Chapter Two
val had recovered her equanimity by the time the coronation finally ended, but the interminable day was far from over. Once the ceremony was done, there was a great deal of milling about in the great hall and the courtyard just outside the palace, and then there was a reception, and then there was a dinner, and then there was another reception.
Her only consolation was that progressively fewer people attended each of these events, so that by the time everyone had gathered for the final round of drinks and conversation, fewer than fifty remained. And they had moved from the cavernous formal dining hall to the space her mother used to refer to as “the lesser ballroom.” It was spacious enough to accommodate a hundred guests, but its pale colors and comfortable furniture made it feel cozier than many of the grand rooms at the palace. Little alcoves behind big plants offered places for someone to sit if she was trying to avoid attention, and tall windows with narrow balconies provided an escape if she needed to feel cool air on her cheeks.
It was close to midnight when Val took refuge on one of these balconies. There were no chairs, but she leaned her elbows on the iron railing and let some of the tension seep from her shoulders.
The view was enough to make anyone go slack with awe. The lesser ballroom was on the second floor of the palace, and its windows looked out over the southeastern walls. From here, she could see the broad, still surface of the small lake that lay just past the courtyard, a pool of blackness just barely illuminated by the lights thrown from the palace windows. It was formed by the Marisi River, which paused here just long enough to fill the shallow basin before rushing down a short drop and a narrow canyon to form the ragged eastern edge of the city. Val thought she could make out flickers of light on its restless currents, and she could certainly hear the low rumble of its incessant fall.
If she turned her head to the right, she could see most of Chialto laid out before her. The palace was situated halfway up a low mountain, visible from every point in the city that spread out over the flat plain below. Even this late at night, there were enough gaslit streetlamps and candlelit windows to suggest the outlines of houses. She could see the great imperfect circle of the Cinque cutting its pattern through the neighborhoods, tying the whole city together. Fast-moving lights indicated the passage of elaymotives; slower ones were probably carts and carriages. In the years since Val had been in the city, the elaymotives had become vastly more popular, outnumbering the horse-drawn conveyances by two to one. Until she’d ridden in one, Val had thought she would hate the new machines, powered by some mysterious gas manufactured by the elay prime. But she’d instantly loved the luxurious interior, the smooth ride, the swift transit.
It wasn’t true that a hunti woman could never change her mind. It was just rare.
Behind her, there was a brief swell of sound as the door to the balcony opened and closed, and someone stepped outside. Val half-turned to frown at the newcomer, hoping the person would slip back inside once it was clear the space was already occupied. In the dark, she didn’t immediately recognize who had joined her, but she could tell it was a woman.
“I thought I saw you sneak out here,” the new arrival said in a tone of satisfaction.
Val was surprised to recognize Corene’s voice. The sweela princess might be the last person she would have expected to seek her out. “It’s been a long day,” she answered. “I’m not sure I have one more conversation left in me.”
She intended it as a hint, but Corene chose to ignore it. “No, this has been even worse than some of the state dinners for foreign royalty who came to visit, and I thought nothing could be more dreadful,” she said. “I don’t know how Darien is still on his feet, but he doesn’t even look tired. That’s a hunti man for you.”
“Darien is inhuman,” Val said. “Nothing ever wearies him.”
“It’s one of the most annoying things about him,” Corene agreed. “Though to be fair, there are many annoying things about Darien.”
Val couldn’t help a small snort of laughter at that. “Did he become more annoying or less so once you discovered he was your father?”
Corene crossed the small space to lean her elbows on the railing, so Val resumed her former position, and they both looked out over the city. “Well, so many other things were going on right then that it was hard to separate out the Darien part of it from all the rest,” she said. “I was eleven, and I didn’t understand how much was about to change.” She glanced at Val, then back at the view. “But when Darien got involved in my life—some of it was a lot better. He protected me. He gave me a refuge from my mother. But he also made it harder for me to figure out who I really wanted to be.”
“They say you ran away to Malinqua with a palace guard.”
Corene laughed. “I did run away to Malinqua! I thought it would be an adventure. And it was, though nothing like what I expected. Foley came with me, but it was only later that we became lovers.”
Val almost flinched at the word lovers. Who talked so openly of such things, especially to someone who was practically a stranger? She spoke stiffly. “I suppose many people frown at the notion of a princess taking up with a common soldier.” Val was one of them; she had always believed there were certain rules about who made a suitable partner for whom, and she was always a little shocked when other people didn’t respect those conventions.
“Oh, I’ve heard plenty of whispers since I’ve been back,” Corene said, sounding amused. “Nothing the Five Families love more than a scandal! It doesn’t bother me.”
“What has Darien said?”
“He’s been careful not to say anything. I think he’s hoping it’s an infatuation that I’ll outgrow, so he figures he’ll just let it burn itself out.”
And is it? Val thought about asking. She was curious, but not curious enough to invite more confidences. She was somewhat uncomfortable with the easy intimacy Corene seemed to offer. It took Val much longer to warm up to people, to want to share dreams and secrets. “Maybe he’s hoping one day you’ll make a strategic marriage with a political ally,” she said instead.
“Maybe, but the two times anyone considered me as a bride to a foreign prince, everything was pretty disastrous, so I’m not sure Darien would want to try it again,” Corene said cheerfully. “Anyway, I think he’s figured out he can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, so I don’t expect him to be making plans for me any time soon.”
“Well, that’s an achievement,” Val said. “Getting your own way with Darien.”
For a moment, silence fell between them as they watched the lights below them wink and fade. Val wondered if the whole city ever went dark at any point. Or was someone always awake, no matter the time of day? She always felt a slight disapproval for people who kept irregular hours. She could think of no good reason anyone would want to be roaming the streets or even sitting up at home in the middle of the night.
Val was hoping Corene would find the silence awkward enough to make her excuses and leave, but apparently that was not the case. “So I suppose you’re my aunt,” the princess said next.
Val didn’t put any warmth into her voice. “I suppose I am.”
“It seems very strange. I mean, you’re hardly any older than me.”
“Eight years,” Val said promptly, since this was the sort of thing she always kept track of. “If you’re nineteen, as I believe you are.”
“I am,” said Corene. “But it still feels odd. I mean, even before I knew Darien was my father, I knew him. The last few years Vernon was alive, Darien practically lived at the palace. But I hardly remember ever seeing you.”
Val was surprised by her complex reaction to that, a mix of anger and sadness and irritation. Why should she have to explain anything to this insensitive girl? And was Corene only saying out loud what everyone else at court was thinking? Valentina Serlast? You mean, she’s still alive? I haven’t thought of her for the past ten years.
“I spent about a third of my life in Chialto until I was sixteen,” she said, keeping her voice even. “My father kept a set of apartments in the palace, so I was here whenever we weren’t on the hunti estates in the country. But my father and Darien were in the city almost all the time. Darien is twelve years older than I am, and our father would bring him to all his important meetings. Once my father died, I thought Darien would step back from the court life, but if anything, he just got more involved. Vernon started to count on him for everything. My mother and I almost never saw him anymore.”
“Did you stay in the city after your father died?”
“Part of the time. Mirti asked us to keep living at the estates, because she didn’t have much interest in managing the property, so we did that for a while. And we spent some time in Chialto at a house Darien had found for us. But I hated it. My mother hated it. Five or six years ago, we moved back to the countryside to be near one of my mother’s sisters. I’ve only been to the city a couple of times since then.”
Corene appeared to be listening closely to the timeline. “So were you already gone by the time—” She made a sweeping gesture. “Everything happened?”
That fetched another slight laugh from Val. “You mean, when Zoe arrived and she turned everything upside down and Vernon died and everyone found out all his secrets? No, I was still here.”
Something in her tone of voice seemed to catch Corene’s attention, because she turned to appraise Val in the dark. “You don’t like Zoe,” she observed.
“I didn’t say that.”
Corene ignored this. “Is it because she brings so much chaos with her?”
It’s because I thought I would get my brother back after Vernon died, but Zoe took him even farther away from me. “She does do that.”
Corene nodded. “But all the primes do—or could—if they wanted to,” she said. “I mean, Nelson could burn the city down! Taro can cause mountains to collapse. Kayle could whip up such a storm that it would blow houses over. And let’s face it, Kayle is so odd that he causes a disruption just by walking into the room,” she finished with a laugh.
“Mirti doesn’t cause chaos,” Val said defensively. “She’s the opposite of chaos. She brings order and—and—solidity.”
“It’s hard to imagine what the hunti prime would do,” Corene admitted. “Knock over a bunch of trees on someone’s head? But I still think she could cause a lot of damage if she wanted to.”
“She wouldn’t want to,” Val said.
Corene shrugged. “I suppose it depends on the provocation. And I’ve never seen Zoe do anything spectacular without a really good reason.”
“So you like her. Your stepmother.”
“I adore her. She saved my life. She saved Josetta’s life.”
Josetta was the daughter of Vernon’s second queen; it turned out she had been sired by Zoe’s father. It was almost impossible to keep track of all the tangled bloodlines, and some days Val didn’t even feel like trying.
Corene wasn’t done yet. “But it’s more than that. Zoe loves me in ways no one else in my family does. She would flood Chialto to keep me safe, but she’d never hold on to me so tightly I couldn’t breathe. She believes in me. And she’s just likable. Friendly. Funny. And kind. And she’s the best thing that ever happened to Darien. He’s almost relaxed when he’s around her.”
She’s so much more important to him than any sister could ever be. “I’m sure I’ll have a chance to get to know her better while I’m here.”
“How long do you plan to stay?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a day or two, and then I’ll go home.”
“Where’s that?”
“The house I lived in with my mother before she died. It’s out in the country, and we rent land to several families, so I have a lot of details to take care of.”
“Like what?”
Well, this was a tiresome interrogation. “Like, what crops should we plant this year, because last year’s harvest wasn’t so good but maybe that was because of the weather, and is it time to invest in new equipment, and if one farmer is about to retire should I split his land among the other renters or look for a new tenant? Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but it can take a lot of time.”
She thought Corene might roll her eyes and exclaim, How unutterably boring! but the princess just nodded. “It sounds more like a torz life than a hunti one.”
“My mother was torz,” Val admitted. “She loved everything that had to do with land management. It doesn’t come as naturally to me, but it keeps me busy.”
“Who’s watching the place while you’re gone?”
“I have an estate manager who’s very reliable.”
“So you could stay longer if you wanted. A whole quintile, maybe.”
“I don’t think I’ll want to be in Chialto that long.” I didn’t want to come here to begin with.
“Why? Is there someone waiting for you back home? Someone you’re in love with?”
Val stared at her resentfully in dark. Who would ask such personal questions? “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Oooh, there is, isn’t there? Someone unsuitable? Someone Darien wouldn’t approve of?”
“You mean, like a palace guard?” Val said sharply.
Corene laughed. “Or worse! A gardener! An illiterate laborer with a good heart and soulful eyes. Oh, now I’m hoping that’s who it is.”
“I didn’t say there was anyone.”
Corene shrugged. “Sweela people always suspect a hidden romance. And we’re right more times than not.”
Unbidden, Val’s mind called up that face she thought she’d seen in the crowd. Surely that hadn’t been Sebastian. We all know I’m not a careful man, he’d written in his last note, his tone as jaunty as ever. But these are particularly hazardous enterprises and I don’t want to catch your brother’s attention. It’s a little too dramatic to say I’d be risking my life if one of Darien’s soldiers apprehended me, but it certainly would be unpleasant, so I’m being as cautious as I can be. But I’ve never had this much fun before.
If he was being cautious, he wouldn’t have showed his face in the most public venue in the city, on a day when palace guards were on the highest possible alert. Right? Even Sebastian wouldn’t have been that careless.
Of course Sebastian would be that careless.
“Indulging in doomed romances has always seemed like a waste of time to me,” Val said coolly. “If there’s no future, what’s the point?”
“Feelings don’t care if there’s a future,” Corene said. It was clear from her voice that she was smiling. “Feelings don’t care if there’s a point.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand the sweela mind,” Val said.
That wasn’t entirely true. Sebastian was sweela, and Val understood him as well as she understood anybody. But that was only because she’d known him since she was eight years old.
Corene was laughing. “I’ve had a lot of practice learning the hunti mind, and I’m starting to figure it out,” she said. “I think we’ll manage to be friends.”
Val couldn’t keep herself from staring at Corene in shock. “We will?”
“Oh, yes. You’ll see. It will be fun.”