Page 15

Seven and a Half Years Ago

B RIONY DESPISED STATE DINNERS , especially the ones that fell on the winter solstice. She’d learned by now—the winter between her first and second year—that spending time with the Bomardi students at school was enough for her. She didn’t need to see them outside the school year as well.

She stood at the entrance to the grand ballroom with Rory and her father, welcoming in state officials from Bomard and Evermore and their families.

The ballroom was decorated with fir trees that were native to Bomard’s mountains, and a new tapestry had been hung, depicting a snowy morning in the Bomardi forest. All of it was so at odds with Biltmore Palace’s open arcades, ornate porticoes, and reflective pools.

They would mingle and dance until midnight, and then the feast would begin, going all night until dawn.

It had only been twenty minutes and she had already seen ten people she didn’t care for.

And her dress was itchy.

“Briony, stop that,” her father admonished when she adjusted her sleeves for the third time. “You are now seventeen. You have to start dressing like it.”

“Are seventeen-year-olds itchy?” she grumbled.

The dress was a green lace, the bodice tight from her waist up to her shoulders and laced down to her wrists.

It was so unlike the flowing and loose wear that Eversuns favored, she really thought her father was trying too hard to welcome those frostbitten mutts.

There was a place between her shoulder blades that she wanted to ask Rory to scratch for her, but she refrained.

Briony glanced at the Bomardi who had already entered. Was this the work of magic like that cold draft? Was one of them making her itch? No. Toven wasn’t here yet.

When Finola and Phoebe came in, Briony hugged them tightly.

Finola leaned toward Rory and her. “Did you hear that the Vults brought their familiars?”

Briony glanced to where the Vult family was just now getting into the receiving line.

“Why?” Rory asked. “Do they expect a fight?”

“That’s what I asked,” Finola said with a laugh.

Briony glanced to see who was next: Hap Gains and his daughter, Larissa. Briony sighed.

It was custom for Evermore’s king and his family to bow first as a sign of respect and welcome. And by the look on Larissa’s face, this was clearly her favorite part of the entire state dinner.

Larissa stood directly in front of Briony with a calculated smile and watched her dip into a low curtsy.

“Welcome, Larissa,” Briony said through clenched teeth. “How have you been since the end of the school year?”

“Fine, thank you, Briony. Absolutely dreading being in Evermore for the second year.” She looked around at the decor—all the trouble Evermore had gone to—and added, “Evermore just isn’t as comfortable. Far too warm and not enough to do.”

Briony bit back a remark, and Larissa turned to Rory, indicating that he should bow next. Rory sighed and did so. Larissa bobbed the smallest, least respectful of curtsies to both in response and waved dismissively as the Gainses moved on.

Gin Pulvey, the Seat of Bomard, was next.

He was a hearty man with a large mustache that took up most of his pink face.

Seat Pulvey had a good relationship with King Jacquel, to many Bomardi’s dismay.

Behind him were Sammy and his father, Billium Meers, high general of the Eversun armies.

Briony’s father rose from his bow and pulled an exasperated face for General Meers in a rare moment of relaxed camaraderie.

“I think you should give me the first dance tonight, Briony,” Sammy said as she straightened from her curtsy. His voice was bright with mischief.

“What?” She curled her lip. “Why?”

“Because I think it will bother Didion.”

Rory snorted and brought a hand to his mouth to hide his smile. Briony looked between Sammy and Rory with a blush. Then she glanced over at where Didion was standing in the ballroom with Katrina and Cordelia, watching her. His eyes darted away.

“Well, of course I’ll dance with you,” Briony said, “but why first dance?” First dance was usually reserved for the king and his wife (only in this case, Jacquel refrained as he did not intend to remarry), the Seat and their spouse, and any young couples intending to make a splash in the spring season of courtship.

Sammy placed a dramatic hand on his chest. “I’ll happily take second, third, and fourth as well, but I think they’ll be taken rather quickly.”

She blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

Sammy laughed and grabbed her hand, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “I love that you don’t know how smashing you look. If you were six years older, we’d be engaged already, love.”

She snatched her hand back and pulled a face at him. Sammy laughed, and Rory made a gagging sound.

“You’ll have to get used to it, Worry,” Sammy said, using Briony’s mispronounced childhood name for her brother. He pontificated, “It will only be a few short years before she’s sold off to a Bomardi boy in the name of peace and unity.”

“Sammy, that’s enough,” General Meers said kindly. He sent an apologetic smile to Jacquel. “Let’s let the next group in the door.”

Sammy saluted his father, winked at Briony, and said, “First dance.” They walked on.

Briony rolled her shoulders back, dress still itching her.

Smashing , Sammy had said. That was kind, but nothing more than that.

She liked Sammy like a brother, and she was sure his feelings were the same.

But she didn’t love the reminder that as the king’s daughter, she might not be able to marry for love.

She did envy the Bomardi a little. They didn’t treat their women like pawns in a game.

A woman could sit on the Seat of Bomard just as easily as a man.

When Briony turned back to the receiving line, she came face-to-face with the smirking countenance of Toven Hearst. More like face-to-chest. He was even taller than he had been at the end of the school year a month ago.

“First dance already taken?” he said coyly. “My, my, you don’t waste any time, do you?”

Briony pulled herself together and glanced to the left. Orion Hearst stood in front of her father, and Serena Hearst in front of Rory. As one, the Rosewoods bowed and curtsied.

She rose, finding Toven’s eyes glued to her, his teeth gleefully biting down on his bottom lip. “Welcome,” she muttered.

Toven wore a gray suit the pale color of his hair.

As her father exchanged stilted pleasantries with Orion, and Serena examined the ballroom with what must have been distaste, Briony stared up into Toven’s face with thinly veiled hatred.

He exuded arrogance, and Briony couldn’t believe he had the audacity to look down on her in her own home.

“Meers is right, you know,” Toven said in a jovial tone belied by his look of boredom. “Have you decided which son of Bomard you’ll be attaching yourself to when you come of age? Like a leech.”

She batted her lashes. “Well, I’m aiming for you, of course.”

He smiled brightly. “Ah. Lovely. You’ll make an excellent addition to my line of trophies. I’ll hang you on the wall.”

“Trophies? What for?” she asked innocently. “Couldn’t be elixirs class. Didn’t Rory take top marks in elixirs this last year?” She smiled simperingly at him.

Toven leveled a stare at her. “Did he?” His tone made it clear that he knew exactly how Rory kept getting top marks.

Briony’s smile slipped, and she looked away toward the ballroom where her friends were gathered.

He hadn’t told on her for assisting Rory with his schoolwork and continuing to boost him, but he took opportunities like this to dig at her about it.

Only a few more introductions and then she would be able to hide from the Bomardi until dinner at midnight.

“So who will claim the second dance with the princess,” Toven said quietly as his parents continued to converse with Rory and her father. His eyes cast over the crowd. “Didion Winchester, I’d presume?”

“I have no intention of dancing the first or second dance—”

“But of course, all of this is up for debate,” he said, ignoring her. He turned his pale-gray eyes on her. “Someone on the line takes precedence in these situations.”

She narrowed her gaze at him. Why would anyone from Bomard ask Sammy to step aside for the first dance?

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m only stating tradition, of course,” he said, melodically. “If someone in the Ten were to ask for the first dance or second dance, Meers and Winchester would have to step aside, wouldn’t they?”

The Ten were the Bomardi in the first ten places in line. It gave them certain feelings of superiority. Among them were Orion Hearst, Canning Trow’s mother, Hap Gains, and Liam Quill’s father.

Briony felt like she was missing a piece to a very large puzzle, but before she could ask, Orion Hearst spoke loudly.

“Ah, here she is. Jacquel, allow me to introduce our guest. Veronika Mallow.”

A tall woman with pale-white skin and straight black hair stepped forward.

Her eyes were black as well, like bottomless pits, but they were close together, giving her a foxlike quality.

She looked to be in her fifties, but then the light caught her at a different angle, and she could have been twenty years younger.

“Mrs. Mallow. Welc—”

“ Miss Mallow,” she corrected Briony’s father, stopping him in an awkward half bow. “Unlike the Eversuns, Bomardi women don’t need to be married to be introduced.” Black eyes flicked toward Briony, and a chill crested her shoulders.

“Of course,” King Jacquel said. “My apologies for the presumption.” He continued to bow, and Rory and Briony did the same.

“What an odd tradition,” Mallow said. “Bowing to a stranger in your own palace. Seems so antiquated.” The curtsy she offered in return was much like Larissa’s—barely a dip of her elegant head, and a shocking rudeness to the king.

Briony blinked. She saw Orion’s lips twitch, suppressing a smile.