“Sickening, isn’t it?” Luvian leant over and whispered in her ear. “Poor Xalys is better off out of it. They look more like father and son than him and his actual son.”
They both looked at where Rasmus stood alone, his fingers flexing and straightening, the silver rings flashing with each motion, as he watched his father and Mael.
“How far exactly could a Rhyllian alter someone’s appearance, if they had the ability?” Luvian asked. “After all, it would technically be manipulating organic matter…”
“What are you getting at?” Sorrow said.
“Well, we just discovered Vespus has a secret daughter. What if I’m wrong, and he didn’t take a child from Rhannon? What if Mael is another of Vespus’s children, made to look Rhannish?”
Sorrow shook her head. “It’s not possible. I told you: it only works within the confines of what already exists. A mole could be increased to look like a birthmark, yes. And maybe, if a Rhyllian had the right complexion, the skin could be darkened so it looked Rhannish. But they couldn’t change the ears. Their shape is too fundamental to alter.”
“How can you be sure?”
Sorrow fell silent. She was sure because she’d asked Rasmus about it once, not long after they’d first slept together. Back then, with her grandmother still alive and strong, she’d been paralysed at the idea of having to give him up, and unconcerned about Rhannon, so she’d tried to hatch a plan where they could be together. No one would accept them as they were, but what if they looked different, she’d told him eagerly. What if they could find someone to make him look Rhannish, or her Rhyllian?
He’d held her very close as he’d explained it didn’t work like that. That someone with an ability in glamour might be able to make hair shinier, plump lips, deepen eye colour, or lighten it. But only in so far as it already existed. They couldn’t make blue eyes brown; they couldn’t make a tall person short. The abilities didn’t allow for changes to something or someone’s fundamental being. That’s why Vespus had such trouble growing Alvus – he couldn’t alter its innate needs to make it adapt to the soil in the north of Rhylla. So, he told her, no one could make his ears rounded, or hers like arrow tips.
“Because I was told once,” she said finally. “And besides, there’s a registry for all the abilities. Even if it was possible, it would have been recorded there, and I’m sure it’s the first thing the queen would have checked when he came here.”
Luvian shrugged. “I’ll stick with going through the list of Rhannish missing children and—” He stopped suddenly, eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses. “They do love their registries here, don’t they…?”
“Where did that come from?” Sorrow asked. “And what’s with that look? You look very scheme-ish.”
“‘Scheme-ish’ isn’t a word. Though I suppose once you’re chancellor you can make up all the words you like.”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Sorrow warned. “I know you too well.”
He peered at her over the top of his spectacles. “Do you, now?”
“Yes. You and your – what was it? – your fearsome mind?”
“My fearsome mind?”
“Or whatever you were bragging about yesterday. There’s so much you have to say about yourself that sometimes I forget…”
His expression became amused, a single brow arching. “Ah, you mean my massive brain and intellect?”
“In fairness, ‘fearsome mind’ sounds like the sort of thing you’d say in reference to yourself.”
“Envy is such an ugly emotion, Sorrow darling,” he replied, and she laughed.
It was only then she realized that Vespus and Mael had fallen silent and were watching them.
Rasmus, too, was watching, his jaw clenched tightly as he looked between the two of them. Then he turned away, sitting down and waving for a servant to come fill his glass.
Sorrow sat then, busying herself with her own wine, as Luvian lowered himself next to her.
“What was all that about?” he leant over and murmured.
“No idea,” Sorrow lied.
She could feel Luvian watching her, waiting for more, and in response heat broke out across her body. She was saved when Melisia stood, and the rest of the room fell silent, Vespus hurrying to his seat as Mael took his.
She spoke first in Rhyllian, then Meridian, Svartan, Skae, Astrian, Nyrssean and finally Rhannish, and Sorrow could only assume she said the same thing each time: “Greetings, friends, and know you have our sincere gratitude for travelling here for the Naming Day of our new daughter. Please be welcome at our table and hearth, feast and rejoice with us. There is nothing so precious as a new life, and we are honoured to share this with you.”
The room erupted into applause, and Melisia bowed then sat down. The moment she did, wide doors at the end of the room opened, and the feast began in earnest.
Sorrow found her eyes drawn to Rasmus, whose gaze flickered briefly to her, then away. Instead he turned to his cousin and fixed her with a smile so bright it could have lit the room, and jealousy stabbed somewhere near Sorrow’s heart. She speared her fork viciously into her chicken. She had no right to feel bitter, she told herself angrily. None at all.
It wasn’t enough to make the feeling go away, though.
Dinner was followed by a drinks reception, the party moving to another room without formal seating, allowing everyone to mix. Melisia and Caspar retired for the night, leaving the others to enjoy the celebration. When Vespus made a beeline for Mael, Aphora on his arm, Sorrow headed to the other side of the hall, to Darcia, and Lady Skae.
Luvian had vanished, complaining of toothache, so Sorrow busied herself asking Darcia to teach her a little Svartan. Take that, she thought; while Mael stuck like glue to his Rhyllian friends, she was forging links with leaders from other countries. Luvian would be proud.
Across the room, Rasmus laughed, and the sound was like a knife in Sorrow’s back. That laugh that she’d only ever heard muted, hushed, in the Court of Tears was unleashed here, loud and alive. She’d never heard him laugh like that before. Though she told herself not to, she turned to see him standing with Eirlys, whose own face was creased with mirth, her shoulder shaking silently. Beside them a third Rhyllian with red hair was laughing so hard his cheeks were shining with tears. She barely recognized Rasmus, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth leering as he gasped with laughter.
She looked away, a cocktail of sadness, envy and annoyance confusing her. Was he behaving like this to get to her, or was it arrogance to imagine he even still cared?
“They’ve been drinking Starwater.” Darcia shook her head. “Silly children.”
“Starwater?” Sorrow asked. She’d never heard of it.