“Yes, well. It doesn’t take a political genius to know that a Red and Silver coalition will be fraught with betrayal. I’m certain all the leaders know not to trust one another.” Her eyes flash as she turns, meaning to leave me behind. “Except for maybe one aspiring king,” she adds over her shoulder.
A fact I know too well. Tiberias is as trusting as a new puppy, easily led by the people he loves. Me, his grandmother, and most of all his dead father. He pursues the crown for that man, to serve some bond that hasn’t broken. While his confidence, his courage, and his dogged focus make him strong, they also make him blind everywhere but the battlefield. He can predict surging armies, but not scheming people. He won’t see or can’t see the machinations around him. He didn’t before, and he won’t again.
“He’s certainly not Maven,” I mutter, if only to myself.
I hear an echo from Evangeline all the same, bouncing off the stone walls of Corvium.
“He’s certainly not,” she replies.
In her voice, I hear the same things I feel.
Relief. And regret.
FOUR
Iris
The bay laps at my bare ankles, refreshing, renewing. It’s cold before the sunrise, but I hardly feel the chill. I find sanctuary in the simple sensation. I know these waters as well as I know my own face. I can feel them far beyond my feet, the pulse of the softest current, the smallest ripple of the river feeding the bay, and the bay feeding the lake. The coming light of dawn bleeds across the smooth surface. The mirror image distorts in streaks of pale blue and rose pink. Such calm lets me forget who I am, but not for long. I am Iris Cygnet, a princess born, a queen made. I don’t have the luxury of forgetting anything, no matter how much I may want to.
We wait together, my mother, my sister, and I, our attention fixed on the southern horizon. Fog hangs low across the narrow mouth of Clear Bay, obstructing the peninsula dotted with guard towers, as well as Lake Eris beyond. A few lights from the towers twinkle through the fog, like stars hanging low. As the fog shifts, moving in the wind off the lake, more and more towers come into view. Tall stone structures, improved and rebuilt a hundred times over hundreds of years. The towers have seen more war and ruin than even historians can say. Their lights flare, too many ablaze this close to dawn. But the beacons will remain all day, torches burning and electric lights beaming. The flags streaming in the breeze are different from the usual standard of the Lakelands. Each tower flies cobalt blue slashed with black. To honor so many dead in Corvium, to mourn.
To say good-bye to our king.
I shed my tears already, in hours spent crying last night. I shouldn’t have any more tears left to give, but still they come. My sister, Tiora, keeps herself in better check. She raises her chin, a diadem crown winking across her brow. It’s a braid of dark sapphire and jet, hung low across her forehead. Even though I am a queen now, my crown is more simple, barely a string of blue diamonds punctuated by red gems to symbolize Norta.
We have the same cold, bronze skin, the same face, high cheekbones and sharply arched eyebrows, but her deep mahogany eyes belong to our mother. I have father’s gray. Tiora is twenty-three, four years my elder, and the heir to the throne of the Lakelands. I used to say she was born grim and silent, loath to cry, unable to laugh. Her serious nature serves her well as my mother’s heir. She has far more skill in controlling her emotions, though I do my best to keep still as the lakes. Tiora locks her gaze forward, her spine straight with the pride not even a funeral can break. Despite her stoic nature, even she cries for our lost father. Her tears are less evident, quickly dropping into the bay swirling around our feet. She’s a nymph like the rest of our family, and uses her ability to cast the tears away and leave nothing of them behind. I would do the same if I had the strength, but I can’t summon anything right now.
Not so for our mother, Cenra, the ruling queen of the Lakelands.
Her tears hover in the air, a cloud of crystal droplets to catch the spreading light of dawn. One by one, the cloud grows and the tears turn steadily, flashing in time, sending faint rainbows arching across her brown skin. Diamonds born from her broken heart.
She stands in front of us, knee-deep in the water, her mourning gown floating out behind her. Like Tiora and me, Mother wears mostly black slashed with our regal blue. The dress is finely made in intricate layers of thin silk, but it’s shapeless, hanging off her like an afterthought. While Tiora took care to make sure we were both prepared for the funeral, choosing jewels and gowns to suit, Mother did no such thing. She looks plain, her hair undone in a sleek trail of raven and storm. No bracelets, no earrings, no crown. A queen only in bearing. And that’s enough. I’m tempted to cling to her skirts like I did when I was a child. I could hold on to her and never let go. Never leave home again. Never return to a court falling to pieces around an already broken king.
The thought of my husband turns me cold. And resolute.
The tears dry on my cheeks.
Maven Calore is a child playing with a loaded gun. Whether or not he knows how to shoot remains to be seen. But I certainly have targets in mind, people to point him at. The Silver who killed my father, of course. Some Iral lord. He cut his throat. Attacked him from behind like some honorless dog. But Iral served another king. Samos. Volo. Another without any claim to honor or dignity. He rebelled for a petty crown, for little more than the right to call himself master of some insignificant corner of the world. And he isn’t alone. Other Nortan families stand with him, ready to replace Maven with the other Calore brother, the exile. Before my father died, I wouldn’t have minded if Maven had suddenly found himself deposed or dead. If the Nortan and Lakelander peace held, what difference would it make to me? But not now. Orrec Cygnet is gone. My father died because of men like Volo Samos and Tiberias Calore. What I would do to line them up and drown them with my fury.
What I will do.
Boats break through the fog, moving quietly. The three crafts are familiar, their bows painted silver and blue. Only a single deck to each. Dawnboats aren’t built for war, but for speed, silence, and the will of powerful nymphs. Their hulls are specially grooved to catch forced currents as they do now.
It was my idea to send the boats. I couldn’t bear the thought of Father’s body dragged on the long march from Mour, the land the Nortans call the Choke. He would have to pass through many towns on the way, news of his death racing ahead of that gruesome parade. No, I wanted him to come home, so we could say good-bye first.
And so I wouldn’t lose my nerve.
Nymphs in Lakelander blue, our cousins of the Cygnet Line, crowd the deck of the lead dawnboat. Grief shadows their dark faces, each one mourning as we are. Father was well loved among our line, though he came from a lesser branch of the family. Mother is the royal one, descended from a long, unbroken lineage of monarchs. As such, she is not permitted to cross the borders of our country, except in the gravest of need. Tiora isn’t allowed to leave at all, even in war, to preserve the line of succession.