By that same token, they didn’t merit Iona meddling with a kingdom struggling to survive, either.
“So you believe I’m vindictive enough to scuttle your efforts, as you say. Isn’t that more a reflection on your disposition than on mine?”
He recoiled, confused.
“What you really mean,” Iona continued, “is that if you were in my position, suddenly holding power over a former tormenter, you would exploit every opportunity to exact your revenge, in as devastating a means as possible, regardless of how many other people it might hurt. Isn’t that it? But you and I aren’t the same. Had you been in my place four years ago, you would have pulled rank on your tormenters and had your vengeance then.”
Her accusation hung upon the air, the truth of it thrumming through her—and no doubt through him.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked, starting across the threshold. “Why didn’t you pull rank? Second in line for the throne of Wessett? You could have commanded an army of sycophants, all the grasping little toad-eaters looking for a drop of favor from their superiors. Why didn’t you do it?”
She spun away, crossing deeper into the room. Blindly, solely to keep her hands busy, she began to rearrange paint brushes in a canister. “My reasons were my own.”
He followed her, his footsteps quick. “But it makes no sense. You outranked us all.” He grasped her shoulder, as though to twist her back around, but she flung away from him instead.
“It shouldn’t have mattered, Jaoven! It shouldn’t have mattered whether I was Iona of Wessett or Yanna of Ghemp! No one deserved the treatment you and your friends delivered. No one deserved the rough-housing, or the ridicule, or that wretched yearly Hunt. If dignity can only be earned by rank, then it’s worthless.”
Her insides knotted as the words poured out, years of suppressed trauma assaulting her in an instant. The object of her indignation winced, an unreadable something flashing across his face.
“I agree with you,” he whispered, as though haunted.
A tremulous breath escaped her, almost a laugh but far too cynical. “Forgive my skepticism. You were always the ringleader, even among students older than yourself.”
He pinned her with a steely gaze. “And I was wrong. Is no one allowed to change in your world, or am I simply beyond redemption?”
She stepped back, suddenly uncertain. If he was acting, he could rival any of the dramatists she’d once studied alongside. And somehow, now she was the unreasonable persecutor.
“You want this treaty to succeed?” she asked. “I will give you only one piece of advice: leave me alone. I stay out of such matters on purpose, and your continued attempts to engage with me will only reflect poorly on you. Go back to your diplomatic quarters. Dedicate yourself from here on to flattering my sister and my father, and never let my name cross your lips again.”
He cut stiff at her last command. “For the record, I was flattering your father when I spoke of you. What loving parent doesn’t look upon his own children as extensions of himself? Did you think I was trying to flatter you?”
She flinched at the insinuation. “No, of course not. I didn’t know what you were trying to do, but I’m telling you now, it was the wrong approach. If you want my father’s favor, Lisenn is his pride and joy. She can do no wrong in his eyes.”
He paused, an odd perceptiveness springing up within him. “And you can?”
She didn’t like that look, didn’t like how vulnerable she suddenly felt beneath it, as though it stripped her bare and revealed her innermost soul. “I—” Any further response stuck in her throat. If she told the truth, it would betray her filial duty, and if she lied she could never make him believe it.
A rap on the door saved her from answering at all. Aedan strolled into the room, his advent shattering the tension and then building it anew.
“You’re up early, Io,” he said with a broad smile. When he turned the expression on Jaoven, it shifted into something more critical, and perhaps a touch predatory. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting. I’m Aedan of Gleddistane, the Marquess of Brume. My father is Queen Marget’s brother.” He thrust out his hand, which Jaoven reluctantly shook. “What brings you to my cousin’s studio? Come to commission a portrait of yourself? If so, you’ll have to get in line. She’s painting me right now.”
The Caprian prince glanced to a cloth-covered canvas and then beyond its easel to the drapes and columns on the platform against the far wall. “That was not my design,” he said vaguely. “Perhaps another time. Well met, Aedan of Gleddistane. Your Highness, excuse me, please.”
He bowed and retreated from the room, but not until his footsteps vanished up the hall did anyone speak.
“Why was he here?” Aedan asked.
Iona busied herself with her brushes again. “He heard me practicing and came to investigate, so he said. Why are you so early? With this cloud cover today, the light won’t be right at all.”
“I came to make sure your sister wasn’t lying in wait,” Aedan said.
Her hands stilled. “She sleeps in. But thank you for worrying on my behalf.”
“I always worry on your behalf. You’re like a baby sparrow, oblivious to anything outside your own little nest.”
She looked up sharply, her breath caught in her lungs. Aedan, with a fond and regret-laden smile, rustled the top of her head, mussing her hair.
Iona pushed his hand away, annoyed. “Am I unforgiving?”
“Of whom? Prince High-and-mighty back there? Should you forgive him? From what little I know of your years in Capria, if he was involved he can go throw himself off a cliff.”
A faint smile tugged at her mouth, that her cousin could be so protective of her. “Maybe you’re the unforgiving one.”
He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her head to his shoulder. “You’re like my own sister, Io. If someone hurts you, they hurt me. Now are we painting today, or not? I’m dressed and ready, and surely that brilliant mind of yours can compensate for dull lighting.”
Gratitude bubbled from the bottom of her heart. She breathed deep against him and revived her equilibrium. “Get in your pose, then. I’ll try to make you pretty in return for your kind words.”
He mussed her hair again and climbed up between the pair of columns.
No sooner did he strike his pose than he launched into stories of the lovely Besseta, of the songs he had sung the night before and how many vegetables her brothers had thrown at him out their windows. Bess had hung upon her balcony and laughed through the whole scene, and when they met in her father’s garden afterward, she pardoned him.
“Filial piety is a virtue after all,” he said, nodding to Iona like a tutor enlightening his student, “even if it should come second to romantic love.”
“Is that what Besseta told you? I’m not sure she’s right.”
“Hush, little heretic. Besseta is always right.” He winked then, and they both laughed.
“And when will your parents finally approve the match?”
Aedan usually dodged questions of this nature, and sure enough, this time he squirmed, but he surprised his cousin by saying, “Roughly around the time your father approves.”
Her hand froze mid-brushstroke. “What does my father have to do with it?”
He dug the toe of his boot against the wooden platform, ruining the lines of his pose. “The crown usually frowns on nobility high in the line of succession marrying into the merchant class. But with your sister poised to wed and bring the surviving Caprian nobles into the mix, my position will drop at least two or three places, if not more. You’ll still be second, of course, but that will change when she has children. And the further I am from the crown, the freer I am to marry who I please, at least under the current system.”
“Lisenn having children might be years away,” Iona said, dismayed on his behalf.
“But the benefits might come sooner. Her marriage is a promise of security.”
Her brows arched. “So you’re in favor of
it?”
“Yes—for your sake, if nothing else. Get her out of Wessett for a while. Maybe children of her own will awaken some form of nurturing in that lump of stone she calls a heart, and by the time she returns she’ll have the proper temperament to rule us all.”
It was better than what Bina hoped for the crown princess. Iona contemplated whether it was even possible. But if Jaoven of Deraval could change—assuming his change was genuine and not a ruse—perhaps Lisenn could as well. Perhaps, with the broader understanding his trials had apparently brought, he would help her change for the better.
To Iona’s knowledge, her sister was openly malicious only to her. She had devoted lackeys among the royal guard, and the only common complaint among the servants was that she couldn’t keep a lady’s maid for more than a month or two. People within the castle held her in reverence or awe, as befitted their future queen, and truly, she could show favor when it pleased her.
If she cultivated that virtue, she might become the greatest ruler Wessett had ever seen.
Even so, a deep disquiet roiled in the pit of Iona’s stomach. Lisenn had a whole tower to herself, the rooms off-limits to everyone else. She’d occupied them since she was a child, and Iona had only seen the interior a handful of times—and only when her sister had dragged her there for impromptu carpet burns or tooth extractions.
The crown princess spent most days in the smaller library with her tutors now, but even the memory of those tower rooms shot a chill down her younger sister’s spine.
“If there’s a plot for treason in Wessett, Iona’s not involved,” Jaoven announced. His delegation looked up from their breakfast, the scent of fresh bread heavy in the air and the condensation still thick on the row of shining metal milk pitchers. They had all been abed when he left the diplomatic quarters to walk the castle halls alone, but the advent of food had naturally roused them, to the last one.
“Are you sure?” Clervie asked, tearing a wisp from the center of her buttered roll.
“Positive. She’s afraid of upsetting her father. I suspect, whatever drives her actions now and in the past, he’s at the root of it.”
“Where did you hear this?” Elouan asked. “Were the servants gossiping while you had your morning stroll?”
Jaoven plucked an apple from a bowl of fruit. “I didn’t hear it from anyone. I saw it in her face when I spoke with her just now. Her sister’s the perfect child, and she’s the black sheep. Unless King Gawen himself is abusive, the only drama in the royal family is a younger child who feels as though she doesn’t belong.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not involved in a plot,” Clervie said. She popped her bit of bread in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the way he bristled at her contradiction. “She might not know she’s involved, but if she truly is an innocent party, it’s entirely possible she’s a pawn in the greater scheme.”
He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “There is no greater scheme. We have nothing but our paranoia to tell us otherwise.”
She pointed her butter knife at him. “Our treaty has support from servants and nobles alike. I’m telling you, it’s at odds with any pattern I’ve studied. Something is off here.”
With a sigh of long-suffering, Jaoven dropped into a chair, resigned to hear her reasoning.
She leaned across the table, and the other delegates mirrored this act. Clervie spoke in secretive tones. “We expected, among the higher nobles, an eagerness for this alliance. Their titles are centuries old. Whole families of Caprian nobles died in the war, and Wessett can bargain for a greater share of power in the combined government that emerges. Our crown prince was only ever supposed to be a duke, after all.” She punctuated this with a knowing look at Jaoven, who grimly met her gaze.
“But the lower nobles, regardless of our new elevations, will get pushed further down in the line of succession. They should be against an alliance that diminishes their influence. And yet, every one of them has spoken their support, at least within the venues we can access. And the servants! In the castle itself, they’re floating on air, as if an alliance with Capria fulfills their fondest childhood dreams. We have only our land and holdings to offer for their strength, and those riches will never trickle to the lower classes. Something is rotten in Wessett.”
Jaoven sat back, one hand tapping a rhythm on the table as he thought. “What about that Aedan of Gleddistane? He seems to stick to Iona like a bur.”
“He’s her cousin,” said Neven, “a nephew of the queen.”
“I don’t like him,” the prince replied. “He shows up when he’s not wanted, and it’s plain she depends on him for support.”
“You think he’s positioning himself to advise her onto the throne?” Elouan asked.
“Or to advise himself up there with her,” Jaoven said darkly.
At the other end of the table, Riok peeled the skin from an apple in one long, thin string. “We can keep him in our sights, if you think it worthwhile.”
“I do.”
The senior diplomat flicked away his peel with his knife. He exchanged a significant look with Clervie, who released a sigh and said, “I’ll adjust my people accordingly.”
Chapter 6
Kester appeared on the studio threshold almost the instant that Aedan stepped down from his platform. Iona, dismayed, glanced toward the open window but glimpsed the red cloak of a royal guard pacing along the path beyond the hedges.
The steward had learned his lesson and came prepared this time.
“Your Highness, your father the king requests your presence in his study.”
She blew a long breath, cheeks puffed. The message could have been much worse. Reluctantly she asked, “He wants me there now?”
Kester inclined his head. “I am to escort you.”
Her heart fluttered as she worked the buttons of her smock. Perhaps this wasn’t bad news at all. She rarely had interviews with her father, and they usually involved him informing her that he would be sending her away into the countryside for a season.
If that was his intent at present, she would go, and gladly, Aedan’s half-completed portrait notwithstanding.
The steward led her to the castle’s central concourse, to the dark-paneled room where her father conducted most of his private business. At a desk piled high with books and papers, King Gawen looked up from a document, his dark blue eyes unreadable. He gestured Iona to the chair directly across from him. To his steward he said only, “Thank you, Kester.”
The man retreated, shutting the door behind him.
King Gawen set aside his work and focused on his younger daughter instead. Fingers interlaced and resting on his desktop, he observed her. She fought the inclination to squirm.
“I suppose first I should ask for an explanation of your conduct last night.”
A sweat broke on the palms of her hands. She resisted the urge to rub them against her skirt. “In what respect?”
“When I ask you to play for guests, I expect you to comply. And yet you balked at the very idea. Why?”
Past experience had taught her not to report Lisenn’s threats. Her father never took them seriously, and he openly disapproved of tattling. But she could frame her woes in a way that both appealed to him and reflected well on her sister.
“I worried it would upset Lisenn, that it would draw too much attention away from her when she’s the one with whom the Prince of Capria has come seeking a marriage alliance. And she did seem unhappy when you suggested I play.”
He considered her words, unmoving. “So you wished not to play in consideration of your sister’s feelings?”
“Yes.” That much was true, at least. She abstained from a lot of activities in consideration of Lisenn’s rage.
“I understand, and I will take such matters into account going forward. However, when I request that you play, you are to smile and agree. Do you understand?”
She nodded, the coldness of his voice a damper on her soul.
“Now, regarding the
se treaty negotiations,” he continued, picking up a document from his desk, “we have scheduled meetings over the next several days, but it’s important that your sister and Prince Jaoven have time together, to be certain that they suit one another before they commit to a marriage. I have requested that the treaty discussions take place in the mornings, and that they spend the afternoons with one another. You will, of course, accompany her.”
Iona’s blood froze. She didn’t fully register the command.
“Well?” he prompted.
Having just received a rebuke for defying his orders, she instantly said, “Yes, sire. But will she want me there?”
“His entourage will be there as well, and most of them are around your age. It’s only proper to include you. For propriety’s sake, Jaoven and Lisenn cannot be alone together, and I’m not going to send her alone among a pack of Caprians.”
She swallowed the instinctive protest on her lips.
“I scheduled this specifically not to interfere with your painting sessions with your cousin,” King Gawen said. “You might thank me for taking such details into consideration.”
“Thank you, Father,” Iona quickly said.
He rested his forearms on the desk and leaned in, pinning her with a keen stare. “And now, I want you to be truthful: what do you know of these Caprians? You must have met several of them before they arrived on our shores.”
Vaguely she nodded, her mouth dry. Mere hours ago, Jaoven had begged her not to scuttle their treaty. If she told the truth now, she might accomplish the very thing she’d scorned doing. “Several of them attended Capria’s Royal College at the same time I was there. It has been four years, though, and their experiences in their civil war seem to have changed them.”
“You knew the crown prince?”
She couldn’t lie. “He was only the son of a duke at the time.”
“And you were friends?”
“No, sire.”
“Why not?”
She wrung her hands together in her lap. “I kept to myself when I was there.”
The Heir and the Spare Page 6