My brother frowns. He cares enough for Valka that he won’t keep her company alone—at least not publicly so. After all, they must have planned Edlyna’s downfall and coordinated their distractions somehow. But he won’t walk openly through the halls with no one but her; not until, as he told me the other night, they’re betrothed. His words hint at a future I find difficult to imagine: my brother as king one day, and Valka beside him as queen. A queen who knows exactly how to use him. There won’t be much of mercy or kindness in their reign.

“And we shall meet again at lunch, shan’t we?” Valka says, smiling sweetly at him. “After all, I don’t want it said that I’m a distraction to you.”

“Of course not,” he says. “Come, Alyrra, I’d better deliver you to your lessons, or you might try to weasel out of them again.”

I bite my lip and let him lead me on, Valka’s laughter ringing in my ears.

Chapter 2

“I don’t think we’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Maralinde tells me, casting a look about the room she shares with her parents. Her clothes are all neatly folded and tucked away in her trunk, but her parents’ things are only half-packed, piled on the bed and still visible in the wardrobe.

“There’s not really all that much left to pack, unless there’s another reason,” I observe. It’s true: with the help of a maid, they could easily be ready to depart within a few hours.

Maralinde shrugs and settles onto the bench beside me, our backs pressed against the carved wooden backrest. “I think my father is angling for an extra day to talk with your mother once some of the others have left.”

I nod. It’s been a difficult few years for Mother since Father died, keeping the peace among the vassals and keeping the throne for my brother. At first, she’d been pushed and manipulated in an effort to force a marriage that would put one of their chosen lords on the throne—with the alternate possibility of being driven with her children into exile dangled over her like an executioner’s axe. She’d lowered her head meekly and outmaneuvered them all, and when she finally stood up tall and smiled at them, they knew never to underestimate her again. Not that some of them don’t still try for a gain, they’re just more careful about it now.