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C apria by night was nothing but distant specks of light against deep shadows. The tide when they arrived was too low to sail up river, but the king had apparently been watching for his son’s return. The ship weighed anchor off-shore and they rowed in smaller vessels to the beach, with carriages waiting for them on a road beyond. The salt-laden breeze nipped at Iona as she huddled into a borrowed cloak.

She was lucky to have the garment. Lisenn’s trousseau was on the ship, but it felt wrong to raid it for her own needs, especially after learning of her sister’s presumed fate. Denoela had supplied an alternative, though, and its dark color helped Iona feel more like herself.

A pair of wooden crutches completed her meager set of borrowed belongings. Neven had discovered them among the ship’s medical supplies, as well as a hacksaw to adjust them when they proved too long for Iona’s frame. The princess needed help getting in and out of the smaller boat, but she could manage well enough otherwise.

“I’ll bet you never thought that sprained ankle would be such good practice for the future,” Clervie said, elbowing her as they stood upon the strand with the sound of the ocean in their ears.

Neven tweaked the woman’s dark hair in passing. “Leave Iona be. She needs none of your teasing tonight.” He moved on to Jaoven and Elouan, who were arranging with an attendant to send a message ahead to the Caprian king.

Clervie sighed, her gaze following him. “I’m going to marry that man.”

Iona, startled, looked to her and then the object of her unexpected adoration. “Who, Neven?”

The younger woman hummed an affirmative.

“Does he know that?” Iona asked.

Clervie’s brow wrinkled. “Sort of. He thinks it’s a passing whim, so he allows it the same way a person lets a strange cat rub against their leg. The thing he doesn’t understand is that cats adopt the people they want, and then they never leave. I was a spy during the war, you know?”

The abrupt change of subject bewildered Iona all the more, though the revelation itself seemed logical enough.

“I was young enough to pass as harmless, and of course no one expects cunning from a girl,” Clervie continued. “Over the years, I saw horrible things, images that haunt me when I close my eyes at night: death and depravity, the very worst of human sins. Neven saw such things as well, but he can channel his trauma into song, and when he does, it wipes away the grit and residue of war. It’s a wonderful gift, music. You’re lucky to have it.”

“You could learn to play,” Iona said.

An impish smile lit Clervie’s face. “Why should I when I have him to play for me?”

Denoela joined them in time to hear this last remark. “Are you still mooning over your viscount?”

Clervie only chuckled, a contained, closed-mouth noise as though she enjoyed a private joke .

Further up the beach, the messenger departed, tucking away the missive that Jaoven had handed him—a note he’d scribbled on the ship while Iona snoozed against his shoulder. She hadn’t seen its contents, only awoke while he folded it against the book he’d used as a makeshift writing surface.

Whatever he’d chosen to disclose, she was at the Caprians’ mercy now.

“Looks like the carriages are ready for us,” said Denoela. “Are you alright to leg across the sand?” Iona shifted a dour look toward her, and she had the grace to laugh. “I get it. You’ll be fine.”

The sand did prove more unstable than expected, but she took her time across the strip to the grassland. Jaoven fell in step beside her, silent, his hands in his pockets and his eyes raised skyward to the moonless night.

She appreciated the lack of conversation and the respect for her independence despite her slow pace. Even so, she broke the stillness between them. “Did I ever thank you? For this morning?”

“Not in so many words, but I felt it was implied. Your cousin is more to thank than I am, though. I never would have found you on my own.”

“I hope—” Her voice caught in the sudden tightness of her throat. She breathed past it. “I hope he is safe and well.”

“As do I, though he probably wants my head on a platter at this point. I’m sure we’ll hear soon enough, one way or the other.”

They exchanged an understanding glance. He wouldn’t reassure her with false expectations. Her father had a hundred trained guards at his immediate command, and Aedan had been standing in their midst the last time she saw him. Even if the coup itself succeeded, there would be casualties on both sides of the conflict.

The second carriage lay nearest to Iona’s labored trek. Jaoven helped her up, but when he tried to follow, two figures thrust themselves between him and the coach steps.

“For shame, Your Highness,” said Clervie while Denoela clambered inside. “Riding in a closed carriage with an unmarried woman in the dark of night?”

“If you’re both here, I don’t see the problem,” he replied, and he tried for the door again.

Again she blocked his path. “Go ride with your boys and leave us be.”

He peered into the carriage. Iona had already settled in one corner with her splinted leg propped on the opposite seat.

“Only room for three,” Denoela chirped.

When he looked back to Clervie, she gasped as though scandalized. “You would send me into a closed carriage with only men?”

“I think they’d have more to fear than you do,” the prince said. He shifted his attention to Iona. “If these two annoy you, feel free to beat them with your crutches.”

She couldn’t suppress her laugh in time. Jaoven took that as a good enough sign and surrendered to Clervie’s demands. As he moved to the front carriage, she climbed inside and shut the door, triumph upon her shadowed face.

“I thought Caprians didn’t have qualms against traveling in mixed company anymore,” Iona said.

“Oh, we don’t,” said Clervie, “but Elouan snores.”

“You can have your prince back when we reach the castle,” Denoela added. “An hour without him won’t kill you.”

“It almost did this morning.” Iona made this remark almost off-hand. It still seemed surreal how close she had come to death. If Lisenn had waited until after the ceremony to seize her—

But Jaoven had already decided against the marriage, so her impending doom would have been delayed for a later time, and she would have remained none the wiser to it. In the darkness she allowed herself a small, shuddering sigh. Too much had happened today. Those moments in her sister’s tower seemed more like a nightmare than a true experience, but her aching leg witnessed otherwise.

“Can you talk about it?” Clervie asked. “Sometimes it helps. ”

What had she said during their last carriage ride together? Something about wounds healing when you got the poison out. The pair of girls, once numbered among her tormenters, seemed harmless now, and their bygone harassments paled in comparison to her sister’s.

So, after a deep breath, she spoke openly and honestly of Lisenn, of the beautiful, vicious fiend who had lurked at the edge of her consciousness all her life.

When the coach stopped in front of a brightly illuminated castle and Jaoven swung open its door, Clervie descended ghostly white.

“Holy stars, we dodged an arrow,” she said, and she staggered away.

Denoela, almost green, emerged on her heels to clap the prince’s shoulder in wordless accord. He shifted confused eyes upon Iona, who merely handed him her crutches before letting him help her down.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“No, but maybe it will be.”

Caprian guards lined the sweeping stairs that led up to the castle itself, their blue cloaks a strange echo of their Wessettan counterparts across the sea. Iona, despite having lived in this kingdom for four years, had only ever seen the magnificent structure from afar. She hopped up step-by-step, conscious of a hundred pairs of eyes upon her.

The king of Capria awaited them in the plaza at the top, flanked by guards and advisors. He provided a glimpse of what Jaoven would look like in twenty or thirty years: the same eyes, the same jawline, the same lean physique, but weathered at the edges with age and experience.

The prince, who had kept careful pace beside Iona, looked to his father almost sheepishly.

King Armel did not greet him with an embrace or even a smile. Instead, he asked, “Am I to understand that you traveled to a would-be ally, murdered their crown princess, kidnapped their next heir to the throne, and plunged them into a civil war?”

Jaoven weighed the accusations, shifting from one foot to the other as he considered how best to respond. “I… yes? ”

His father speared him with a look .

He bristled. “What was I supposed to do? Marry the vicious snake and bring her here?”

“Maybe not kill her?” the king said, exasperated.

“She deserved it,” muttered his son. “If you’d seen that torture room of hers, it would’ve turned your hair white.”

“Well, at least Tuzhan and Uthala might think twice before meddling with us, if that’s the reputation you earn.” He shifted to Iona, then, and bowed his head. “You are, of course, welcome in Capria, Your Highness, for as long as you have need of our protection.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The following morning brought no fleet of Wessettan warships, as Iona feared it might. Instead, soon after the first light of dawn spread across her borrowed room, a knock on her door preceded the entrance of her own maid.

Bina burst into tears at the sight of her. Iona sat up straight amid a sea of pillows, expecting to be enveloped in a tight embrace, but the servant only stepped to one side, restraining her emotions. Queen Marget filled the spot she vacated, wearing dark clothes as testament of mourning.

Mother and daughter stared at one another across the gap, uncertainty hanging in the air between them. On the queen’s name Lisenn had summoned her sister to her doom, but Marget had also orchestrated Iona an escape.

“Your sister is dead, and your father is deposed,” said the queen.

Iona’s breath caught in her throat. “And Aedan?”

“The blessed boy has a stab wound in his arm and a pretty fiancée to nurse his every need. Iona, I didn’t—” She started forward but caught herself, wringing her hands. “I didn’t protect you as well as I wanted to. I tried, but your father kept me under constant watch. ”

“You knew? Of Uncle Orran, and of my intended fate?”

“I learned of Orran after the deed. Your father claimed he was fostering an insurrection, but my brother told me otherwise, that Orran lived out the last year of his life as a prisoner, guarded everywhere he went and waiting for the final blade to drop. He said the same would eventually happen to you, that the House of Wessett extended back to its founding in one unbroken branch by design, not by tragedy. And Lisenn herself was such an unnatural child, bloodthirsty and proud of it. Gawen refused to intervene, and even encouraged her. Any time I spoke up, he would give me this look, and I would remember his poor brother, poisoned without remorse and a false cause of death assigned.

“I did what I could for you, hampered within the boundaries the king imposed on me. I hoped the Caprians would carry Lisenn away and give us both some room to breathe. And then, when their prince proved a better man than expected, I hoped he would steal you away instead and end this cycle of death—for a generation, if nothing more.”

Understanding prickled along Iona’s scalp. “The red dress,” she murmured.

Her mother faintly smiled. “That was meant as a final nudge. Anyone with eyes could see his interest lay with you far more than Lisenn. And she was already cracking at the seams, inches away from exposing her true self. Did you know? She destroyed your studio during the night after you returned, not before.”

Aedan’s ruined portrait, the slashes across his face, suddenly made sense. If word of Iona had come straight to the crown, Lisenn could have arranged her death or imprisonment. But their cousin had interfered, providing her safe passage back into the public eye.

“Can you forgive me?” Queen Marget asked. “I should have done more, but I could not even warn you of your father’s deceit.”

For twenty years, she had lived in mortal fear, both for her child and herself. Over the course of her life, Iona had had scant contact with her mother, and none of it private. There was always a guard, always another set of eyes watching their every interaction. It had seemed so commonplace that she had never questioned it until now.

And yet, Queen Marget had smiled every time they met, had clasped her hand under the dinner table, had made near-constant overtures to reassure her that she loved her.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Iona said. “If you had acted out of place you would be dead.”

A sob broke upon her mother’s lips. She nodded, then crossed the room to encircle her child in a crushing hug. They cried together, an unspoken bond between them, and only paused long enough to draw an uncertain Bina into their intimate huddle, for the servant had provided a role that the mother had longed to fulfill.

“What happens now?” Iona asked.

Marget kissed the top of her head and pushed a lock of golden hair behind her ear. “The Lords of Wessett have condemned your father for treason. He awaits his execution, and you are the rightful queen.”

Iona huffed a rueful laugh, overwhelmed. “I don’t know the first thing about running a kingdom.”

“Then I suggest,” said her mother with a knowing look, “that you negotiate an alliance with someone else who does.”

Hours later, dressed in one of her own dark gowns and groomed in her usual style, Iona ventured alone from her borrowed room. She wasn’t certain where she might find Jaoven, but she had no cause to worry. He occupied a chair directly across the broad hall.

When she appeared, he sat up straight and then stood. “That’s weird of me, isn’t it, waiting outside your door?”

“Why didn’t you knock?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to interrupt. Is your mother all right?”

“She fell asleep while Bina was doing my hair. Did she already tell you?”

“That I’m speaking to the Queen of Wessett? Yes. It seems you outrank me once again. ”

A nervous laugh escaped her. “I’m not the queen yet. Maybe they’ll change their minds between now and when I finally return.”

“Why should they?” Jaoven asked.

She tapped one crutch against the ground, pitching her voice with disinterest. “They might not like the treaty I want to negotiate.”

In the silent aftermath, she lifted her eyes to meet his.

“And if they don’t?” he carefully asked.

“I think I would have to abdicate.”

In long strides he crossed the gap between them, looped an arm around her waist, and pulled her into a deep and avid kiss. Her crutches clattered to the ground as she found in him a more advantageous support.

“Are you sure?” he asked, breathless and half-afraid she might change her mind.

“Everyone’s replaceable in government,” she said, echoing words he had once spoken himself. “If they don’t want me under my terms, they can choose someone else. But that would leave me stranded here, of course.”

“Where you already have a place.”

“You father won’t mind? He won’t propose you seek an alliance with Tuzhan or Uthala instead?”

“I can threaten abdication just as well as you,” Jaoven replied, and he leaned in to kiss her once more.

Whether the thrones of Capria and Wessett would combine remained yet to be seen. Regardless, their respective heirs had chosen a future together, and no objections past or present could divide them.