Elane waits in my room. Our room, the windows clear, curtains open. She knows I like the sun, especially on her. She perches in one of the window seats, leaning back against a pillow, one leg dangling free, bare to her upper thigh beneath a sheer black gown. She doesn’t turn to look at me when I walk in, allowing me the time I want to adjust to her presence.
My eyes trace her leg before jumping to her hair, red and gleaming, loose around her pale shoulders. It looks like liquid fire. Her skin seems to glow, because it does. This is her ability, her art. She manipulates the light just so, accentuating herself without any need for makeup or finery. Rarely do I feel ugly. I’m a beautiful girl, by design and nature. But after the long flight, without my usual armor of an intricate dress and painted face, I feel diminished next to her. Unworthy. I fight the urge to duck into my bathroom and sweep a little makeup on.
Finally she turns, giving me full view of her face. Again I feel a little bit of shame in coming to her so disheveled. But want quickly chases away any other sensation. She laughs as I kick the door shut and cross the room to take her face in my hands. Her skin is smooth and cool beneath my fingers, a perfect alabaster. Still, she doesn’t speak, letting me look over her features.
“No crown,” she says, raising her hand to my temple.
“No need for it. They all know who I am.”
Her touch brushes lightly, sweeping down my cheekbone as she tries to smooth away my cares. “Did you sleep on your journey back?”
I huff, running my thumbs along the underside of her jaw. “Is that your way of saying I look tired?”
Her fingers continue over my face, down to my neck. “I’m saying you can sleep if you want.”
“I’ve slept enough.”
She smirks, lips twisting in the split second before I kiss her.
It breaks my heart to know she isn’t really mine.
A fist collides with my door, pounding directly on the entrance to my bedroom. Not even the salon outside, where visitors are meant to wait. My bedroom, our bedroom, directly. I shoot up from my pillows, untangling myself from the sheets with fury. With a flick of my wrist, I draw a knife from the chest across the room and make quick work of the silk twisting around my legs.
Elane doesn’t blink when the blade passes within an inch of her bare skin. She just yawns, my lazy cat, and rolls over to cradle a pillow. “So rude,” she murmurs, meaning both me and whatever idiot decided to interrupt us.
“Practicing for that foul creature,” I reply, cutting the last sheet. “What an unlucky messenger.”
I stand, naked, before tying a soft robe around myself with the blade still in hand.
The knocking continues, followed by a muffled voice. I recognize it, and some of my delicious, righteous anger evaporates. No scaring the colors out of anyone right now. Annoyed, I throw the knife at the wall. It sticks, blade sinking into the woodwork.
“What, Ptolemus?” I sigh, wrenching open the bedroom door. He looks similarly disheveled, his hair messy and his eyes burning. I suspect he was interrupted as I was. He and Wren Skonos like their afternoon trysts.
“We’re needed in the throne room,” he says firmly. “Right now.”
“Is Father that upset I haven’t kissed his feet yet? It’s only been a few minutes.”
“It’s been two hours,” Elane calls, not bothering to raise her head. “Hello, Husband,” she adds, tipping a dainty hand. “Be a dear and call for some lunch?”
I tighten the robe, annoyed. “So, what am I walking into? A public lashing? Will he finally make good on the promise to spike our heads to the gate?” I sneer, chuckling darkly.
“Strangely, this isn’t about you,” my brother replies, his voice sharp and dry. “There’s been an attack.”
Quickly, I look over my shoulder. Elane lies sprawled, partially covered by the sheets. She isn’t glowing now, without any reason to concentrate as she drifts back to sleep. She is defenseless, vulnerable. Even to words. “Out here,” I mutter, pushing my brother into the adjoining salon. I can protect her from this, at least, if nothing else.
I lead him to one of the couches, a cool green to match the hilly vista in the window. Rough river stone paves the floor, strewn with soft blue carpets. “What happened? Attack where?” For some reason, I picture Montfort, and my heart plunges in my chest.
Ptolemus doesn’t sit. He paces instead, hands on his hips. The tendons in his forearms flex. “Piedmont.”
I can’t help but scoff. “Maven’s a fool,” I snarl. “He’s only hurting Bracken’s resources, not ours. I didn’t think he was this stupid—”
“Maven didn’t hit Bracken,” my brother snaps. “Bracken hit us. The Piedmont base. Two hours ago, but we just got the call for help.”
“What?” I blink, admittedly confused. I raise a hand, clutching the collar of my robe, pulling it shut. As if silk can save me from anything.
“He cut off the base, stormed it with his own army and an alliance of the other Piedmont princes. He’s taking it back. Killing anyone they could get their hands on. Nortan Red, Montfort Silver. Newbloods.” Ptolemus prowls to the window, putting a hand to the glass. He stares east, at the haze of a hot afternoon. “We suspect Maven and the Lakelands are helping behind the scenes.”
I look at the floor, my bare feet on the carpet. “But his children. Montfort will have to kill them.” What a trade. Your children for your crown. I wonder if my own father would make the same choice.
Slowly, Ptolemus shakes his head. “We received word from Montfort too. The children—they’re gone. Replaced with Red corpses healed to look like Princess Charlotta and Prince Michael. Someone got to them, and got them out.” He growls low in his throat. “Montfort idiots don’t know how it happened. How anyone got into their precious mountains and out again.”
I wave a hand, dismissing the point. It doesn’t matter right now. “So Piedmont is finished?”
His jaw tightens. “Piedmont is with Maven now.”
“And what can we do?” I suck in a dragging breath. My mind whirls. There was a garrison left back in Piedmont, soldiers from the Scarlet Guard and Montfort. Red, newblood, and Silver, people we need for our armies. I grit my teeth, wondering how many might have survived.
At least my father’s own army is here in the Rift, having returned after we destroyed Corvium. The same can be said of Anabel’s alliance. Our Silver strength is preserved, but the loss of the base—and Piedmont—will have devastating consequences.
I swallow hard, my voice shaking as I speak again. “What can we do against the Lakelands, Maven’s Norta, and Piedmont?”
My brother’s look is grim, and I shiver to my core.
“We’re about to find out.”
THIRTEEN
Iris
I’ve never been this far south.
The Piedmont base is so thick with humidity I feel as if I could weaponize the air itself. My bare arms prickle with the sensation of moisture, minuscule droplets too small to see dancing over my skin. I stretch a little, moving my fingers in tiny circles, stirring up the cloying warmth hanging over the balcony of the base headquarters.
Thunderheads chase across the horizon, trailing gray shadows of lashing rain out over the swamps. Lightning forks once or twice, and the distant rumble takes four or five seconds to reach us. The light breeze smells of fires doused by the passing rain, and smoke trails over near the main gate of the base. Bracken’s own soldiers marched in through open gates before turning on all inside in a blitz of swift and strongarm, revealing exactly where their bought allegiances lie. With Maven. And with me.