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A edan remained with Iona through the afternoon, listening to her run exercises on her clavichord, cajoling her to work on her current still life, even sketching in the garden alongside her for an hour. His presence calmed her nerves, so that by the time the daylight shifted to its golden tones she felt almost herself again.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your dalliance tonight?” she asked at last, though reluctant to give up his company.

He swatted her arm. “It’s not a dalliance. Don’t make it sound sordid.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Then what is it, a tryst?”

He suppressed a laugh, but the grin manifested anyway, along with a blush upon his cheeks. “I wish I could bring her to castle events.”

“You can. You just have to marry her first.”

“Trust me, I’m working on it.” He stood from the grass and offered her both his hands. Iona rose and tucked her sketchbook beneath one arm. Together they trekked from beside the fountain where they had settled, back toward the sprawling castle in the distance.

A pair of liveried servants met them halfway. One wordlessly proffered Aedan a sealed note. The other bowed to Iona and said, “ Your Highness, your father the king requests your attendance at a state dinner tonight, in honor of the visiting delegation.”

Her heart sank like a stone in a lake. She nodded her mute acknowledgment. Of course there would be a state dinner. Of course her father would insist that she attend. He didn’t always, but why should she escape the one delegation she most wished to avoid?

Her servant retreated alongside his fellow, leaving the younger pair behind. Aedan was wrapped in his note.

“Oh, don’t get your puppy eyes on yet,” he said, his mouth twisting in disappointment. “My father the duke requests my attendance as well, in his stead. Apparently he’s been summoned for an urgent matter at the estate, and the House of Gleddistane must have representation. Independent of your mother, I mean.”

“I’m so sorry,” Iona said, even as her hope renewed.

He bumped her shoulder. “No you’re not. I mean, sure you are, but not really.” He slapped the refolded letter against his open palm, looking around them in disgust. “I have to jot a note to Bess, see if I can change our meeting time. Dad must’ve figured me out, but that doesn’t mean he can thwart me. Will you be safe heading back on your own?”

“I do live here,” she said.

“And so does your beastly sister.”

“She preens for at least two hours before any event, so I’m in the clear until well after dark.”

A breathy laugh escaped him, and he flipped a lock of her hair that had worked itself loose. “You might consider some preening of your own. Be careful, all right? I’ll see you soon.” After a farewell kiss on the cheek, he trotted away in the direction of the stables. Iona ambled toward the castle, watching from the corner of her eyes until he disappeared. She picked up her pace, then, headed for the entrance nearest her own rooms. A body stepped out from beneath the shadowed arch, and she stopped short.

It was Neven of Combran. How long had he been waiting for her? Had he spied on her that afternoon, so that he could lie in wait for her return?

“Your Highness—”

She tried to skirt around him, but he stepped into her path, words tumbling like a waterfall from his mouth. “Your Highness, please. Please give us a chance to offer our sincere apologies—”

“Your apologies ?” she interjected, unable to contain her disbelief. “ Your apologies? Does your crown prince know you’re here? Are you even a ranking member of the Caprian government? Or do I only merit the lowest sycophant in his entourage?” How cruel those words sounded, but this man had played his own part in her undoing today. He deserved none of her pity.

“Please,” Neven said, still actively blocking her progress, his hands raised as though he would catch her, although he exercised caution never to touch. “Please, the prince sent me because he assumed I could find more favor in your eyes than anyone else of our party.”

She stepped decidedly backward, folding her arms tight as she glared. “Did he? Why, pray tell?”

Neven squirmed under her pointed gaze. He floundered for words, his voice growing smaller. “Because we were… back then, in that time… you and I were ranked the same.”

“Yes. We were, weren’t we. And here you are, still doing his bidding.”

“I’m a viscount now.”

She tipped her head in acknowledgment. “So you’ve moved up in status. My congratulations.” When she attempted to pass him again, though, he persisted in waylaying her.

“Please, Your Highness—”

“I don’t want your apologies, Neven, and I don’t want his , and certainly not from a proxy.”

“He will deliver them himself if you are willing to listen. Please, Yan—Your Highness, if you will but allow us to make amends!”

Iona opened her mouth to deny him once and for all, but a new thought occurred. Jaoven of Deraval, lowering himself to apologize? The very image defied belief. “You know what? I would like to see that,” she said.

Relief flooded Neven’s face. He motioned her into the archway, eager to convey her to his prince, no doubt worried she would change her mind en route. She kept pace alongside him, adjusting her sketchbook in her arms, heedless of the pencil perched behind one ear. In the past she would have squirreled away such implements. Art students were lesser creatures, unworthy of those who studied science or athletics. Only the useless second-borns could have such luxury, to pursue a frivolous pastime instead of strength or greater wisdom.

In Iona’s case, at least, that much was true. She dared a single member of the Caprian delegation to sneer at her for it, though.

The diplomatic quarters lay along an adjoining corridor. Neven, too wary of losing his quarry within sight of his goal, motioned her ahead of him. A silhouette retreated within an open door halfway down the hall, and conversation in the room beyond cut short. Iona entered to deathly silence, all eyes in the room upon her. They had sent their attendants and advisors away, so that only the official delegates remained. Three of the four in addition to the prince had kept regular company with him at the Royal College, back when he had been only the son of a duke.

It seemed the newly ascended King Armel had let his precious heir stack his entourage with cronies.

Behind her, Neven shut the door and leaned against it for support. “Your Royal Highness, Princess Iona of Wessett has agreed to hear your petition.”

The introduction, so unnecessary, made the encounter all the more surreal. Iona had fixed her attention on Jaoven from the moment she crossed the threshold. He, however, could barely meet her gaze, his eyes flitting from her face to her feet and every other point around her. Time had improved his looks from a beautiful, haughty boy to a handsome, polished man. He and her sister would make an exquisite, if not deadly, pair .

And she was already breaking Lisenn’s one commandment by occupying the same room. “Be quick about it,” she said. “My time is too valuable to waste here.”

In answer, his knees hit the floor, followed by his hands, the position a hallmark of abject humiliation. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I have wronged you, deeply in the past and again this very morning. I regret—” The word caught in his throat. His gaze remained fixed upon the patch of marble between his flattened palms as he sucked in a controlled inhale. “I regret the youth I once was and that my reaction to your presence today thrust this delegation into such a negative light. I take complete responsibility and beg your forgiveness. We have come in good faith.”

His apology hung upon the air, with a dozen onlookers breathless for how its recipient might respond. Iona, having never imagined such a display even possible, stared slack-jawed. The moment stretched thin, and when Jaoven finally chanced an upward glance, she snapped her mouth shut.

She had no words. In confusion she spun, determined to leave this room and its dangerous occupants behind. Neven even started to open the door.

Jaoven scrambled up after her. “Wait! Please!” When she paused, leveling him an incredulous look, he wrung his hands. “Yan—Your Highness, we have come to treat with Wessett. Please, will you give us a chance?”

“Give you a chance?” she echoed, half-wild to be gone. “Treat as you please. It has nothing to do with me.”

Anxiety flashed across his face. “You won’t undermine our efforts?”

There lay his true concern. She dismissed it on a short, derisive laugh. “Ha. No. Is that all you’re worried about? You could’ve saved your breath: I have nothing to do with diplomacy, and I have no intention of interfering.”

His brows arched. Did he regret abasing himself to such an extent? Because she deeply regretted the exhibition. She would blast it from her memory if she only could.

At her commanding look, Neven swung the door wide open. She swept into the hall without a backward glance, her feet treading almost faster than her thoughts could run.

The apology was nothing more than a ruse, a moment of disgrace intended to curry her favor. And she, like a simple child, had walked right into it, had risked her neck to witness whether a man she despised would thus humiliate himself.

Apparently this treaty meant more to Jaoven than his pride. Perhaps the newly fledged prince had other schemes up his sleeves than a simple marriage alliance.

Well, but Lisenn would put him in check soon enough. Iona had only to sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

“That went surprisingly well,” Riok said as soon as the door had shut.

“Too well.” Jaoven, absently staring at the spot where Princess Iona had so recently stood, rubbed his lower lip. “She couldn’t wait to be out of our presence, and she dismissed my apology as an unnecessary overture.”

Neven sank into the chair nearest him. “She said she didn’t want apologies, Jove. I think she only came to prove you wouldn’t offer one at all.”

Denoela leaned forward where she sat on one ivory couch. “But she told us to treat with her father anyway.”

“That’s what bothers me the most,” said the prince. “She must know we’re proposing a marriage alliance. By her reactions now and earlier today, I’m a villain in her eyes. So why allow me to pursue a marriage with her sister, into her own family?”

Elouan pushed away from the wall and strode into the center of the room. “Maybe she doesn’t understand. Maybe she thinks if you marry Princess Lisenn, the throne of Wessett falls to her. Maybe the second-born has more ambitions than her art and music studies might indicate.”

The allegation made sense. Countries were more likely to split than combine, and marriage treaties usually only brought kinship with a promise of peace, not a forged alliance under a shared crown.

Still, Princess Iona’s words rang in his mind. “I don’t think that’s it. She said she has nothing to do with diplomacy. There’s some other power at play here, some influence we haven’t encountered yet, for all our official and non-official inquiries.”

“Maybe she hates her sister,” said a quiet voice in the corner. All eyes turned to the youngest member of their delegation, Clervie of Trevilis. She sat, arms folded, her dark hair loose in waves around her face and her black eyes keen upon the prince.

He stepped closer. “What makes you think that?”

“She was a year ahead of me. Say what you will about art students—no offense, Neven—but she was clever. All three years I participated in the Hunt, she was the very last one caught.”

“I remember,” Elouan said with a bitter grunt. “It took us off-guard that first time, because the year before she hadn’t lasted an hour. We thought she’d be easy to pick off, and when we tallied the prey and she was still missing, the older boys threw a fit.”

Clervie nodded. “To go from among the very first caught to the very last in only a year means she must have spent the interim forming strategies for how to survive. But she never gave even the slightest hint, just as she never hinted at her true rank. And she repeated her success for two more years, which means she wasn’t using the same hiding places from one Hunt to the next. She works in the shadows, Jove, where no one pays her any heed.”

“And what does that have to do with her hating her sister?” he asked, intrigued by this insight to a character he had never been able to pin.

“If she’s conspiring against the crown princess, our proposed alliance may have no effect on plans already in play. It may even work to her favor. If she sees you as a villain, why would she care if you take her hated sister away?”

Jaoven arched one brow. “You think she’s plotting to usurp the throne?”

“I think someone might be. All our inquiries here have returned reports that the people of Wessett are favorable to this treaty. No country is that unified. That means someone’s tapped into our line of spies and they’re tampering with our communications. Imagine, if you will, that the people themselves don’t want this alliance, that they want to remain separate and distinct. It’s entirely possible. Wessett and Capria were at war for a hundred years after Wessett split off, in words if not in actual battles. If King Gawen announces a treaty that joins us again, it will create unrest in the broader countryside, and those in positions of power who oppose the union can use that momentum to start a revolution against the crown.”

“And you think Princess Iona’s involved in such a plot?”

Clervie spread her fingers wide. “I’m only speculating on patterns I can see. We’re all aware of how a second-born can rebel against the titled heir.”

Uneasiness seeped across the room, delegates exchanging cagey glances.

“We’re not to speak of it,” Jaoven said, a thorn of iron in his voice. “If such a plot does exist on these shores, I’m not convinced that Iona would be involved. She is clever, as you say, but she only used that cleverness to survive, never to topple us from our perch.”

“Still, it bears looking into, Your Highness,” said Riok with utmost care.

The prince contemplated this advice and ultimately nodded. “Stay on alert, then, for any rumors of unrest in the castle and the city beyond.”

“And what of Iona?” Elouan asked.

A muscle rippled along Jaoven’s jawline. “I’ll keep an eye on her myself, and see what I can glean from her sister as well. I’m in prime position to have access to them both, after all.”