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S ilence governed the great hall until the king himself broke it with a single, probing word. “Iona?”

She shifted her focus to him, meeting his gaze with her court persona firmly fixed. When she spoke, she projected her voice to reach the furthest corners of the room, as befitted a royal daughter paying her respects. “Forgive my tardiness, Father. I ran into the delegation on my way here. I apologize for failing to arrive before them.”

Inwardly she writhed. He could leave it at this simple explanation, could let the past remain where it belonged and shift to present matters instead.

But he didn’t. Rather, he twisted in his chair, the better to regard her as he spoke in a conversational tone. “I suppose no one can blame your interest in our guests. Have you any friends among them?”

Her heart spasmed. “No, sire.” She flitted a glance at the Caprians, at the increasing fear that possessed them whole, and added, “Such is not my honor.”

His eyelids fluttered. Beyond him, Lisenn asked, “Why would Iona—?” Her voice caught in her throat before the question could fully emerge. The expression that followed might have turned her younger sister’s insides to water under other circumstances, but Iona had suffered too many shocks today already.

“So you were in Capria,” Lisenn said, the words uttered low.

Her father turned and patted his elder daughter’s hand. “You remember,” he said jovially. “She was there at school, back before their unfortunate civil war.”

Lisenn’s face brightened, her court facade resuming full force. “Of course. How silly of me. But it was so long ago that I’d nearly forgotten.”

She had never known in the first place. Iona’s parents had sent their younger child away specifically to separate her from their elder one. Hence the pseudonym, the stealthy travel under cover of night, the quiet, shabby dorm room in the elite college of a foreign power.

And hence Iona’s best excuse never to speak of that time. Even after her return her whereabouts remained a mystery the elder princess could not solve. Now, years of secrecy unraveled in an instant.

Her father redirected the conversation to their clustered visitors. “Yes, it was long ago, and much has happened in the interim. We welcome you to our court, Prince of Capria, and hope you will find friends here even if such has not yet been your fortune.” He tipped a wry smile toward his younger daughter, the first clue she had that her blunt rejection of the delegation could be conceived as a diplomatic insult.

They had come to treat. She had denied them kinship.

She would do it again, if pressed. Her lips flattened to a thin line and she shifted her attention to the wall.

The meeting continued according to its original course, with no need for her to interact. Jaoven brought greetings from his father, the newly ascended King Armel. If his voice wavered as he recited the flowery speech, the Wessettan nobles could attribute it to his nerves rather than any burgeoning dismay over the identity of their unremarkable second princess .

For her part, Iona enjoyed every small warble. How well did he remember her? Did he recall specifics, or only a general sense of his former conduct? Either one should damn a soul with a shred of conscience.

Not that Jaoven of Deraval had such a commodity. More than likely he feared her destroying this treaty—this proposed marriage alliance —with her older sister.

She fought the urge to laugh outright. The two monsters could have each other, with her blessing. And if their marriage carried Lisenn to Capria for the next several years, all the better. Absently she rubbed her left wrist, a habit she’d picked up ages ago.

“Iona, are you all right?” Her father’s question punctured her trail of thoughts. She started and looked to him in confusion. His glance flicked downward, to her nervous tell.

She carefully settled her hands in her lap. The whole room had gone still again. “I’m fine.”

“Is it bothering you, your old break?”

Her brain stuttered, but she shook her head. “No, sire.” He nodded and returned his attention to the Caprian delegates.

Did he know why his daughter had returned from foreign shores with her arm in a splint? She had given a clumsy excuse at the time, something about tripping on her way up a spiral staircase. Had he known all along that was a lie?

Jaoven of Capria knew, and his face was quite whey-colored because of it.

The meeting ended shortly thereafter, with Kester charged to escort the delegates to their diplomatic quarters. The nobles of Wessett ushered out behind them. Princess Lisenn exited the side door, her customary poise belying the storm that no doubt brewed within her. Iona counted to ten, wary of following her into the close, dark passageway.

“Your sister doesn’t like to be caught unaware,” King Gawen said, still seated on his throne .

Iona glanced first to her mother, who maintained a neutral expression. “I did not intend—”

He cut her off. “It doesn’t matter what you intended . For you to arrive in this court with a delegation that includes her proposed future husband, and for her to suddenly realize that you have more knowledge of that man and that country than she does, presents a remarkable lapse in judgement on your part. She knows now where you spent at least some of your time away from her. See that you give her no further reason to resent you for it.”

The injustice of this declaration burned bright within her chest. Her parents might have informed Lisenn any time in the past four years of where they had hidden her younger sister. They might have informed her within the last month, if treaty proposals had truly been happening for that long. Perhaps they might even have exercised some parental control over their elder daughter, so that hiding the younger away in odd corners of the world wasn’t necessary in the first place.

But speaking any of those words aloud would land her in more trouble than she already had. So instead she quietly said, “Yes, sire.”

He rose to depart his throne. Her mother cupped one thin-fingered hand over Iona’s and squeezed, sympathy in her eyes though it never crossed her lips. Then she wordlessly joined her husband, her arm on his as they left the great hall.

Reluctantly Iona stood. Aedan had hung back from the rest of the dissipating crowd. As soon as the king and queen disappeared through the side door, he broke away and jogged back across the wide marble floor.

“What happened?” he asked as Iona descended from the dais.

She made a disgusted noise. “I ran into them outside the stables. Who expected them to loiter there?”

“You ran for a horse? Why didn’t you just take off through the gardens? Kester’s not exactly in peak physical shape.”

She jabbed a finger in his ribs. With a yelp he danced out of place.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner the Caprians were coming?” she hissed. “You stewed on it for half an hour! I could have been long gone by then.”

Aedan only shook his head. “You’re the one who’s so particular about the light you want me posing in. And if you’d take even a particle of interest in what happens at court, you’d already have known for yourself. I wasn’t sure, since your hair was done so nice—”

“That was Bina’s doing.”

“Which goes to show that your lady’s maid knows more about this country than you do. Io, when it comes right down to it, you have only yourself to blame.”

This declaration, both correct and unjust, earned him a narrow glare. Iona trekked to the side door, with Aedan close beside her.

“So what now?” he asked. “Do we go back to painting?”

She kept her attention ahead, scanning the passageway for any sign of danger as she walked. “It’s too late. The light will have shifted for the day.”

“Then what are you going to do? Move on to your music practice, like you normally would?”

“I’m going to get a horse and ride for the hills.”

“Be serious.”

She paused to pin him with a stare. “I am serious. Do you think your mother would put me up for a week? Or should I join a pack of traveling minstrels?”

“I don’t think you’re strong enough to carry a clavichord on your back,” Aedan said dubiously, “and they probably don’t need another lutist.” She shoved his chest, and he suppressed a laugh. “Cheer up. Did you get a look of that Prince Jaoven when you took your throne? He didn’t know who you really were until that very moment, I’d wager.”

“No, he assumed I was a Caprian deserter and was going to rain judgement on my head.”

Her cousin goggled. She resumed her forward motion, checking every branching hall and doorway they approached for evidence of her sister .

Aedan danced at her heels. “I want to hear the whole story. So he recognized you as Yanna of—” His voice cut off in a yelp as she pinched his arm.

“Do not use that name. I might need it again someday.”

“All right, all right.” Hands aloft, he backed away.

Iona tempered her voice. “Are you going to help me escape, or not?” The half-regretful glance he cast over his shoulder provided answer enough. She heaved a sigh. “Fine. Get out of here. Besseta’s waiting, I’m sure.”

“She’s not—” He clipped the protest short. Sheepishly he said, “I’m not supposed to see her until tonight. But if I’m halfway across the kingdom with you, I can’t exactly keep that meeting, can I.”

Her problems were of her own making. She didn’t need to pull her cousin from his budding love life. He had trouble enough, the only son of a duke falling for a tradesman’s daughter. His parents hadn’t forbidden the courtship, but they weren’t encouraging it either.

Of course, it helped that the tradesman in question was disgustingly rich. Besseta Quayle had the education and wardrobe of any noble peer, and beauty and wit enough to rival them all. By miracles alone Aedan had not proposed the first time he met her.

“You can keep your meeting,” Iona said, grudgingly. “Only, if you find my body strung from the highest tower, burn a candle for my memory, would you?” He grimaced, squeamishly, and she swatted at him. “I’m kidding. She’s never actually tried to kill me.”

True enough though that was, her heart yet fluttered against her ribs.

“I’ll see you to your studio, at least,” Aedan said. He looped a protective arm around her and guided her further down the hall.

The gesture reminded her how small she was. Her shoulder fit neatly against the pit of his arm.

Why couldn’t she have an older brother like this, instead of the demon sister she had? She wouldn’t mind losing her place in the succession if her aunt and uncle petitioned to take her in.

Her parents would never allow it, though. Queen Marget had no cause to relinquish her second child to her brother’s care, and King Gawen liked the peace of mind that second child’s existence brought.

An heir and a spare. His bloodline was secure.

And if the treaty with Capria truly promised to combine the two kingdoms in Lisenn’s firstborn, King Gawen had all the more reason to rejoice. They had been a single nation once but broke apart a few centuries back, when the crown split between two bickering claimants. Capria had been the stronger kingdom then. Wessett was the stronger kingdom now. Her family’s reach would extend onto the mainland, and Lisenn was the perfect emissary for that to occur.

Conquering always required ruthlessness.

The door to her studio stood wide open, as she had left it. She exchanged a nervous glance with Aedan. Perhaps she should have retreated to her bedroom instead of somewhere so obvious as this.

She needn’t have worried about her sister laying a trap, however. Lisenn stood blatantly in the center of the room, arms folded, her indigo eyes a frigid contrast to the soft pink of her gown and the peonies in her raven hair. Had she possessed any personality but her own, Iona would have been fascinated with painting her, sketching her, studying how to capture her likeness in every medium available.

The last artist to attempt a portrait had lost an eye when Lisenn disapproved of the result. Their father compensated him handsomely and hushed the incident from leaving the castle as anything more than an unfortunate accident.

“Aedan, out,” the crown princess said to the pair frozen on the threshold.

“But—”

“ Out , I said. And shut the door behind you.”

He couldn’t defy a direct order, though the look he gave Iona as he left conveyed his regret. The door latched into place with an ominous click. Lisenn stalked forward like a rabid wolf. She seized Iona’s bodice and shoved her against the worn, dark wood, the knob digging into the younger woman’s back .

“You thought you could humiliate me?” she asked, her nose two inches away.

Iona’s head swam. “No! I didn’t—”

But Lisenn only yanked her forward and shoved her backward again, slamming her shoulders against the door. She got into Iona’s face again. “You’re not necessary, and you never will be. You’re a worthless placeholder, and if you do anything—and I mean anything —to wreck this treaty, I will pull your toenails out one by one and force you to eat them. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Iona breathed. The fist against her chest pushed harder, digging knuckles into her sternum.

“How well does the Prince of Capria know you?”

“Hardly—not at all.”

“And how well do you know him?”

“Lisenn, I don’t—!” The back of her sister’s free hand struck her face, and she bit the inside of her cheek.

“You keep away from him, from all of them. This treaty will happen. I will sit on the combined thrones of Capria and Wessett, and you will know your pathetic place.”

Iona mutely nodded, but the fist in her dress tightened.

“Say it.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what ?”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”

Lisenn slammed her against the door one more time for good measure. “If I have to remind you again, you’ll regret it. I still have the necklace I made from your milk teeth. I’m happy to add to the collection should the occasion arise.”

On that threat, she flung her sister away. Iona landed hard on the stone floor, gasping for a full breath, clutching at her chest as her older sister vanished into the hall. Purposeful footsteps receded up the corridor, and soon after, another set crept back.

Aedan knelt beside her. “Are you all right? ”

Dazed, Iona met his concerned gaze and nodded.

He clucked like a mother hen and pressed a handkerchief into her limp grip. “Your mouth is bleeding. Did she hit you?”

“Not hard enough to bruise. I just bit myself.”

Again he clucked, and then he gathered her up from the floor.

“I’m all right,” Iona feebly said as he helped her to an old couch in the corner. “It could have been so much worse.”

“Sure, you could be strung from the highest tower.” Aedan deposited her with a scowl. “And your sister skirts away without a word of censure and marries the dashing heir to a neighboring crown.”

Iona caught at him before he could withdraw. “I hope she does,” she said, suddenly fervent on that single point. “I hope she marries him, and they’re both awful to each other. He’s horrible, the worst, most selfish bully you can dream of.”

“Worse than her?” Aedan asked.

“Just as heartless, if not as unhinged. He once put another student in the infirmary for daring not to bow low enough when he passed.” She paused, memories flitting before her in nonsensical order. That injured student had been Neven, who apparently still cowered to the imperious Jaoven’s command.

Despite her offered evidence, Aedan remained unconvinced. “Anger on a whim is nothing to your sister’s malice. She always plans her attacks ahead of time.”

Even so, Iona wouldn’t concede the worthiness of the match. Jaoven and Lisenn deserved to wed. Perhaps one would kill the other and inadvertently bless the world. At the very least, their union would spare any other prospective partners from a terrible fate.

As soon as the door to the diplomatic common room closed, the Caprian delegation fell into disarray. Prince Jaoven, an anguished cry upon his lips, strode across the marble floor, pacing between a pair of ivory silk couches as his entourage fanned out along the walls.

He raked one long-fingered hand through his hair and turned. “Did any of you know?”

Heads shook, and voices murmured denials, though each member looked to the others for clues of a forthcoming confession.

“How could we, Jove?” Elouan asked. “We would have warned you if we had.”

As the others echoed this sentiment, the prince huffed in despair. “I’ve ruined everything already, and it hasn’t even been an hour. Riok, can we sail home tonight?”

Their senior delegate, a man of only thirty-four, frowned at this inquiry. “Is that truly necessary, Your Royal Highness?”

“It will be, if we’re not all cast into prison before noon,” Jaoven said darkly, and he began to pace again.

With far more experience in diplomacy, Riok of Arraven maintained his equilibrium among the younger Caprian nobles. He delicately cleared his throat. “Am I understanding this situation correctly? The second princess of Wessett once attended Capria’s Royal College under an assumed name?”

“She called herself Yanna of Ghemp,” said Elouan bitterly.

Riok observed the hunched shoulders and downcast gazes of his fellow delegates and the continued pacing of his prince. “I take it something occurred there to cast you in her bad graces.”

Jaoven pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache pulsing in the space above his eye sockets. “You attended the Royal College in your own time. You should be well versed with the social pecking order that once existed there.”

The man digested this statement. “But surely a princess of Wessett—”

“We didn’t know she was a princess,” Elouan interjected.

Beside him, Denoela of Rosemarch shook her head and added, “She only had one meager servant and a set of drab gowns with the hems constantly lowered, and she studied the arts exclusively. Who would expect the child of a king to claim kinship with Ghemp? If there was anyone we ranked lower in the school, I can’t remember them.”

At last Riok grasped the seriousness of this situation. He sank onto one of the ivory couches and looked to his prince, as though steeling himself for the worst. “Exactly how vicious was your cohort during her time there?”

Jaoven met his gaze and immediately averted his eyes.

Riok twisted to the rest of the group, mutely demanding a response. In the thick and stifling silence, Neven cleared his throat.

“She wasn’t treated well,” he said quietly. “None of us in the lower ranks were.”

“And did her ill treatment extend into the yearly Hunt?”

The atmosphere grew thicker still. When no one else responded, Neven said curtly, “Yes.”

“It was only a game .” Elouan tossed his head and threw his hands in the air. “We were practically children—stupid and conceited, perhaps, but never with intent to cause serious harm.”

Several voices echoed his, feeble justification on their lips.

“Shut up, all of you,” Jaoven said, and he slammed a fist against the plastered wall. “It might have been a game to us, but only because as hunters we had the upper hand. I guarantee that anyone forced to hide felt much differently about the experience.” His hazel eyes sought Neven, who met his gaze and quietly nodded.

Riok, usually reserved, uttered an oath under his breath. “Did you cause any specific injuries to her, or was it only general mistreatment?”

Glances exchanged, people again reluctant to speak.

“There was a sprained ankle,” Neven said, “but the worst injury was her arm.”

“We didn’t know it was broken,” Elouan snapped. “She never said a word, and the swelling was hidden beneath her sleeve. We didn’t know until we tossed her in with the rest of the captives and she couldn’t catch herself. ”

“I broke it.” Jaoven’s quiet words cut like a knife through the air. When Elouan started to protest, the prince forestalled him with a raised hand. “Not on purpose, not directly, but it was my fault. She’d been in the woods for three days, the last person we still had to catch, and it was raining and cold, and we were tired. By luck I saw the hem of her dress in an oak tree. When I tried to force her down, she fell and landed wrong on her arm.”

Riok buried his head against his palms, a groan escaping his lips. For a long breath, no one spoke. At last, the elder diplomat rubbed his brow with the heels of his hands and said to the floor, “You must apologize.”

Jaoven scoffed at the futility of this counsel. “What apology can compensate for a broken arm and the hundred other ills she must have suffered by us?”

“A sincere one, we may hope,” said Riok. He looked up, meeting his prince’s despair with a somber gaze. “We haven’t lost this gambit yet, Your Highness. Consider that the Crown of Wessett gave no indication of ill will over our correspondences this past month. It’s possible the princess never told her parents the truth.”

“The crown prince’s assassination occurred not three weeks after that final Hunt,” Jaoven replied. “If that was the point she returned home, she did so in a splint. And from her father’s words today, he knows of the injury at least, if not its source.”

But his advisor only shook his head. “I’ll lay odds she never told him how it came about. She was at the college for how long, a year? And never revealed her true status despite the treatment she received?”

“It was four years,” Denoela spoke up. “We were the same age, and she was there from the start, always in her quiet corner of the dining hall, sketching or reading by herself. She carried the charade for four years.”

“She didn’t go home for summers, either,” said Neven, though haltingly. “She spent them at the dorms, she and her maid together. ”

“Which begs the question why,” Riok concluded. He pinned his newly crowned prince with a pointed stare. “It’s entirely possible that the King of Wessett used a Caprian boarding school as punishment for misbehavior here. Something happened to bring her to our shores, and her quiet acceptance of a rank far beneath her touch indicates it was an act of penance. She couldn’t call upon her family’s strength to deliver her. If we can discover why, it may give us leverage in the negotiations yet to come.”

Jaoven contemplated this, turning the possibility over in his mind. It didn’t sit right, but neither could he afford to dismiss anything that might benefit Capria.

“How would we even discover such a thing? Our informants have brought back not even a hint of scandal about the Wessettan royals.”

“Then we dig deeper,” his advisor said, standing. “But first, you apologize, and the sooner the better. Make amends with the second princess, and she may divulge the truth to you herself.”

“She won’t meet me. She ran into us only by accident this morning, and her path was headed away from the great hall, not toward it. I think she intended to skip the reception entirely.”

“Send your apologies to her, then. Request her presence. Allow her to come on her own terms.”

The prince glanced around the room, measuring each face in turn. His attention rested on Neven. The man, a year his junior, was the obvious choice. He had studied alongside Yanna of Ghemp, had shared her classes and misfortunes of rank.

“Will you carry that message?” he quietly asked.

Neven licked his lips, nervous. “I can try.”

“You don’t have to grovel. If she’s willing to hear me out, I’ll do that myself.”

“Jove, surely not—” Elouan began, but the prince silenced him with a glare.

“We’ve all sacrificed for Capria, Elou. It won’t hurt me to sacrifice such a pittance more.”