“You don’t have to love Galen to be queen, you know.” Aramis’s voice was strained. “My mother and father were lucky. But my grandmother—she already loved another when she was asked to come south and end the war. You would still have a good life. You could take a lover in secret, if you wanted to. Galen wouldn’t care. He’s never hoped for a marriage built on love.”

“And you, Princess?” Ranka found herself asking, though she shouldn’t have, though she knew this way only lay pain. “Do you hope for love?”

Aramis’s fingers jerked. Ranka caught the movement, though Aramis redirected the slip of her hands into folding a bandage. “My hopes don’t get to matter.”

Her tone made it clear further questions were not welcome. Ranka’s cheeks burned. Why had she asked that? It was none of her business. Had no impact on her mission or her role here. Still, she found herself watching the princess. Found herself aching to ask not just if she hoped for love, but what kind of love that would be—and what kind of person she’d find it with, when she did.

“I think about her sometimes,” Aramis said. “The blood-witch of Belren.”

Ranka willed her face into a blank mask. “Why?”

“I saw the way my mother’s blood-magic weighed on her. She spent her life trying to find the answer to it, to ensure no one would have to endure what she did. Belren to her was evidence of her failure.” Aramis twisted a roll of bandages together, her voice soft, careful. “People always say the Butcher acted out of revenge or bloodlust. But if Belren was intentional—why didn’t it happen again?”

Ranka forced herself to take several slow breaths, to quell the panic threatening to pull her under. “I think whoever that witch was, she probably never wanted to hurt anyone. I think she’d take it all back if she could.”

Aramis looked at Ranka, a question in her eyes—a question Ranka desperately hoped she wouldn’t ask. “I bet she would.”

“It doesn’t excuse what she did.”

“No, it doesn’t. Still—I wish Mother had found her. I wish anyone had. She should have never come into that power alone.”

Ranka pressed her hands against the table to keep them from trembling. Memories of fire and blood on the snow lingered behind her eyes. “No one should.”

Aramis looked exhausted all of a sudden, her attention trained out the window, where morning light was beginning to wake Seaswept with a gentle, golden glow. “Do you think we could fix what Belren broke? If the right changes were made? If we had enough time? Do you think the Bloodwinn treaty could work?”