When he spoke, it was in a low buzz. “When a great forest burns, the rising heat will carry away some leaves unscorched. So it was with the annihilation of Rüul. The city itself and all its marvels are utterly gone, but some scraps have been found, scattered to the edges of the world. The Temple considers collecting them a sacred duty second only to preserving the bloodlines in preparation for the Savior. We call this collection the Hoard of Ashes. Of course, all of what we have recovered is fragmentary, and the meaning of most of it remains opaque, but there are hints and clues. If those suggestions are to be believed, Saint Céleste could give an animate force, l’étincelle, to nonliving matter, stone and metal.”
Isabelle’s curiosity fizzed with excitement. Now, that would be an amazing power to possess. Just imagine all the mechanisms she could make, the instruments. Imagine a lens that could flex to adjust its focal length, or a cogwheel that could turn itself.
“But you did not summon me to discuss ancient history,” Kantelvar prodded.
“No,” Isabelle said, forcing her mind onto the topics she’d been avoiding. Rehearsed or not, she could not escape the dread sensation that speaking would only cause her trouble; it was impossible to ask a question without giving the listener a club to hit her with.
At last she said, “If it pleases you, there are aspects of my betrothal that confound me.”
“It pleases me to ease your confusion,” he said. His head swiveled beneath his cowl. “I note your bloodhollow is absent.”
“She is helping pack my things,” Isabelle said. The comte was already furious that she had managed to get Jean-Claude a berth on the skyship and an invitation to her wedding ceremony. She didn’t want Father spying on her now, either.
She said, “When you explained how you selected a bride for Príncipe Julio, you didn’t mention Lady Sonya.”
Kantelvar actually stiffened in surprise, his emerald eye gleaming from under his hood. “She was not relevant to your qualifications.”
“Only because she was murdered.”
Kantelvar might have denied it or asked how she knew. Instead he said, “That is very astute of you.”
He seemed disinclined to go on, and Isabelle nearly lost her nerve, but if she was going to be queen she’d need to handle harder questions than this. “Was the killer apprehended?”
“No,” Kantelvar said. “But the actual murderer is of little concern. Likely he did not even know who he was working for.”
Isabelle fired off another well-rehearsed question: “And who was he working for?”
Kantelvar shook his head noncommittally. “The pool of suspects with both desire and ability to perform such an insidious murder is small. It is almost certainly one of the more politically ambitious members of the Sacred Hundred. Rey Carlemmo has people investigating the matter as aggressively as possible, as do I. Rest assured, the traitor will be discovered.”
“And you mentioned none of this to me?”
“I did tell your bodyguard. Protecting you is his duty.”
Isabelle wanted to say, My true bodyguard figured it out on his own, and he always tells me that I must know enough to take care for my own safety. “If you’re going to do something foolish, at least be smart about it.”
Kantelvar continued. “You have other concerns to attend than the rude business of murder. I assume you have been studying the makeup of the Sacred Hundred.”
Isabelle squirmed at being put on the spot. What would happen if she answered wrong? “Don Divelo has been lecturing me.”
“Hmmm … He is one of the queen’s partisans. I will lend you a more evenhanded book on the history of the Hundred and another on Aragoth’s great families. You must exert yourself to ingratiate yourself with them.”
Isabelle felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air. There was nothing quite as futile as trying to ingratiate herself to someone who was determined to despise her; she could never lower herself far enough to slide under the blade of their contempt.
“And what about Príncipe Julio?” she asked. Her impending husband had been remarkably absent from their discussions. “Do you know him?”
“He came to me for training. He has the potential to be the greatest Glasswalker Aragoth has seen since the days of the Secondborn Kings.”
“But I mean do you know him personally. Was he … were he and Lady Sonya beloved of each other?”
“They had never met,” Kantelvar said.
“Does he have a lover?” Isabelle asked. Am I going to come to him as a horrible disappointment?
Kantelvar hesitated and then said, “He does not want for female companionship, but he has no special attachments.”
Isabelle’s emotional strength flagged—Julio’s experience would find her incompetent—but she pushed on. “And how does he treat his paramours?”
“None of them have confided details to me, Highness, but neither have they complained, nor spread vicious rumors about him.”
Isabelle got the feeling she was asking these questions to the wrong person. She ought to talk to one of Julio’s servants. Jean-Claude always said that one of the best ways to judge a man was by how he treated his inferiors.
Kantelvar went on, “He is handsome, intelligent, well respected, puissant at arms. A worthy husband.”
But will he find me a worthy wife?
“When will I meet him? Will he come here?” she asked. Most mirrors in l’Empire Céleste were deeply scored with a grid of fine lines to break up the espejismo of any Glasswalkers trying to manifest through them, but Chateau des Zephyrs had a special room for receiving Aragothic nobles bearing news or doing business. She always found their silver eyes fascinating.
“I’m afraid not,” Kantelvar said. “Protocol forbids such a meeting before the wedding.”
Isabelle shook her head. Why did tradition always insist that ignorance was the optimum state for important transactions involving women?
“Did the príncipe take any part in choosing me?” Isabelle asked, trying not to sound too plaintive. Was he even interested? Certainly she would have preferred having more than a yes-or-no say in her own matrimonial prospects, but then how would she have chosen? Her circle of acquaintances was small enough to be graphed as a point.
“The electors decided to shield him from the decision-making process so as to frame the marriage as practical rather than personal. It makes it easier to justify politically.”
Isabelle shook her head in dismay. “You are setting up a relationship that is supposed to be so tightly bound that two people are living inside each other’s skin, and you don’t imagine it will be personal? Who were these electors?”
“Carlemmo, the old Omnifex, and me,” Kantelvar said. “And intimacy will come later. Two people who are thrust together by outside forces are more likely to find common cause than two people who merely drift together on a gust of feckless, transitory passion.”
Isabelle had no basis to argue that assertion, but another fact caught her attention. “You said the Omnifex, but he’s been dead for nine months.” The College of Artifexes’s inability to select a new Omnifex was a scandal that had found its way even to l’?le des Zephyrs.
“Signing the decree that permits this cross-marriage was very nearly the last thing he did before he died.”