Haskel didn’t raise his face when I paced back toward him and Finch. “Best not to upset those who dress you and those who feed you,” he murmured. “Learned that from experience.”
“I’ll take that risk.” I dropped into the seat next to him. “What are you pretending to read?”
Haskel turned the book over for me to read the cover.The Courtbreaker.One of many books about Carys Raines.
“Liora.” I leaned close, voice dropping. “You think she truly means to ally?”
He flipped the book back to the page he’d been reading. “Liora may be many things, but she’s not one to offer an alliance on a bluff.”
There’s a first time for all things.
When I didn’t speak, he said, “First rule of royalty, Crowmere.”
Whenever Haskel said my last name, I became a boy again. I closed my eyes, the rules surfacing with surprising ease. “‘A monarch who reigns more than a hundred years in Feyreign only does so by having true allies.’”
“And this one has reigned six times that.”
I opened my eyes. “Which is why you doubt she’d give Gawain free rein in her citadel.”
“Among other reasons.”
“Those being?”
He hummed. “You killed him, for one thing.”
“I didn’t check his pulse.”
His finger followed the line he was on. “Says here Drystan had a handsome squire. This historian knows his business.”
He’d always had a terrible habit of changing the subject. But by now I knew he’d never change. “Is that a history or a fantasy?”
“Don’t ask the squire himself if you want truth.” He replaced the book on the shelf and started toward his chamber. “Best bathe yourselves, gentlemen,” he said to me and Finch. “Lest I woo all the young ladies before you have a chance to get on their dance cards.”
I stared after him. Beside me, Finch said, “What’s a dance card, ser?”
One thing I knew to be true of Haskel: even if he was wrong about Gawain, he tended to be correct about most things.
I needed air, fresh and real and unobstructed.
Not far from our guest chambers, a servant’s narrow stair curved around and around. It took me to the highest point of the citadel, where the winds blew hardest and the dawn hawk’s flags smacked against themselves and all of Highmark felt like a painting.
Up here felt closest to Sylvanwild. Like I stood on the highest bough of the highest tree instead of this painted stone monstrosity.
Far down the Dawn Road, a black dot approached. Slow, sure, unerring. The midnight carriage—Maeronyx’s royal coach, pulled by two black destriers. I stood with hands on the stone battlement as the carriage gained detail, first wheels and then the horses and the soldiers who rode behind.
Six soldiers. She didn’t believe in a cadre of twelve handmaidens like Rhiannon; Maeronyx only ever brought a few women, her most trusted, who no doubt rode in the carriage with her. The Black Frost treated her most cherished possessions with special care. Everything else could bleed out in the snow.
High above, the dawn hawk circled. Its wings caught the sunlight, and I had to shield my eyes. Lore spoke of the hawk’s ever-presence; it always watched, though rarely did it land long enough to speak.
A horn blew over the battlements. Then a clanking as the northern trellis gate began notch by notch to rise. Maeronyx’s destriers cantered around and ahead of the carriage, and they were first into the courtyard. Their shoes clattered on the cobblestones and the foremost soldier hoisted a flapping banner of the black maw.
The four queens always gathered the day before the dance. The newly crowned monarch would be invited to tea the morning of the ball, an ancient ritual of sisterhood. Did Feyreign ever offer sisterhoodamong its queens, or was that another fanciful idea offered to children still unburdened by the darkness of living?
Eury’s invitation would come soon, if it hadn’t already. And I could do nothing except wait and watch. She would accept because Faun would tell her she must, and I would insist on being present because she didn’t have the power to command me otherwise.
The carriage pulled to a stop in the center of the courtyard. Maeronyx’s soldier climbed from the high seat and came down to her door. He opened it and bowed.
Her foot appeared, clad in a high traveling boot. Then her black-lace-gloved hand, to take hold of the soldier’s.