Page 7

I ona paused outside the upper drawing room, running her tongue over her teeth as though to memorize their pattern. Was this the last time she’d have them intact? Within a day of Lisenn’s threats, she’d already had three encounters with Caprians, and she was about to enter into a fourth one.

And this in full view of her vindictive sister.

If she could disobey their father, she would. As it stood, Iona could only hope that he had informed his heir that her younger sister would attend these afternoon gatherings.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Silence fell within the room beyond. Five Caprians and one ill-tempered princess stared at the newcomer. The smile on Lisenn’s face widened into a brittle monstrosity.

“Iona, you came.” She parted from the rest of the group to greet her sister, drawing her in with false affection. Iona, stiff as a board, allowed the farce, but her blood pressure spiked when Lisenn whispered, through clenched teeth, “I told you to stay away.”

Conscious of their audience, the younger sister called upon every ounce of control within her. “Father insisted I join you. Otherwise I would never have dreamed of intruding.”

“Nonsense. You’re not intruding,” said Denoela, hurrying over from her compatriots. “We were just discussing what to do with ourselves this afternoon.” She caught Iona by the elbow as though to lead her further into the room.

The familiarity of this action only heightened Iona’s wariness. She dug in her heels, her brows arched, and Denoela dropped her hold.

A blush leapt to the Caprian woman’s face. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness. For a moment I forgot my place.”

Before the younger princess could respond, Lisenn laughed, a beguiling sound. “You needn’t worry about offending Iona. She’s stiff with everyone, always our little stoic.” She rubbed her sister’s head, and when Iona flinched, Lisenn’s indigo eyes flashed a warning.

“She seemed at ease with that young marquess,” said Jaoven where he stood with Neven, Clervie, and Elouan.

“Who, Aedan?” Lisenn latched onto Iona’s arm and practically dragged her to join the rest of the group, with Denoela falling in step behind them. “He’s our cousin. The pair of them are practically inseparable.” She tweaked her sister’s nose on this comment and added, “Perhaps we should invite him to these gatherings as well, to help you feel more comfortable?”

Iona remained silent. Lisenn merely laughed and returned her attention to the rest of the group. “So how shall we occupy our time together this afternoon, then?”

“Shall we have music, perhaps?” Elouan said, glancing toward a small harpsichord in one corner.

The grip on Iona’s arm tightened, and her fingers twitched in response. “Games,” she blurted. As six sets of eyes focused on her, she motioned toward a small table near the door. “There’s a chessboard worked into the tabletop there, and pieces for chess and checkers both within the drawers. There should be a deck of cards in here somewhere as well. You could divide into groups. ”

“ We could divide into groups, you mean?” Lisenn corrected. Her smile, to an outsider, would appear gracious and inviting. It struck a chord of fear upon Iona’s heartstrings, though.

“Do you play chess, Princess Lisenn?” Jaoven asked, oblivious to the dangerous dynamic between the sisters. “I’ll admit it’s a favorite of mine.”

At long last, Lisenn released her hold on Iona’s arm. “Mine as well. I would be delighted to join you in a match.”

He offered his arm, and together they crossed to the small table.

“I suppose that leaves the rest of us to cards,” Clervie said, a muted smile on her face.

Iona retrieved a deck from the credenza under the bay of leaded windows, and the group gathered at a nearby table. On the other side of the room, Jaoven and Lisenn were quietly chatting as they set out their chess pieces, their conversation too low to hear but their pleasant expressions plain as day.

“What are we playing?” Denoela asked, surveying their table of five. “We can’t divide into pairs.”

“I don’t need to play,” Iona said, and she offered the deck to Clervie on her left.

The younger woman only shook her head. “You don’t, but we need you to.”

A double-meaning lay in that remark. The Caprians needed their former classmate’s cooperation. They watched her with guarded eyes, as though she were a wolf who had cornered them.

How the roles had reversed.

With her father’s warning to behave ringing in her ears, Iona swallowed her distaste and began shuffling the deck. “For this many players, I only know Duke and Dullard.”

The four exchanged glances. “That’s oddly fitting,” said Clervie, a note of resentment in her voice. The game, in which players shed their cards in singles or sets, assigned rankings at the end of each round, with the first player out as the Duke and the last remaining as the Dullard. The Dullard had to pay a tribute of his best two cards to the Duke at the start of the next round and received the Duke’s two weakest cards in return.

“I don’t have to play, if you want to choose another game,” Iona reiterated.

They exchanged glances, but no one volunteered an alternative.

Princess Lisenn’s laugh floated across the room. The chess match had begun, with opening gambits from both players as they smiled coyly at one another.

Elouan latched onto the spectacle as an easy conversational topic. “Shall we lay wagers on who’ll win over there? My money’s on Jove.”

“Lisenn will win.” Iona spoke this as a matter of fact, ignoring the attention her certainty brought upon her.

Clervie leaned close and said, “Are you sure? Jaoven is a very good chess player.”

Iona cut the deck and began to deal. “Then Lisenn will definitely win. Or will he risk jeopardizing his broader goal to defeat her in one paltry match?” She lifted her gaze, driving home her meaning with a pointed look at each of them. The treaty itself was a ploy of strategy, and this bout of chess only a single gambit.

Denoela shifted uncomfortably. “Surely she wouldn’t hold a grudge over a lost game of chess.”

“Surely he wouldn’t risk it,” Iona replied, tossing the last card into its designated pile. She picked up her hand and started rearranging it, feigning obliviousness to the uncertain glances exchanged among the four Caprians. “But I suppose the real question is whether he values his ego or his kingdom more. Perhaps I’ve judged him too generously.”

With reluctance the others picked up their own cards. The first round of Duke and Dullard always went unranked, with the individual to the left of the dealer beginning the play. Clervie, as she closed index and middle finger around a card in the center of her pack, paused long enough to favor her compatriots with a significant glance .

Iona caught the meaning: they were going to throw the game to let her win, as though she too might hold a grudge if she came in last.

Even though she obviously didn’t want to play.

She settled deeper into her chair and observed the first trick, all low cards until it came to her turn. She split her highest pair and took the trick, then tossed out a mid-range card. Denoela, to Clervie’s left, took the second trick with a trump on her turn and started the new round at a lower number.

What followed was the worst hand of cards Iona had ever played. She deliberately sabotaged herself, splitting sets and playing higher than necessary until her hand had only its lowest cards, which forced her to pass on every trick that followed.

Elouan went out first, followed by Denoela, then Neven, and finally Clervie.

“I guess that makes me the Dullard,” Iona lightly said, gathering the cards together again to shuffle.

“It’s only the first round,” Clervie replied, her voice tight. They rearranged seats around Iona, then, with Elouan on her left and Clervie to her right.

Starting from the second round, the Dullard had a decided disadvantage, forced to give their two highest cards to the Duke. Iona passed along a pair of aces and received a two and a three in return. Elouan started the trick low, and when it came around to her, she alleviated herself of her next highest card.

As she self-sabotaged again, Clervie grew increasingly frustrated.

“I’m out.” Elouan laid down his last card with an apologetic glance. The round ended with Denoela and Neven swapping places, and the others maintaining their rank.

When Elouan handed his low cards to Iona at the start of the third round, Clervie kicked him under the table.

“Ow! What?”

As though she hadn’t committed such a bodily assault, she launched into the game with dangerous focus, and at the end of that round, she’d risen from fourth to first position. Iona easily maintained the Dullard’s spot.

When the cards for the fourth round went out, she slid her ace and king to Clervie. The younger woman received the high cards, added them to her own set, and then selected two from the pile and gave them to Iona.

“Check,” said Jaoven from across the room.

She glanced briefly his direction, saw the consternation on her sister’s face, and wondered if his ego had won over his logic after all. If he beat Lisenn, the crown princess would never forgive him.

But that was his own burden to bear. Iona refocused on the game at hand.

When she picked up the two cards Clervie had given her, she discovered two aces, including the one originally from her own set. She raised a frown to the other girl’s face, but the Caprian only tipped her head, the hint of a challenge upon her upturned lips.

The rules stated that the Dullard had to give his strongest cards. They only implied that the Duke would return his weakest. Wordlessly Iona tucked the cards in with her others.

Clervie began the trick with a mid-level number. From there, the whole dynamic of the game changed, with her teammates divesting themselves of their higher cards earlier, matching Iona’s strategy in an attempt to undermine her. Unnecessary passes dragged out the play, an odd struggle where they were all trying to lose instead of win.

Iona finished in last place, but only by a card.

“Checkmate.” Across the room, Lisenn beamed at her own success.

“Truly you are a worthy opponent,” Prince Jaoven said.

The fond gazes they exchanged curdled Iona’s stomach. She gathered the cards, conscious of Clervie’s stare boring into the side of her head. Neven had risen to the Duke position, followed by Denoela and Elouan, with Clervie in fourth again. A stiff silence stretched between them.

Iona shuffled and dealt with only the murmured conversation between her sister and the prince of Capria in her ears .

Neven gave her mid-level cards and started the new round with a low number, straying from the strategy of the previous round. Iona rid herself of her highest card, a king, on the first trick and started the next with a seven.

“Pass,” said Neven.

“Pass,” said Denoela, and then Elouan, and then Clervie, one right after the other.

Realizing her mistake, Iona plucked up her card again. “I think the game has run its course.”

“I think we should finish the round, see how it turns out,” Clervie replied.

She chose her words carefully. “It’s an interesting proposition. But if you force someone into a rank they don’t want, do you really expect their good graces to follow?”

Their original intent had been to coddle her into victory, to make her feel as though she had the upper hand over them. Now they were simply trying to bend her to their will.

Just like old times.

Clervie, disgust clicking in the back of her throat, threw down her cards and slumped back, one hand at her forehead to cover her eyes from view. The others flipped their hands toward Iona in defeat.

She gathered the deck.

“What are we playing over here?” Jaoven asked, approaching with Lisenn upon his arm.

“Duke and Dullard,” Neven said, with the voice of someone given a death sentence.

The prince surveyed the despondent group until his gaze rested upon Iona calmly shuffling the deck. “Deal me in,” he said.

Clervie sat up straight. “Newcomers start at the bottom rank.”

Iona’s hands froze. She lifted alarmed eyes to the prince, but he had already turned to Lisenn.

“Do you want to join as well?”

The smile upon the crown princess’s face turned brittle. She would never occupy a loser’s position, even for a single round. “I think I’ll just watch.”

He missed the aloofness in her voice, too busy fetching an extra chair, forcing it into the position between Iona and Neven while the rest of the table adjusted to an extra body among them. As the newly appointed Dullard, he plucked the deck of cards straight from Iona’s grip and started into an expert shuffle.

She sat stiff, aware of how close he was and how her sister watched the players like a hawk.

“I’ll move up through your ranks in no time,” Jaoven told his fellows with a wry grin.

“No doubt,” Clervie darkly said.

“It’s not the upward movement that’s a problem,” Elouan added. “It’s people intentionally throwing the game so they can stay at the bottom.” He shifted resentful eyes toward Iona, who studiously looked elsewhere.

The shuffle of cards stilled. Jaoven, less inclined to talk around the essential point instead of naming it outright, asked Iona, “You’re losing on purpose?”

She only briefly met his gaze before sliding her attention elsewhere.

“Did you not institute a penalty?” Lisenn, having settled on an opposite-facing couch, lounged against the back of it with her head resting on her crossed arms, the very picture of lovely leisure. “Iona never cooperates unless she has something important to lose otherwise. She’s been that way since we were children.”

A chill shot down Iona’s spine. Lisenn, mocking, stared at her as though challenging her to contradict.

Clervie had already latched onto the idea. “What kind of penalty? The loser of this round has to do whatever the winner says?”

Agreement sounded all around.

“Whatever the winner says?” Iona echoed. “Shouldn’t there be some kind of restriction or qualifier on that? ”

“No,” said Clervie, “though I suppose a majority can vote down anything too rigorous. I think I’m in the mood for a little music. I know what I’ll ask for if I win.”

Iona snapped her mouth shut. From the couch, Lisenn’s eyes glittered a warning of broken fingers in her future.

Jaoven dealt the cards. Iona, in the second-to-last position, had to trade one with Denoela, but the subversive shenanigans had come to an end. She received a low card for her high one, and she rearranged the cards to her best advantage.

With an extra player added into the mix, there were fewer tricks in the round. Iona played as though her life depended upon it, aiming not for the Duke’s position but for somewhere in the middle.

Clervie won, followed by Jaoven. Iona, in third place, had neither wishes nor wish-fulfillment to worry about.

Neven, however, tumbled from first to last place.

“Play ‘Capria Fair,’” Clervie said, tipping her head toward the harpsichord nearby, and she flashed him a cheeky grin.

He huffed but left his place to take up position at the instrument. The folk song, one Iona hadn’t heard in four years, filled the room.

“Sing the words as well,” Clervie called.

“You only commanded I play,” he retorted, “and you only get one command per round.”

The girl snorted a quiet laugh, and the smile that curved along her lips lacked the malice it had had during their school days. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, as though inhaling the music into her very bones. Her compatriots did much the same.

Iona chanced a look at Lisenn, who appeared utterly bored.

Meanwhile, as the song rose in cadence to its climax, a tear slipped down Clervie’s cheek. She wiped it quick, sniffling. Iona, shocked at such an honest show of emotion, averted her gaze when their eyes met.

“It reminds me of my brother,” Clervie said in a low voice.

Vaguely the princess recalled the elder son of the House of Trevilis. He had been number thirty-six, finishing his last year at the Royal College during Iona’s first.

Apparently, he had not survived the war.

Jaoven, as though reading her thoughts, murmured, “Most of us lost family. All of us lost friends. It will take generations to build back what Capria destroyed these past four years. We would not be here otherwise.”

She slid a glance toward him and then her sister, who had straightened on the couch, alert. From Lisenn’s position, with the song upon the air, she couldn’t overhear every small whisper among the card players. The expression on her face communicated a warning: if she walked away from this gathering dissatisfied, Iona would pay a real penalty.

Neven finished his song and returned. The players stood, all of them shuffling to their new positions for the next round. Iona, crossing around the table, said to her older sister, “You should take my place.”

Clervie opened her mouth to protest, but Jaoven jostled her.

Starting in third place suited the crown princess more than starting at the bottom, especially if she could eject her sister from the game. She graciously took the proffered chair, and Iona wandered across the room as the next round commenced.

Lisenn, true to her nature, played with ruthless efficiency veiled behind an engaging laugh, but she would have won regardless. The Caprians had better luck with throwing the game in her favor, so that she occupied the top position at the end of the round. Neven remained at the bottom of the pack.

“I don’t know what penalty to call,” Lisenn said, fluttering demure eyelashes to Jaoven beside her.

The prince smiled. “He’s an excellent musician, Your Highness.”

“If I want music, I have Iona to command.” She cast a sweet smile across the room, and the purity of that expression made the younger sister’s skin crawl.

“Perhaps a feat of strength,” said Elouan, oblivious to this exchange .

“Or you can send him to fetch refreshments,” said Denoela.

Lisenn perked. “An excellent idea. Neven, would you be so kind as to step out into the hall and request us some food and drink?”

“So polite, Your Highness,” Clervie said. “You can just order him around.”

Across the room, Iona stiffened. The callous remark proved that nothing had changed among the Caprians, those of lower rank still treated as inconsequential by their betters.

Lisenn tittered. “Oh, dear. I could never!”

“Don’t try to corrupt the innocent, Clervie,” Elouan said, shaking his head.

At that point, Iona had to turn away, the whole display disgusting to her. The banter continued behind her back. Neven, blushing to the tips of his ears, passed her on his way to the door, where he briefly stepped outside. On his way back, his eyes met hers.

He stopped short. “It’s not—” he began, but the rest of his words stuck in his throat.

Did he mean to defend them? Her disappointment magnified all the more. “I see everyone is exactly the same as they ever were,” she said, and she abandoned him to examine the inventory of a small bookshelf.

The conversation at the table briefly stilled upon his return. The company should have rearranged around the Dullard, their designated dealer, but everyone rearranged around Lisenn instead.

Toward the end of the next round, the refreshments arrived: hot drinks, biscuits, and cakes. As the servants arranged the spread, the card game disbanded. Iona, pretending to read in a chair by the bookshelf, observed their interactions. They jostled and joked with one another, a casual camaraderie among them, with deference to Lisenn in everything.

The crown princess settled on a couch with the first cup of tea, and the Caprians sat around her like acolytes paying homage to their icon. Did that degree of toad-eating gnaw at their insides? The longer Iona watched, the more certain she was that she could never trust a single one of them.

A servant brought a cup of tea to her. She murmured her thanks upon receiving it, but set the drink aside. The Caprians frequently glanced her direction, but Lisenn commanded most of their attention, the conversation ranging through a number of shallow topics that allowed her to shine.

When the clock struck five, it signaled the end of their gathering. Iona, eager to escape, set aside her unread book and left ahead of everyone else. They followed close behind, however. The diplomatic quarters lay in the same direction as her own room. Jaoven hung back with Lisenn where the crown princess’s path diverged, the suaveness of his baritone voice carrying, if his actual words of farewell did not. Iona peeled off at a separate hallway, grateful at last to put the whole encounter behind her.

As she approached her bedroom, footsteps drummed along the corridor. She turned, confused, only to find Jaoven barreling down upon her. When she quickened her pace, he swung around in front of her and slammed an arm in her path, his palm planted against the wall.

Her heartbeat galloped, every instinct within her screaming for her to run. The expression he wore, the hardness of it, struck a chord of memory, of rebukes and humiliation. For an instant she was in the halls of Capria’s Royal College again, accosted on her way to a lesson because she had failed to pay proper deference to the highest ranked student at the school.

Then her focus shifted back. This was Wessett, and she wasn’t a provincial nobody here.

Jaoven breathed deep as though gathering his courage with his thoughts. His scowl bored into her. “Don’t assume you know everything just because of how it appears on the surface.”

Iona arched an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“Neven is a valued member of our party. Had the roles been reversed, he would have ordered Clervie around just as easily. If you’re taking offense on his behalf, you’re wasting your energy. He’s earned his place among us.”

Her voice pitched light and bland. “How lovely, earning a place. I’m sure he’s very lucky to have gained your good favor.”

“Don’t—!” He bucked his head. “Don’t twist my words! He is our friend. We value him beyond what you can understand. You weren’t in Capria these last four years, so you have no idea how much everything has changed.”

She blinked, languidly. “Are you finished?” And to drive home her meaning, she shifted her attention to the arm yet blocking her path.

“No, I am not,” Jaoven said through gritted teeth. “Only this morning you said you have nothing to do with diplomacy, and yet here you are interfering.”

“Interfering? My father commanded me to attend these afternoon gatherings.”

“Doubtless so you can report our faults and failings to him.”

A muscle clenched along her jaw. “If I wanted to do that, I’d’ve given him an earful already.” The expression that chased across his face revealed his concerns. She huffed, exasperated. “I’ve already told you I have no incentive to interfere. If you continue to harass me, though, that might change.”

It was a bluff. She’d never speak against his treaty while it promised to take away Lisenn, but Jaoven instantly retracted his arm. Satisfied, Iona slipped past him.

“Will you be at dinner tonight?” he called to her retreating back.

“Not if the choice is mine,” she said, without even bothering to turn. His stare followed her until she crossed the threshold into her bedroom and shut the door, at which point she leaned against it and breathed a deep sigh of relief.