It seems too simple, and yet … Safi understands. Vaness’s iron demeanor keeps Marstok unified for years, even when not everyone loves or agrees with her. Meanwhile, tenants and farmers on the Hasstrel estate look to Eron for guidance and find only a broken man who drank too much.

It was all Safi had ever found in him as well … or so she’d thought until two months ago.

“You understand,” Henrick says, and Safi nods.

She also understands that she has severely underestimated the Emperor. His eyes, fixed on her face, are not the vacant eyes of a toad. They are sharp and fathomless, and were Safi to meet him across a taro table, she would not agree to play.

True, true, true.

Suddenly, her new pocket feels aflame. Suddenly, sweat prickles out along her spine. “There are many raiders at the border?” asks, grasping any topic she can to deflect focus off herself.

“Many. And they are not just in the east, but have fortified in Poznin. I will show you on the maps tomorrow.”

Safi bows her head as a thank-you, but when she lifts it again, Henrick still stares.

He knows, she thinks. He knows and he will act. She offers a smile even as her toes curl in her slippers and muscles tense beneath her gown. She will not go down without a fight.

Then his gaze finally breaks, dropping to her Threadstone, visible at her collar alongside the steel chain Vaness made her wear.

“An empress needs better jewelry,” he declares, and he angles his body back toward the dancers.

Safi has to fight to keep her lungs from loosing, her shoulders from drooping. Sweat now slides down her back against the throne, and though she knows it looks strange, she drapes a hand over her Threadstone.

As soon as her fingers touch the ruby, warm from her skin, Iseult’s voice booms into her mind. HE PLANS TO LEAVE, SAFI. PLEASE LISTEN. THERE WILL BE NO WEDDING NIGHT. WHERE ARE YOU, SAFI? HE PLANS TO—

“I’m here.” She whispers the words on a sigh, dipping her head sideways as if tired. As if taking in the view of dancers. But her fingers tighten on the Threadstone, and she mouths, “Explain.”

Henrick has no plans for a wedding night, Iseult says. He has no plans to consummate anything and he will leave the palace after the dancing.

Safi’s stomach drops low. She wants to ask how Iseult knows this, but she dares not speak too much, even silently. Too many people watch her, including the Emperor himself. He glances at her sideways, and she smiles in return.

Iseult seems to understand the question anyway, for she adds, Caden told my guards to expect shift changes tonight because the Emperor is going into town.