace of worry in her eyes for the first time since I’d entered the room. “You’ll have to pretend you’re strong for this to succeed. Don’t show anyone your flaws. Don’t let them see your failures. If they learn of your weakness, they’ll use it against you, and then they’ll cut you down.”

I met her eyes, willing her to see a strength that wasn’t there. “I won’t.”

This was my duty. And at that, I’d never failed.

I wasn’t about to start now.