Magnus gestured to the guard. “Bring her in.”
Cleo entered the throne room, her gaze keen and her chin raised. If she was at all nervous about being here, she didn’t show it.
Her gown was blue, the color of Auranos and her favorite. Her long, golden locks hung in loose curls to her waist, free of any braids or twists.
He much preferred when she wore her hair up. It wasn’t such a distraction to him then.
“Princess,” he said stiffly, indicating the vacant chair to his right. Hesitating only slightly, she approached and took the seat.
During their time in Limeros, he’d of course seen Cleo at meals and other public events, but he hadn’t spoken to her privately since their discussion on the balcony. He reminded himself to avoid balconies in the future—they were dangerous places to find himself alone with her.
“All of you have had the honor of meeting Princess Cleiona Bellos of Auranos.” He reintroduced the members of the council, who all nodded at her in turn. “And, of course, princess, you’re already well familiar with Lord Kurtis.”
“Indeed. Lord Kurtis has been teaching me how to handle a bow and arrow this last week,” Cleo explained to the councilmen. “He’s an excellent tutor.”
“And you are an excellent student,” Kurtis replied. “Soon you’ll be winning competitions, just as your sister did, if that’s your goal.”
Oh yes, Magnus thought wryly. I’m sure that’s exactly why she wants to learn how to send sharp arrows directly and precisely into a target.
Magnus decided to imagine Kurtis’s right eye socket as his own personal target.
“Your highness, perhaps it would be interesting to get the princess’s take on the problem at hand?” Kurtis suggested.
This sounded very much like a challenge.
“Yes,” Magnus agreed. “It would be interesting, wouldn’t it?”
“How absolutely ludicrous,” the high priest said under his breath.
“What was that?” Magnus asked sharply. “Did you say something?”
The priest smiled weakly. “No, your highness. I was just clearing my throat. I look forward to hearing your wife’s thoughts.”
Magnus slid the financial document in front of Cleo. She scanned it quickly, her expression turning serious. “This is a great deal of money,” she said. “To whom is it owed?”
“King Gaius has an agreement with the moneylenders in Veneas,” Kurtis replied. “They expect to be repaid without extensive delay.”
“And so you’re taxing all of the Limerian people to these great extents?” She looked sharply at each of the council members. “What about the rich?”
“What about them, your grace?” asked Lord Loggis.
“According to this document, these financial issues are due to the decisions of the rich. Why wouldn’t they be expected to contribute the lion’s share of this debt? To clean up their own mess?”
“That’s quite a sentiment for an Auranian royal to have,” Loggis countered. “Then again, Auranos’s poor would be the equivalent of our rich, wouldn’t they?”
“Thank you for your opinion about my homeland, but you didn’t answer my question,” Cleo said with a patient smile. “Should I take your insult to mean that you’re trying to avoid this matter? Or that you’re not sure why your taxes are structured as they are?”
Magnus watched her with barely concealed amusement. Cleo certainly wasn’t winning many allies in this room, but he found her ability to stand up for herself deeply admirable.
Not that he’d ever admit this out loud, of course.
“Well?” Cleo prompted, glancing next at Lord Kurtis.
Kurtis spread his hands in the air before him. “We can only hope that your husband will come up with a solution that benefits everyone. He is, after all, currently in command here.”
Now Magnus pictured another arrow entering Kurtis’s left eye socket. Slowly. Again and again.
“Well,” Magnus said after a tense silence, “what might you suggest, princess?”
Cleo met his gaze, the first time she’d looked at him so directly since their last private talk. “You really want to know?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t ask.”
She regarded him for another moment before speaking again. “My father never had trouble with debt.”
“How lovely for your father,” Lord Loggis mumbled.
She gave the lord a sharp look, then turned back to address the rest of the group. “In fact, it was just the opposite. Auranos was and is very wealthy. My father would often lend money to other kingdoms, just as those in Veneas are known to do.”
“And?” Magnus prompted after the table fell silent. “How does this recollection of the past help the current situation? Auranian finances are included as part of this document—part of Mytica as a whole. And they, too, have recently been depleted in an attempt to pay off part of this debt.”
Thanks to your father’s lust for power were the unspoken words he was certain he saw glittering in her narrowed eyes.
Cleo cleared her throat, then softened her suddenly rigid expression with a patient smile. “Perhaps,” she said. “But the problem stems from Limerian, not Auranian, origins. Limeros, to my knowledge, has never been nearly as wealthy as Auranos. There is so much that separates our people, not just Paelsian land. But within those differences, I believe an answer can be found.”
Lord Francus leaned in closer and studied the princess with a peevish—yet curious—expression. “And what, precisely, is that answer, your grace?”
“In a single word?” She sent her glance around the table, resting on each councilman’s face in turn. “Wine.”
Magnus blinked. “Wine.”
“Yes, wine. Your laws prohibit inebriants of any kind, yet wine is a source of great wealth—both in sales within the kingdom and export to lands overseas. While Limerian soil is likely too cold to nurture any crops, Paelsia vineyards lie not so far away. A solid third of their land is still rich—even if its people are not. If Limerian workers and merchants were to assist Paelsians with their wine production and trade, with Auranos’s help, Mytica could again become a very wealthy kingdom.”
“Wine is forbidden in Limeros,” the high priest pointed out sternly.
Cleo frowned. “So make it . . . unforbidden. This council certainly has the power to do that, right?”
“The goddess forbade it!” cried the high priest. “Only she can choose to make such a change, and I don’t see her here at this table. Such a suggestion is . . .” He shook his head. “Ludicrous. And, frankly, offensive!”
Cleo glared at him with exasperation. “The suggestion to change an outdated law that is single-handedly preventing you from solving your financial crisis, that could ensure this kingdom’s future if it were reversed, is offensive?”
“Our goddess—” he began.
“Forget your goddess,” Cleo cut him off. Several council members gasped. “You need to think of your citizens—especially the poor, who are suffering right now.”
Everyone began speaking at once, one argument overlapping another, creating a cacophony of grunts and chatter.
Magnus leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands on his lap, and silently observed the outrage. Cleo’s cheeks were flushed red, but he knew it wasn’t from embarrassment. Her heightened color was a product of sheer outrage.
“Quiet, all of you,” Magnus said, but no one heard him above their own noise. He raised his voice and shouted. “Silence!”
The council finally hushed, all eyes turning to look at him expectantly.
“Princess Cleiona’s suggestion is certainly”—How best to put it?—“Auranian.”
“Outrageous is more like it,” Loggis mumbled.
“Outrageous to us, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean it has no merit. Perhaps Limeros has been stuck in the past for far too long. Religious tradition aside, the princess has suggested a potential solution, and I agree that it’s worth more thought and discussion.”
“But the goddess—” the high priest protested once again.
Magnus held up his hand. “The goddess does not currently have a seat on this council.”
“I represent the goddess here, lest you forget,” he continued, his voice edged in fiery defiance. He sniffed as Magnus gave him a sharp glare, then lowered his gaze to the table top, his jaw clenched.
Magnus stood up and walked around the long table, considering the problem at hand. “I’ll send a message to my father, presenting this proposal to him. As he has made no attempts to cease the sale and consumption of wine or ale in Auranos, I believe he may see the potential here to solve a great many problems with one bold decision.” The high priest again opened his mouth, and Magnus raised his hand to stop him. “Can you swear to the goddess right now that you have never tasted a drop of wine in your entire life, High Priest Danus? I certainly can’t.”
“Nor I,” Kurtis conceded with a nod. “The princess is as smart and innovative as she is beautiful.”
“Indeed she is,” Magnus agreed without thinking.
Cleo glanced at him, clearly surprised by this admission. Their gazes locked and held. He was the first to look away.
“This meeting is at an end,” Magnus said, managing to find his voice again.
The council members moved to leave, but Lord Loggis raised a finger, stopping them. “There is one last matter to discuss, your highness,” he said. “The large search party of guards that has been sent out to find Princess Lucia has found nothing at all. Apologies, but to continue to have so many men focused this task seems to me a misuse of both manpower and resources.”
His sister’s name drew Magnus’s full attention. “I disagree.”
“But, your highness,” Lord Loggis went on, “nothing about the current situation suggests that your sister is in any danger. Perhaps . . .” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps once the princess has had enough time to think through her recent actions, and how they might have caused some alarm, she will simply return to the palace and all will be well and forgiven.”
When Magnus had tripled the number of guards assigned to scour the land for Lucia, he hadn’t given them or their commanders any additional details about her disappearance. He didn’t reveal that her tutor was an exiled Watcher. That Lucia was a sorceress. That the last place he knew for certain that she’d been was left with a floor splattered with blood, dead bodies outside, and an ice storm summoned by pure, unleashed elemental magic.
“Another week,” Magnus said. “If the guards don’t find her by then, I’ll call half of them back.” Lord Loggis opened his mouth to protest further, but Magnus raised his hand. “That’s my final decision.”
The lord nodded, his dark eyes empty of anything friendly. “Yes. Of course, your highness.”
Magnus gestured to the door and the council members filed out of the room.
“Princess, wait,” he said, stopping Cleo short on the threshold.
She turned to him, her face once again full of surprise, as he pushed the doors closed behind the others, leaving them alone in the cavernous throne room.
“Yes?” she said.
“Strangely, I find it necessary to thank you for your input today.”
She raised her brow. “Thank me? Am I dreaming?”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t happen again anytime soon.” Magnus drew even closer to her, and her smile faded at the edges.
“Was there something else you wanted from me?” she asked.
If only you knew, he thought. You’d probably run away from here and never look back.
“No,” he replied.
She cleared her throat. “Nerissa arrived this morning.”
“So she’s the one responsible for your hair today, is she?” He wound a silky, golden lock around his finger and studied it carefully, taking in its scent, like an intoxicating, exotic flower.
“She is,” Cleo said after a lengthy pause.
“In Limeros, proper women don’t wear their hair loose like this. Tell her to braid it or tie it back from now on. That is, unless it’s your goal to look like a courtesan.”
She pulled her hair from his grip. “I should thank you too, Magnus.”
“For?”
“For constantly reminding me who you really are. Sometimes, I forget.”
With that, she slipped past him and left the room.
• • •
The reason, it was said, that the goddess Valoria had forbidden alcohol in her land was to ensure that her people always maintained purity, health, and clarity of mind.
But in any land where something was forbidden, there were always ways to acquire it. Magnus had heard rumors of one—and how to gain entry to it—only a couple miles away from the palace, a shabby-looking inn called the Ouroboros.
Magnus entered the inn, leaving the single guard he’d brought with him to wait outside with the horses. It was nearly empty; only a handful of patrons occupied the small eating area, none of them bothering to look up at who had entered.
Magnus scanned the room from beneath the heavy hood of his black cloak, his gaze falling on a wooden door with a bronze knocker in the shape of a snake devouring its own tail. He grasped this and knocked three times quickly, three times slowly.
The door creaked opened a moment later and he strode through into another room—much larger and busier than the one before. He scanned the ruddy faces, hands clasping tankards of ale at twenty or more tables, until he came across a face that was painfully familiar.
“Wonderful,” he grumbled as he drew closer to the table in the far corner.
“Well, well!” Nic slurred and raised his tankard, causing ale to slosh over the rim. “Look who’s here. Shall I make a formal announcement of your arrival?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t.” Magnus swept another glance through the large room, but no one seemed to have recognized him yet.
“Come.” Nic shoved the heavy wooden chair across from him with his foot. “Join me. I hate to drink alone.”
Magnus gave this a moment’s thought, before he did as Nic suggested. He kept his back to the rest of the room to further conceal his identity.
“Thirsty?” Nic asked, but without waiting for a reply, he gestured for the barkeep to come to their table.
The heavyset bald man with a thick, dark beard, approached confidently, but the moment Magnus glanced at him from the cowl of his cloak, his steps faltered.
“Your highness,” the barkeep gasped.
“Quiet,” Magnus replied. “No need to inform anyone of my presence here.”
The man trembled as he bowed deeply and lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “I beg of you, don’t judge me too harshly. I don’t usually serve such evil, sinful beverages here. The night is so cold and . . . well, these loyal citizens were just looking for something that might warm their bellies.”
Magnus regarded the man patiently. “Is that so? In a dedicated room that requires a secret knock?”
The barkeep grimaced, his shoulders slumping. “Spare my family. Take me. Execute me. But leave them. They had nothing to do with my dark decisions.”
He had no patience for sniveling martyrs tonight. “Bring me a bottle of your best Paelsian wine. No need for a goblet.”
“But . . .” The barkeep blinked rapidly. “Well, your highness, Paelsian wine is only sold in Auranos. It’s part of their treaty—as I’m sure you know. Even if I were allowed to serve it by law, it could not be imported here.”
Magnus gave him a hard look.
“Yes, of course, very well,” the barkeep sputtered. “My best bottle of Paelsian wine. Coming right up.”
He disappeared into a back room, returning almost immediately with a dark green glass bottle roughly etched with the Paelsian symbol of a grapevine. As the barkeep uncorked it, Magnus spared a glance at Nic.
“That’s forbidden.” Nic gestured toward the bottle. “Bad Prince of Bl
ood. Very bad!”
Magnus waved the barkeep away, then took a deep drink from the bottle and allowed himself a moment to enjoy the familiar sweetness as it slid over his tongue.
Nic snorted. “But of course, you can do whatever you like. As long as your daddy says it’s all right.”
Even though Magnus believed this boy was well overdue for a painful death, he had to admit that Nic did occasionally amuse him. “You might do well to consider the possibility that I don’t care what my father says,” he said, taking another swig. “Just how long have you been drinking here tonight, Cassian?”
Nic waved his hand flippantly. “Long enough not to care what happens next. I should kill you now, really. Just stab you with this dinner knife. Until you’re good and dead.”
“Yes, well, the feeling is mutual. Now, shall we pick something worthy to drink to tonight?”
Nic returned his attention to his ale, staring down into it as if it might tell his fortune. “To Prince Ashur.”
“What?”
“Prince Ashur. Remember him?” His expression darkened. “I want to know that he was buried, and where. It’s not right that he’s in an unmarked grave. He was a royal, you know. His body should have been treated with more respect.”
Magnus went to take another sip, but found that he’d already drained the bottle of its contents. But, mere seconds later, the nervous barkeep hurried over to replace it with another. “Just what was it between you two?” Magnus asked, his new bottle uncorked. He’d been curious about Nic and Ashur ever since the night it was revealed they were working together against Amara.
Nic didn’t answer, instead continuing to stare deeply into his drink.
Now the sublime effects of the swiftly consumed wine began to take hold of Magnus, and the room began to swim and sparkle around him. The heaviness of the day finally lifted. “Oh, so now you’ve decided to keep your mouth shut, have you? Given the rumors I’ve heard about the prince, I’m not overly surprised.”
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