Halfway to the barracks, I realize I’m being followed through the fortress city. Footsteps trail close behind, nimble and even along the winding street. The fluorescent lights cast two shadows, mine and someone else’s. I tense, uneasy, but not afraid. Corvium is crawling with coalition soldiers, and if any of them are stupid enough to wish me harm, they’re welcome to try. I can protect myself. Sparks ripple beneath my skin, easy to unleash. Ready to loose.
I turn on my boot heel, hoping to catch whoever it is off guard. It doesn’t work.
Evangeline stops smoothly, expectant, her arms crossed and dark, perfect eyebrows raised. She still wears her opulent armor, the kind better suited to a king’s court than a battleground. No crown, though. She used to spend her free time fashioning tiaras and circlets from whatever metal she could get her hands on. But now, when she has every right to wear one, her head is bare.
“I trailed you through two sectors of the city, Barrow,” she says, tossing back her head. “I thought you were supposed to be some kind of thief?”
My incessant laugh from earlier tugs again, and I can’t help but smirk, huffing out a breath. Her bite is familiar, and anything familiar feels like comfort right now. “Never change, Evangeline.”
Her smile flashes, quick as a knife. “Of course not. Why change perfection?”
“Well, please don’t let me keep you from your perfect life, Your Highness,” I tell her. Still smirking, I step aside, clearing the way for her. Calling her bluff. Evangeline Samos did not seek me out to trade insults. Her behavior in the council chamber made her motives very clear.
She blinks, and a bit of her boldness melts. “Mare,” she says, softer now. Pleading. But her pride won’t let her do much more than almost beg. That damn Silver spine. She doesn’t know how to bend. No one ever taught her, and no one would ever allow her to try.
Despite everything between us, a sliver of pity arrows through my heart. Evangeline was raised in the Silver court, born to scheme and climb, made to fight as fiercely as she guards her mind. But her mask is far from perfect, especially compared to Maven’s. After months of reading shadows in his eyes, I see Evangeline’s thoughts reflected in hers clear as daylight. Pain radiates from her. Longing. She has the feel of a predator in a cage with no chance of escaping. Part of me wants to leave her trapped. Let her realize exactly what kind of life she used to want. I want to believe I’m not that cruel. And I’m not stupid. Evangeline Samos would make a powerful ally, and if I have to buy her with whatever she wants, so be it.
“If you’re looking for sympathy, keep walking,” I mutter, gesturing again to the empty street. A useless threat, but she bristles anyway. Her eyes, already black, darken. The gibe works, pushing her into a corner, forcing her to speak.
“I don’t want an inch of it from you,” Evangeline snaps. The needle edges of her armor sharpen with her anger. “And I know I don’t deserve it either.”
“Definitely not,” I snort. “So you want help, then? An excuse not to go to Montfort with the rest of our happy crew?”
Evangeline’s face twists into another biting smile. “I’m hardly idiotic enough to owe you anything. No, I’m talking about a trade.”
I keep my face still, my eyes locked on hers. I channel a little bit of Davidson’s serene, unfathomable blankness. “I thought you might be.”
“Good to know you aren’t as dense as people seem to think.”
“So, what do you have?” I ask, wanting to hurry this along. We’re leaving for Piedmont, and then Montfort, tomorrow. We don’t have the luxury of our usual barbs. “What do you want?”
The words stick in her throat. She drags her teeth across her lips, scraping away a bit of the purple stain. In the unforgiving light of the Corvium street, her makeup seems harsh, more like war paint. I suppose it is. The purple shadows below her cheekbones, meant to sculpt her features into impossible sharpness, seem sickly in the dark. Even the shimmering white powder on her skin, smoothing her moonbeam complexion, has flaws. Tear tracks. She tried to cover them up, but the evidence is still there. Uneven color, a hint of black paint from her lashes still leaving their mark. Her walls of beauty and lethal magnificence have deep cracks.
“But that’s easy, isn’t it?” I answer my own question, taking a step closer. She almost flinches. “All this time, all your scheming. You have Tiberias. You have a third chance to marry a Calore king. Become queen of Norta. Achieve everything you’ve ever worked for.”
Her throat bobs, swallowing a probably rude response. We don’t have much practice being civil each other.
“And you want out,” I whisper. “You don’t want to be what you were born for. Why the sudden revelation? Why throw away what you used to want so much?”
Her restraint breaks. “I don’t have to explain myself or my reasons to you.”
“Your reason has red hair and answers to Elane Haven.”
Evangeline tenses, fists clenching, and the scales of her armor tighten, responding to her sudden emotions. “Don’t talk about her,” she snaps, revealing her weakness, the easy leverage we can use.
She closes the distance between us. Evangeline is several inches taller than me, and she wields this slim advantage well. With her hands on her hips, eyes glaring, her shoulders square against the city lights, I’m entirely in her shadow.
I blink up at her, tilting my head. “So you want to go back to her. And what, you think I can stop Tiberias from marrying you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes. “You’re a good distraction for Calore kings, yes. But I’m not delusional. Cal won’t break our betrothal. Maven, maybe. You certainly influenced his decision to cast me aside.”
“As if you were ever really going to marry Maven,” I tell Evangeline slowly. I saw more than she realizes, back in Maven’s court. Her family took the monumental slight too well. The Kingdom of the Rift was planned long before I nudged Maven in any direction.
Evangeline shrugs. “I was never going to be his queen after Elara died. Excuse me, after you killed her,” she says quickly. “She could hold his leash, at least. Keep him in check. I don’t think anyone alive can do that now, not even you.”
I nod in agreement. There is no controlling Maven Calore.
Though I certainly tried. Bile rises in my throat at the memory, my attempts to manipulate the boy king, playing on his weakness for me. And then Maven traded House Samos for peace, for the Lakelands, for a princess just as deadly and probably twice as cunning as Evangeline. I wonder if he met his match in Iris Cygnet, the quiet, calculating nymph.
I try to picture him now, fleeing Corvium for the Lakelands. His white face above a uniform of black and red, blue eyes sparking with quiet fury. Retreating to a strange kingdom and a strange court, without the protection of his Silent Stone. With nothing to show but the corpse of the king of the Lakelands. It comforts me a bit, to know he failed so spectacularly. Perhaps the queen of the Lakelands will kill him outright, to punish him for wasting her husband’s life on the siege.
I couldn’t drown Maven when I had the chance. Maybe she will.
“And you can’t command Cal either. Not in any way that could achieve what I want.” Evangeline pushes on, her words a twisting knife. “He won’t put me aside for you, not if the crown hangs in the balance. Sorry, Barrow. He’s not the abdicating kind.”
“I know what kind he is,” I sneer back, feeling her jab as keenly as she feels mine. If my life continues this way, with almost everything I do poking at this wound, I doubt it will ever have time to heal.
“He’s made his choice,” she says. Both to punish me and to make a point. “When he wins back Norta, and he will, I’ll marry him. Cement an alliance, ensure the Rift survives. Carry on the legacy of Volo Samos and his kings of steel.” Evangeline looks past me, down the dark street. A patrol walks the adjoining avenue ten yards away, their voices low and even as their footsteps. Scarlet Guard, judging by the rust-colored uniforms. Most are repurposed from the Red uniforms of the Nortan army, their insignia ripped off. I doubt Evangeline notices. Her eyes glaze, and she thinks of something far away. Something she doesn’t like at all, judging by her clenching jaw.
“And if you don’t marry him?” I prod, bringing her back.
It’s the easy, obvious thing to ask, but she blanches, perplexed by the suggestion. Her eyes widen, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Impossible,” she scoffs. “There’s no way around it. Short of running away to Tiraxes or Ciron or whatever backwater my father can’t invade,” she adds, laughing darkly at the idea. “Even that won’t work. He’ll find me wherever I go, drag me back, and use me as I was intended to be used. The only course I see, the only option I have, is very simple.”
Of course it is, Evangeline.
Our objectives are the same, though our motivations differ. I let her talk, spooling out exactly what I want to hear. Things will be easier if she thinks this is all her own idea.
“There will be no marriage if Cal fails.” Evangeline stares through me. She forces the words. They’re a betrayal, of her house, of her colors, of her father, of her blood. It cuts her bone-deep. “If he isn’t king of Norta, my father won’t waste me on him. And if he loses his war for the crown, if we lose, Father will be too distracted keeping his own throne to sell me off to someone else. Or at least sell me somewhere far away.”
From Elane.Her meaning is clear.
“So you want me to stop Cal from winning back his kingdom?”
She sneers, taking a step back. “You’ve learned many things in Silver courts, Mare Barrow. You’re smarter than you seem. I won’t underestimate you ever again, and you better not underestimate me.” As she speaks, her armor skitters, re-forming and twisting along her limbs. The scales shrink and crawl. Like the bugs of her mother’s control, each one a gleaming dot of black and silver. She re-forms her clothing into something more substantial, less grand. Real armor, meant for battle and nothing else. “When I say I want you to stop Cal, I mean your little circle. Although I don’t know how ‘little’ both Montfort and the Scarlet Guard can be considered. After all, they can’t really mean to prop up another Silver kingdom. Not without some serious strings attached.”
“Ah.” My heart drops a little. There’s a card shown, one I would have liked to keep hidden.
“Yes, well. It doesn’t take a political genius to know that a Red and Silver coalition will be fraught with betrayal. I’m certain all the leaders know not to trust one another.” Her eyes flash as she turns, meaning to leave me behind. “Except for maybe one aspiring king,” she adds over her shoulder.
A fact I know too well. Tiberias is as trusting as a new puppy, easily led by the people he loves. Me, his grandmother, and most of all his dead father. He pursues the crown for that man, to serve some bond that hasn’t broken. While his confidence, his courage, and his dogged focus make him strong, they also make him blind everywhere but the battlefield. He can predict surging armies, but not scheming people. He won’t see or can’t see the machinations around him. He didn’t before, and he won’t again.
“He’s certainly not Maven,” I mutter, if only to myself.
I hear an echo from Evangeline all the same, bouncing off the stone walls of Corvium.
“He’s certainly not,” she replies.
In her voice, I hear the same things I feel.
Relief. And regret.
FOUR
Iris
The bay laps atmy bare ankles, refreshing, renewing. It’s cold before the sunrise, but I hardly feel the chill. I find sanctuary in the simple sensation. I know these waters as well as I know my own face. I can feel them far beyond my feet, the pulse of the softest current, the smallest ripple of the river feeding the bay, and the bay feeding the lake. The coming light of dawn bleeds across the smooth surface. The mirror image distorts in streaks of pale blue and rose pink. Such calm lets me forget who I am, but not for long. I am Iris Cygnet, a princess born, a queen made. I don’t have the luxury of forgetting anything, no matter how much I may want to.
We wait together, my mother, my sister, and I, our attention fixed on the southern horizon. Fog hangs low across the narrow mouth of Clear Bay, obstructing the peninsula dotted with guard towers, as well as Lake Eris beyond. A few lights from the towers twinkle through the fog, like stars hanging low. As the fog shifts, moving in the wind off the lake, more and more towers come into view. Tall stone structures, improved and rebuilt a hundred times over hundreds of years. The towers have seen more war and ruin than even historians can say. Their lights flare, too many ablaze this close to dawn. But the beacons will remain all day, torches burning and electric lights beaming. The flags streaming in the breeze are different from the usual standard of the Lakelands. Each tower flies cobalt blue slashed with black. To honor so many dead in Corvium, to mourn.
To say good-bye to our king.
I shed my tears already, in hours spent crying last night. I shouldn’t have any more tears left to give, but still they come. My sister, Tiora, keeps herself in better check. She raises her chin, a diadem crown winking across her brow. It’s a braid of dark sapphire and jet, hung low across her forehead. Even though I am a queen now, my crown is more simple, barely a string of blue diamonds punctuated by red gems to symbolize Norta.
We have the same cold, bronze skin, the same face, high cheekbones and sharply arched eyebrows, but her deep mahogany eyes belong to our mother. I have father’s gray. Tiora is twenty-three, four years my elder, and the heir to the throne of the Lakelands. I used to say she was born grim and silent, loath to cry, unable to laugh. Her serious nature serves her well as my mother’s heir. She has far more skill in controlling her emotions, though I do my best to keep still as the lakes. Tiora locks her gaze forward, her spine straight with the pride not even a funeral can break. Despite her stoic nature, even she cries for our lost father. Her tears are less evident, quickly dropping into the bay swirling around our feet. She’s a nymph like the rest of our family, and uses her ability to cast the tears away and leave nothing of them behind. I would do the same if I had the strength, but I can’t summon anything right now.
Not so for our mother, Cenra, the ruling queen of the Lakelands.
Her tears hover in the air, a cloud of crystal droplets to catch the spreading light of dawn. One by one, the cloud grows and the tears turn steadily, flashing in time, sending faint rainbows arching across her brown skin. Diamonds born from her broken heart.
She stands in front of us, knee-deep in the water, her mourning gown floating out behind her. Like Tiora and me, Mother wears mostly black slashed with our regal blue. The dress is finely made in intricate layers of thin silk, but it’s shapeless, hanging off her like an afterthought. While Tiora took care to make sure we were both prepared for the funeral, choosing jewels and gowns to suit, Mother did no such thing. She looks plain, her hair undone in a sleek trail of raven and storm. No bracelets, no earrings, no crown. A queen only in bearing. And that’s enough. I’m tempted to cling to her skirts like I did when I was a child. I could hold on to her and never let go. Never leave home again. Never return to a court falling to pieces around an already broken king.
The thought of my husband turns me cold. And resolute.
The tears dry on my cheeks.