“Get me the Falcon, if you can,” my mother said. “But most importantly, do not let him establish dominion over you. You are no mere Falconer under his command. If you allow him to control you now, when you take my seat in the Council of Nine, you will be his tool.”

“What do you want a fire warlock for, anyway?”

“I don’t want a fire warlock. I want it to be known we have one.” She brushed a stray wisp of hair from my brow. “The doge understands. You will, too.”

“Done,” Ciardha announced. I regarded my bandaged hand in despair. I had to receive the doge like this?

My mother patted my arm, giving me the smile that won the country of Callamorne for the Raverran Empire. “You’ll do fine, child. Just remember who you are.”

Who I was, or who she wished me to be? My throat tightened. “I’m not good at these games. Not like you are, Mamma.”

“Then don’t play. Figure out what you are good at, and make that the game.”

And she swept out, with all the majesty of a swan taking off, leaving Ciardha’s capable hands to get me into the peacock-blue gown. I hardly had to do a thing, save turn when told, or brace myself while Ciardha put a knee in my back to tighten my corset.

“I wish you could talk to the doge for me, Ciardha,” I said when I could breathe again. “You’re good at everything.”

“You will do fine, Lady,” Ciardha assured me with utmost confidence, her fingers now moving adeptly through my hair.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because La Contessa said you would. La Contessa is never wrong.”

A cry rose up in the household, one servant calling to another. He’s coming!

They had spotted the doge’s gull-winged boat on the Imperial Canal. I had best hope Ciardha was right.

Chapter Three

The most powerful man in the world stood barely taller than I did, not counting the ducal crown. Niro da Morante was young for a doge; it was a lifetime post, and the Assembly rarely elected anyone with an undue allowance of lifetime remaining. His hair still showed dark between broad streaks of gray. But his deep-set eyes gleamed with a relentless intelligence, and he had a presence about him that had nothing to do with the richness of his robes—or even the fact that he commanded an empire spanning most of the continent of Eruvia.

As I curtsied to him, those dark eyes drank in every piece of knowledge he could glean from my appearance. It was hard to forget, even here in the grand salon of my own house, that here was a man whose word held the power of war and peace, prosperity and ruin, life and death.

This must be how other people felt talking to my mother.