“Uh—thank you! Thank you most kindly!” Miriam fled in disarray, outmaneuvered for the third time this evening. Just what is it with these people? She wondered. The king’s overture was undoubtedly well-meant; just alarming and demoralizing, for it highlighted the depths of her own inadequacy in trying to play power politics with these sharks. The king wants to marry his son into the Clan, and he thinks I’m a useful person to talk to? It was desperately confusing. And why had Angbard named her his heir? That was the real question. Without an answer, nothing else seemed to make sense. What was he trying to achieve? Didn’t it make her some kind of target?

Target.

She stopped, halfway from pillared bay to dancing floor, as if struck in the head by a two-by-four.

“Milady Miriam? What is it?” Brilliana was tugging at her sleeve.

“Shush. I’m thinking.”

Target. Thirty-two years ago someone had pursued and murdered her mother, while she was en route to this very court to pay attendance to the king—probably Alexis’s father. During the civil war between the families, before the Clan peace was installed. Her mother’s marriage had been the peace settlement that cemented one corner of the arrangement.

Since she’d come here, someone had tried to kill her at least twice.

Miriam thought furiously. These people hold long grudges. Are the incidents connected? If so, it could be more than Baron Hjorth’s financial machinations. Or Matthias’s mysterious factions. Or even the dowager grandmother, Duchess Hildegarde Thorold Hjorth.

Someone ignorant of her past. Of course! If they’d known about her before, or on the other side, she’d have been pushed under a subway train or run over by a car or shot in a random drive-by incident long before she’d discovered the way back. How common is it to conceal an heir? She wondered.

“Mistress, you’ve got to come.”

“What is it?” Something about Brilliana’s insistent nudging attracted Miriam’s attention. It’s not me, it’s something to do with who I am, she realized vaguely, groping for the light. I’m so important to these people that they can’t conceive of me not joining in their game. It would be like the vice president refusing to talk to the Senate. Even if I don’t do anything, tell them I want to be left alone, that would be seen as some kind of deep political game. “What’s happening?” She asked distractedly.

“It’s Kara,” Brill insisted. “We’ve got a problem.”

“I’m here,” she said, shaking her head, dazed by her insight. I’ve got to be a politician, whether I like it or not… “What is it now?”