Even fewer would attend the ball that night.
The entire day was a thinning procession to the foot of Declan’s throne.
Iren sat in a gilded tent crocheting the final corner of a bed-length tapestry as nobles paraded through.
Like animals in a menagerie.
They didn’t realize that they, too, were being watched.
Iren preferred it so.
The tapestry depicted the scriptorium of the Academy, where initiates sat at tables and transcribed from the archives. Stitching every codex on the shelves in the background had taken her the better part of the year.
“Why can’t she do a nice pastoral scene?”
“You know how the Corentine are—always declaring themselves the smartest in the room.”
“Would it kill her to have some nymphs in a glade or something?”
The nobles had nothing interesting to say. Not even to one another.
A few admired her technical skills.
Most gossiped.
Some dared to poke fun.
“I suppose crochet will be an important skill when she’s headmistress of the Academy.”
“It’s meant to show discipline, constancy, attention to laws and lives, no matter how small.”
“Thanks, magister of all things obvious. This isn’t our first Revels.”
“I think she’s the most talented one.”
“Gave up pretty quickly in the melee. And fought dirty.”
Iren kept her eyes down on the tapestry.
Suppressed a reaction.
On the far side of the green, the royal musicians began a waltz. The crowds began to migrate in that direction.
A susurration and applause.
Rhea must have presented herself in full regalia.
The newer patrician families would be pushing to the front, to gawk at the jewels of House Declan.
Iren hoped the routine would be perfect.
It would be easier for all of them if Rhea could shine brightest.
Endrit would make a good show of it.
Even if Rhea was too nervous to give it any panache.
Iren needed a new color thread.
Only a few spectators in her tent.
A glancing check to make sure none of them was watching.
She turned the tapestry over to tie off the old thread.
For a short instant it revealed a strip of parchment paper, pinned to the underside, jotted with her shorthand notes.
Iren quickly switched out threads.
Back to her first position.
She needed to hurry.
If Marta came to check on her performance, she would ferret it out immediately. Nothing passed her notice. It vexed Iren terribly. But their tutor had not yet arrived, and no one in the tent was near so trained as Marta.
Of the seven stragglers in her tent, one was the doyenne of House Sprolio—a great-grandmother much impressed with Iren’s skill. She sat near enough to see. She was asleep.
Two were homo nobilis—not yet presented—thirteen or fourteen at most. They giggled at the far corner of the tent.
Playing at love.
Nothing of interest.
Another couple—middle-aged, unrecognized—walked with their daughter—ten years old, upset. A three-way disagreement.
The mother and father trying to remain discreet. The daughter using that to her advantage.
Domestic entanglement.
That left two targets for Iren’s attention.
Don Fabiano Sprolio, watching after his mother.
General Hecuba, a three-star general of Declan’s tribunal.
Sprolio—six hands high, fifteen stone, soft gut—was master of a small house, important for its location in the midland between Meridan and Findain.
Sprolio had the conciliatory charm of a man stuck between two warring factions.
And a facial tic when he lied.
Code name: Weasel.
General Hecuba stood beside him, half his size, twice his presence. A former dragoon knight, cut from the same cloth as Marta, now an officer. Cold. Hard. Small. She wore the formal uniform. Not on duty. Officially.
Code name: Stone.
Iren kept her head down.
She held a thin lead rod under the tapestry with her left hand and wrote on the parchment: Stone met weasel.
Above the tapestry, her right hand continued to crochet.
“Welcome to Meridan, Don Sprolio.”
“Thank you, General. Always happy to return to . . . civilization.”
“The king sends his regards.”
“Oh? Goodness. An honor to be thought of. Such a little house. I can’t imagine why.”
“I think you can.”
Hecuba had no patience for the dissembling that came with spycraft.
She paused.
To frighten Sprolio.
To check if anyone was in earshot.
Iren pretended to wrestle with a stubborn needle.
Hecuba continued. “We know Findish rebels have crossed the midland.”
“Not through my lands,” sputtered Sprolio.
Iren jotted another cryptogram: Fish move on dragon.
“As many as a full company.”
“We—we—already told Magister Hiram we’ve seen nothing.”
200—gorilla fish.
“Yes, you did. But it strikes me that falling asleep would be quite lucrative for House Sprolio, no?”
Hecuba nodded toward Fabiano’s mother, snoring beside Iren.
“Are you—are you implying—?”
“Don Sprolio, I don’t imply. I am asking if you have harbored Findish rebels. I ask if you have taken coin from the caravans to look away. I ask, Don Sprolio, because all of Meridan Keep is under mortal threat.”
She paused.
“And if it is true, then I will let the rebels know that I have discovered their treason by trussing you up on the castle gate with all your inner workings exposed. They will recognize a gutted fish, Don Sprolio.”
The don let out a cough.
Iren glanced at their reflection in a crystal pitcher of water sitting on a side table. She punched more code into her hidden parchment that translated into: Weasel a sea dragon?
Her mother would understand.
She’d given Iren the assignment herself.
Malin, the emira of Corent, had taught Iren much in the years before the Protectorate. Her childhood had been brief and productive.
Codes and ciphers.
Pictograms.
False ink made from the winoc root.
Nearly a dozen cryptic languages.
The symbols of flowers.
Of colors.
Of stained glass.
“If we can speak, we are not apart,” she had said.
Iren would send the parchment with her assignments by carrier bird—through Magister Hiram, their constant overseer. But it would read to him like a young girl’s trifling diary about the Revels.
Dull and predictable.
Iren’s cloak-and-dagger.
That others thought her shy and gormless.
The snow-singer bird had a similar reputation.
Always wide-eyed and preoccupied.
A hare might not even notice as the bird bounced along the snow, distracted by every trick of light.
But the hare would be mistaken.
Even if the snow-singer had her back turned.
The poison’s in the tail, after all.
And hares are tasty food.
Don Sprolio made a panicky defense of his innocence.
General Hecuba silenced him with a firm grip on his elbow.
“Don’t clamor. We’ve known. Tell me something useful. Where. When.”
Iren scribbled notes in the parchment.
“I don’t know where. I don’t. I swear. But tonight. The attack is tonight. Please don’t tell my mother.”
Hecuba pushed him toward the nearest exit with a disgusted grunt. Mother Sprolio’s head lolled back,
deep in slumber. The sweethearts in the corner continued their tickling.
Iren jotted one last word onto her parchment.
War.
Back in the central chamber, the girls were fighting.
Again.
The nobles streamed into Meridan Keep for the ball.
The lesser gentry loitered on the lawn.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Rhea.
She sat at the round table in front of a looking glass.
Her tired maid sat behind her, pinning the crown jewels back into her frizzy hair.
“Are you even talking to me?” said Suki.
Maids scurried around the hall—
Dressing Suki.
Dabbing gauze and jaro ointment on Cadis’s black eye and busted lip.
Iren entered and set her crocheting on the table.
Cadis smiled at her. Iren raised a hand and waved.
A maid approached Iren.
Iren palmed the coded parchment and slipped it into her sleeve.
“My queen,” said another maid, approaching with a corseted blue dress.
“No need,” said Iren.
“But the ball,” said the maid, confused.
“I won’t be dancing,” said Iren.
The maid only blinked.
“I don’t need a corset,” said Iren.
“A summer dress, then? It is a ball,” stammered the maid.
Iren sighed. “Then make it two pieces, please. The one with the skirt that doesn’t swish.”
“Who else could I be talking to?” said Rhea, across the room.
“I don’t know,” said Suki. “You scold everyone. You scold constantly. If I were keeping track of your scolding, I’d be a magister by now.”
Her maids tittered.
Suki shouldn’t have allowed her maids such impudence. Rhea turned her head. “You practically accused the king of murder!”
Her maid gently coaxed her back toward the glass.
“And what is he going to do about it? Murder me, too?”
Rhea was stupefied.
It was obvious what Declan could do to them.
Suki should have known.
She was thrashing about in her own mind.
Cadis leaned around her maid and said, “Let’s everyone settle down.”
She was dressed already in a long beaded dress that hugged her hips and exposed her shoulders.
The ballroom would hold its breath when she entered.
Then gasp to see her battered face.
“It was a good day today,” Cadis continued.
“Hey, bootlicker,” said Suki. “Your face looks like smashed fruit. Are you so desperate for their approval? They hate you and you’re still begging pardon.”
The maids all hushed. The conversation had become dangerous. Their presence was necessary, and yet unwelcome.
“Easy,” said Cadis, through gritted teeth.
She glanced at Iren.
Iren folded her needlework into a drawstring bag and handed it to a maid.
She whispered a command, and the maids scattered from the hall.
“Why should I go easy? Will the whole country of Meridan give me a pat on the head and a pastry? Will they suddenly realize that a thousand-year-old empire in Tasan—that has created the dresses we’re wearing and the music out there and the majority of the food and—and—and—will they suddenly realize they’re a bunch of trumped-up barbarians and leave the governing to civilized nations? Is that your idea, Cadis? You fondle them while they call you traitor. With their boots so firmly on your neck, how do you stretch to kiss them so? Or are you playacting? Waiting for your rebel friends?”
“Enough,” said Cadis.
She stood. Even from across the hall, she loomed over Suki.
“I’m the empress of Tasan and I’m not commanded by a shipyard wench.”
“Suki,” said Rhea.
“Nor a usurper’s secondborn.”
A sudden hush.
Suki knew where to cut.
No one ever referred to Rhys.
Declan’s firstborn, who died during the War of Unification.
And for whom Rhea was a hollow replacement.
Rhea’s eyes watered.
She stared at Suki.
“Why are you doing this? Did I do something to you?”
“Are you jesting?” said Suki.
“Just tell me.”
“Are you truly jesting?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“You—if you—” Suki sputtered. Her eyes stabbed in too many directions. Iren observed as Suki became tangled in her own thoughts.
Her hatred for Declan.
Her sorrow for Tola.
Her pride.
The desire to win the current engagement and the possibility that Rhea was honestly confused.
The competing thoughts panicked across Suki’s face.
She looked at Cadis.
Then Rhea.
“I’m not doing this,” said Suki. She turned and ran to the door to her private chamber.
When she pushed it open, she hit a maid in the ear and screamed, “Get out!” The young maid stumbled into the central hall, looked about at everyone.
A mouse, fallen from a gunnysack.
She scurried toward the door to the kitchens, holding her ear.
Rhea had been crying.
She wiped tears from her cheek.
She said, “I didn’t do anything to her.”
Cadis sucked her teeth.
Rhea sighed. “Gods, what? What else have I done?”
“Don’t playact, Rhea. You’re no victim here. You’re the only one, in fact.”
“Are you all against me?”
“Against you? It has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, it does,” said Rhea. “We’re sisters.”
They spoke at cross-purposes.
Cadis paused. “Are you blind? We’re prisoners.”
Cadis left.
The room was empty but for two.
Rhea turned to Iren. “Is that true?”
A stupid question.
Really, a beg for assurance.
Iren turned and walked out.
“Not all of us,” she said, as she closed her door.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rhea
In the grand ballroom of Meridan Keep, lit by a thousand torches in sconces on the high columns of the vaulted ceiling, the high nobles and Endrit stood in a wide circle around the four queens as they spoke the pledge that closed the Revel ceremonies. And Rhea wondered, not for the first time, if her sisters conspired to kill her.
“Unto the throne of Meridan, the chair of Declan the Giver—” they said.
Suki struck a surly pose and mouthed the oath.
Is she even speaking?
“—on the occasion of the Treaty of Sister Queens—”
Did Suki scoff?
No one else seemed to notice but Rhea.
Iren murmured the words in her half-present monotone.
“—at the close of the War of Epiphany Rising and the unification of the four kingdoms of Pelgard—”
Of the three, only Cadis stood and declared as a queen and general ought to have done.
But is she playacting? Wouldn’t anyone half as clever as Cadis insist on her loyalty if she intended to stab in the dark?
“—we queens pledge allegiance—”
And they stepped forward, one at a time, dressed in their colors, both hands on their hearts.
Suki, in a yellow summer gown embroidered with the roots of the bituin tree at the hem, up into branches that curled and twisted like flames. She had fought their seamstress like a banshee eel to have a red dress. “Red was the color of Tasan’s empire before Meridan was even a wilderness post.”
Of course, it had been such a grave insult to make her wear the other color of Tasan so that Rhea could wear red.
Suki gathered herself up, held her chin aloft. “I, Suki, empress-apparent of the ancient
and glorious kingdom of Tasan, born third to Empress Reiko and Emperor Niran, first in line of succession before two who remain, crowned by the will of Ysvin, the creator, do so pledge.”
Declan nodded from his throne, rose, and stepped down from the dais.
Suki flinched as he approached, but no one else seemed to notice.
A servant stood by, holding a jeweled case. Declan reached into the case and took the ring of royal succession—Tasan’s signet ring. This year the jewel-smith had socketed another ruby into the image of the bituin tree, making ten in total.
Declan presented the ring back to Suki.
Her hand shook as he placed it on her finger—a stark reminder that he, king of Meridan, had given her the right to rule. And each year at the Revels a new gem would be added, until the thirteenth year, when the signet rings would be whole again.
Three more years of this, thought Rhea.
Three more years of Suki inserting insults into her pledge. Rhea knew she had written in “ancient and glorious” to describe Tasan because she constantly called Meridan “upstart and artless” by comparison. It was a knife intended only for Rhea to notice.
Can we possibly make peace and become sisters in that time?
Is this a complete farce?
Iren stepped forth, stared at the floor mosaic, and spoke.
The crowd leaned in to hear.
“I, emira-apparent of Corent, Iren, daughter of Malin, provost and first magister of the academy, and King Gamol, who set aside his crown to take his personal guards to the field and serve as wartime magister—who was slain—do so pledge.”
Iren too?
Is she also conspiring to humiliate the king?
Did they write those vows together this year?
And was the purpose to lay all the dead of a tragic war at the feet of my father?
He was the architect of the treaty. Do they not credit him peace?
Iren never spoke of her father’s foolhardy decision to enter the fray.
The Corentine hailed it as the magister’s ultimate duty, to act as a medic for his people. But Hiram scoffed in private. “He was an idealistic old professor in love with an idea and surprised when the sword in his belly wouldn’t yield the floor for a scholarly rebuttal.”
Declan made no sign of disapproval as he reached into the box and retrieved the signet ring of Corent.
The socketed sapphires that formed the windows of the tower emblem glinted in the candlelight. Declan placed the ring on Iren’s finger. A few noblewomen sighed at the sight. Many still aimed for the seat beside Declan. Widower since Rhea’s birth. “A wifeless king is a motherless kingdom,” prattled Doyenne Sprolio often. She had a granddaughter only five years Rhea’s senior to present.
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