Pointless. Even if there was, she’d never see it.
Lore shuddered. Despite the clean air and the nice clothes and the plentiful food, despite the illusion of safety being here under the King’s protection brought her, the prospect of raising another dead body was nearly enough to make her run for the docks, for Val and Mari, and beg them to take her back. She’d forgive them everything, if she just didn’t have to use Mortem again.
“Fuck me,” she swore softly.
“You’ll have to ask more nicely than that.”
Her eyes flew open—a dark human-shape bent over her, the sun behind it blurring their features. But then the unnamed shape sat back, and she caught the edge of an irreverent grin, the toss of a dark curl.
Bastian’s eyes went to the grass stains on her knees. “Though perhaps someone already took you up on it?”
Well, she wouldn’t have to go looking for Bastian. The Sun Prince had found her.
Lore scrambled up, brushing grass out of her hair and trying in vain to find a position that hid the green stains. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness—er, Sainted—”
“Just Bastian, please,” the Sun Prince supplied, cutting short her stuttering search for the proper honorific. “And no apologies needed. One’s first season in court is generally laced with indiscretions.”
“I’m afraid my only indiscretion here was… was falling asleep.” Lore waved a hand at the bower the trees made, lit in soft golden light from the sun above. “It’s such a nice day, and we were up so late only to wake at sunrise…”
“You’ll get used to it.” Bastian’s smile crinkled his eyes. They weren’t black, like she’d first thought. Up close, they were maybe a shade lighter than his dark hair, whiskey-colored. “I heard my father took you to the vaults. I’m surprised he indulged your curiosity, to be honest—many courtiers want to see them when they first arrive in the Citadel, but generally, August denies requests for tours.”
He was far more observant than was convenient. “He was asking me about my mother,” Lore said quickly, barely thinking the words through before they left her mouth. “She’s… she’s in poor health, and was considering the possibility of a Citadel vault when she passes.”
Bastian’s brow arched. “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Pardon me for being so uncouth as to speak of money, but I didn’t know the Remaut family had relatives well-endowed enough to consider a vault within the Citadel. Most minor nobles opt for the common vaults just outside the Northeast Ward—they’re by far the nicest of the exterior burial grounds.”
Lore gave him what she hoped was a confident smile, though the inside of her head sounded like the horns they blew on the docks when the weather took a turn. “We’ve been saving.”
He still grinned, but there was something calculating in those gold-brown eyes. “You and everyone else. What a pious woman your mother must be, to be such a good citizen even in death.”
The blade in his tone made her feel safe to answer in kind. “A shame, really, that one must pay an exorbitant price to be a good citizen.”
The Sun Prince chuckled, still an edge to it—an edge turned away from her, though, a sword they both wielded. “A shame, indeed. Enough to make one think the Church didn’t care so much about ensuring all the pious reach the Shining Realm, bodies intact.”
“Only the pious who can pay.”
“Precisely.” Bastian offered out his arm. “Come. Walk with me to the stables. If anyone asks about the grass stains, we’ll tell them you fell off a horse.”
She thought of the woman she’d seen him with in the gardens yesterday, his lips on her shoulder. If anyone saw her with Bastian and grass stains on her skirt, the conclusion they drew would have nothing to do with that kind of riding.
When she took the prince’s proffered arm, she could feel his muscles move beneath his silken sleeve. More defined than she’d expect from a pampered royal; an incongruous roughness, like the scar through his eyebrow and the calluses on his hands.
Lore and the Sun Prince strolled casually down the clear paths cut into the forest, winding trails carefully designed to look natural while being anything but. A slight breeze fluttered at Bastian’s hair, worn down, waving dark against his shoulders—just on this side of too-long to be in current fashion, though she assumed that however Bastian wore his hair was how the entire court would in a month’s time. He smelled like red wine and expensive cologne, one that Lore’s untrained nose couldn’t pick out the notes of.
“I’ve petitioned my father over and over again to waive the fees associated with a vault burial,” Bastian said as they took another turn, the edge of the manicured forest appearing up ahead, “but he’s adamant that we need the money for the upcoming war with the Kirythean Empire.”
Lore’s shoulders tensed, but she kept her face impassive. “Oh?” she murmured. “Does he think a war is imminent, then?”
“He’s thought a war was imminent for as long as I can remember.”
“The Empire has drawn steadily closer.” Close enough that she’d heard hushed talk of possible war down on the docks for years, fears of conscription and bottlenecked trade.
“And yet,” Bastian said, “they’ve never invaded.”
“Perhaps they’re waiting for something.” Lore kept her eyes ahead and her voice light. “Information, maybe. An opportune moment.”
“Information would be difficult to acquire.” His eyes slid her way. “August only trusts a select few with military secrets. I don’t even know most of them.”
She forced a laugh. “Surely that’s not true. You’re his heir.”
“And how he hates that.”
They ambled along quietly for a moment, Lore’s palm clammy on Bastian’s sleeve. The fabric was soft and billowing and would probably show sweaty prints when she lifted her hand away.
“Imminent war or not, I think it’s deplorable to charge your citizens for a decent burial. There should at least be exceptions for extenuating circumstances.” Bastian glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “All this mess with the villages, for instance.”
Her teeth clamped on the inside of her cheek, stirring her mind for a way to pry that wouldn’t seem suspicious. August had said that most of the bodies from the villages were disposed of—that had to mean burned, regardless of what their personal choices for burial had been in life. Shademount and Orlimar were both small villages where most of the citizens were subsistence farmers. According to the Tracts, you entered the Shining Realm in whatever state your body was left in, so being burned meant you didn’t enter at all. The Church wouldn’t concern themselves with absorbing the fees of a vault burial for poor villagers.