Page 5

C louds hung low in the sky the next morning, swathing the countryside in hazy grayness. Iona woke at first light, a renewed sense of dread pressing upon her. Yesterday’s battles had ended mostly in her favor. Today held untold calamities, and whether she would triumph remained to be seen.

Almost sick from anticipation of the unknown, she arose and dressed. She pinned her hair in a simple knot at the base of her neck and left Bina never the wiser, still asleep in the servant’s room attached to Iona’s own.

Her footsteps carried her through the silent castle to her studio, where she checked every small corner for evidence of her sister’s malice. Lisenn had once emptied all of her paint pigments together into a bin, and she had squashed any half-formed sculptures until Iona abandoned clay as a medium altogether. She usually restrained herself to minor acts of destruction, but always seemed to home in on the works her younger sister loved the most.

The studio and its contents appeared untouched, however. Iona breathed a sigh of relief and settled for an early hour of practice on the worn clavichord in the corner of the room. The instrument, soft in its cadence, filled the quiet air. She closed her eyes as she played and could almost imagine herself in a world free of worry. The music filled her soul and buoyed her spirit.

But when she opened her eyes again, the scars on the inside of the clavichord’s folding lid anchored her back in reality. Lisenn had carved her own name into the wood when she was ten, and the jagged, unsightly marks, amid other slashes and scrapes, stared at the younger princess every time she practiced.

Clothing rustled in the open doorway behind her, a body shifting in its stance. Iona whirled, her heart lurching to her throat.

Jaoven of Capria took an uncertain step backward, and for a ghastly moment they locked gazes.

Her panic melted into indignation, but he spoke before she could. “I’m sorry I startled you. I heard music and followed the sound.”

Iona snapped her mouth shut, her cheeks blazing. No one but Lisenn ever bothered her in her studio. The rooms along this end of the castle mostly housed extra furniture and outdated records. She, like an unwanted sofa or chipped credenza, occupied a similar space.

Oblivious to the deep degree of his intrusion—or perhaps to make light of it—he chattered on. “So you can play after all. It seemed last night like you were unprepared for your father’s sudden request, but I suppose you simply didn’t want those of us from Capria in your audience.”

Then his party’s removal last night was, what, an act of pity? Or a strategy whose goal she had yet to discover?

“You were as white as a sheet,” he added when she said nothing.

Iona, far from wishing to dwell on the spectacle she had posed, hinged the lid of her instrument shut. “I participated in concerts at the Royal College, as did all the other musicians. If the lot of us hadn’t been beneath your contempt, you’d already know that I can play.”

She stood, then, her back to him. Her fingers traced a gouge across the clavichord’s top, Lisenn’s handiwork with a palette knife, which had ruined both the art tool and the decorative scene painted on the instrument’s lid.

“I have apologized,” Jaoven said in the doorway.

A soft chuckle broke from her lips. “You have. So why do you keep pestering me? If you had left me out of the conversation last night, my father would never have proposed that I play.”

“Capria needs this alliance.”

She glanced over her shoulder and met his steady gaze. “And I’ve already told you it has nothing to do with me.”

“But you could scuttle our efforts with a single word. For whatever reason, you’ve chosen not to reveal your past—with me or with any of my entourage—to even your own parents. Or so it seems. Why? Are you planning to string us along and then cut us loose when the treaty is all but forged? Perhaps your father already knows and he’s planning the same.” He raked one hand through his dark hair, his gaze lifting ceiling-ward. “I knew this was going too smoothly. We should cut loose ourselves and form a better plan.”

“A better plan?” she echoed, turning to face him fully. She crossed her arms. “What even is your purpose in requesting a treaty?”

His brows furrowed, and a hard edge entered his voice—an edge she recalled too well. “Strength and stability. I realize now that your parents would have pulled you to safety when the war broke out—and wisely so—but you have no concept what we’ve experienced since then. Even so, you lived in Capria once, and though that time obviously wasn’t—” He floundered for the proper word, and a frustrated breath escaped him when he came up short. “It obviously wasn’t ideal , but surely you can’t believe that the kingdom itself deserves to be overrun and destroyed. If we must absorb into a foreign power, at least let us choose which one and bargain for our rights to exist.”

Almost she could pity him. Reports of the war had been scant, and her history with the Royal College left her unwilling to hear them, lest she devolve too deeply into petty vindication, but she knew enough. Traitors had attacked the royal family itself, and the nobles had split allegiances in the conflict that ensued. Those loyal to the crown ultimately prevailed, but not before the former king and his direct descendants had been cut down like a fruitless tree branch.

A handful of teenaged bullies didn’t merit the whole country descending into bloodshed, even if they did represent the ruling class.

By that same token, they didn’t merit Iona meddling with a kingdom struggling to survive, either.

“So you believe I’m vindictive enough to scuttle your efforts , as you say. Isn’t that more a reflection on your disposition than on mine?”

He recoiled, confused.

“What you really mean,” Iona continued, “is that if you were in my position, suddenly holding power over a former tormenter, you would exploit every opportunity to exact your revenge, in as devastating a means as possible, regardless of how many other people it might hurt. Isn’t that it? But you and I aren’t the same. Had you been in my place four years ago, you would have pulled rank on your tormenters and had your vengeance then.”

Her accusation hung upon the air, the truth of it thrumming through her—and no doubt through him.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, starting across the threshold. “Why didn’t you pull rank? Second in line for the throne of Wessett? You could have commanded an army of sycophants, all the grasping little toad-eaters looking for a drop of favor from their superiors. Why didn’t you do it?”

She spun away, crossing deeper into the room. Blindly, solely to keep her hands busy, she began to rearrange paint brushes in a canister. “My reasons were my own.”

He followed her, his footsteps quick. “But it makes no sense. You outranked us all.” He grasped her shoulder, as though to twist her back around, but she flung away from him instead.

“It shouldn’t have mattered, Jaoven! It shouldn’t have mattered whether I was Iona of Wessett or Yanna of Ghemp! No one deserved the treatment you and your friends delivered. No one deserved the rough-housing, or the ridicule, or that wretched yearly Hunt . If dignity can only be earned by rank, then it’s worthless .”

Her insides knotted as the words poured out, years of suppressed trauma assaulting her in an instant. The object of her indignation winced, an unreadable something flashing across his face.

“I agree with you,” he whispered, as though haunted.

A tremulous breath escaped her, almost a laugh but far too cynical. “Forgive my skepticism. You were always the ringleader, even among students older than yourself.”

He pinned her with a steely gaze. “And I was wrong. Is no one allowed to change in your world, or am I simply beyond redemption?”

She stepped back, suddenly uncertain. If he was acting, he could rival any of the dramatists she’d once studied alongside. And somehow, now she was the unreasonable persecutor.

“You want this treaty to succeed?” she asked. “I will give you only one piece of advice: leave me alone. I stay out of such matters on purpose, and your continued attempts to engage with me will only reflect poorly on you. Go back to your diplomatic quarters. Dedicate yourself from here on to flattering my sister and my father, and never let my name cross your lips again.”

He cut stiff at her last command. “For the record, I was flattering your father when I spoke of you. What loving parent doesn’t look upon his own children as extensions of himself? Did you think I was trying to flatter you ?”

She flinched at the insinuation. “No, of course not. I didn’t know what you were trying to do, but I’m telling you now, it was the wrong approach. If you want my father’s favor, Lisenn is his pride and joy. She can do no wrong in his eyes.”

He paused, an odd perceptiveness springing up within him. “And you can?”

She didn’t like that look, didn’t like how vulnerable she suddenly felt beneath it, as though it stripped her bare and revealed her innermost soul. “I—” Any further response stuck in her throat. If she told the truth, it would betray her filial duty, and if she lied she could never make him believe it.

A rap on the door saved her from answering at all. Aedan strolled into the room, his advent shattering the tension and then building it anew.

“You’re up early, Io,” he said with a broad smile. When he turned the expression on Jaoven, it shifted into something more critical, and perhaps a touch predatory. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting. I’m Aedan of Gleddistane, the Marquess of Brume. My father is Queen Marget’s brother.” He thrust out his hand, which Jaoven reluctantly shook. “What brings you to my cousin’s studio? Come to commission a portrait of yourself? If so, you’ll have to get in line. She’s painting me right now.”

The Caprian prince glanced to a cloth-covered canvas and then beyond its easel to the drapes and columns on the platform against the far wall. “That was not my design,” he said vaguely. “Perhaps another time. Well met, Aedan of Gleddistane. Your Highness, excuse me, please.”

He bowed and retreated from the room, but not until his footsteps vanished up the hall did anyone speak.

“Why was he here?” Aedan asked.

Iona busied herself with her brushes again. “He heard me practicing and came to investigate, so he said. Why are you so early? With this cloud cover today, the light won’t be right at all.”

“I came to make sure your sister wasn’t lying in wait,” Aedan said.

Her hands stilled. “She sleeps in. But thank you for worrying on my behalf.”

“I always worry on your behalf. You’re like a baby sparrow, oblivious to anything outside your own little nest.”

She looked up sharply, her breath caught in her lungs. Aedan, with a fond and regret-laden smile, rustled the top of her head, mussing her hair .

Iona pushed his hand away, annoyed. “Am I unforgiving?”

“Of whom? Prince High-and-mighty back there? Should you forgive him? From what little I know of your years in Capria, if he was involved he can go throw himself off a cliff.”

A faint smile tugged at her mouth, that her cousin could be so protective of her. “Maybe you’re the unforgiving one.”

He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head to his shoulder. “You’re like my own sister, Io. If someone hurts you, they hurt me. Now are we painting today, or not? I’m dressed and ready, and surely that brilliant mind of yours can compensate for dull lighting.”

Gratitude bubbled from the bottom of her heart. She breathed deep against him and revived her equilibrium. “Get in your pose, then. I’ll try to make you pretty in return for your kind words.”

He mussed her hair again and climbed up between the pair of columns.

No sooner did he strike his pose than he launched into stories of the lovely Besseta, of the songs he had sung the night before and how many vegetables her brothers had thrown at him out their windows. Bess had hung upon her balcony and laughed through the whole scene, and when they met in her father’s garden afterward, she pardoned him.

“Filial piety is a virtue after all,” he said, nodding to Iona like a tutor enlightening his student, “even if it should come second to romantic love.”

“Is that what Besseta told you? I’m not sure she’s right.”

“Hush, little heretic. Besseta is always right.” He winked then, and they both laughed.

“And when will your parents finally approve the match?”

Aedan usually dodged questions of this nature, and sure enough, this time he squirmed, but he surprised his cousin by saying, “Roughly around the time your father approves.”

Her hand froze mid-brushstroke. “What does my father have to do with it? ”

He dug the toe of his boot against the wooden platform, ruining the lines of his pose. “The crown usually frowns on nobility high in the line of succession marrying into the merchant class. But with your sister poised to wed and bring the surviving Caprian nobles into the mix, my position will drop at least two or three places, if not more. You’ll still be second, of course, but that will change when she has children. And the further I am from the crown, the freer I am to marry who I please, at least under the current system.”

“Lisenn having children might be years away,” Iona said, dismayed on his behalf.

“But the benefits might come sooner. Her marriage is a promise of security.”

Her brows arched. “So you’re in favor of it?”

“Yes—for your sake, if nothing else. Get her out of Wessett for a while. Maybe children of her own will awaken some form of nurturing in that lump of stone she calls a heart, and by the time she returns she’ll have the proper temperament to rule us all.”

It was better than what Bina hoped for the crown princess. Iona contemplated whether it was even possible. But if Jaoven of Deraval could change—assuming his change was genuine and not a ruse—perhaps Lisenn could as well. Perhaps, with the broader understanding his trials had apparently brought, he would help her change for the better.

To Iona’s knowledge, her sister was openly malicious only to her. She had devoted lackeys among the royal guard, and the only common complaint among the servants was that she couldn’t keep a lady’s maid for more than a month or two. People within the castle held her in reverence or awe, as befitted their future queen, and truly, she could show favor when it pleased her.

If she cultivated that virtue, she might become the greatest ruler Wessett had ever seen.

Even so, a deep disquiet roiled in the pit of Iona’s stomach. Lisenn had a whole tower to herself, the rooms off-limits to everyone else. She’d occupied them since she was a child, and Iona had only seen the interior a handful of times—and only when her sister had dragged her there for impromptu carpet burns or tooth extractions.

The crown princess spent most days in the smaller library with her tutors now, but even the memory of those tower rooms shot a chill down her younger sister’s spine.

“If there’s a plot for treason in Wessett, Iona’s not involved,” Jaoven announced. His delegation looked up from their breakfast, the scent of fresh bread heavy in the air and the condensation still thick on the row of shining metal milk pitchers. They had all been abed when he left the diplomatic quarters to walk the castle halls alone, but the advent of food had naturally roused them, to the last one.

“Are you sure?” Clervie asked, tearing a wisp from the center of her buttered roll.

“Positive. She’s afraid of upsetting her father. I suspect, whatever drives her actions now and in the past, he’s at the root of it.”

“Where did you hear this?” Elouan asked. “Were the servants gossiping while you had your morning stroll?”

Jaoven plucked an apple from a bowl of fruit. “I didn’t hear it from anyone. I saw it in her face when I spoke with her just now. Her sister’s the perfect child, and she’s the black sheep. Unless King Gawen himself is abusive, the only drama in the royal family is a younger child who feels as though she doesn’t belong.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s not involved in a plot,” Clervie said. She popped her bit of bread in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the way he bristled at her contradiction. “She might not know she’s involved, but if she truly is an innocent party, it’s entirely possible she’s a pawn in the greater scheme.”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “There is no greater scheme. We have nothing but our paranoia to tell us otherwise. ”

She pointed her butter knife at him. “Our treaty has support from servants and nobles alike. I’m telling you, it’s at odds with any pattern I’ve studied. Something is off here.”

With a sigh of long-suffering, Jaoven dropped into a chair, resigned to hear her reasoning.

She leaned across the table, and the other delegates mirrored this act. Clervie spoke in secretive tones. “We expected, among the higher nobles, an eagerness for this alliance. Their titles are centuries old. Whole families of Caprian nobles died in the war, and Wessett can bargain for a greater share of power in the combined government that emerges. Our crown prince was only ever supposed to be a duke, after all.” She punctuated this with a knowing look at Jaoven, who grimly met her gaze.

“But the lower nobles, regardless of our new elevations, will get pushed further down in the line of succession. They should be against an alliance that diminishes their influence. And yet, every one of them has spoken their support, at least within the venues we can access. And the servants! In the castle itself, they’re floating on air, as if an alliance with Capria fulfills their fondest childhood dreams. We have only our land and holdings to offer for their strength, and those riches will never trickle to the lower classes. Something is rotten in Wessett.”

Jaoven sat back, one hand tapping a rhythm on the table as he thought. “What about that Aedan of Gleddistane? He seems to stick to Iona like a bur.”

“He’s her cousin,” said Neven, “a nephew of the queen.”

“I don’t like him,” the prince replied. “He shows up when he’s not wanted, and it’s plain she depends on him for support.”

“You think he’s positioning himself to advise her onto the throne?” Elouan asked.

“Or to advise himself up there with her,” Jaoven said darkly.

At the other end of the table, Riok peeled the skin from an apple in one long, thin string. “We can keep him in our sights, if you think it worthwhile. ”

“I do.”

The senior diplomat flicked away his peel with his knife. He exchanged a significant look with Clervie, who released a sigh and said, “I’ll adjust my people accordingly.”