Chapter One
valentina Serlast spent the entire two hours of the coronation ceremony trying to convince herself that she didn’t hate every other person in attendance. She didn’t succeed particularly well.
She certainly hated the crowds of enthusiastic and overdressed people who filled the palace’s vast foyer and pressed so close to the dais that she could feel it trembling under their weight. Theoretically, any urchin off the street was welcome to attend the event and watch the installation of the new king. But in actuality, almost everyone who’d clustered inside the palace was wealthy or politically important, and at least half of them came from one of the prominent families of the country of Welce. Val was never comfortable around large gatherings of the rich and ambitious, and today far too many of them were crammed into one room, flaunting their fine clothes, their sparkling jewels, and their close connections to the king. They all wanted to make sure their friends and rivals saw them in the crowd on this most momentous day, and they spent more time scanning the faces of their fellow revelers than watching the activities on the stage.
She had never had much use for the new king’s wife, the woman who had arrived in the city of Chialto almost eight years ago and upended everything. Careless, chaotic, and completely unpredictable, Zoe Lalindar had disrupted the power balance at court, set the four queens at each other’s throats, brought to light shocking secrets about the old king, and—in a moment of uncontrolled fury—flooded half the city. And then she had married Val’s brother and he had completely abandoned Val and her mother so he could lavish all his attention on his new family.
And now he was being crowned King Darien. And she hated him most of all.
Except she didn’t. Except sometimes she did.
For a moment, she turned her eyes away from the jostling crowd to survey the apparently interminable action on the stage. Val was one of the thirty people who had been deemed important enough to have a place on the raised dais while the ceremony was underway. It was supposed to be an honor but, practically speaking, it meant she couldn’t slip away while the coronation went on and on. There had been speeches by each of the five primes—the heads of the Five Families, the ones who had the strongest affiliations with the five elements—and then various politicians had stood up to make their own declarations. Now someone was rattling off some sort of incantation about the blessings and the elements. Val thought the speaker might be an acolyte from one of the temples, but she barely listened. She let her eyes rest on Darien’s face, wondering what he was thinking.
It was impossible ever to know, of course. Darien had never been open or easy to read, and he certainly had never felt any impulse to confide in the sister who was twelve years his junior, despite the fact that she had absolutely adored him and would have kept any small nugget of personal information entirely to herself. His wary aloofness had not been softened at all by nearly a decade as the most powerful figure in Welce—first as advisor to the ailing King Vernon, then as regent to Vernon’s infant daughter, then as designated heir to the throne himself. What was he feeling as the speaker gabbled on about power and responsibility? Was he excited? Pleased? Anxious? Triumphant? Unmoved? Nothing could be discerned on his lean face, which remained unsmiling, watchful, alert, and composed. As if this was any other day. As if his life was not changing forever.
Val’s gaze wandered over to Zoe, who sat in a high gilded chair next to the thronelike seat where Darien endured his coronation. Zoe was suitably dressed, in a blue tunic so heavily embroidered with glittering beads that her body flashed every time she made the smallest movement, but she hadn’t managed to make her expression properly reverent or solemn. In fact, she lounged back in her chair as if it was actually comfortable (Val knew it wasn’t) and seemed to be struggling to keep a look of boredom off her face. When she caught Val’s eyes on her, she offered up a grin and a wink.
Val glanced away.
Maybe no one would notice if she left the stage. She could rise to a half-crouch, wind stealthily through the row of chairs to the back edge of the raised platform, then jump lightly to the floor. Within a few moments, she could blend in with the crowd, work her way to the outer perimeter, and slip away. Darien obviously wouldn’t notice. Zoe might, but she was such a care-for-nobody that she would only laugh.
Val straightened in her seat, gathering her legs under her. I’m doing it, she thought. She glanced around one more time to make sure no one was paying attention, and found Mirti Serlast scowling at her. Val slumped back into her chair, unable to keep the surly expression from her face.
Mirti was the reason Val was at the coronation in the first place, because Val had not intended to come. She hadn’t even responded to Darien’s formal invitation, and when he followed up with a handwritten note, she had simply answered, “I don’t think I can make it.” She didn’t know if he had asked Mirti to intervene or if Mirti had come up with that idea all on her own, but a little over a nineday ago, the hunti prime had showed up at Val’s house and said, “Start packing.”
Val had acted like she had no idea what Mirti meant. “Packing for where?”
“Chialto. You’re going to see your brother named king of Welce.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Mirti had snorted and headed to Val’s bedroom as if she planned to root through Val’s closet and choose the most appropriate outfits. Indignant, Val had followed. It was a small house, only ten rooms, nothing like the place she and her mother had owned in the city, nothing like the sprawling estate where Val had grown up and where Mirti now resided. It was only a few steps to Val’s bedroom.
“You’ll have to stay at the palace, of course, so you’ll need your fancy clothes. There will be dinners and whatnot. All very tedious, but it can’t be helped.” Mirti had indeed gone to the closet and began working her way through all the tunics and trousers hung carefully in place. They were arranged by color, the pale shades giving way to the darker ones, matching shoes and accessories lined up on the shelf above and the floor below. Mirti pulled out a black silk outfit lightened by spangles at the collar and cuffs. “That’s pretty. You could wear that to the coronation.”
“I’m not going to the coronation.”
“Darien wants you there.”
“Darien doesn’t always get everything he wants.”
Mirti’s dry, wrinkled face looked amused. “Doesn’t he? Seems like he does.”
Val stiffened. “Not this time.”
Mirti turned back to the closet, pulling out pants and long jackets in sage green, in cobalt blue, in variegated gold. “Your mother would want you to go.”
“I haven’t been to Chialto in three years. I don’t like the city. I feel awkward and clumsy at state dinners and political events. Darien will be so busy he won’t even know I’m not there.”
Mirti had stepped back from the closet, her hands filled with the soft folds of a prim black shawl. “You’re the daughter of the previous hunti prime. You’re the niece of the current hunti prime. Your brother is going to be crowned king. Your place is there, for the honor of the family. You have to go.”
Val had stared at her aunt with bitterness and resignation. It was an incontestable argument, and Mirti knew it. There were rules in life, and everyone knew what they were, and they were incontrovertible. Val had to attend the stupid coronation.
So here she was, loathing every second of it, pinned in her seat by Mirti’s relentless glare. She added Mirti to the roster of people she hated. Pretty soon there would be nobody who wasn’t on the list.
The speaker came to the end of his homily and Val returned her attention to the figures at the head of the stage. The acolyte was smiling, and even Darien looked less remote.
“To mark your first day as king of Welce, would you like to invite three people to pull blessings that will inform your reign for all of your days?”
“I would,” said Darien in a clear, carrying voice.
Someone handed the acolyte a heavily carved canister of richly polished wood. Above the murmuring of the crowd, Val could hear the slight clink of the metal coins inside. She estimated that the container was big enough to hold several sets of blessings, a couple hundred in all. That meant Darien easily could be gifted with duplicates. She wouldn’t be surprised to see him walk away with power, power, and power—or certainty, certainty, and certainty. Of all the hunti people who had ever been born, Darien was the one who most completely embodied the unyielding elemental traits of wood and bone.
“Who would you ask to draw your first blessing?” the acolyte asked.
“My wife, Zoe Lalindar, the coru prime.”
The crowd cooed in response, though it would have been astonishing if he had made any other choice. Zoe grinned again as she stood up and plunged her fingers into the container. She spent a moment stirring through the coins as if waiting for a specific one to burn against her fingers. Her grin grew wider as she retrieved her hand, glanced at the disk, and handed it to the acolyte.
“Steadfastness,” he intoned. “A most excellent attribute for a king. Who would you like to pull your second blessing?”
“My daughter Corene.”
A second figure jumped up and hurried to Darien’s side, her delicate face alive with excitement. It still seemed strange to think of Corene as Darien’s daughter. She had been born to Vernon’s third wife, Alys, and it wasn’t until Corene was eleven years old that everyone realized Vernon was almost impotent and three of his four daughters had been sired by other men. Val found the whole tale both sordid and horrifying. First, adultery was wrong, and Val could see no excuse for it, even if the goal was to make sure the kingdom had a set of heirs. Second, how could Darien have been so misguided as to fall in love with Alys, the most manipulative and despicable of women? He detested Alys now, of course, but it seemed at one point he had been besotted with her. It was the worst thing Val knew about him.
Corene spent even longer than Zoe had fishing through the coins, looking for exactly the right one. She was small-boned and red-haired and wild straight through. She had been the most unlikable child imaginable, back in the days when Val lived at court. Mirti swore that Corene had greatly improved, though she was still sharp-tongued and outspoken and frankly brazen. Val didn’t have any desire to find out for herself if any better qualities had surfaced.
Finally, Corene pulled out a blessing—then dropped it back into the pot and stirred again. She did that twice more, while the acolyte frowned and Zoe looked like she was trying not to laugh, before she finally handed over her prize.
“Vision,” said the acolyte. “Another propitious sign.”
Val was surprised. Vision was an elay trait, and Darien had never shown any affinity for the element of air and spirit. And Corene was sweela down to her soul. She could have been sculpted out of fire; she had a mind that was constantly racing to the next idea. Who would have expected such a girl to pull such a coin for such a man? And yet Val couldn’t disagree. Vision would be essential for the new king.
“I’m glad to receive such a blessing,” Darien said gravely.
“Who would you like to pull your third one?”
Val’s eyes went instantly to Celia, the cherubic-looking almost-three-year-old sitting next to Zoe. How the crowd would murmur and sigh when he called out his youngest daughter’s name! How darling everyone would think it was to watch her thrust her chubby little hands into the container and offer her innocent’s benediction on her father’s reign!
“My sister, Valentina.”
For a moment, Val sat frozen in place, not certain she had heard correctly. Then she was washed with a wave of horror. She had to stand up in front of all these people and participate in one of the most solemn rituals the country offered? What if she tripped, what if she knocked the container out of the acolyte’s hands, what if she fell off the edge of the stage? She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even stand up. She sat on the edge of her seat as motionless as if she had been carved from a block of wood.
Rescue came from an unexpected source. “Here, I’ll help you up. Those shoes don’t look easy to walk in,” said a man sitting next to her, kindly pulling her to her feet. She thanked him blindly, not registering his face or his identity, and tried to gather the shreds of her composure as she advanced across the stage. She stiffened her spine, lifting her chin and letting her bones take her weight. She was the daughter of one hunti prime, the niece of another. Nothing could break her.
Darien gave her the slightest nod as she reached his side. The acolyte proffered the small barrel and Val dipped her hand into the cool metal. Instantly, her anxiety evaporated; it was as if mere contact with all the blessings of the world restored her sense of balance. She allowed her fingers to clench and relax, feeling the disks slide across her skin, but hesitated a moment before plucking one from the pile.
If she could pick what blessing to bestow on the new king of Welce, what would she choose? If she could select one for her brother, would it be the same one? What if she pulled something disquieting like surprise or a ghost coin that offered no guidance at all? She clenched her fingers again, told herself sternly to stop agonizing, and grabbed the first coin that she could. She didn’t even look at it before handing it to the acolyte.
Whose face reflected deep pleasure as he showed the glyph to Darien. “Time,” he said. “A great gift both to you and our country.”
At that, Darien’s face relaxed into the slightest smile, and Val found herself smiling at him in response. Maybe she didn’t hate Darien after all.
She picked her way back to her seat, remembering to whisper a thank you to the man who had helped her to her feet. He was older, with a friendly expression that made her think he must be torz, but she didn’t recognize him. She wondered how many people sitting on the dais recognized her. Well, of course, now that she had been so publicly identified, everyone would know who she was, but five minutes ago? Would any of them have been able to recall her name? She wished she was back home, where such questions wouldn’t even have occurred to her.
To distract herself from uncomfortable thoughts, she turned her attention back to the crowd below. She could tell that people were starting to get restless, and she guessed it was time for the long ceremony to be over. She even saw a few people edging toward the open doors, their shapes backlit against the brilliant sunlight as they eased themselves outside. At the same time, one or two stragglers stepped in through the wide archways—probably people who hadn’t been able to push themselves inside while the crowd was at its densest, hoping they still might have a chance to gawk at royalty. There was a cluster of teenaged girls, smiling and pointing at the stage, maybe sighing over Darien’s stern good looks. There was a father who’d hoisted his young son to his shoulders; he was holding onto the boy’s ankles and standing on his tiptoes, trying to get a better view.
There was a tall man lurking in the shadows at the very back of the hall, as far as he could be from the stage and still be inside the palace. He had a slim build and a crown of curly dark red hair and a smile that could be seen from across the city. He was looking straight at Val.
She stopped breathing.
Sebastian?
She wanted to rub her eyes and stare in his direction but instead she averted her gaze so that no one—not her brother, not her aunt, not any of the dozens of palace guards patrolling the foyer with the explicit intention of keeping the new king safe—no one noticed where her attention was focused.
I’d be risking my life if one of Darien’s soldiers apprehended me, he had said in his last letter.
She hadn’t told him she was coming to Chialto. She hadn’t had time to write him and receive his reply, so she hadn’t bothered to try to set up a meeting. And she couldn’t stop fretting over Sebastian’s last communication. Darien was entirely capable of assigning a guard to follow her around the city; if Sebastian was engaged in criminal activities, Val did not want to lead a soldier straight to his door.
So Sebastian couldn’t have known for certain that Val would be in Chialto, though he obviously could have guessed that she might put in an appearance at her brother’s coronation. But surely he was too clever to make his way to the ceremony just to get a glimpse of her. It couldn’t possibly be Sebastian. There was no need to worry.
She spent five minutes staring straight ahead of her, listening to but not comprehending the acolyte’s final summation and benediction, holding her body so still she didn’t even flinch when the woman next to her accidentally elbowed her in the arm. Then she slowly, casually, turned her head to sweep the whole foyer with a single comprehensive glance.
The shadows were empty. The red-haired man was gone.