by Sarah Dalton
He was dressed finely in a blue doublet that complemented his colouring nicely. He had gone through four doublets before choosing this one, while Brother Axil stood in the corner of the room and did not comment on the process. Luca was grateful for that. He sensed that Brother Axil knew why Luca was so nervous, but there was no teasing.
If Tania saw him like this, she would tease him, Luca knew. She was used to Luca being Ludo, a noble but hardly one of great consequence, and she did not revere him or his crown as so many others did. He felt a pang. He had not summoned Tania, Nico, and Joss back to see him after sending them away the other night. He had not even explained what had happened. In his heart, he was afraid they would react the same way Reva had when they learned of the Gardens of Anios.
He could not tell them what he had done.
He sat up straighter when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside. The door opened and Luca looked over at it eagerly. His sister Serena was the first inside, and she gave him a grave nod. She had been quieter since her return from the city a few days ago, and she came to speak to Luca at once.
“Brother,” she said, curtsying deeply before the throne. “I wondered if I might have Brother Raphael join today’s council meeting. He has been working with me and Lord Tinian—”
“I know who Brother Raphael is,” Luca said, nettled. He knew these things. He had been in these meetings. Did they think he could not remember the most basic facts?
Serena did not say anything, however. She broke off in surprise and closed her mouth, waiting for Luca to speak.
Luca sighed. “He may attend. Of course.”
Serena nodded and went to the door, and as she moved away, Luca saw that Reva had come into the room. She was dressed very simply in a brown dress with a copper brooch, but the fabric was rich and the colours made her skin appear warm and healthy once more. Luca could see her as the girl they had called “sun-kissed” when they were young together, only now she was a woman who had grown into her looks. She gave him a nod and a faint smile, and he had the sense that everything might be okay. That she might forgive him.
She chose a seat at the corner of the room, not at the table, but he waved her forward.
“Come, sit.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Prince Luca,” he corrected her, by habit. He did not like how it sounded when she said “Your Majesty.” It sounded very distant. “I asked you to come today because you have information that will benefit the council. You should sit with us.”
Reva hesitated only a moment before coming to sit near him. She was trying to be dignified, but Luca could see her nervousness in the way she looked down at the table and did not speak much. Reva had always been in constant motion, quick to speak and even quicker to laugh. It was rare to see her be still. Luca caught her eye and gave her a smile, and his heart turned over when she smiled back. For a moment, it was as if the past few days had not happened.
He soon realised that Lord Tinian was watching them. The man’s eyes flicked back and forth between Reva and Luca, and there was calculation there. Luca did not know what the lord concluded. Lord Tinian simply smiled thinly and looked away.
Serena was sitting next to a surprisingly handsome man in the robes of a Brother of the Enlightened. Luca watched as Brother Axil bent his head to murmur to the man for a moment. The two nodded to one another, clearly in accord over what they had discussed, and Brother Axil came to sit.
All eyes turned to Luca, and he cleared his throat. He wanted Reva to see him being kingly and fair. He gestured to Serena.
“My lords, as many of you know, Princess Serena has been working with Lord Tinian and Brother Raphael to formulate a response to the plague. Serena’s efforts to secure medicine for the sick have allowed us to begin ending the spread of the plague.” That sounded kingly, he thought. “Serena, you went into the city the other day to visit the plague victims. What did you see?”
Serena flushed. She seemed embarrassed for some reason, and Brother Raphael reached out for a moment to place his hand over hers. The two smiled at one another, and she seemed to take strength from his smile. But when she spoke, her voice was grave.
“Your Highness, the plague has struck down many in the city. They are fighting for their lives in crowded hospitals. The matrons and the nurses work tirelessly, but they do not have enough supplies or enough workers. I thought that perhaps some of the young people of the city might be trained to serve in basic roles within the hospitals. It will provide them with jobs that they desperately need to provide for their families. With so many young people and so little work due to the plague, there have been problems with youths getting into trouble. This would fix two problems at once.”
Luca nodded. This sounded to him like a good solution.
“Princess Serena,” Lord Tinian said, and his voice was like silk. “We all thank you for your selfless efforts to help the plague victims.”
Serena nodded to him. She was too well-trained in etiquette to look wary, but Luca could see it in the way she watched the Xanti lord.
“How do you propose to pay for such employment?” Lord Tinian asked her. “Surely, you must see that Prince Luca’s treasury is already strained.”
Estala’s treasury. Luca’s lips moved, but silently. People kept speaking of his army and his treasury and his throne, and it always felt wrong.
Serena gave Luca a pleading look. “There are many concerns at this time, yes, but I think that keeping the city safe from chaos is a good use of funds. With so many parents either sick or dead—”
“Princess Serena, do you have any idea of the scale of what you are proposing?” Lord Tinian looked at her as though she were a wayward child. “Your heart is in the right place, but the crown simply cannot afford to pay for everyone’s daily bread.”
Serena swallowed. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table, and Luca noticed the red flush along her collarbone that indicated her anger stirring.
“Perhaps the princess Serena could draw up a proposal,” Brother Axil said smoothly. “Brother Raphael is familiar with the number of hospitals in the city. He would know how they are staffed, what supplies they need, and how many patients they serve. With the princess’s knowledge of policy, the two could give you an idea of how much such an endeavour would cost—and what it might gain the crown in terms of money not spent on city jails and property damage in the event of riots.”
Luca knew he should have suggested that, but his mind had gone entirely blank. He could at least accept the suggestion.
“Thank you, Brother Axil. Sister, please send a proposal as soon as you have one. I will review it immediately.” He looked at Reva and found her watching him, but he did not know what she was thinking. “Now, we should hear from the Lady Avalon. As many of you know, she was married to General Unna, whose castle was destroyed by my brother, Stefan. Since then, Reva has seen much of Estala, and she has valuable information to share with us all.”
Reva nodded at Luca, and her pretty brown eyes roamed over the faces of Luca’s councillors. As a child, Luca would never have imagined Reva could be so calm and still, with an expression of serenity across her features. In that moment, it alarmed him to see the self-possessed woman she had become. In comparison, he felt completely inferior and unsure of himself.
“My lords,” she said respectfully. “Your Highness.” She nodded to Serena. “Brothers.” Two nods, to Brother Axil and Brother Raphael. How fine a queen she would make. She took time to make each person in the room feel as though they had her attention and she was speaking directly to them. “As we heard Princess Serena speak of the plague, I will begin with that. As you may know, our former king preferred to address the plague with….” Her voice trailed off at this.
“You may speak freely,” Luca told her.
She swallowed and nodded, though she did not look at him. “The Order of Insight believed that the plague was a punishment from Anios,” she said. “At least, the people believed such a thing, and
the Order did nothing to correct that belief. Even in the countryside, the people heard that their king was building temples to Anios, and that this was how he intended to treat the plague.” The serenity of her features morphed into a hardness that he had last seen during their dinner together. She was passionately angry, he realised. “There were groups of people on the road who would simply walk, as pilgrims would, except not to any specific place. They carried whips, and they would beat themselves. The roads were lined with bodies.”
She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “They did not know any better. The people needed reassurance. They needed medicine and comfort, but instead they were told that the plague was their own fault. I do not dispute that medicine and doctors are needed. The efforts of the princess, and of Brother Raphael and Lord Tinian”—she had been paying close attention, Luca saw—“are very important. But the people must also be told that this plague is nothing more than a sickness. They must be told that their king and their lords do not hold them responsible for what is happening, and that people are working to help them. They must have hope.”
Luca felt pride blossoming in his chest. She was rallying the council to her point of view and doing it beautifully. A moment later, however, he felt discontented. Serena gave speeches like this as well, and everyone thought she was very inspiring. Why was he not able to command people’s attention as easily?
“There is another matter,” Reva said. She was very tense now, and Luca noticed that she did not look at him.
No. Do not say it. He felt frozen. He wanted her to speak up and challenge Lord Tinian, but at the same time, he was afraid that Lord Tinian would be angry. He had a sense of everything spinning out of control.
But the door burst open before Reva could speak any further, and a servant came to whisper in Luca’s ear. Luca stood up hastily to go to the window, which the servant obligingly opened.
He could barely see what they were talking about, but there was clearly a hue and cry on the ships. The servant had brought a spyglass, which Luca brought up to his eye and tried to focus through. The world swam to and fro dizzyingly until he was able to find the right point on the horizon.
He lowered the spyglass and turned back to the council. “My lords, we have received word that Mount Zean has erupted.”
Lord Tinian got up hastily and came to look through the spyglass.
Reva, thrown off her guard, said earnestly, “Is there any danger to Xantos? What does the eruption mean?”
It was Brother Axil who spoke. “It means the final dragon king has been born.”
Reva
Reva hurried down the steps and into the sunshine. In the furore that had filled the end of the council meeting, she had slipped away to find Sam and Carlia. The final dragon king has been born, Brother Axil had said. There was Stefan, Reva, Sam, and Carlia. If there was another dragon…. She did not know what this meant, and she certainly did not want to be there if Luca told all of his councillors about her Menti powers.
She was halfway across the courtyard when she heard his voice calling her name, and her stomach twisted as she realised that she did not want to speak to him yet. She had done as Brother Axil had asked, but it had been even more difficult than she had imagined. It had been hard to watch the way he tensed as she prepared to speak about the Gardens of Anios. She looked over her shoulder as she ran, and managed to tumble straight into a tall woman with dark skin, sending both of them sprawling into the dirt.
“I am so sorry,” Reva gasped. She pushed herself up hurriedly and offered the other woman a hand. It was the woman she had seen going to Luca’s apartments a day or two ago, and she wracked her memory for her name. “Tania?”
The other woman nodded stiffly. She did not look particularly pleased to see Reva.
“I really am sorry about running into you,” Reva said honestly. She dropped her head into her hands for a moment. “The truth is, I am—” She broke off, uncertain whether she should say anything about Luca to this woman. A moment later she heard her name again and cast a look over her shoulder.
Tania seemed to understand the look, if not the reasons behind it. “This way,” she said, and she helped Reva slip into the nearby stables. “Careful. Keep your skirts up and watch your step.”
Reva laughed. She had spent the past few months on the run in increasingly ragged clothes, including some smeared with the contents of pigsties. She mentioned this and won a smile in response.
“I suppose I should have guessed, given how you showed up.” Tania had a smile that made Reva relax somewhat. After the initial shock of the collision, Tania seemed much friendlier now. “What happened to you? Or, since I suppose you told me—why did it happen?”
The question was frank and not at all polite, but for some reason that helped Reva relax. “I was captured by the Sisters,” she explained. “Luca’s father set up slave camps for the Menti. They made us wear iron shackles and grow crops to sell. They were trying to work us to death.” She remembered Sister Valeria’s eyes and shuddered. “And hurt us. They wanted us to hurt us.”
“No.” Tania gave her a wide-eyed look. “Really? Ludo—Luca—said his father waged war against the Menti, but I never thought he did anything like that. Luca called himself Ludovico when he first came to the Menti camp,” she explained when Reva frowned at the name. “I still think of him as Ludo, a nobleman’s son. Seeing him here is strange.” Her chin lowered, and Reva thought she saw a shadow of sadness cross the woman’s face.
“I know what you mean,” Reva said. “When I first arrived at Nesra’s Keep, when I was a child, they made a big show of betrothing me to Luca. We were very young, so we did not understand the consequences of the betrothal, but he was such a gentle boy. He was very sickly. Seeing him now as someone who came with an army and fought his way to take the throne is…strange.” And seeing what he has done with his power is terrible. But she did not say that last part. “He has changed,” she added lamely.
“Mmm.” Tania gave her a piercing look. “So, where were you going?”
“I wanted to find Sam and Carlia,” Reva explained. “The two who travelled with me.”
“They are with us at the ambassadors’ wing,” Tania told her. “The other Menti, I mean.”
“Luca mentioned that you were all Menti.”
“I hope he has a plan for that,” Tania said frankly. “We are hidden away, but whispers must be all over the palace now, and I would rather not have someone try to kill us all. Luca should just come out and say he’s Menti, too. Come on, this way. You can get through from the stables. It is just a servants’ corridor, but that’s always a better way to get around if you know how.”
Reva followed her gratefully. She had never known things like this. She and Luca were not the type to go sneaking off or making mischief. She tried to think of something to say to Tania, but could not think of anything.
“Do you know anything about Josef?” Tania asked Reva as they made their way through a dark, narrow corridor.
“No. Is he a lord?” Then Reva remembered something. “Oh, the mage.”
“Does he call himself that?” Tania sounded disgusted.
“What does it mean? Is a mage not a Menti?”
“In a way.” Tania shrugged. “You don’t know much about Menti, then?”
Reva shook her head. “My parents died before I knew they were Menti. They did not tell me anything like that. And most of the Menti who were slaves were the only ones in their village. We would not know anything about—”
“It’s not really a Menti thing, I suppose,” Tania interrupted. “Just a magic thing. And Luca’s father tried to stamp all of that out. Menti are born with their powers. Mages say they can use powers they were not born with. They use rituals and symbols and some…I don’t know what you would call them. Objects that make the spells work. Like gems and claws. Sometimes blood.” She shuddered at the last part.
“Does that work?” Reva asked.
“No one knows for ce
rtain. I don’t think so, but I s’pose I don’t know.” Tania shrugged and led Reva out of the corridor into the bright sunshine. “What’s everyone yelling about, do you know? All the guards were in a hubbub. That’s why I was out in the courtyard, to see what was going on.”
“Mount Zean has erupted,” Reva explained. “Which is why I came to find Sam and Carlia. See, people are saying that—”
Again, she broke off, not certain what to say.
“Dragons,” Tania said with another grin. Then her eyes got wide. “Is that what their powers are? They would not say.” She whistled. “Dragons. We could use dragons. Luca’s brother is one, you know.”
“So am I,” Reva said with a grin.
She expected Tania to smile, but to her surprise, Tania seemed to grow sad. She forced a smile. “Oh,” she said simply.
“Reva!”
Carlia came hurrying across the courtyard with Sam following her. She was dressed in a fine gown that was properly fitted to her. It was a deep, rich green that set off Carlia’s hair. She looked beautiful, Reva thought, though the effect was somewhat ruined due to the fact that Carlia was clearly unused to court gowns. She had hiked the skirts up almost to her knees so that she would not get dust on the hem.
“You do not need to be so cautious, you know,” Reva told her. There was a mischievous smile on her lips. “The dress can always be cleaned.”
“I have been living in a cave for so long that I have forgotten these things. I do hope you are right, Reva,” Carlia said. “I certainly do not know how to, and Mama would have a fit if….”
She trailed off, and Reva’s stomach dropped to her knees. She rushed over to her friend and hugged her tightly. As she held Carlia, she met Sam’s eyes over Carlia’s shoulder and saw a similar shadow in his eyes.