What was going on here?
Filomara’s face hardened and her shoulders straightened. “That is not an arrangement that appeals to me,” she said. “Besides, I am looking for brides for my nephews to strengthen my royal line. I am not as interested in how you shore up your own.”
“I think you are merely afraid of repeating an old mistake,” Darien said. “And you want to make sure you control any future power alliances between you and another nation.”
The empress scowled and her attendants buzzed, and it was all too much for Mirti. “Darien, for once stop playing games,” the hunti prime burst out. “The empress has spoken openly. You could at least do the same.”
“The empress has not been honest with us,” Darien said. “I will accord her that courtesy when she extends it first.”
There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the sound of Filomara drumming her fingers on the table. Nelson had sat back in his chair, a certain satisfaction showing on his face, but now Kayle leaned forward, almost as if he was sniffing at a bouquet. His blue eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses as a look of excitement crossed his face.
“Darien,” he began, “this woman—”
“I know,” Darien interrupted. “Let her tell us in her own time.”
Josetta felt Corene’s grip on her arm. “What is it?” Corene whispered. “What have the primes figured out?”
“I don’t know,” Josetta whispered back, “but Mirti and Zoe don’t know it yet. So it has to be something they could only analyze by touch, and neither of them has laid a hand on her.”
Finally Filomara loosed another short bark of laughter. “So you’re not quite as unsophisticated as you seem,” she said.
“If by that, you mean I, too, keep international informants, then you’re right,” Darien answered.
“Please,” Elidon said, managing to sound soothing instead of pleading. “Obviously Darien would like you to share some details before we can proceed. We are at an impasse unless you tell us more.”
“Well, it’s hardly a secret,” Filomara said in a rough voice. “I bore two daughters, named the eldest my heir, and married the younger one to a likely prince. But my eldest daughter died of a fever and my youngest was murdered by her husband. Which is why I am not eager to see any of my other heirs take up residence in foreign nations.”
That was when Zoe got it; Josetta could tell by her sudden start and her look of astonishment, quickly hidden. But she sent one quick, marveling look Darien’s way.
Elidon was offering official condolences. “What terrible tragedies. My heart goes out to you for the losses you suffered.”
“It was more than twenty years ago,” Filomara said gruffly. “I am past the heartbreak, but I do not forget the betrayal.”
“No, and how should you?” Darien agreed. “No wonder you despise the people of Berringey.”
“Berringey!” Corene exclaimed, as every last person in the room now put the pieces together. “But—”
Darien stopped her with a single icy look before addressing Filomara again in a smooth voice. “I knew your daughter died, but I had not realized she was murdered,” he said.
Filomara nodded bleakly. “In good faith, I married her to the queen’s second son, and she bore him a child. But they have odd customs in Berringey. They kill off some of their heirs when they become too numerous, and my daughter and her son were among the ones deemed expendable.”
“Sad indeed,” Darien commented. “If only your spies would have known about such customs before you agreed to the wedding.”
The resulting silence was even more toxic than the last one. Filomara glowered and everyone else, even Kayle, looked a little unnerved, but Darien still seemed wholly at ease.
Sitting there with Corene still tugging on her arm, Josetta worked out the rest of the puzzle. Darien probably knew their customs, even before Ghyaneth arrived this spring, even though the rest of us had no idea. So Filomara must have known, too, before she married her daughter to Ghyaneth’s uncle. She took the risk in the hope that her daughter might become queen. Did her daughter know before the wedding? Maybe she didn’t. Maybe that’s why she came to Welce instead of returning home—because she realized her mother had been willing to risk her life.
Filomara finally spoke again. “I told you I can be as ruthless as any man. But I have paid the price for folly and ambition. Now I am looking to repair damages and build alliances. I have several fine nephews, aged eighteen to thirty-three.” She gestured at Josetta and Corene, who sat motionless as marble when everyone looked their way. “You have two princesses old enough to marry, and two young enough to provide you some security. Send one of them to me, and bind our nations together for the following generations. It is an arrangement, I promise you, that will benefit us both.”
“I would like to make a highly unusual counteroffer—one I doubt you would have even considered,” Darien began.
That was when Corene startled everyone by jumping to her feet. “I’ll go,” she said. “Let one of them marry me.”
• • •
Naturally, there was chaos for the next few minutes. Zoe was on her feet saying “No!” even before Darien had had a chance to react, and almost everyone in the room had also jumped up and started chattering. Josetta grabbed Corene’s arm and hauled her back, exclaiming, “Are you mad?” Nelson was arguing, though it wasn’t clear who was listening, while Mirti and Elidon had their heads together as they whispered strategy. Kayle looked around, seeming wholly bemused by the hubbub.
Darien and the empress of Malinqua merely sat at the table, staring each other down.
“So you have at least one adventurous soul in your provincial little capital,” the empress said, needling him a little.
Darien was not to be provoked. “We have many. But princesses aren’t generally allowed to decide whether or not they would like to be adventurers. Certainly this one cannot make that choice for herself.”
“Shortsighted for a regent.”
“Oh, but surely you knew,” he said. “I am her father as well. And, alas, I cannot claim to be as ruthless as you when it comes to my daughters.”
If he meant that as a slap, she took it without flinching. “You were willing to marry her off five years ago,” she said. “When she was barely twelve. And you would cavil now, when she is old enough and smart enough to know what she wants?”
That hit home, Josetta could tell, though Darien managed to control his anger. Of course. “You received incomplete information about that debacle,” he said, “if you believe I was ever in favor of that alliance.”
Filomara shrugged. “It is in the past. It is the future we are concerned with now. What would it take for you to agree to a wedding between one of my nephews and your daughter?”
“Nothing you possess among your incentives,” Darien replied in a deliberate voice.
At this point, Corene succeeded in wrenching free of Josetta’s hold. She ran across the room, Josetta right behind her. Darien and Filomara came to their feet at her approach, and everyone else fell silent to hear what she would say.
“I meant it—I’ll go,” Corene said.
She looked jaunty and confident, but Josetta guessed at her unspoken thought. Nobody here wants me anyway. My mother certainly doesn’t. She spared a moment to hate Alys with all her heart.
For a moment, despite the commotion in the room, Darien put his hands on Corene’s shoulders and gave her his full attention. “You are not to speak another word to anyone from Malinqua until we have had a long talk,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Now go with Zoe. I love you.”
“But I—”
He signaled to Zoe, who came over to take Corene in a hold that was half embrace and half restraint. They could hear Corene protesting all the way out the door.
Filomara seemed grimly amused. “Your daug
hter has more courage than you do, regent.”
“Yes, it is one of her blessings,” Darien agreed. “And it has characterized her for her entire life.”
“Darien, we need to talk,” Mirti said, coming up on his right elbow. She glanced at the empress. “Amongst ourselves.”
“I had imagined you would want an opportunity to discuss my proposals before responding to them,” Filomara said. “I will withdraw.”
“I will be happy to assign someone to take you to some of the sites of Chialto,” Darien said. “It cannot compare to Malinqua’s capital city, of course, but it has many charms.”
Josetta expected some kind of sneering rejoinder, but Filomara nodded. “I would enjoy an excursion, I think. Perhaps Princess Josetta could be my guide?”
“She’d like that,” Darien replied. “Josetta, why don’t you gather a suitable escort and take the empress to see the Plazas? Perhaps your friend Rafe would like to accompany you. And, of course, as many guards as the empress needs to feel secure.”
She had never in her life wanted so much to hit somebody. Only years of rigorous training allowed her to answer with easy courtesy. “Of course. Majesty, would you give me thirty minutes to organize myself? We can meet in the castle courtyard. It’s quite warm outside—you might want to dress in something lightweight.”
The empress looked amused. “I will endeavor to find suitable attire.” Without another word, she turned for the door, her attendants hurriedly trailing after her.
“Darien, we have to talk,” Mirti said again, more urgently, as soon as the visitor was out of earshot.
“I don’t know if anyone else realized it,” Kayle put in before Darien could answer, “but that woman! She’s closely related to my new pilot. Rafe—Rafe—I forget his last name.”
“Adova,” Darien said. “She’s his grandmother. I believe everyone eventually figured it out.”
“Everyone except the empress,” Nelson said. He appeared to be delighted with the complex knot of intrigue. “Did I understand that right? She thinks he’s dead?”
“She does.”
“Then we would appear to have an advantage over her, though I’m not entirely certain how to use it.”
“That’s one of the things we need to talk about,” Mirti said.
Josetta took Darien’s arm, ignored everyone else in the room, and held his gaze with a glare that would have melted his bones if he hadn’t been hunti. “Send them away,” she said in a low, fierce voice. “Because I need to talk to you alone.”
He nodded, not even bothering to look surprised. “Elidon, would you kindly give us the room? This will only take a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” the queen said. “Should we go down the hall to Mirti’s chambers? Darien, join us as soon as you can.”
Josetta waited until the room was emptied and she heard the definite click of the door latch engaging. Then she gave him a hard push designed to send him crashing against the wall. It only sent him a couple of inches backward.
Hunti. Unyielding. Immovable. Infuriating.
“You knew!” she exclaimed. “You knew he was Ghyaneth’s cousin and Filomara’s grandson! How did you know? How long did you know? And don’t lie to me, Darien.”
“I saw the markings on his ear the first night I met him,” Darien said. “I knew that meant he was related to the Berringey crown. So I investigated the history of the Berringey royal house. The wedding between nations was documented fact, not hard to uncover. From there, it was easy to unravel the story.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell him? You knew he was in danger. And yet you practically let him be killed on the streets—”
“I took steps to keep him safe,” Darien answered. “Why do you think I had Caze and Sorbin sent to the slums? Why do you think they happened to arrive in time to save his life?”
She stared. “You sent them to—to—guard me. To guard the shelter. That’s what you said.”
“And of course I was happy to think you were also under their protection,” Darien replied.
She came close enough to shove him again, with even less effect. He barely swayed. “Then did it occur to you to tell him just because he would want to know? Why keep the information a secret?”
“Because I habitually keep information a secret when I can,” he said impatiently. “Because, as Nelson said, I hadn’t yet determined how to use the knowledge to my advantage.”
“That’s so selfish! It’s cruel!”
“How is it cruel? He lived to be twenty-seven without knowing certain facts about his existence—as long as he was safe, why couldn’t he survive another quintile or two without that knowledge?”
“Oh—and you planned to tell him sooner or later, I suppose. When there was an advantage to you.”
He smiled. “I knew he had become enmeshed in your life. I knew that meant it was only a matter of time before Zoe would insist on meeting him. And I knew what would happen then. And you see I was right.”
“You didn’t want him to be ‘enmeshed’ in my life!” she exclaimed. “You thought I was—you thought that he wasn’t—” Her voice trailed off. “But if you knew he was an heir to Berringey, you wouldn’t have minded so much. Darien, tell me right now you didn’t plan for me to fall in love with Rafe Adova.”
“I don’t think it’s ever possible to plan for someone to fall in love,” he said. “I admit I wasn’t unhappy to see that you seemed to like him.”
She put her hands to her forehead and turned away from him, so angry and confused that she could hardly think. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I always knew you manipulated everyone, but I didn’t think you’d play those games with me.”
He caught her arm and pulled her back to face him. She shook off his hold but didn’t move away. “I haven’t manipulated you,” he said gently. “It is true I have watched events unfold around you without providing you with all the information I possessed, but I can’t think you would have made any of your decisions differently. If you would have, I am sorry. But this is the place where we have arrived now.”
She lifted her eyes to his, hostility in hers. “This is the place where the primes begin another long argument about who should be named heir, isn’t it?” she demanded. “Odelia is obviously no longer in the running. Natalie was always the next one in line, but only because of her connection to Odelia, and that’s looking like a liability at the moment. You’re obviously going to fight as hard as you can to keep Alys’s child out of the succession. And you love the idea of marrying a Welchin princess to the newly discovered prince of Malinqua. I think the arrow is pointing straight at me.”
“You have spent most of your life as the most likely heir to the throne,” Darien said. “You can hardly be surprised.”
“I don’t want the job. I never wanted it, even when I was growing up, even when I was supposed to be coveting the crown, proving myself to Vernon and the queens. I hate the palace, I hate the royal life, I hate the lying and the pretending and the scheming—all the things that come so naturally to you.”
That was meant as an insult, and he responded with heat. “They don’t come naturally—I learned those skills when I had to. When I believed the kingdom teetered on a precipice and that only a strong hand could keep it from tumbling down. When I realized that my country needed me and that I had no choice but to serve. A man doesn’t walk away from a responsibility like that—neither does a woman.”
“I could,” she said.
“No, you couldn’t,” he said. “You are as steady as they come.”
They stared at each other a long moment. She had no idea what he saw on her face; on his, she read the usual unflinching determination, the bone-deep commitment to whatever task he had taken on as his. Darien had never shied from a hard chore, never shirked a responsibility, no matter how much it cost him. She could not remember a tim
e when he had not, at least in some peripheral fashion, been part of her life, but for the past five years, as Zoe’s husband, he had been far more central; and in all that time, he had been an unfailing source of strength and counsel. She might be furious with him, but she could trust him—to always lead her the right way, and to always tell her the truth, if he bothered to tell her anything at all.
She felt the world re-form around her, weight shifting under her feet and inside her heart; she felt long-held but unused knowledge shake free from a dusty corner, preparing to come to her hand if she ever had need of it again.
Oh, but she didn’t want to take it up again, didn’t want to feel its burden across her shoulders, heavy as Welce itself.
Nothing was settled yet, she reminded herself.
“You cannot pick who will take the throne just because she suits you,” she said at last. “The primes are deeply invested in that decision, and they might make another choice.”
“They might,” he agreed. “But I plan to use my considerable persuasive powers to convince them that Alys’s child should not be the next one to wear the crown.”
“That doesn’t mean they will choose me.”
“I think you must accustom yourself to the notion that they very probably will.”
She sighed and put her hand to her forehead again. “I can’t take it all in. There is too much to think about. And I must go meet the empress of Malinqua and give her a tour of Chialto.”
“Be sure and bring Rafe with you,” Darien said.
“Though, of course, I can’t tell her why I want him along! So when do you plan to tell her that she has a living grandson?”
“I haven’t decided yet. When the moment seems favorable. That is generally when I share information.”
“She might not believe us. There must have been pretenders to her throne in the past.”
Darien shrugged. “That’s not my concern. Though I imagine the primes could put on a fairly convincing demonstration, sorting out who is related to whom among her swarm of attendants. That might impress her enough to make her believe us.”