Page 45

Six Years Ago

“B RIONY ’ S SUMMER SOLSTICE WAS ALWAYS SPENT at Biltmore Palace, on the hill overlooking the main ports of Evermore. The solstice divided the school year in half, allowing a weeklong break from classes—and a break from the Bomardi students.

While Briony usually opted to invite Cordelia to spend the week with her at Biltmore, Briony’s father had decided that Rory and Cordelia couldn’t share a roof while they were courting.

So instead—

“Stones, is it always this hot on the solstice?” a loud voice said from next to Briony, where she lay on the grass in the garden.

Briony took a deep breath, channeling patience, before cracking her eyelids. Katrina sat fanning herself, looking not at all relaxed in the sunshine.

“Would you like to retire to the courtyard? There’s more shade there,” Briony said as politely as she could.

Katrina sipped her fairy wine and shook her head. “No. If this is what you do on the break, then I’ll do it, too.” She twisted up her straw-colored hair and lay back onto the grass. “You’d think that as a princess, you’d have someone fanning you with a large leaf at all times.”

Briony’s face scrunched at the insinuation that she had servants dedicated solely to her comfort. She bit back her comment just as the boom of a cannon shook the garden.

Katrina shrieked and Briony continued her sunbathing, unfazed.

“What the fuck was that?” Katrina scrambled up, clutching her chest.

“It’s the Summer Cannon,” Briony said lazily. “It happens every day at noon at Biltmore.”

“Why?”

“To mark the time for the ships just off port,” she said. “It’s traditional.”

Katrina slowly lowered herself back down on the grass, breathing deeply in a way that Briony found overdramtic. After a few blessed minutes of silence, Katrina spoke again.

“Did you hear that Toven Hearst and Larissa Gains will be formally betrothed when we return to school?”

Briony snapped her head to Katrina. “What?”

Katrina hummed, closing her eyes against the sun. “She’s spending the solstice at Hearst Hall. The talk is that they’ll be engaged by the end of the week.”

There was a gnawing in Briony’s chest. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

It shouldn’t have been surprising to her. She had run into Toven and Larissa in the dark corridors several more times during the spring, always clutching at each other. They’d been assumed to be courting for most of school, so this was just the next natural step.

But Briony couldn’t help the way her ribs seemed to stick together at the thought of Toven engaged.

They’d been partnered in elixirs class all spring, and she’d had the agonizing pleasure of watching his hands work through the ingredients every day for two months.

Slicing roots, plucking plant leaves, roughly chopping insect wings.

She hadn’t known where else to look but at the veins in his forearms as he worked.

And it wasn’t just his appearance that was distracting.

His crisp scent hung onto her clothing for the rest of each day.

His voice teased her quietly, needling her about knowing all the right answers and refusing to share them with the tutor.

His warm skin brushed against her fingers whenever they reached for the pestle at the same time.

Briony stared at the sky, letting the sun burn her eyes.

She hadn’t understood until that moment how inappropriate it all was.

If Toven was courting Larissa with the intention to marry her, then the small attentions he gave Briony were childish games.

Anger boiled in her suddenly, and every coy smile he’d given her, every whisper against her ear, every time he’d stolen her chopping knife at the end of class “by mistake” and made her chase him down in the hall to get it back from him—all of it felt tainted now.

“It’s weird, right? I know people get engaged during school all the time, but I didn’t expect it of anyone I know .” Katrina rolled on her side to face Briony. “Will you and Didion be next?”

Briony squinted at Katrina. “What? Didion and me?”

She smiled. “Yeah. He’s very handsome. And kind.”

“Sounds like you should marry him,” Briony said, turning back to the clouds.

Katrina snorted in response.

There was the sizzle of a portal opening in the far end of the garden, overlooking the sea. That was the only place you could portal into, if you had high enough status.

Briony sat up and found General Meers and her cousin Finola marching quickly to the palace, their pace determined. Finola didn’t spare her a glance.

“You go find shade,” Briony said to Katrina. “I’ll be back.”

She got to her feet and followed them inside the entry hall.

General Meers was barking orders as if he were the king himself, and Finola was speaking quickly to her father’s equerry. Briony kept to the walls, stepping behind the pillars that held up the scalloped arches.

“I need the king now ,” General Meers demanded.

Rory and Didion popped out of the far hall, watching the commotion.

“He’s in his study,” the housekeeper said, gesturing for them to continue upstairs.

General Meers raced ahead, taking the stairs two at a time, with Finola close behind.

Briony darted for the stairs, just barely beating Rory to them, and both twins climbed quickly to the second floor, where they followed the general down the open arcade.

Their father’s study overlooked a cloistered garden and was lined with lattice windows that let air in but kept prying eyes out.

General Meers was already talking by the time Rory and Briony reached the door.

“Seat Pulvey is dead.”

Briony skidded to a halt in the doorway, watching as her father dropped his pen and steepled his fingers on the desk.

“Mallow?” he asked.

Briony remembered that name. The woman with the shrewd eyes and pin-straight hair, who’d talked of using children as collateral.

General Meers nodded. “Scouts say that Veronika Mallow now holds the Seat of Bomard.”

Briony gasped, and the room looked at her and Rory in the arched doorway. Finola gave her a tight smile in hello.

“Children, you’ll excuse us,” General Meers said.

Briony glowered and Rory said, “I’m nineteen. I’d like to know the political happenings in my future realm.”

King Jacquel nodded and gestured for Rory to sit in the chair in the corner. Rory waved his hand and conjured a second chair, twin to the first. He met his father’s eyes as he pulled the chair for Briony.

“My king,” the general began. “I really must object to so many ears in a confidential meeting—”

“You’re a fool if you think Briony’s ears to be the least useful of the five of us here,” Rory said, and Briony’s chest warmed at the unexpected praise. Rory met her eye with a supportive smile.

Her father cleared his throat. “Go on, General.”

Briony and Rory sat in the corner as General Meers pursed his lips in displeasure.

Rory asked, “How did she supersede the line?”

“She ascended properly,” Finola said. “At the time of Gin Pulvey’s death, Veronika Mallow held the position of first in line.”

“How?”

“Riann Cohle killed his father last night,” Finola said.

“He then ascended to first in line, named Mallow his successor, and immediately abdicated. Before killing Gin Pulvey, she named Riann Cohle her successor. They ascended together upon the death of Pulvey—her to the Seat, him to first in line. So there will be no changes to the line below them. Riann Cohle only needs to choose a successor.”

Briony’s lips parted, shocked at the political maneuvering.

General Meers paced to the desk. “We think she seduced Riann Cohle—”

“There’s no evidence of that,” Finola objected.

General Meers rolled his eyes. “Regardless, she convinced Cohle of this plot, and now she sits on the Seat.”

“Has she made any manifesto?” King Jacquel asked, staring out his lattice windows thoughtfully.

“Not yet, my king,” General Meers said. “Bomard woke to the news, and my sources are keeping a lookout for any objections from the line.”

“There won’t be,” her father said, rubbing his chin. “She’s gotten to them all, I’m sure.”

“There is one thing,” Finola said hesitantly, and they all looked at her. “There is a rumor that Mallow will order the end of mind magic in Bomard.”

Briony’s face twisted. “How would she do that? We’re halfway through a Bomardi school year. How will the Eversun students practice mind magic?”

Finola nodded at her, as if Briony had answered her own question.

The room was still for a moment. And then Rory said softly, “Well. I’ll be interested to see how the Bomardi return to school after the solstice.”