Corra was Eonist, but only by blood.
Unlike her sister queens, Corra hadn’t been raised in the quadrant she would one day rule. Instead, she’d been raised in the palace—her mother had been unwilling to part with her on her birth date.
Eonists were not as unfeeling as the other quadrants believed. Yes, they learned to control their emotions and suppress their desires from an early age, but they were not immune to emotion, and certainly not to the strongest emotion of all. Love.
Corra had been told by her mother that she was a perfect newborn: silky dark skin, a smattering of soft black hair upon her head and the warmest large brown eyes anyone had ever seen. To see Corra was to love Corra.
And so her mother had decided to give Corra to her wet nurse, who had recently suffered a stillbirth. The nurse would raise Corra as her own, hiding her from the rest of the palace to ensure, when it was Corra’s time to take the throne, that no one would recognize her. Everyone else would assume baby Corra had been sent to live with relatives as required by Queenly Law.
Corra’s mother wanted to have an influence on her life, let her daughter see how she ruled Eonia, hoping that Corra could one day follow in her footsteps.
At an early age, Corra was told that her birth mother was the Eonist queen. The queen visited Corra only a few times a year, ensuring her presence within the palace remained a secret. But she never missed Corra’s birthday. She would explain that while ruling your emotions was fundamental to Eonia’s peace, it was also important to open your eyes to the other quadrants’ ways of life. And that not everything stemming from the heart instead of the head was wrong.
Her mother would end each visit with the same words.
Be patient, child. Be calm. Be selfless. Wait for the right moment. Wait for your time. Rule with a steady hand. A steady heart.
It became a mantra over the years, informing how Corra should and shouldn’t behave. When a young Corra desired the world outside the palace, outside the rooms she shared with the woman who’d raised her, she would hear her mother’s voice.
Corra remained in those two rooms for her entire childhood. She played with the toys that wouldn’t be missed, she read the digi-scrolls that had already been read. She devoured all she could about her quadrant through comm chips. The memories captured Eonia with such vivid detail she could smell the crisp air, see the sleek silver skylines and taste the unpolluted rain as it fell from the sky.
Her mother’s voice had once again echoed in her head after the inspector’s initial questioning.
Be patient, child. Be calm. Be selfless. This is your moment. This is your time. Have a steady hand. A steady heart.
But Corra couldn’t shake the visions of Iris’s lifeless body and her blood splattered against the flowers she loved so much, her crown discarded as though it were nothing. While she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she’d heard it described so many times, she couldn’t rid herself of the image.
Once in her rooms, Corra ordered her advisor to take leave. She needed time, space. Time to grieve. But Corra wasn’t sure there would ever be enough time to accept a world in which Iris was no longer.
Be calm, child. Steady.
But she couldn’t. Not this time.
There was no one here to see her break or judge her behavior as un-Eonist. Connected, emotional, passionate.
Passion . . .
Corra shook. She would never again feel Iris’s soft skin against hers. Her pale cheek next to her brown skin. She would never again press her mouth to hers, Iris’s pink lips on her curved mouth. They would never again share a breath as if they were one. She would never again see the way Iris’s cold exterior dissolved at the mere sight of Corra. And all those cherished smiles for her. Only for her.
Now it was all gone. She was gone. And there was no getting her back.
Corra flung herself onto her bed, pressing her face into her pillow so even she couldn’t feel her tears as they fell. Tears that shouldn’t fall for another. And certainly not for an Archian.
She let out a moan, grief clawing her throat.
Like all queens, they weren’t allowed love; it was seen as merely a distraction. For if a queen was to love another, she might place the love for this person above her quadrant. But for the years Corra and Iris had secretly been together, they’d built a fortress, not only making them stronger, but their quadrants too. Corra didn’t believe Iris completed her, for Corra was complete, always had been—her mother had seen to that. But Iris was vital to Corra, allowing her to rule with a sense of ease. A sense of peace. Corra felt as though she was honoring her mother’s wishes. Ruling with a steady heart.
Iris was the first queen Corra had met after her coronation, even though Corra had heard of Iris, or rather, had heard Iris’s booming voice through the palace passageways across the years. Corra had never known anyone so completely ruled by their emotions. Iris hated easily, threw fits when she didn’t get what she wanted, roared at anyone who dared look at her the wrong way or for too long. When they finally met, Corra had been shocked to see such a voice belonged to a woman so slight.
Iris had studied Corra before offering her a small pale hand to shake. In her other hand, she held out a gold watch. “For you,” she’d said.
Corra took the handcrafted Archian watch, confused by the hour and minute hand displaying 12:30 with the second hand stuck horizontal—fracturing the face in four.
“It’s broken,” she’d said, her voice quiet, unsure of what to make of this fiery waif of a woman.
Iris’s green eyes lit up. “It’s to remember the time before this”—Iris waved a hand around her—“before your coronation. For that’s what will make you a great queen.”
Iris was no doubt referring to the years Corra was supposed to have spent growing up in her own quadrant. But instead Corra thought of her mother, to whom she’d said her final good-bye mere hours earlier.
Corra should’ve taken the extra time to compose herself. She hadn’t been ready to speak about her mother, her past. Iris didn’t know that Corra had known her mother her whole life and that she hadn’t gone to school to control her emotions. All Corra had was what her mother had told her.
To prevent tears from falling, she found herself whispering her mother’s words. “Be calm, child. Have a steady hand—”
“A steady heart,” Iris had finished, her green eyes widening. “You knew your mother?”
Corra had shaken her head. But it was too late. Iris had seen past the mask Corra had perfected throughout her childhood and into adulthood.
Iris had squeezed Corra’s arm. “Your mother was a great queen, and a fine friend.”
It was too much. Tears fell from Corra’s eyes before she could sweep them away.
She’d been terrified, but rather than turning her in, Iris vowed to keep her secret. “For we all have them,” she’d said.
Their first meeting had shaken Corra. She knew she’d made a friend within the palace, something she’d dreamed of since she was a child.
Iris had been the only person, aside from her adoptive mother, to know Corra’s secret. She began letting her guard down, allowing her emotions to show. Allowing herself to be someone—not only the controlled queen she was born to be. She laughed with Iris. She dreamed of nations beyond Quadara. She dreamed of love.
Corra’s mother would never have denied her that, for it was love that drove her to protect her baby and have her raised inside the palace. Not every Queenly Law was correct. They had been established by four queens, angry with their dead husband, who had allowed Quadara to almost fall to ruin. They had outlawed love from their lives and made the quadrants their only priority, but Corra could not do the same.
And although her emotions had not been stamped out by Eonist schooling, there was no queen who knew more about the palace, Eonia and the other quadrants. Her adoptive mother wasn’t Eonist. Like most of the st
aff, she’d been Archian, and she shared any and all information she acquired from other members of staff. Corra had also witnessed the shift of power six times. She’d heard about advisors trying to assert their agendas—if their queens weren’t mindful.
The palace had been, and always would be, a part of Corra. As would Iris.
A steady hand. A steady heart.
But only Iris calmed her heart.
* * *
—
THE MORNING AFTER Iris’s death, Corra’s advisor informed her that the inspector wished to speak with her. Corra managed to pull herself from her bed, donned her gold dermasuit and crown and pulled her braided hair atop her head.
On the way to the inspector, she saw her handmaiden and Alissa in the corridor. Her handmaiden cradled Alissa’s tear-stained face in her hands, her lips by her ear. They both paused when Corra passed by, bowing low in respect, but kept their hands tangled together—no reason to hide their relationship.
A tremor ripped through Corra, knowing she would never hold Iris again. And to hold her in such a public place had always been a dream of theirs. To be like any other couple in Quadara.
Corra was so distracted by her thoughts, she almost bumped into Marguerite as she made to enter the inspector’s designated room.
“Apologies, Marguerite,” Corra said, her voice raw from crying all night.
Marguerite was looking through her, a bewildered expression on her face. Her eyes slowly focused on her. “Corra,” she said, as though she was only now realizing the Eonist queen stood in front of her.
Corra had never seen Marguerite this shaken. Like Iris, she was a strong queen. Corra wanted to ask if she was all right, but the question was absurd. Of course she wasn’t.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to dinner last night,” Corra said. “I was exhausted.” Exhaustion was allowed; grief wasn’t, Corra reminded herself.
Marguerite looked at her for a long moment. Corra wondered if her emotions were showing. After a while, the eldest queen smiled sadly. “I didn’t either.” She squeezed Corra’s arm. “Tonight?”
While it would be draining to keep up the charade, Corra had woken with an intense desire not to be alone. “Yes,” she said.
“Be careful in there.” Marguerite nodded to the room behind her.
Before Corra could ask why, the Torian queen gave her arm one last squeeze, then retreated down the corridor, her long black skirt flowing behind her.
Iris and Marguerite had been close. Did she know Corra’s secret? Was that why she was warning her about the inspector?
The inspector had his recorder looped around his ear when she entered the room. He stood and bowed deeply. Something flickered across his face whenever he looked at her—an echo of emotion, compared to when he addressed the other queens. Respect, she realized. As an Eonist, she was the only queen who had an impact on his quadrant and life.
“My queen,” he said, bowing again as Corra took a seat opposite him.
“Inspector.” She inclined her chin. “How is the investigation progressing? Any news?”
She wanted the killer found as quickly as possible, not only as justice for Iris but to be rid of the inspector and his probing inquiries. While no one inside the palace knew her secret, it wouldn’t take much digging into her past to discover that her relatives living outside the palace had never met her. And Corra knew an Eonist inspector would explore all avenues of treason, from both inside and outside the palace dome. If anyone discovered where she’d grown up, she would lose her throne in an instant.
For the first time, Corra was happy the woman who’d raised her, as well as her birth mother, was long dead.
“I’m afraid I can’t speak of my findings, my queen,” he said. “Not while the case is still open.”
And while we’re all suspects, she thought. Being a queen wouldn’t change that. After all, who had more access to the queens than their sisters?
She nodded. “How can I assist you?”
“You can tell me all you know about Queen Iris.”
“I’m not sure I have anything else to add. Surely you have spoken to the other queens and advisors?” Corra forced herself not to bring a hand to her watch, for fear he might ask her what she was hiding beneath her dermasuit. His eyes would miss nothing.
“I have, my queen. But I wish to hear from you also.” She wasn’t sure whether it was because he trusted her opinion more, or whether he wanted to compare notes with the other queens. Likely both.
Corra told him what she knew about Iris. How she had come to the palace years before her. A lie. How she was closest to Marguerite. Another lie. And how Corra knew little more about her private life than what had been displayed. The biggest lie of all.
“Queens don’t have private lives,” Corra finished.
“Thank you, my queen.” He seemed appeased. He would never expect an Eonist to lie, and certainly not the Eonist queen. “And do you have any theories on who might have wanted her dead?”
Corra swallowed. “I really don’t know.” She rubbed two fingers across her temples. “There have been threats to the palace and the queens in the past, but nothing recent.”
“Is there anything else you think I should know?”
Corra paused, holding back the stories and lies, and actually considered his question—some truth to allow him to find the bastard who had slain her love. While she didn’t want the inspector’s attention on her, there was a reason she had asked for Inspector Garvin to take this case. He was the quickest and the best. Iris deserved retribution.
“In the last few days,” Corra began, “before Queen Iris’s death . . .” She paused again, watching as the inspector pressed something on the recorder around his ear. A flag, she realized. But flagging what? “She was short with everyone—shorter than normal. And she missed a few nightly dinners. We didn’t see her unless she was in court.”
“I’ve heard similar reports from the other queens,” the inspector said. “Queen Iris wanted to change Queenly Law. She was to discuss it with you the day after she was killed.”
“Change Queenly Law?” Corra repeated.
He leaned forward, eyes piercing. “Did you know anything about that?”
Corra said, “No, nothing.” But that was another lie. She knew exactly why Iris wanted to change Queenly Law. Rule eight. She wanted to be allowed to roam the palace’s corridors hand in hand with Corra. She wanted to spend her nights with her love freely, without sneaking in and out. Perhaps she even wanted to marry Corra. Now she’d never know.
Iris had often talked about changing this aspect of Queenly Law, but Corra had argued that it would reveal Corra’s more devastating secret, that she had not been raised in Eonia. Iris had agreed to let it go. Or so Corra had thought.
The night before Iris’s death, there had been a noticeable difference in her mood. Even when they were alone, Iris’s frostiness did not completely dissipate. Corra had asked what was bothering her, and Iris commented on how the throne diverted love—not that it made it more difficult, but it actually put a divider between two people. Initially, Corra had thought she was talking about their relationship, and she’d put her arm around Iris’s narrow waist and told her that their thrones had brought them together.
But Iris had shaken her head. “It’s not just us,” she’d said. “All queens are denied love.”
Corra had been confused. She didn’t know that this rule was an issue with any of the other queens. Iris was not close to Stessa, the age gap and differing cultures too much to bridge, which left only the eldest queen. “Marguerite?” Corra asked.
Iris had only sighed and changed the topic. Yet there was something in her eyes that had told Corra she’d guessed wrong.
What had Iris known about the youngest queen?
“Anything else important?” the inspector pressed, bringing her attention back
to him.
Before she could stop it, there was a prickling at the back of her eyes at the thought of that last night together. The last night they would ever have. Their last touch.
She needed to get out of this room. Before she broke apart and her secret was laid bare. She touched the face of the watch beneath her suit.
Of Eonist blood, but not of Eonist heart. That was what Iris used to say, late in the evenings, their arms and legs intertwined.
Her guise was slipping. She was not emotionless. She was not Eonist.
“No. I don’t know anything else that could help you.” Corra stood abruptly. “I must attend to my queenly duties.”
The first tear fell as she closed the door behind her. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She needed to talk to Stessa and find out what Iris had discovered about her.
And whether it was worth killing for.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Keralie
The first thing I remembered was the knife.
The hilt was small, easily concealed in a pocket or belt, but the blade itself was long and thin, like a needle. It glinted in the sun like a slit of light from a cracked door—so narrow it almost wasn’t there.
The assassin held the weapon behind their back and approached a figure lounging on a wooden settee, the sunlight hitting sharp cheekbones. Skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
Her lids were closed as she tilted her face to the sun, completely unaware of the person closing the distance between them. The garden smelled sweet and earthy; various flowers emitted a fragrance that contrasted with the sterile palace hallways. The sound of the ocean crashing against the cliffs below had drowned out the intruder’s entrance.
The assassin moved lightly, on the balls of their feet. It wasn’t until they dragged the blade across the woman’s milky white skin that she realized she had company.
Her eyes flew open: vivid green, matching her surroundings. Queen Iris. She didn’t appear frightened, merely annoyed.
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