CHAPTER SEVEN

LIA MARA

We make camp long before nightfall.

Nolla Verin’s temper is a force to be reckoned with. She snaps at the guards about building the fire hotter, and even snaps at our mother about revealing too much information before we had the alliance assured. Despite her words earlier, she has never been rejected, and I can tell the prince’s words stung.

My sister sits beside me, staring into the fire, driving her needle into her embroidery again. “Did you see the way he clutched at that crippled princess? As if her people have given any sign that their alliance is valid.” She snorts. “They allowed the king to be slaughtered! The prince is such a fool.”

“You’ve said.”

“He will regret this, Lia Mara.”

“You’ve said that, too.”

She turns those fierce eyes on me. “Do you believe otherwise?”

“I believe the prince cares for his people.”

“I care for my people, too.”

Maybe, but Prince Rhen has never invaded Syhl Shallow. He did not wantonly slaughter our people. I look away from her, back at the fire.

The silence between us thickens, turning to uncertainty.

“Do you believe I failed?” she whispers.

I look at her in surprise. “No. I believe you both seek different outcomes for your countries.”

“We could be unified!”

I swallow. They did not approach Prince Rhen as if they truly sought unity.

“Will Mother attack?” I say softly. “Now that he has refused?”

Nolla Verin relaxes. She enjoys discussing strategy. “She will wait until the prince’s people are well and truly divided over the nonsense regarding this heir. The seeds are already sown. We will capture his cities and finally have access to the open sea.”

“What of this Commander Grey?” I say.

“Dead or alive, it does not matter.” She knots her thread and pulls a dagger to cut the string. “You saw the prince’s face when Mother said his name.”

I did see Rhen’s face. Harper’s too. Both filled with a wash of panic and loss and fear.

Nolla Verin shakes her head. “Mother was right to reveal what we know. The gossip that a former guardsman—a defector, if he lives—carries this knowledge will spread quickly.”

She is right. A magesmith? An heir? A rogue guardsman? The gossip will be too juicy to control, and Rhen’s people are already divided.

Nolla Verin shrugs. “What we do know is what’s most important: this prince’s reign will soon come to an end, one way or another. Look. What do you think?”

It takes me a moment to realize she’s drawing my attention to her embroidery. I’ve hardly looked at it since we left Syhl Shallow, but now I see she’s added words in the center, the letters curved and winding through the stitched adornments throughout.

Two sisters. One heart.

The words should fill me with light and happiness. They don’t. I can’t scrub the memory of the slaughtered man and his daughter from my thoughts. That girl had a sister—a sister who fled because I refused to raise the alarm about her presence.

“You don’t like it,” says Nolla Verin.

“No, I do.” I reach to take the fabric from her. My finger traces over the lettering. “Your talent is beyond compare.”

“You look so sad. I thought this would cheer you.”

“It does.” I reach out and clasp her hand. “I am honored to have your love and to share your heart.”

She smiles.

I can’t help but return the smile. I do love her.

She leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “I thought it would be lovely for your pillowcase.”

I press the embroidery to my chest. “I’ll treasure it always.”

She stands and stretches. “Will you be long? I am eager to sleep.”

“Go ahead.”

She eases into our tent, and her guards take their place.

I wish Sorra and Parrish would join me by the fire, because I could use Parrish’s easy humor, but my mother has not yet retired, and they would never be casual in her presence.

An exhausted part of my brain expects her to come join me, to needle me about my sister’s performance today, to jab and dig at my failings, but luckily she does not.

She does draw close, though, once, to drop a kiss onto my forehead. A rare show of affection from her. “You think I forget you were my first daughter,” she says.

“I do not think that.”

“A mother knows.”

I blush. Likely our entire queendom knows.

“I know you think I am cold and unforgiving, too,” she says.

I say nothing. She’s not wrong.

“I am not heartless,” she says. “But outside of Syhl Shallow, the world is full of men who underestimate women. Men who undermine them. I cannot rule from a place of weakness. I do not have the luxury of mercy and sympathy. Nor will your sister.”

I remain silent. Leaving an unarmed man alive doesn’t seem like a weakness, but maybe that’s why I haven’t been named heir.

“You are not lesser than Nolla Verin,” she says. “Remember that, Lia Mara. That is why your studies with Clanna Sun are so very important. Your sister has been named heir, but she will need your support.”

“Thank you, Mother.” I’m not sure what else to say. Her voice is high and clear, and this likely has more to do with informing Nolla Verin that she has been a disappointment than anything to do with me.

Mother leaves me there by the fire and retires to her own tent. Eventually, Sorra and Parrish join me on the log by the fire.

Parrish offers me a bit of dried beef from a sack, and I make a face.

He laughs and pops it into his mouth.

Sorra makes the same face I did. “He’ll eat anything,” she says.

“Gladly too.” He pops another piece in his mouth.

I can barely summon the energy for a smile. “Mother is upset that things did not go better with the prince.”

Sorra nods. “She does not want to wage war. The palace coffers are not endless. The Royal Houses are disappointed that she has not provided access to the seaport trade as she promised.”

“I didn’t know that.” I sit up straighter. I knew we had come to rely on the tithe from Emberfall in years past, but I was unaware our reserves had run so thin that the Royal Houses were beginning to withdraw support.

Sorra smiles. “Perhaps you would hear more if you spent time at court instead of with your nose in a book.”

I make a face equivalent to the one I made over the dried meat, and she laughs under her breath.

“War is costly,” she says. “Even if the prince’s alliance with Disi is false, it will cost a tidy sum to launch another invasion—and the Royal Houses are not willing to pay more when funds run low already.”

“To say nothing of the lives lost,” says Parrish.

His tone catches my attention, and I swivel my head to look at him.

He glances at Sorra, and his tone is subdued. “We should not slaughter people over access to trade routes.”

I think of the girl he ignored in the woods. I wonder if Sorra knows, or if this is a secret he keeps. I wonder if this makes him a lesser guard, the way it makes me feel like a lesser sister.