A Throne for Sisters

In fact, she suspected that it was anything but safe. She wanted to hear the truth of it, the battles and the smaller engagements, the places Will had been. She wanted to hear anything he had to tell her.

“Not really,” Will said with a sigh. “Lord Cranston mostly does keep us out of engagements, but when you do have to fight, it’s terrifying. There’s just violence everywhere. And even when you don’t, there’s the terrible food, the risk of disease…”

“You’re making it sound so heroic,” Kate said with a laugh.

Will shook his head. “It isn’t. If the wars spill over the Knife-Water to here, people will find that out.”

Kate hoped that wouldn’t happen, but at the same time, a part of her longed for it, because it would be a chance to fight. She wanted to fight then. She would fight the whole world if she needed to. The horror of it didn’t matter. There would be glory too.

“Half the time, the battles are just revenge for other battles a lifetime or more ago,” Will said. “Vengeance is pointless.”

Kate wasn’t so sure about that. “There are a few people I’d like revenge on.”

“It doesn’t do any good, Kate,” Will said. “You take revenge, and then they want revenge, until there’s no one left at all.” He paused for a moment, then laughed. “How did this turn so bleak, so quickly? We were supposed to be having a good time.”

Kate reached out to touch his arm, wishing that she had the courage to do more than that. She liked Will.

“I am having a good time,” she said. “And I think you sound very brave, with your regiment. I’d like to see it.”

Will smiled at that. “I don’t think it will be as dashing as you think.”

Kate suspected that it would be everything she hoped and more.

“Even so,” Kate said.

When Will nodded, she couldn’t have been happier. “All right,” he said. “But in the morning. They’ll look more impressive by daylight.”

Kate could barely wait.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sophia wandered the palace, and as she did so, it was impossible not to think about quite how lucky she’d been. She’d come from nowhere, and now… now it seemed as though this might actually be her life from now on. She had found the place she’d been looking for, and it was everything she could have ever hoped. The palace was beautiful.

Sophia wanted to be able to stay here. More than that, she wanted to be able to stay here with Sebastian. She found herself staring at a painting of some long dead noble while contemplating what she could do to make sure that Sebastian didn’t ask her to leave. It was obvious that he liked her, but how did Sophia know that he was serious? She was happy in that moment, but it felt eggshell fragile. She didn’t want anything to ruin it.

Sophia kept wandering, not knowing quite where to go next. She didn’t want to simply go back to Sebastian’s rooms, because that would feel as though Angelica and her cronies had driven her there to hide, or like she was stuck simply waiting for Sebastian to save her. She didn’t want to go back to the library, because there was too much of a chance that they might be there.

Instead, she wandered up to a gallery where people walked around looking at the paintings, and then she went down toward the servants’ quarters in an attempt to get the layout of the place. She went to a glass-topped solarium, where delicate plants were set to grow in the greater heat, and spent some time sitting in a nook where it seemed that no one was about to pass.

It was at that point that Sophia told herself that she was being stupid. She had at least one friend in the palace, after all.

It took her a little time to find Cora, working her way out from the ballroom until she found the space where the servant plied her trade with makeup and perfumes.

“My lady,” Cora said with a smile as Sophia approached. “Come and sit down. I’ll put some powder on your cheeks.”

“Cora, you don’t need to call me that,” Sophia said.

Cora nodded. “I do, and you need to get used to it. From what I hear of things between you and Prince Sebastian, you’re going to be here awhile. You need to remember who you are.”

“Who I’m pretending to be, you mean?” Sophia said. Sophia of Meinhalt felt like as much of a mask as the one she’d worn to the ball.

Cora pushed her down into the chair. “You can’t ever say that here. You don’t know who might be listening in. From now on, you are Sophia of Meinhalt.”

What would happen to us if the dowager found out her son had been tricked, I don’t know.

Sophia caught that thought clearly. She supposed that she could understand the idea that there might be spies, or just servants in a position to hear more than they should. After all, she spent her life overhearing more than she should of people’s thoughts. She could understand the danger, too. No one liked being made a fool of, and the dowager would act to protect her son, wouldn’t she?

“All right,” Sophia said. “But I can still come and see you, can’t I? Even a noble lady needs her makeup done.”

“She does,” Cora agreed, and started to dust Sophia’s features with a powder that turned her naturally pale complexion into something luminous and blemish free. “And while she’s doing it, she can tell me how things were with a certain prince.”

“Wonderful,” Sophia said, unable to help herself. “He’s… perfect, Cora.”

Cora brushed her lips with just a hint of rouge. “He’s not the man I suggested.”

Was she angry about that? No, Sophia realized, with a glance through her new friend’s thoughts, she was worried. Worried about all the things that might go wrong now that Sophia had picked a prince rather than some dull minor noble.

“It wasn’t something I planned,” Sophia said. She wanted Cora to understand that. She didn’t want her thinking that she had simply decided to ignore her advice.

“It’s just… it makes things more dangerous if this goes wrong,” Cora said. “You know that there are rumors flying around the palace about you now?”

Sophia had guessed that there might be, simply from how much Angelica had heard about her. “What kind of rumors?”

“That you managed to brush aside Milady d’Angelica to take the prince’s heart. That you’re astonishingly beautiful and appeared from nowhere. That you’ve fled the wars across the water, and you have dangerous enemies there. I swear, half the servants are gossiping about how beautiful you are, or how wonderfully you dance.”

Sophia shook her head at that. “I barely made it through the dancing without tripping over my feet.”

That got a laugh out of the servant. “Do you think that matters? People see what they want to see.”

Which was, of course, why Sophia had been able to succeed at this in the first place. The whole reason she had been able to find a place at court was because people wanted to see the mysterious girl fleeing a conflict, rather than the reality.

“It’s just…” Cora began. “Be careful. There are already people trying to find out exactly who you are. I hear that Milady d’Angelica is asking questions, and she isn’t the only one. The nobles hate it when they don’t know everything there is to know.”

Sophia could understand that. “I’ll try to be careful.”

She left, and she suspected that she looked even better than she had done for the ball. It was hard to believe that she was getting to walk around the palace with nobody challenging her. Perhaps it due to her amazement at that fact that she wasn’t paying as much attention to the thoughts around her as she should have been, or perhaps she’d just gotten used to the idea that no one would bother her as she walked past them.

Either way, she turned a corner and froze as she found herself face to face with Rupert, the kingdom’s heir and Sebastian’s older brother.

He wasn’t dressed quite as brightly as he had been for the party, but it was close. There was a lot of gold brocade on an outfit of red velvet, shot through with flashes of creamy silk. Like Sebastian, he was a handsome young man, although there was a confidence, even arrogance, to his demeanor that said Prince Rupert was completely aware of it. Sophia watched his eyes rove over her in a combination of surprise, amusement, and… admiration.

“Your Highness,” Sophia said, with a hurried curtsey. She had to remember the etiquette, even though she could see exactly what Rupert was.

“And you are Sophia, aren’t you?” He didn’t bother using the lie that was her surname. With anyone else, Sophia might have taken it for friendliness. With him, she could see it was simply that he didn’t feel the need to afford anyone even that much respect. She was just one more girl among a host of them, even if she was with his brother.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Sophia said. “Sophia of Meinhalt.”

He took her hand, drawing her up out of her curtsey with all the grace Sophia might have expected from a crown prince. He didn’t let go of her hand, though, holding onto it in a way that must have seemed courtly and romantic to anyone watching, but which actually felt to Sophia as though he was holding her in place, laying claim to her as surely as a man grabbing the arm of a thief.

“I saw you at the ball last night,” he said. “Dancing with my brother. You should have come over to me. We could have danced.”

One glance at his thoughts told Sophia that dancing wasn’t anywhere on his mind.

“You seemed busy with other partners,” Sophia said with a delicate laugh.

Rupert looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not busy now, and I’d like to find out exactly what captivated Sebastian so much. Perhaps we could go somewhere.”

Sophia didn’t have to ask what he intended once they got there. She could see it in his mind as clearly as if someone had painted it. She found herself grateful for the powder Cora had applied to her features, because it hid the depth of her blush.

“Your Highness, I couldn’t possibly. Your brother – ”

“Isn’t here,” Rupert pointed out.

She’s just a whore. Why should it matter to her?

“Your Highness,” Sophia began, trying to think of a way to get out of there without having to slap the heir to the throne. She could see the way Prince Rupert saw her: as something to use because his brother had. As a prize to be claimed simply because he was the eldest. He found her beautiful, but Sophia doubted that he even saw her as a real person.

“I’m sure you found my brother sweet and gentle,” Rupert said. Again, Sophia caught images that made her want to pull away. “And boring. I think you and I will not be boring when we are – ”

“Sophia?”

Sophia had never been as grateful for anything as she was for the sound of Sebastian’s voice right then. She managed to pull free of Rupert’s grip as he came around the corner, and hurried to him.

“Sebastian,” she said with all the happiness that came from not being in Rupert’s grip any longer added to the normal happiness of seeing Sebastian. “You’re back! I hope the day was a good one?”

“If I know my brother,” Rupert said, as though nothing had just happened, “he’ll have been bored out of his mind by it all. Sebastian, Mother wants us to dine with her in an hour or so. Bring Sophia. I’m sure Mother will love her. She seems delightful.”

Sophia got one last flash of the things he was thinking about her before he left. It was enough to make her cling to Sebastian’s arm and wish that she could wipe the things she’d seen from her mind.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Sophia said, leaning against him.

“I hope Rupert wasn’t too overwhelming,” Sebastian replied. Sophia caught the worry there. There had been girls before Sophia whom Rupert had pulled away from Sebastian when they’d realized that he was the one willing to be more extravagant. That they weren’t here now only said how quickly he’d cast them aside.

“No, it’s fine.”

A part of her wanted to tell Sebastian exactly what had happened, but what could she say? That she’d read Rupert’s mind and knew what he wanted?

“We still have some time before dinner,” Sebastian said. “Would you like to take a walk around the maze for a while?”

Sophia nodded. Anything, so long as it was out of there, and with Sebastian. She walked with him out into the gardens, where lamps were starting to light up flowers that had opened in the dark, pale and silvery.

“They’re midnight orchids,” Sebastian said, obviously noting Sophia’s gaze. “They open to attract the moths that aren’t out in the daylight, so that they don’t have to fight for butterflies’ attention with the other flowers.”

“They feel that they can’t attract the butterflies?” Sophia asked. “But they’re beautiful.”

Sebastian touched her arm, and the contact was enough to send a shiver along Sophia’s skin. “Sometimes, the most beautiful things can come along at unexpected times.”

They kept going into the maze. Sophia got the feeling that Sebastian knew his way around it, because he took the turnings with confidence even though she couldn’t make sense of them.

“It seems like a good place to get lost for a while,” Sophia said. “Is that why you like to come here?”

“It’s part of it,” Sebastian said. “Although it also means we have some privacy.”

Sophia made the most of it, leaning in to kiss him. She couldn’t believe that she was free to do that with someone like Sebastian. That, and almost anything else she wanted. More than that, she couldn’t believe that she’d found someone like him at all.

She had, though, and Sophia held close to him as they kept going through the maze.

“There’s a sundial at the center,” Sebastian said. “And a pergola with a chaise inside.”

“I like the sound of that,” Sophia said with a smile. A place for them to sit together. Potentially a place for them to do more than just sit. Sophia hadn’t felt this way with anyone before. “Just so long as you know the way.”

“I do.”

They kept going along the close-walled stretches of the formal maze. It was comforting to know that he knew the way out of there, but even so, she found herself caught up in memories: of running along narrow corridors, running, hiding, hoping that they wouldn’t be found. Of flames, licking at the edges of things so that she could feel the heat and taste the bitterness of the smoke. Telling her sister to stay quiet, because the least sound could —

“Sophia?” Sebastian said in a gentle tone.

Sophia came back to herself, looking over at him and putting her arms around him. “Sorry. I wasn’t there for a moment.”

“Are you all right?” Sebastian asked. “If you aren’t well, maybe I can persuade my mother that it’s okay for you not to come to dinner.”

Sophia could see that wasn’t really an option though. What the dowager wanted, it seemed, the dowager got.

“No, it’s all right,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to make things difficult with your mother.”

And yet, she had a sinking feeling that things with his mother were about to get very difficult indeed.

***

Sophia stood with Sebastian outside the doors to a small dining room, waiting for a servant to announce them. She tried as hard as she could not to let her nerves show, but the trembling of her hand in his must have given it away.

“It’s all right,” Sebastian said. “My mother isn’t a monster.”

That was easier for him to say than for her to believe. The dowager had ruled the kingdom singlehandedly since her husband’s death, managing not to be overwhelmed by the Assembly of Nobles or the Church of the Masked Goddess. She’d stood through plots and economic troubles, wars overseas and threats of rebellion in the Near Colonies. Faced with her, Sophia felt certain that her deception would be unmasked in an instant.

“Prince Sebastian and Sophia of Meinhalt!” a servant announced, opening the door to a dining chamber that seemed quite small by the standards of the palace. That was to say that it was smaller than an entire building elsewhere.

There was a table there, and there were perhaps half a dozen other people seated around it, all dressed in a kind of court finery that was nevertheless a step less formal than it might have been for an official banquet. Sophia recognized Prince Rupert, but none of the others.

She quickly found herself caught in a bewildering round of introductions, obviously designed to put her at her ease, but which mostly seemed to impress on her just how out of her depth she was.

A woman in a silver gray veil was revealed as Justina, the Highest Priestess of the Masked Goddess. A man with mutton chop sideburns and graying hair turned out to be an admiral. The others were a baronet, a Shire governor, and the governor’s wife. There seemed to be no particular reason for this collection of guests other than it being what the dowager wanted. Perhaps these were friends from her youth, or people in her favor who happened to be visiting.

The only thing that made Sophia more nervous was when the dowager herself walked in. Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg was not a tall woman, and age had left her gray in both hair and pallor, but there was an iron hardness to her posture that said nothing would shake her. She wore mourning black, as she had since her husband’s death. She stood at the head of the table, gesturing to the others there.

“Please be seated,” she said.

Sophia did so, hoping that the presence of the others might allow her to hide a little, just one more guest among all the others there. Yet, as the servants started to bring pigeon and grouse, Sophia felt those steely eyes upon her.

“Sebastian, you must introduce me to your guest, dear.”

“Certainly, Mother. This is Sophia of Meinhalt. Sophia, this is my mother, Mary of Flamberg.”

“Your Majesty,” Sophia managed, bobbing in place as best she could.

“Ah, Meinhalt,” the Dowager said. “Such a sad affair. Tell me, girl, what is your opinion of the wars that beset the continent?”

Sophia could see enough of her thoughts to know that this was a test, but not enough to know what the answer ought to be. In the end, she grabbed her answer from Sebastian’s thoughts, hoping that he would know his mother well enough for it to be a good choice.

“My worry is that they won’t stay there,” Sophia said.

“A concern I’m sure we all share,” the dowager replied. Sophia couldn’t tell if she’d passed the older woman’s test or not. “Although it seems that my son is grateful that at least some things have come over the Knife-Water. You must tell us about yourself.”

Sophia did her best, trying to disguise lack of knowledge as modesty or reticence. “I came over before the city fell, Your Majesty. I think I was quite lucky in that.”

“The Goddess gives her gifts,” the High Priestess murmured.

“Indeed,” the dowager said. “Although I seem to recall you saying that she gives us hard gifts as well as pleasant ones sometimes, Justina.”

More questions followed. Had she enjoyed skating on the river in winter there? What did she think of the different sides of the war? Sophia did her best, but there was only so much her talent could help her, and only so much she knew about Meinhalt. She should have spent more time reading about it in the library. In the end, she did the only thing she could, and sought for a distraction.

“Admiral, I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to try to keep track of an entire navy’s movements. How do you manage it all?”

“Maps, my dear,” he said. “Mostly maps.”

He clearly intended it as a joke, so Sophia laughed along with him. He started to go off into a discussion of the various methods of combining nautical charts. Prince Rupert interrupted, claiming that no one could possibly want to know about that, and started to talk about hunting instead. Sophia didn’t mind, so long as she could keep the discussion away from her.

The eyes of the others weren’t on her, for the most part, but there were exceptions. The High Priestess glanced at her from time to time with an odd look Sophia didn’t dare try to read her to interpret. Sebastian seemed to be looking at her whenever Sophia looked over at him, his expression soft with love, or hopeful, or wanting to make sure that she was all right. Rupert glanced at her more than once with a hungry look that said what had happened earlier between them wasn’t done. That was enough to make Sophia want to cling close to Sebastian and not let him go.

And the dowager considered her evenly, as if trying to make sense of Sophia or stare into her heart. There was something unchanging, certainly unblinking, about that gaze. That worried her more than the rest of it put together. She felt like a specimen kept under glass for examination, unable to keep anything hidden. Right then, she felt as though she was an imposter, and every glance, every word out of place, only made her feel it more. How long could she keep up this deception?

Somehow, she managed to make it through the dinner, exchanging polite conversation with the others while they ate what seemed like an entire feast’s worth of food. Sophia ate sparingly, and when the time came to leave, she was only too grateful to be allowed to stand, ready to go.

Of course, there were still goodbyes to be said, and one by one, Sophia found herself taking the hands of the other guests, murmuring farewells and comments about how much she had enjoyed the evening. Even Rupert’s touch didn’t linger more than a second or so longer than it should have.

The dowager smiled as Sophia offered a curtsey, taking her hand instead.

“It is good to see that my son has found such a pleasant, intelligent girl to spend time with,” she said, and Sophia would have been happy with the compliment in any other circumstances. As it was, she had to force herself to smile back and murmur what an honor it was, because of the thoughts she could sense behind the words.

I will find out who this girl is. A match for my son must be suitable, and girls do not appear from thin air.

Sophia had to fight the urge to run from the room. She was grateful when Sebastian took her arm, leading her from it.

“That went better than I expected,” Sebastian said as they left. “I think my mother likes you.”

Sophia smiled back. “I hope so.”

She hoped it, but she didn’t believe it. She could feel her plans unraveling beneath her, pulling apart under the weight of the dowager’s suspicion. Right then, a part of Sophia wanted nothing more than to run and not come back.

No. She couldn’t just walk away from all this. Not now, not after everything she’d been through, after she’d worked so hard to get to this point, taken so many risks.

And after she fell in love with Sebastian.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just run.

Then she realized in a flash what she needed to do: she needed to speak to her sister. Kate was the practical one. Kate would have a plan, and probably an entire way out of this mess.

She would venture out into the city streets, and do whatever she had to do to find her.

Kate, she sent. I’m coming.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kate could feel the excitement building in her as she walked with Will toward the outskirts of Ashton. There, the houses gave way to more open spaces, and Kate could see the greenery of the Ridings beyond, flat and open and free.

One day, she would head out into that open space, but not this morning. This morning, Kate was more interested in the spot on the edge of the city where the gray and blue flags of Will’s regiment sat.

“Are you sure that you want to go see my company?” Will asked. He seemed surprised by the thought that Kate would find any of it interesting. “There are a hundred other things we could do today.”

Kate caught glimpses of them in his thoughts. They could go to the theater or walk in one of the green spaces near the city. They could go and find food together in one of the taverns or wander up to a space where Will knew a fiddler would be playing and people would be dancing. All of that sounded good, but it wasn’t what Kate wanted.

“I want to see what it’s like,” Kate said. “How am I supposed to make the best weapons if I don’t know anything about the kind of people who are going to be using them?”

It was a good argument, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The truth was that there was just something about the thought of one of the free companies being there that made Kate tingle with curiosity. These were men who got to travel the world, fighting enemies and visiting exotic places. She wanted to know all about it. She wanted to see it for herself.