Elara’s eyes did not waver, locked upon Coriane’s, and the queen felt her heart flutter. Focus, she told herself. Focus, damn you. If the Merandus woman could not be charmed, then Coriane would be in for something worse than her nightmares.

But slowly, sluggishly, Elara took a step back, never breaking eye contact. “Yes,” she said dully, pushing the balcony door open with one hand.

They stepped out together, Coriane holding Elara by the shoulder, keeping her from wavering. Outside, the night was sticky hot, the last gasps of summer in the upper river valley. Coriane felt none of it. Elara’s eyes were the only things in her mind.

“Have you been playing with my mind?” she asked, cutting directly to her intentions.

“Not for a while,” Elara replied, her eyes faraway.

“When was the last time?”

“Your wedding day.”

Coriane blinked, startled. So long ago. “What? What did you do?”

“I made you trip.” A dreamy smile crossed Elara’s features. “I made you trip on your dress.”

“That—that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And the dreams? The nightmares?”

Elara said nothing. Because there’s nothing for her to say, Coriane knew. She sucked in a breath, fighting the urge to cry. These fears are my own. They always have been. They always will be. I was wrong before I came to court, and I’m still wrong long after.

“Go back inside,” she finally hissed. “Remember none of this.” Then she turned away, breaking the eye contact she so desperately needed to keep Elara under her control.

Like a person waking up, Elara blinked rapidly. She cast a single confused glance at the queen before hurrying away, back into the party.

Coriane moved in the opposite direction, toward the stone bannister ringing the balcony. She leaned over it, trying to catch her breath, trying not to scream. Greenery stretched below her, a garden of fountains and stone more than forty feet down. For a single, paralyzing second, she fought the urge to jump.

The next day, she took a guard into her service, to defend her from any Silver ability someone might use against her. If not Elara, than surely someone else of House Merandus. Coriane simply could not believe how her mind seemed to spin out of control, happy one second and then distraught the next, bouncing between emotions like a kite in a gale.

The guard was of House Arven, the silent house. His name was Rane, a savior clad in white, and he swore to defend his queen against all forces.

They named the baby Tiberias, as was custom. Coriane didn’t care for the name, but acquiesced at Tibe’s request, and his assurance that they would name the next after Julian. He was a fat baby, smiling early, laughing often, growing bigger by leaps and bounds. She nicknamed him Cal to distinguish him from his father and grandfather. It stuck.