I stand a moment, listening as the pat-pat of her slippers fades away. Valka’s rooms aren’t in this hall; Lord Daerilin is one of Mother’s most important vassals and his family has rooms beside ours. So what was she doing here, looking at her jewelry? Had she come to show it off to someone? But no, then she likely would have shown me too.

I glance around once, but the doors are closed, the hallway quiet. The only sounds are the faint murmur of voices and the occasional thump from the main hall, filled with diners.

Never mind. Whatever little intrigues Valka is playing at she can keep to herself. I don’t want her secrets, told to me or discovered on my own.

Chapter 3

“I want every servant who has set foot in this hall called here at once!”

At the sound of the voice, I look up from the map I am studying under the jaundiced eye of my long-suffering tutor. It depicts a rather over-large vision of Adania, and the rocky, mountainous borders we share with all of our neighbors—middling kingdoms to the north, south, and west, all bigger than our own, and then the much larger kingdom of Menaiya to the east.

“Continue,” my tutor says at the same time as the woman outside in the hallway exclaims, “It is gone, I tell you, and I shall not allow such a theft to stand.”

There are other voices, low and garbled, and I can hear a number of doors opening along the hallway as people poke their heads out to see what’s amiss. I think of Valka’s story yesterday, the reality that my brother cost the hostlers some of their already paltry pay, but shake the thought loose. This has nothing to do with that, even if there are servants involved.

“Your Highness,” my tutor says with a heroic attempt at patience. “Our northern borders . . . ?”

“Were secured through the marriage of Great Aunt Larimi to their crown prince at the time,” I say dutifully as the woman in the hallway says something else, and the level of noise from the assembling crowd rises another notch. “When she was very young,” I add, at my tutor’s silence. “Now that it’s her grandchildren on the throne, our alliance is not quite so strong.”

“Indeed. Alliances by marriage usually only hold strong through the first generation of children, but they are still an excellent method to assure peace.” He pauses. “Your Great Aunt Larimi caught the eye of the northern prince. It was an unexpected windfall for us, and not one we can expect to occur again.”

A kind way of observing I’m unlikely to have foreign princes falling desperately in love with me. I don’t particularly mind, though. I would much prefer to marry someone who has as little interest in politics as me and just wants to live quietly on their lands.