“I’m beginning to think you care not for Norta, but only for your title and your crown. On keeping whatever you piece you can while greater beasts devour our nation,” Jerald snaps. In the crowd, Elane flinches and shuts her eyes. No one speaks to my father this way.
The panther snarls again, matching Mother’s rising temper. Father just sits back against his throne, watching the open threat ripple through the Sunset Stretch.
After a long, trembling moment, Jerald sinks to a knee. “My apologies, Your Majesty. I misspoke. I did not intend . . .” He trails off under the king’s watchful eye, the words dying on his fleshy lips.
“The Scarlet Guard will never take hold here. No matter what radicals may be backing them.” Father speaks resolutely. “Reds are inferior, beneath us. That is the work of biology. Life itself knows we are their masters. Why else are we Silver? Why else are we their gods, if not to rule them?”
The Samos cousins cheer. “Kings of steel!” echoes through the chamber again.
“If newbloods want to throw their lot in with insects, let them. If they want to turn their backs on our way of life, let them. And when they return to fight us, to fight nature, kill them.”
The cheer grows, spreading from our house to Laris. Even a few in the delegations clap or nod along. I doubt they’ve ever heard Volo Samos speak this much—he’s been saving his voice and his words for the moments that matter. This is certainly that.
Only Salin remains still. His dark eyes, rimmed with black liner, stand out sharply. “Is that why your daughter let a terrorist go free? Why she slaughtered four Silvers of a noble house to do so?”
“Four Arvens sworn to Maven.” My voice snaps like a whip crack. The Iral lord turns his gaze on me and I feel electrified, almost rising in my seat. These are my first words as a princess, my first words spoken with a voice that is truly my own. “Four soldiers who would take everything you are if their wretched king asked. Do you mourn them, my lord?”
Salin scowls in disgust. “I mourn the loss of a valuable hostage, nothing more. And obviously I question your decision, Princess.”
Another drop of derision in your voice and I’ll cut out your tongue.
“The decision was mine,” Father says evenly. “Like you said, the Barrow girl was a valuable hostage. We took her from Maven.” And loosed her on the Square, like a beast from its cage. I wonder how many of Maven’s soldiers she took with her that day. Enough to fulfill Father’s plan at least, to cover our own escape.
“And now she’s in the wind!” Salin implores. His temper slips, inch by inch.
Father shows no signs of interest and states the obvious. “She is in Piedmont, of course. And I assure you, Barrow was more dangerous under Maven’s command than she’ll ever be under theirs. Our concern should be eliminating Maven, not radicals destined to fail.”
Salin blanches. “Fail? They hold Corvium. They control a vast amount of Piedmont, using a Silver prince as a puppet. If that is failure—”
“They seek to make equal that which is not fundamentally equal.” My mother speaks coldly, and her words ring true. “It is foolish, like balancing an impossible equation. And it will end in bloodshed. But it will end. Piedmont will rise up. Norta will throw back Red devils. The world will keep turning.”
All argument seems to die with Mother’s voice. Like Father, she sits back, satisfied. For once, she is without her familiar hiss of snakes. Just the great panther, purring under her touch.
Father forges on, eager to land the killing strike. “Our objective is Maven. The Lakelands. Cleaving the king from his new ally will leave him vulnerable, mortally so. Will you support us in our quest to rid this poison from our country?”
Slowly, Salin and Jerald exchange glances, their eyes meeting across the empty space between them. Adrenaline surges in my veins. They will kneel. They must kneel.
“Will you support House Samos, House Laris, House Lerolan—”
A voice cuts him off. The voice of a woman. It echoes—from nowhere. “You presume to speak for me?”
Jerald twists his wrist, his fingers moving in a rapid circle. Everyone in the chamber gasps, including me, when a third ambassador blinks into existence between Iral and Haven. Her house appears behind her, a dozen of them in clothes of red and orange, like the setting sun. Like an explosion.
Mother jolts beside me, surprised for the first time in many, many years. My adrenaline becomes spikes of ice, chilling my blood.
The leader of House Lerolan takes a daring step forward. Her appearance is severe. Gray hair tied into a neat bun, her eyes burning like heated bronze. The older woman does not know the name of fear. “I will not support a Samos king while a Calore heir lives.”
“I knew I smelled smoke,” Mother mutters, pulling her hand back from the panther. It immediately tenses, shifting to stand as its claws slide into place.
She just shrugs, smirking. “Easy to say, Larentia, now that you see me standing here.” Her fingers drum at her side. I watch them closely. She is an oblivion, able to explode things with a touch. If she got close enough, she could obliterate my heart in my chest or my brain in my skull.
“I am a queen—”
“So am I.” Anabel Lerolan grins wider. Though her clothes are fine, she wears no jewelry that I can see, no crown. No metal. My fist claws at my side. “We will not turn our backs on my grandson. The throne of Norta belongs to Tiberias the Seventh. Ours is a crown of flames, not steel.”
Father’s anger gathers like thunder and breaks like lightning. He stands from his throne, one fist clenching. The metal reinforcements of the chamber itself twist, groaning under the strain of his fury.
“We had a deal, Anabel!” he snarls. “The Barrow girl for your support.”
She just blinks.
Even from the far side, I can hear my brother hiss. “Have you forgotten the reason the Guard has Corvium? Did you not see your grandson fighting his own in Archeon? How can the kingdom stand behind him now?”
Anabel doesn’t flinch. Her lined face remains still, her expression open and patient. A kindly old woman in everything but the waves of ferocity emanating from her. She waits for my brother to push on, but he doesn’t, and she inclines her head. “Thank you, Prince Ptolemus, for at least not furthering the outrageous falsity of my son’s murder and my grandson’s exile. Both committed at the hands of Elara Merandus, both spread through the kingdom in the worst propaganda I have ever seen. Yes, Tiberias has done terrible things to survive. But they were to survive. After every one of us turned on him, abandoned him, after his own poisoned brother tried to kill him in the arena like a base criminal. A crown is the least we can give him in apology.”
Behind her, Iral and Haven stand firm. A curtain of tension falls over the hall. Everyone feels it. We’re Silvers, born to strength and power. All of us train to fight, to kill. We hear the tick of a clock in every heart, counting down to bloodshed. I glance at Elane, lock eyes with her. She presses her lips into a grim line.
“The Rift is mine,” Father growls, sounding like one of Mother’s beasts. The noise shudders in my bones, and I am instantly a child.
It has no such effect on the old queen. Anabel just tips her head to the side. Sunlight glints down the straight, iron strands of her hair gathered at the nape of her neck.
“Then keep it,” she replies with a shrug. “As you said, we had a deal.”
And just like that, the coiling turmoil threatening to engulf the room sweeps away. A few of the cousins, as well as Lord Jerald, visibly exhale.
Anabel spreads her hands wide, an open gesture. “You are the king of the Rift, and may you reign for many prosperous years. But my grandson is the rightful king of Norta. And he will need every ally we can muster to take his kingdom back.”