by Sharon Shinn
Corene suspected it wasn’t good enough for Steff, either. He hadn’t grown up watching the primes work their subtle magic; he might wonder if Zoe had misread his blood. He might wonder if he was not, after all, the lost grandson who had miraculously returned—if he had any place in this court at all.
Corene put a comforting hand on Steff’s arm. “It will be all right,” she promised.
“Come with me,” he begged.
Lorian spoke in a polite but chilly tone. “She wishes to see you alone.”
Steff glanced at Corene, then back at Lorian. “I’d really like to have her with me,” he said. “No matter what the news.”
Corene didn’t feel like pleading with the supercilious Lorian. If Filomara didn’t want her in the room, let the empress say so to her face. “I’ll come,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“This is very exciting!” Melissande exclaimed. “Perhaps I won’t nap after all, but merely sit and wait in agony until you return with the news.”
Corene handed her various bundles to Foley, then followed Steff and Lorian through the palace doors. She could feel the three nephews staring at their backs with an intensity that made her spine itch. This was a conference that meant as much to them as it did to Steff.
Lorian led them to the second story of the white wing and down a long hallway that Corene hadn’t explored yet, though it was clear that this was the region of the palace where the empress spent the bulk of her days. The rooms she glimpsed behind half-closed doors were large, full of light, and sparsely but comfortably furnished. Both grand and severe—exactly how Corene viewed Filomara.
The empress waited for them in a room that seemed to be nothing but high ceilings, white walls, and sunlight. The only color was supplied by the garden greenery visible through windows that took up an entire wall. At first Corene didn’t even see any chairs or places to sit.
The empress was standing in the middle of the room, dressed in such a plain ivory jacket and trousers that she almost blended in with her surroundings. Close enough, and dark enough, to be her shadow stood a slight, stooped man with the wrinkled face and hunched posture of the very old. But his eyes were searching and curious; Corene would bet there wasn’t much he missed.
Lorian felt compelled to announce them formally, perhaps for the benefit of the visitor. “Steffanolo Adova and Princess Corene of Welce.”
Filomara glared in Corene’s direction. “I didn’t ask for your presence, Princess.”
Corene bowed politely, a conciliatory gesture. “I thought Steffanolo might like to have a familiar face nearby.”
Filomara frowned a moment longer, then shrugged. “I suppose you may as well stay.” Not until then did Lorian withdraw, closing the door quietly behind him. Corene tried to smile at the thought he had lingered long enough to throw her out if Filomara had asked him to, but she was too tense to be amused.
Filomara gestured at her companion. “This is Renalto Corsicara, who oversees the institute of biological research.”
“The what?” Steff said, moments before the words came out of Corene’s mouth.
The old man grinned. It made his face surprisingly likable. “In your country, so I hear, most of the research centers around mechanical things. In Malinqua, the top scientific minds bend themselves to understanding living creatures. Humans, animals, and plants. We have not built flying machines, as I understand the Welchins have, but we know more about the body than any of your experts do.”
I bet the primes know things about the body your researchers wouldn’t even think to ask about, Corene thought. “So were you one of the people who tested Steff’s blood?” she said.
“Not the first day,” Filomara answered. “I brought in two respected biologists who do commercial research—they’re very involved in animal breeding programs.”
“The best in their fields,” Renalto murmured. “The most up-to-date testing facilities.”
“They said Steffanolo’s blood doesn’t carry the same markers as mine,” Filomara said baldly.
For a moment, Corene thought she’d heard wrong. “They said—what? That Steff isn’t related to you?”
The empress nodded. Her square face was carefully blank of emotion, and Corene wondered if she was trying to hold back rage or pain. I thought he was my grandson and I started to love him, but he’s just an imposter . . .
“But that can’t be,” Corene said urgently. “He is your daughter’s son—”
She could feel Steff’s hand on her shoulder, tugging her back; it seemed she had taken a couple of hasty steps forward. “Maybe Zoe was wrong,” he said in a small voice.
“She’s never wrong.”
“No, and she’s not wrong in this case, whoever Zoe is,” Renalto said. He looked like he very much wanted to follow that line of inquiry once they were done with this particular conversational thread. “I ran my own tests and drew much different conclusions.”
Now Corene was confused, and she could feel Steff shift his balance beside her. “What?” she said faintly.
Filomara’s face relaxed to a grim smile. “Have you never wondered why my two living brothers are never seen at court? They are under a lifetime ban because of all their scheming to take the crown away from me. They don’t live here, but they have many allies who do, and I knew they would have learned of Steff’s existence—and my attempts to prove his bloodline. I thought it highly probable they would find some way to contaminate the evidence, or pay someone else to do so.” She snorted. “You see I was right.”
“So then—how did you find out the truth?” Corene demanded.
“I had Renalto come here in secret to take additional samples from Steffanolo.”
Corene glared at Steff. “You didn’t tell me that!”
“I don’t tell you everything.”
“Well, you should.”
Renalto seemed amused at this byplay. “I conducted my own tests, and the results were very clear.” He spread his arms as if to draw the others together in one familial hug. “Steffanolo is closely related to the empress, most likely a direct descendant. As his story is the only one that makes sense, I consider it true.”
“As do I,” Filomara said gruffly. “You are my grandson. Subriella’s boy.”
Again, Corene felt Steff shift his balance next to her, as if he might want to dash for the exit, as if he might want to sink to the floor. As if he might want to run across the room and throw his arms around his mother’s mother. Trying to be subtle about it, she nudged him forward. He took one short, stumbling step, then another—and then Filomara held her arms out to him. Two more steps brought him close enough to clasp her hands and gaze down at her, seeming unsure about what he should do next. Filomara was not a woman to welcome fervent embraces.
Slowly, staring at Steff the whole time, the empress clutched his hands and cradled them against her heart. “Subriella’s boy,” she said again. “It is like having her back again to have you stand before me.”
Corene thought—she could hardly believe it—she could see tears collecting in the empress’s stern eyes. One slipped down her cheek, leaving behind an almost invisible track. Filomara lifted Steff’s clasped hands and rested her wet face against his folded fingers. No one else in the room moved or spoke, and they stayed like that a very long time.
• • •
Since she was sure this was news the empress wanted to announce herself, Corene lied to Melissande when she found the Coziquela girl in her room, already dressed for dinner.
“Filomara wouldn’t let me stay,” she said. “So I don’t know what the blood tests showed.”
Melissande sat up very straight on the settee where she had settled in to wait. She’d brought a book and letter-writing materials with her in case that wait took hours. This was a woman who liked to stay informed. “But you yourself are convinced of the veracity of his claim?”
“Completely.”
“Explain to me again why that is?”
It was so hard to put into words things that Corene had always considered to be foundational truths. “In Welce, we are all affiliated with one of the five elements. And for every element, there is a prime—someone who can practically bend that element to his or her will. My father’s wife is the coru prime. She has power over water and an affinity with blood. She can lay her hand on a man’s arm and tell him who his relatives are, who he belongs to. She knows that Steff is Filomara’s grandson.”
“But even if you are right, that does not mean Filomara’s experts will interpret his blood correctly,” Melissande pointed out. “They might not be as good as she thinks—or they might have an incentive to lie.” She clapped her hands together. “Someone might pay them to say Steff is not at all who he says he is!”
Not for the first time, Corene thought that behind her flighty exterior, Melissande possessed a quick brilliance. She was most certainly sweela. “That occurred to me,” Corene said, as if worried about the possibility. “One of her nephews—”
“Or the prefect, or the mayor or someone else who has a stake in the game,” Melissande agreed. “But if you and I thought of that, surely Filomara did as well.”
“And fifty more things that never crossed our minds,” Corene said.
“Then I think dinner tonight will be very interesting.”
To nerve herself for the occasion, Corene chose one of the more formal tunics Zoe had sent and kept her hair in place with one of the jeweled pins she’d bought at the Great Market. Was that just this afternoon? Corene thought. This has been the longest day of my life.
The usual contingent of palace residents had gathered outside the small dining room, awaiting Filomara’s appearance—the empress’s nephews, the mayor and the prefect and their own family members, the aloof Alette. Corene lied to all of them when they sidled up to ask what Filomara had learned. I don’t know anything. It’s very unsettling.
“If he’s an imposter,” Greggorio asked, “what will happen to him? Will she have him executed?”
“What?” Corene exclaimed.
“Well, it’s treason,” he argued. “Isn’t it? Lying to the empress?”
“I think she’d merely send him packing,” Jiramondi said, but he sounded uncertain.
“It would be an act of war, would it not, to execute a foreign national?” Melissande asked, her voice sweetly puzzled. But of course she knew—they all knew—that such an action would be tantamount to a declaration of hostilities.
“He would be banished, nothing more,” said the mayor. She looked pointedly at Corene. “And diplomatic relations with Welce would most certainly deteriorate.”
Corene offered the woman her brightest smile. “Oh, but you do not know my father. He would never be so clumsy as to send an imposter to Malinqua if there was any chance the ruse would be uncovered.”
That brought everyone to a brief halt as they tried to parse her words. Would Darien Serlast ship a pretender off to Palminera if he thought he could get away with it? The mayor’s face gathered in a scowl.
“I have complete faith in our researchers,” the mayor said. “Whatever the truth is, they will discover it.”
Remember you said that, Corene thought as she heard footsteps approaching. Moments later, Filomara and Steff stepped into the anteroom where everyone waited. Steff pulled up short, uneasy at being the center of so much concentrated attention, but Filomara just nodded, not at all discomposed.
“I suppose you’ve all guessed that I’ve received the results of the tests conducted to verify Steffanolo’s heritage,” she said without preamble. “And he is Subriella’s son. My grandson. And potentially my heir.”
A single cry of “Wonderful!” came from Melissande, who also clapped her hands together. Everyone else seemed stunned. Corene glanced quickly from face to face, thinking that anyone who showed anger or disbelief would have been involved in trying to compromise the results. But in fact, everyone seemed equally surprised. Had they all thought Steff to be a fraud? Or had the whole roomful colluded to try to skew the results?
“Naturally, I will want to celebrate this momentous news in some suitable fashion,” Filomara went on. Corene thought she detected a faint quaver in the empress’s voice. “We must plan a gala event to welcome my grandson.”
She paused, as if waiting for congratulations that did not come, and then held her arm out to Steff. “You may escort me in to dinner.”
Steff’s face was so serious and self-conscious that Corene wanted to laugh, but no one else seemed remotely amused as they followed the empress and Steff into the dining room. Corene found herself sitting beside Jiramondi, who seemed to have chosen a chair as far from his aunt as the table would allow.
“Everyone seems so astonished,” she observed in a low voice once the others began stilted general conversation. “Did none of you believe he was telling the truth?”
“You must admit the story is farfetched,” Jiramondi said. “A daughter who did not die when we all thought she did and a lost grandson who is miraculously alive. I don’t know who my aunt entrusted to deliver her news, but I’m afraid she has been lied to by someone who thought to profit by giving her the results she most desired.”
Now, that was a version of the story that hadn’t occurred to Corene—that Renalto would falsify the tests, while the eminent scientists told the truth. “I would find that supposition more alarming if I didn’t have complete faith in the woman who first discovered Steff’s identity,” Corene said. “As it is, I never had a moment’s doubt that he is who he says he is.”
Jiramondi gave her a shrewd look. “Yet a cynical man might say you have some incentive to lie as well,” he said. “I don’t mean to give offense.”
She laughed. “And you don’t. I understand how these court games work.”
“Yes,” Jiramondi said on a sigh. “And so the game continues, though with an entirely different set of rules.”
“So what will your strategy be, now that there are four heirs instead of three?” she asked, teasing a little. “Will you spend more time flattering the empress or will you try instead to make Steff your friend?”
“I shall flirt with the foreign princesses in hopes of making a quick match and winning my aunt’s favor that way.” He saluted her with his wineglass before sipping from it. “I shall start by saying how beautiful you look. I admire that jeweled clip in your hair.”
She patted the hairpin and batted her eyes. “I shall be happy to flirt with you, if it will do you any good,” she said. “But would it really influence Filomara if you made an alliance with one of us?”
He smiled, but she thought she saw a shadow flit behind his eyes. “Of course it would!” he said. “Isn’t that why she brought you here, after all?”
“Well, so far I like you best of Filomara’s nephews, but that could change any day,” she said. “You’ll have to be very nice to me if you want to keep my favor.”
They continued to banter throughout the meal, a pastime Corene found highly enjoyable—more so because it earned them speculative and disapproving looks from half the other people at the table. But while she laughed and flirted, she couldn’t help wondering about the shadow that had crossed Jiramondi’s face. Was it possible his aunt had imported a raftload of foreign women for some other reason than to marry them off to her nephews? Was there a whole different kind of danger here in Malinqua that Corene hadn’t even considered yet? She didn’t show her sudden uneasiness. She merely took another sip of her wine and smiled.
• • •
The next day, of course, all the talk was about Steff and his certification as heir. He wasn’t around to hear the endless speculation, since Lorian had fetched him from the breakfast table and he seemed set to spend every hour with Filomara.
“I don’t envy him,” Garameno sai
d lightly when he unexpectedly joined Jiramondi and Corene for her language lessons. “I can generally only take a few hours of uninterrupted time with my aunt before I want to roll myself straight out of the palace, down to the harbor, and into the ocean to drown.”
Corene was only too glad to give up grammar in favor of gossip. “He has a lot to absorb,” she said. “When I was growing up, my sisters and I had lessons every day on everything from past history to current politics.”
“It can take a lifetime to master it all,” Jiramondi agreed.
Garameno brooded a moment in silence, and then shook his head as if shaking off a mood. “Well, it is not like Steffanolo needs to learn everything in a single quintile,” he said. “Since Filomara clearly intends to retain the crown at least another decade. She has years to teach him all her secrets.”
“Will she trust him, do you think?” Corene asked curiously. “Merely because he is her grandson? People betray their parents and grandparents all the time.”
“And their siblings,” Jiramondi added. When Garameno gave him a sharp look, Jiramondi merely shrugged. “Well, it’s true.”
Finally, an opening to ask about Filomara’s missing family members. “Are you talking about the empress’s brothers? I know two are dead and two are banished, but I don’t know any details.”
The cousins exchanged glances again; this time Garameno shrugged and looked away. Jiramondi answered. “They were always arguing over the throne. They were constantly making alliances with each other, and then breaking them off. Garameno’s father was the youngest, but the first to produce a son, so he felt that he should be Filomara’s heir. Then my father had me and claimed he had just as much right to the throne. But Morli and Donato—the two oldest brothers—said they shouldn’t be left out of the calculations just because they were childless. In fact, Morli married three times until he found a woman who could bear him a son. Then he went on and on about how he was the oldest, so he should be heir and Greggorio after him.”