Castles in Their Bones (Castles in Their Bones #1)

Sophronia

It’s taken two days to cross into Temarin, and another day to make it to the outskirts of Kavelle, the capital city, but the trip has been relatively smooth up until now. isn’t sure if it’s the bumpy road or her nervousness about finally meeting Leopold face to face that makes her stomach churn, but perhaps it’s some combination of the two, along with the new Temarinian corset, which has been laced so tightly she can scarcely breathe without feeling the whalebone stays biting into her rib cage.

It’s all she can do to focus on taking slow, shallow breaths while listening to her carriage companions ramble on in rapid Temarinian that she can only understand about three-quarters of. She thought she was fluent in the language, but then she’s never practiced with anyone who’s been drinking so freely.

One of the women, Duchess Henrietta, is Leopold’s second cousin once removed, and the other, Duchess Bruna, is his aunt on his father’s side. When they introduced themselves to her earlier, smiled and nodded, like she hadn’t been forced to memorize the Temarinian royal family tree before her sixth birthday. Like she doesn’t know that Duchess Bruna’s husband has a fondness for gambling and women that has left the once-illustrious family deep in debt, or that Duchess Henrietta’s eldest son bears a striking resemblance to her husband’s valet. It’s strange, after so many years of knowing their names and the names and ages of their husbands, children, and other relations, to finally meet them in person. It’s almost like characters from a book coming to life before her eyes, if those characters turned out to be loud and inebriated.

She turns her gaze out the window, to the quiet forest on the edge of Kavelle, trying not to think about what lies ahead. In another hour or so, she will finally meet Leopold. It’s a strange thought—they must have exchanged hundreds of letters over the last decade. Letters that started out stiff and forced, a few stilted words, but in time grew to pages upon pages detailing private thoughts and particulars of their day-to-day lives. In some ways, she feels like she already knows Leopold better than anyone else in the world, except maybe her sisters.

But she doesn’t, she reminds herself. The dossier her mother gave her has proven that. The Leopold she thought she knew wouldn’t have tripled taxes on his subjects in order to increase his own wealth. He wouldn’t have evicted two dozen families and razed their village in order to build a new hunting lodge. He wouldn’t have had a man executed for publishing satirical illustrations of him. But the real Leopold has done all of that and more since taking the throne last year.

She doesn’t really know him, not any more than he knows her, and she cannot forget that again.

Everyone in Temarin is our enemy, , her mother said when she gave her the dossier. Fail to remember that and you’ve doomed us all.

Duchess Bruna clears her throat, drawing ’s attention back to them. She tries to remember what they were discussing, what she’s been asked. Something about Bessemia, something about her mother.

“She asked if the rumors about your mother were true,” a soft voice says in Bessemian. The lady’s maid who helped her get dressed this morning at the inn, though she didn’t say a word to her then. is surprised to hear how well she speaks Bessemian, without a touch of an accent.

“Which ones?” asks the duchesses in Temarinian. Though she’s in earnest, the women think she’s made a joke and dissolve into laughter. looks at the lady’s maid again. She’s around ’s age, with blond hair almost the same color as her own that’s been pulled back into a tight chignon, pretty but without the ornamentation and ostentation that seem to define Temarinian beauty.

“You speak Bessemian very well,” tells her.

The girl’s cheeks turn pink and she drops her gaze. “Thank you, Your Highness. It’s my native tongue, which is why the duchess wished that I accompany her on the journey. I grew up not far outside the palace.”

glances at the women to find them watching her, measuring her up. She doesn’t know which one is the girl’s employer, but it hardly matters.

“What’s your name?” asks her.

She opens her mouth to answer, but Duchess Bruna gets there first.

“Violie,” she snaps at the girl. “Fetch my fan. This heat is infernal.”

The girl—Violie—hastens to open up the reticule she carries, pulling out an ornate golden fan and passing it to Duchess Bruna, who immediately begins fanning herself with it.

“Poor dear,” she adds, looking at . “You must be sweltering as well. This carriage is a hothouse.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” says. If anything, she thinks, there’s a chill in the air, though the two duchesses have finished off a bottle of champagne between them, so perhaps that is the reason behind their warmth.

“Such a dear girl,” Duchess Henrietta says, clicking her tongue and taking another long sip from her cut-crystal champagne flute.

The carriage veers sharply to the left, jerking Duchess Henrietta’s flute out of her hand. It shatters on the floor of the carriage, spilling champagne all over ’s silk slippers.

“What in blazes was that?” Duchess Bruna demands, snapping her fan shut and pushing open the carriage window. As soon as she does, the sound of frenzied shouts fills the carriage— counts five voices, two of which she recognizes as the coachman’s and the footman’s.

“Not another robbery,” Duchess Henrietta says, soundingmore annoyed than alarmed. She rolls her eyes and closesthe window again. “These woods are becoming a nuisance.”

peers out her own window to see a group of three masked men, each holding a dagger. One holds his blade to the throat of the footman while the coachman searches the bench, looking for something.

“They’re going to hurt the footman,” says, alarmed. She doesn’t understand why the other women are being so calm about it—the men have daggers and the only defense the women have is the empty wine bottle. supposes she could make a weapon of that, if necessary, though that would lead to an awful lot of questions from her companions. But the duchesses are acting as though the shattered champagne glass is the worst of their problems, and even Violie doesn’t seem particularly troubled.

“Not to worry, Your Highness,” Duchess Henrietta says with a wan smile. “Unfortunately, it’s becoming quite common in these parts—ruffians looking for easy coin—but the coachman is prepared with enough money to secure safe passage. It’s only a temporary delay.”

She sounds certain, but ’s unease doesn’t subside. She turns her attention back to the window.

The coachman holds out a white velvet pouch tied with a gold tassel and one of the thieves takes it, peering inside and weighing its contents in his palm. He pockets it, giving the man holding his dagger to the footman’s throat a nod. The footman is released, and notices that he doesn’t look particularly troubled by the experience either.

“I didn’t realize the crime rate was so high in these parts,” says, closing the curtain.

“Desperate people will do desperate things, Your Highness,” Violie says softly.

“Ungrateful people, you mean,” Duchess Bruna snaps.

Though she can’t say as much, is more inclined to agree with Violie. The drastic increase in taxes in Temarin will have been enough to make many people desperate.

The sound of horses’ hooves approaching interrupts. The three thieves hear them too and start to run, but in seconds, a dozen horses appear down the road, ridden by soldiers with pistols raised.

“Halt!” one of the men at the front shouts. recognizes his uniform by the gold epaulets and the three yellow stripes on his sleeve—the head of the king’s personal guard, though what he’s doing here she isn’t sure. The three thieves must know it too, because they all freeze, their hands going up. The guard dismounts, still holding his pistol, and walks toward the thieves. “You are under arrest in the name of His Majesty, King Leopold.”

He grabs one of the thieves by the back of the neck, yanking his mask off. The boy can’t be more than fourteen and looks on the verge of tears. The guard removes the masks of the other two and they look even younger, though the guard seems unfazed by this. “Cuff them!” he shouts, and his men dismount and do as he bids, binding the boys’ hands behind their backs, more roughly than seems strictly necessary. One of the boys cries out when his arm is bent at what looks to be an unnatural angle.

“King Leopold wanted to surprise you by meeting the carriage,” Duchess Bruna says. “And what fortuitous timing he has.”

“Princess , are you in there?” the head guard shouts toward the carriage. “You’re safe now.”

’s hand tightens on the door’s handle and she thinks that perhaps the guards are more frightening than the thieves were. But she knows her role in this play, so she opens the carriage door and allows the footman to help her out into the afternoon sun, lifting her gloved hand to shield her eyes. She beams at the guard, offering him a bright smile that shows all of her teeth.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” she says to him in Temarinian. “We were so frightened.”

The guard bows low. “I’m sorry your first impression of Temarin was so coarse, Princess,” he says.

“!” a voice calls. She turns her attention back to the retinue of guards, and then she sees him and despite everything, her heart stutters. She knows him right away even though he looks a bit different from the last portrait, which was sent two years ago—his bronze hair is longer, curling around his ears, and his features appear sharper, most of the boyish roundness whittled away, but more than that, he’s real. Not oil and canvas, confined to two dimensions and to stillness, but flesh and blood and life. She didn’t know he could smile like that.

She gives herself a mental shake. Did he smile like that when he sentenced the artist to death? When he forced those villagers from their homes?

In seconds he’s off his horse and coming toward her, and then she is caught up in his arms, her arms around his neck. Somehow, he even smells like she imagined he would, like cedar and some kind of spice.

When they pull apart he has an embarrassed smile on his face and belatedly remembers their audience. She glances around to see the two duchesses, Violie, and Leopold’s guards all watching them, their expressions a collection of amused and bemused. Even the thieves are staring, though they only look afraid.

“Apologies,” Leopold says, dipping into a bow and kissing the back of her hand. “I just can’t believe you’re actually finally here.”

forces a smile, trying to control her rapidly beating heart and the flush she feels working its way over her cheeks. “I can’t believe it either,” she tells him.

And that, at least, is true.

—

Leopold helps her onto his horse in front of him, holding the reins on either side of her waist as they make their way through the woods and toward Kavelle and the palace. Word of their arrival must have spread, because people are pouring out from the villages on the outskirts of the city, waving and cheering for Leopold and , who wave back. Not everyone cheers, though. She notices that a good quarter of the crowd stands in silence, watching them go past with stony expressions and hard eyes. But they don’t dare to jeer—not that can blame them. The execution of the illustrator served as a dire warning.

Leopold’s guards surround them on every side, and the carriage holding the duchesses and Violie brings up the rear of their entourage. The three thieves are still cuffed, walking beside the guards’ horses.

“What will happen to them?” asks Leopold through her smile. Her cheeks are beginning to ache, but she holds on to it, smiling at the peasants who line the pathway, her hand raised in a constant wave.

“Who?” Leopold asks, confused.

“The boys,” she clarifies, nodding toward one of them, trailing beside a guard on their right.

“Oh, the thieves,” Leopold says, and she feels him shrug. “Not to worry—crime is taken very seriously in Temarin. They’ll be properly punished.”

He says the words like a reassurance, but is far from reassured. Did he think the illustrator was properly punished as well?

“They’re so young,” she says, forcing her voice to stay light and airy. “Perhaps some mercy would be appropriate—no one was hurt, after all.”

“But you could have been,” Leopold says. “And my mother says it’s important to set an example or the crime rate will only climb higher.”

Leopold’s mother, Dowager Queen Eugenia, was only fourteen when she was sent to Temarin from Cellaria to marry King Carlisle and secure the truce that ended the Celestian War. knows this because her mother often used it as an example of her own kindness in waiting until her daughters were sixteen to marry them off. Their spies have reported that, since King Carlisle’s death a year ago, Queen Eugenia has become more involved in Temarinian politics, helping to advise Leopold, who was only fifteen when he took the throne.

“They’re about the same age as your brothers,” points out, thinking of the younger princes, Gideon, fourteen, and Reid, twelve. “Surely your mother would be sympathetic.”

“My brothers would never rob a coach and threaten to kill a footman,” Leopold replies.

“I can’t imagine these boys did it for fun. Look at that one,” she says, nodding toward the youngest-looking of the three. “He’s skin and bones. When do you think the last proper meal he ate was?”

Leopold doesn’t speak for a moment. “You have a soft heart, I admire that, but they made their choices. There must be consequences.”

tries to mask the unease working its way through her as her mother’s words come back to her, echoing in her mind with each clip of the horse’s hooves. He is our enemy, and you will not forget that again.