“Over a century, if my memory serves,” I answer, hiding my surprise at being spoken to. “Tiberias the Second was the last Calore king to make a state visit. Before your ancestors and mine began the war.”
He hisses at the name. Tiberias. Resentments between siblings are not unfamiliar to me. There are many things I envy about Tiora. But I’ve never experienced anything like the deep and all-encompassing jealousy Maven feels toward his exiled brother. It runs bone-deep. Every mention of him, even in official capacity, provokes him like the jab of a knife. I suppose the ancestral name is one more thing for him to covet. One more mark of a true king that he will never possess.
Perhaps that’s why he pursues Mare Barrow with such dogged focus. The stories seem true enough. I’ve seen proof of them myself. She’s not just a powerful newblood, the strange kind of Red with abilities like our own, but the exiled prince loves her. A Red girl. Having met her, I can almost understand why. Even imprisoned, she fought. She resisted. She was a puzzle I would have enjoyed piecing together. And, it seems, she’s a trophy for Calore brothers to scrap over. Nothing compared to the crown, but still something for jealous, feuding boys to tug back and forth like dogs with a bone.
“I can arrange a tour of the capital if Your Majesty would like,” I continue. Though spending more time than I must with Maven is hardly ideal, it would mean more time in the city. “The temples are renowned throughout the kingdom for their splendor. Your presence would certainly honor the gods.”
Feeding his ego doesn’t work, as it usually does with nobles and courtiers. His lip curls. “I try to keep my focus on things that actually exist, Iris. Like the war we’re both trying to win.”
Suit yourself. I swallow the response with cool detachment. Nonbelievers are not my problem. I can’t open their eyes, and it isn’t my job to do so. Let him meet the gods in death and see how wrong he was before he enters a hell of his own making. They’ll drown him for eternity. That is the punishment for burners in the afterlife. Just as flames would be my own damnation.
“Of course.” I dip my head, feeling the cold jewels on my brow. “The army will go to Citadel of the Lakes when they arrive, for healing and rearmament. We should be there to meet them.”
He nods. “We should.”
“And there is Piedmont to consider,” I add. I wasn’t in Norta when the lords loyal to Prince Bracken sought Maven’s aid. Our countries were still at war then. But the intelligence reports were clear enough.
A muscle feathers in Maven’s cheek. “Prince Bracken won’t fight against Montfort, not while those bastards hold his children hostage.” He speaks like I’m some kind of simpleton.
I keep my temper in check, dipping my head. “Of course,” I reply. “But if an alliance could be won in secret? Montfort would lose their base in the south, all the resources Bracken has ceded to them, and they would gain a powerful enemy. Another Silver kingdom for them to fight.”
His footsteps echo, loud and even over the walkway. I can hear him breathing, exhaling in low, humming sighs as I wait for some answer. Even though we’re almost the same height and I probably weigh as much as he does, if not more, I feel small beside Maven. Small and vulnerable. A bird in alliance with a cat. I don’t like the sensation.
“Retrieving Bracken’s children could be a goose chase. We don’t know where they are, or how well guarded they might be. They could be on the other side of the continent. They could be dead, for all we know,” Maven mutters. “Our focus should be on my brother. When he is gone, they’ll have no one left to stand behind.”
I try not to look disappointed, but I feel my shoulders droop anyway. We need Piedmont. I know we do. Leaving them to Montfort is a mistake, one that could end in our death and ruin. So I try again.
“Prince Bracken’s hands are tied. He can’t attempt a rescue of his children, even if he knew where they were,” I murmur, dropping my voice. “The risk of failure is too great. But could someone else do it for him?”
“Are you offering yourself for the job, Iris?” he clips, looking down his nose at me.
I tighten at such a foolish thought. “I am a queen and a princess, not a dog playing fetch.”
“Of course you aren’t a dog, my dear.” Maven offers a sneer, never breaking his stride. “Dogs obey.”
Instead of recoiling, I brush off the naked insult with a sigh. “I suppose you’re right, my king.” My last card to play is a good one. “After all, you have experience where hostages are concerned.”
Heat flares next to me, close enough that an instant sweat breaks out over my body. Reminding Maven of Mare—and how he lost her—is an easy way to ignite his temper.
“If the children can be found,” he growls, “then perhaps something can be arranged.”
That’s all I get from the Calore king. I consider it a successful conversation.
The walls change from polished gilding and turquoise paint to gleaming marble, marking the end of the noble sector and the beginning of the royal palace. Arches still dart the way, but they’re gated and guarded, a Lakelander soldier in stoic blue at each. More walk the length of the wall, looking down at their queen as she passes. Mother’s pace quickens slightly. She’s eager to be inside, away from prying eyes. Alone with us. Tiora follows at her heels, not to stay close to Mother, but to keep her distance from Maven. He unsettles her, as he does most people. Something about the intensity in his electric eyes. It seems wrong in someone so young. Artificial, even. Planted.
With a mother like his, it very well could be.
If she were alive, she wouldn’t be allowed in Detraon, let alone within striking distance of the royal family. In the Lakelands, her kind of Silvers, mind-controlling whispers, are not trusted. Nor do they exist anymore. The Servon Line was extinguished long ago, and for good reason. As for Norta, I have a feeling House Merandus may soon meet the same fate. I have yet to speak to a whisper since I came to Whitefire, and after Maven’s cousin died at our wedding, I think he must be keeping the rest of his mother’s brood away, if they are still living at all.
The Royelle, our palace, spirals across the vast grounds of its sector. It has canals and aqueducts of its own, their waters spilling out in fountains and falls. Some arch over our path, carried to the bay, while others run under the walkway. In winter, most of them freeze, decorating the path in icy sculptures no human hand could create. Priests from the temples will read the ice, on feast days and holidays, to communicate the will of the gods. They speak in riddles, usually, writing their words on the land and lakes for only the blessed to see, and few to understand.
It takes courage for a burner king of a recently hostile nation to enter the stronghold of the Lakelands, and Maven does it without flinching. Another might think he doesn’t have the capacity for fear. That his mother removed something so weak. But that isn’t true. I see fear in everything he does. Fear of his brother, mostly. Fear because that Barrow girl is gone and out of his grasp. And like everyone else in our world, he is deathly afraid of losing his power. It’s why he’s here. Why he married me. He will do anything to keep his crown.
Such dedication. It’s both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
We approach the grand gates opening on the bay, flanked both by guards and waterfalls. The men bow to Mother as she passes, and even the water ripples a little, tugged by her immense ability. Inside the bay gates is my favorite courtyard: a wide, manicured riot of blue flowers of every kind. Roses, lilies, hydrangeas, tulips, hibiscus—petals in shades from periwinkle to deep indigo. At least, they should be blue. But like the flags, like my family, the flowers mourn.
Their petals are black.
“Your Majesty, may I ask for my daughter’s presence in our shrine? As is our tradition?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard Mother speak this morning. She uses her court tone, as well as the language of Norta so Maven has no excuse to misunderstand her request. Her accent is better than mine, almost imperceptible. Cenra Cygnet is a sm
art woman, with an ear for languages and an eye for diplomacy.
She stops to survey Maven, turning to face him in a display of common courtesy. It would not do to show a king her back while asking something of him. Even if the request is for me, her daughter, a living person with a will of her own, I think as a sour taste rises in my mouth. But not really. He outranks you. You’re his subject now, not hers. You do as he wishes.
On the outside, at least.
I have no intention of being a queen on a leash.
Thankfully, Maven is less dismissive of religion in front of my mother. He offers a tight smile and a shallow bow. Next to Mother, with her graying hair and crow’s-feet, he seems younger. New. Inexperienced. He is anything but. “We must honor tradition,” he says. “Even in chaotic times like these. Neither Norta nor the Lakelands can forget who they are. It may be what saves us in the end, Your Majesty.”
He speaks well, the words smooth as syrup.
Mother shows her teeth, but the grin doesn’t meet her eyes. “It may indeed. Come, Iris,” she adds, beckoning to me.
If I had no restraint, I would take her hand and run. But I have restraint in spades, and I keep an even pace. Almost too slow, as I follow my mother and sister through the black flowers, the blue-patterned halls, and onto the sacred ground that is the queen’s personal temple in the Royelle.
Adjoining the royal apartments of the monarch, the secluded temple is simple, tucked away among salons and bedrooms. Tradition stands in the usual trappings. A gurgling fountain, waist height, bubbles away in the center of the small chamber. Worn faces, bland in their features, both strange and familiar, look down from the ceiling and walls. Our gods have no names, no hierarchy. Their blessings are random, their words sparse, their punishments impossible to predict. But they exist in all things. They are felt at all times. I search out my favorite, a vaguely feminine face, her eyes empty and gray, distinguished only by a quirk of the lips that could be a flaw in the stone. She seems to smile knowingly. She comforts me, even now, in the shadow of my father’s funeral. All will be right, I think she says.
The room isn’t as large as the other palace temple, the one we use for court services, or as grand as the massive temples in the center of Detraon. No golden altars or jeweled books of celestial law. Our gods require little more than faith to make their presence known.
I lay a hand against a familiar window, waiting. The rising sun filters weakly through thick diamondglass, the panes arranged like spiraling waves. Only when the doors of the sanctum close behind us, locking us in with no one but the gods and one another, do I breathe a low sigh of relief. Before my eyes adjust to the dim light, Mother takes my face in her warm hands, and I can’t help but flinch.
“You don’t need to go back,” Mother whispers.
I’ve never heard her beg. It is a foreign sound.
My voice sticks. “What?”
“Please, my dearest one.” She switches deftly back to Lakelander, favoring our native tongue. Her eyes sharpen, darker in the shadows of the narrow room. They are deep wells I could fall into and never climb out of. “The alliance can survive without you holding it together.”
She doesn’t let go of my face, her thumbs running over my cheekbones. For a long moment, I linger. I see the hope bloom in her eyes, and I squeeze my lids shut. Slowly, I put my hands over her own and pull them away.
“We know that isn’t true at all,” I tell my mother, forcing myself to look back at her face.
She clenches her jaw, hardening. A queen is never accustomed to denial. “Don’t tell me what I do or do not know.”
But I am a queen too.
“Have the gods told you otherwise?” I ask. “Do you speak for them?” A blasphemy. You can hear the gods in your heart, but only priests can spread their words.
Even the queen of the Lakelands is subject to such bonds. She glances away, ashamed, before turning to Tiora. My sister says nothing, and looks grimmer than ever. Quite a feat.
“Do you speak for the crown?” I press on, putting distance between us. Mother must understand. “Is this what will help our country?”
Again, silence. Mother won’t answer. Instead she steels herself, shifting into her royal persona before my eyes. She seems to harden and grow taller. I almost expect her to turn to stone. She won’t lie to you.
“Or do you speak for yourself, Mother? As a grieving woman? You just lost Father, and you don’t want to lose me—”
“I cannot deny that I want you here,” she says firmly, and I recognize the voice of a sovereign. The one she uses in court rulings. “Safe. Protected from monsters like him.”
“I can handle Maven. I have been, for months now. You know that.” Like her, I look to Tiora for some kind of support. Her face doesn’t change, maintaining neutrality. Observant, quiet, and calculating, as a queen in waiting should be.
“Oh, I read your letters, yes.” Mother waves a hand, dismissive. Have her fingers always been so thin, so wrinkled, so old? I’m struck by the sight. So much gray, I muse, watching her as she paces. Her hair gleams in the dim light. So much more gray than I remember.
“I receive both your official correspondence and the secret reports you send, Iris,” Mother says. “Neither fills me with confidence. And seeing him now . . .” She heaves a ragged sigh, thinking. The queen crosses to the opposite window, tracing the swirls of diamondglass. “That boy is all sharp edges and emptiness. There is no soul to him. He killed his own father, tried to do the same to the exiled brother. Whatever his demon mother did has cursed the king of Norta to a life of torment. I won’t curse you to the same. I won’t let you waste your life at his side. It’s only a matter of time before his court devours him, or he devours it.”
I share that fear with her, but it’s no use lamenting choices already made. Doors already opened. Paths already taken. “If only you’d told me this sooner,” I scoff. “I could have let him die when those Reds attacked our wedding. Then Father would still be alive.”
“Yes,” Mother murmurs. She studies the window like a fine painting, so she doesn’t have to look at her daughters.
“And then, if he were dead . . .” I lower my voice, trying to sound as strong as she does. Like Mother, like Tiora. A queen born. Slowly, I move to my mother’s side, put my hands on her narrow shoulders. She’s always been thinner than me. “We would be fighting a war on two fronts. Against a new king in Norta and the Red rebellion that seems to boil all over the world.” In my own country, I curse in my head. The Red rebellion began within our borders, under our noses. We let their rot spread.
Mother’s eyelashes flutter, dark against brown cheeks. Her hand covers mine. “But I’d have you both. We’d still be together.”
“For how long?” my sister asks.
Tiora is taller than us, and surveys us down the length of her arched nose. She folds her arms, rustling the blue-and-black silk. In the cloistered, small temple, she seems statuesque, towering next to the gods themselves.
“Who’s to say that path doesn’t end in more death?” she says. “In all our bodies at the bottom of the bay? You think the Scarlet Guard would let us live if they overthrew our kingdom? I don’t.”
“Neither do I,” I mumble, laying my forehead against our mother’s shoulder. “Mother?”
Her body stiffens beneath my touch, muscles coiling tight. “It can be done,” she says flatly. “This knot can be untangled. You can still stay with us. But it must be your choice, monamora.”
My love.
If I could ask one thing of Mother, it would be to choose for me. To do as she has done for me so many thousand times. Wear this, eat that, say what I tell you. I begrudged her wisdom then, how she or my father would take the responsibility from me. Now I wish I could cast it away. Put my fate in the hands of the people I trust. If only I were still a child, and this were all a bad dream.
I look over my shoulder, searching for my sister. She frowns at me, heartsick, and offers no escape.
“I w
ould stay if I could.” I try to sound like a queen, but the words tremble. “You know that. And you know, deep down, that what you ask is impossible. A betrayal of your crown. What is it you used to tell us?”
Tiora answers as Mother winces. “Duty first. Honor always.”
The memory warms my insides. What lies ahead isn’t easy, but it’s what I must do. I have purpose in that, at the very least.
“My duty is to protect the Lakelands as well as you do,” I tell them. “My marriage to Maven may not win the war, but it gives us a chance. It puts a wall between us and the wolves at the door. As for my honor—I have none until Father is avenged.”
“Agreed,” Tiora snarls.
“Agreed,” Mother whispers, her voice a shadow.
I stare over her shoulder, at the face of the smiling god. I draw strength from her smirk, her confidence. She assures me. “Maven, his kingdom, they’re a shield, but a sword too. We have to use him, even though he’s a danger to us all.”
Mother scoffs. “Especially you.”
“Yes, especially me.”
“I never should have agreed,” she hisses. “It was your father’s idea.”
“I know, and it was a good one. I don’t blame him.” I don’t blame him. How many nights did I spend alone in Whitefire Palace, awake and telling myself I felt no remorse? No anger at having been sold like a pet or an acre of land? It was a lie then, and a lie now. But my anger at such things died with my father.
“When all this is over—” Mother says.
Tiora cuts her off. “If we win—”
“When we win,” Mother says, spinning on her heel. Her eyes flash, catching a spangle of light. In the center of the temple chamber, the curling fountain slows its motions, the steady fall of water easing in its journey. “When your father is bathed by the blood of his killers, when the Scarlet Guard is exterminated like so many overgrown rats”—the water stops, suspended by her fervor—“there will be little reason to leave you in Norta. And even less to leave an unstable, unfit king on the throne in Archeon. Especially one who is so foolish with the blood of his own people, and ours.”