“I hear Altapalma had a marvelous tomato harvest this year,” Lady Jada observes, spooning up her soup.

“That countship suffered terribly after the Year Without a Summer,” Conde Astón observes. “It’s good to see the land recovering finally.”

Rosario’s shoulders tense because he knows where this will eventually go; Astón never wastes an opportunity to criticize Elisa.

“The Year Without a Summer was just as devastating to Invierno crops,” Ambassador Songbird points out.

“I heard that many Inviernos blame our empress for all that mess,” Lady Jada says. “Can you imagine? Women get blamed for everything, I suppose. Even the weather!”

“Well, actually,” Conde Astón says, “there’s been some discussion among scholars at the university that our empress was indeed to blame, that she changed the weather patterns that year with her overuse of magic. It altered the delicate spiritual balance of the world.”

I barely refrain from rolling my eyes.

“Can magic really change the weather?” Carilla asks in her soft, unassuming voice.

“How should I know?” Conde Astón says. “It’s magic.” He waves his spoon in the air, making a vaguely magical gesture.

“It’s physics,” Rosario says darkly. “And it was definitely caused by my stepmother. But things would have been worse if she had not acted the way she did.”

Astón gives the prince an indulgent smile. “I know you’ve been told that. It’s certainly a politically prudent viewpoint.”

“It’s the truth.”

“The prince is correct,” says Ambassador Songbird. “Though I would clarify and say it was both magic and physics.”

“How do you mean?” Lady Jada asks.

“The empress destroyed several mountains that year using magic, yes? This is historical record.”

Others around the table nod.

“This destruction was in many ways irresponsible; it threw enough ash and dust into the air to lower temperatures everywhere during the next growing season.” Rosario is about to protest, but the ambassador holds up a hand to dissuade him and adds, “But her actions saved the Invierno capital from the Eyes of God, massive twin volcanoes on the brink of major eruption. Had they been allowed to erupt, the effect would have been tenfold, plunging us into an age of ice.”

I remember that year well, the first summer after I came to Brisadulce. It snowed in the desert, making swooping white hills of the sand dunes. It was all anyone talked about.

Astón raises one eyebrow. “So you say.”

“So say all the experts at our own universities,” Songbird clarifies.

Astón chuckles, giving no doubt as to what he thinks about Invierno “experts.”

My heart beats too fast for the mere act of standing behind my prince, and my face is warm. If I were fully Invierno, my cheeks would be bright red by now. This is what it’s like to be a Royal Guard. Hearing and seeing everything, doing and saying nothing. No matter how strongly you feel about an issue or event. Even if you were there to witness it.

“I imagine an age of ice would have had far-reaching consequences,” Carilla says. “So many plants and animals could not have survived. They might have gone extinct, just like the great luminescing birds of ancient Invierne.”