“What are you going to tell him?” Cora said. Raesinia turned to her, trying to keep the turmoil off her face. The confidence Cora had when dealing with the markets was gone, and she was just a scared teen, looking for reassurance. “This isn’t going to make our position any stronger.”
“I know,” Raesinia said grimly. “I’m going to ask him if his offer is still open.”
“Why?”
“Because if it is,” she said, “I’m going to take it.”
*
“Ordinarily, the king reserves this part of the day for private business,” said the officious young footman who’d been assigned to escort Raesinia. “He very much dislikes being disturbed. So please keep your interruption as short as you can.”
“I’ll do my best,” Raesinia ground out. Some of it had to be down to cultural differences, but she was certain now that the staff in the Keep were being deliberately disrespectful. “Thank you for bringing him my message.”
“He has expressed an interest in you,” the footman said, in a tone that implied he couldn’t understand why. “This way.”
They were in a part of the Keep that Raesinia hadn’t visited before, which she assumed to be the king’s private apartments. They passed through a large reception room, complete with an ornate throne, and went through a door at the back of the dais. A short corridor led to a smaller, plainer room, half occupied by an enormous wooden writing desk in the shape of an L. Two smaller desks were wedged into the corners. The king sat behind the big desk, flipping rapidly through the pages of a document and scrawling the occasional note in the margins, while the smaller places were occupied by clerks who copied out the monarch’s hasty notes more legibly.
“Queen Raesinia,” Georg said, not looking up. “Give me a moment.”
Raesinia gritted her teeth. Let him play his power games if he has to. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
The footman bowed and took his leave. Georg reached the end of his document in a few more moments, signed the bottom with a flourish, and slid the stack of pages across the desk. One of the clerks jumped up to take it.
“Clear out, please,” the king told his secretaries. “I’ll call when I need you.”
They both bowed and slipped away. Raesinia stood facing the king across the vast expanse of hardwood. There was nowhere to sit, and Raesinia wasn’t sure she wanted to. I won’t be here long.
“I assume you’d prefer to skip the preliminaries,” Georg said. “You’ve heard the word from Vordan, and so have I.”
“Yes.”
“You never gave me an answer to my proposal.”
“Is it still on the table?”
Georg grinned slyly. “Master Goodman would chastise me. When your opponent’s position becomes more desperate, he would say, take the chance to put the screws to them. Should I demand some territory, perhaps? Trading concessions? I’m sure he could think of something.”
“Your Majesty—” Raesinia tried to keep her voice calm, but something must have shown on her face, because Georg barked a laugh and held up a hand.
“My apologies,” he said. “Yes. The offer stands. I take it you’ve... considered?”
“I have.” Raesinia stood up a little straighter. “I will marry Matthew, if you are willing to help.”
“Excellent.” Georg’s smile widened. “I’m sure you will be very happy together.”
“I’m sure,” Raesinia said. “Let’s talk about the terms of your assistance.”
The king leaned back in his chair. “It will take some time to assemble troops—”
“Your Majesty, we don’t have time. This news is days old at best.”
“I’m well aware,” the king said. “As I was about to say, a land force will take some assembly, but it should be practical to dispatch a navy squadron and transports immediately. They will sail to Enzport and up the Pale, rendezvous with General d’Ivoire’s army, and make arrangements to evacuate it by sea. I assume that would resolve the immediate difficulty?”
“It would.” Something unclenched in Raesinia’s chest. We’re not there yet, she told herself. “Thank you.”
“For what it’s worth,” Georg said, “I appreciate your position. And I truly think this is the best possible outcome. Vhalnich is dangerous, and he needs to be crushed. Now stability is assured.”
“Let’s save the victory celebrations for later,” Raesinia said. “I would appreciate it if you would send those ships at once.”
“Of course. I’ll need you to write out orders for your garrison at Ecco Island to allow our ships past. It wouldn’t do to begin our partnership by shooting at one another, would it?”
Raesinia fought down her gorge as the scribes came back in. One of them wrote at her dictation, then presented her with the finished product to sign and seal. Her hand was shaking, blurring the shape pressed into the wax.
Then she was being escorted out of the king’s presence by the same officious footman. She didn’t even look at him, didn’t want to see his superior expression. When he returned her to Jo and Barely, it was obvious they both knew something was wrong, but Raesinia ignored them, too. She stalked back to her suite, went into the drab bedroom, slammed the door, and threw herself on the too-?hard bed.
It’s not so bad. It’ll be a few years at most, anyway. Then I have to disappear. She and Marcus might still manage to be together, if he was willing to disappear with her. She wasn’t certain if she was willing to inflict that on him, though, nor if she really wanted to watch him get old and die while she lived on. But this marriage is... nothing. Just a brief interlude. Prince Matthew isn’t even such a terrible person.
It didn’t feel that way, no matter how she rationalized it. It wasn’t Matthew that was the problem, or even marrying him, in the abstract. It was the knowledge that, in the end, she’d failed.
Duke Orlanko had intended to set her up as a puppet, a convenient body to occupy the throne while he ruled, complete with a terrible secret he could hold over her to maintain control. Everything she’d done since the start of the revolution had been in order to escape that fate, to regain control of her own destiny and break the hold that Orlanko and his backers had on Vordan. People had died—?a great many people—?along the way. Some of them had been her friends. Some of them had died in her arms. Raesinia herself had had her brains blown out, been shot, stabbed, drowned, smashed, and otherwise abused; if her particular situation meant that none of that was fatal, it still wasn’t pleasant.
All of that, to get to a place where she could make decisions about her own life. And now I’m back where I started. Not Raesinia, just the queen, a convenient body to wed and breed, a pawn on the game board of nations. And I doubt I’ll even be able to do that satisfactorily.