Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Lorenzo
M y mother sets the small brazier in the middle of the table and lights the chunks of charcoal. The kindled flames waver in a current of cool air. For as long as I can remember, this windowless room has contained an enchantment that stops it from becoming totally sweltering in the day’s heat.
Whenever my family has something sensitive to discuss, we always come to the top of the west tower. No chance of being overheard; no one privy to our secrets.
All the same, Mother takes extra precautions to account for my limited communication options. We can’t have scraps of paper with treasonous speculations slipping out into the rest of the palace.
It’d be easier if I could talk to her with my gift, project an illusionary voice into her head. But as I look up into her dark face, tensed in the sour expression she took on the moment we were out of public view, I’m reminded again of why I can’t risk it.
Mother has always chafed under the yoke of the empire, as well as she hides it. If she found out what I’m truly capable of…
Would she push me into some scheme against the empire without realizing what she’s asking? No one in this room except me truly understands how closely Marclinus is protected, how viciously he’ll lash out against any perceived threat. I don’t want to have to fight with her, to try to convince her that what I’m doing already is the best I can do.
Or would she berate me for the failed ambitions she’ll realize I must have had when I decided my fate? I can practically hear her chiding voice. Of all the foolish ideas…
I don’t know whether it’d be worse for her to see me as a tool or an even more epic failure. If I refused to be the former, she’d probably see me as a failure either way.
She remains standing, gazing down at me in my seat on the other side of the table. The shifting light of the fire draws harsher lines across her aging features. Did quite so many crow’s feet mark the corner of her eyes and mouth the last time I was here?
“Did you know what the emperor had planned?” she asks in the cool, hard voice I’m very familiar with. “A little warning would have been appreciated.”
Flanking her a couple of steps back, both my father and my older sister stir on their feet. Leonor frowns. “Mother, you know he can’t go against Marclinus without?—”
I interrupt her defense with an emphatic shake of my head. This answer, at least, I can give easily enough.
I add to it with one of the small papers stacked in front of me, scrawling across it in pencil. I had no idea until he announced his demands.
Mother contemplates the message for a few seconds. At her nod of acknowledgment, I toss the paper into the brazier. In an instant, it’s curled into ashes.
She crosses her arms over her chest, but it’s worry rather than anger that thickens her tone. “All right. Let’s hear what else you can tell us about his plans for the rest of his stay here, the new empress, and anything else that might be useful.”
As I reach for another paper, I gather myself. I’ve contributed to Aurelia’s cause in fragments here and there across the past two days, conjuring voices among the revelers in the city squares speaking her praises, adding a faint divine glow to her a few rare times when she’s been far enough away from Marclinus that his guards won’t notice the magic.
None of my efforts will make the slightest difference in the long run if I can’t convince the people I know best, the people with the closest thing to real power in Rione, that she’s on our side.
I adjust my fingers around the pencil and begin my careful scrawl. Not aware of any other plans Marclinus has besides celebrating. He has been tending toward aggression since he took the throne.
Once my parents and sister have read that note, I toss it into the flames too. Then I reach for another paper.
I think you could find Aurelia a valuable ally. She understands what it’s like to live in a subservient kingdom. I’ve seen her do her best to moderate Marclinus’s violence.
At that message, Mother’s lips twist. She waves the paper toward the brazier. “She accepted the marriage. From what I hear, her parents proposed it, not Tarquin. If she hasn’t completely gotten wrapped up in the trappings of all that power, I’d imagine she’ll be as corrupt as her husband soon enough.”
I can’t restrain a wince at her caustic tone. If she had any idea what Aurelia’s already done to undermine the empire…
It’s far less safe for me to admit any of that. My family doesn’t trust the woman I love yet. I can’t give them ammunition against her, especially when my ability to speak up is so restricted.
Father touches Mother’s arm. “She did step in on the beach—I saw her bandage several of the injured. It showed some initiative.”
Leonor grimaces. “They wouldn’t have needed help if it wasn’t for her husband’s sadistic demands. I wonder what the gods think of him asking to be honored on the level of a divinity?”
I scrawl my next words hastily. She has to be careful about how much she defies him. He’d kill her as easily as any of us if he thinks she’s acted against his interests.
Mother sighs. “Perhaps she thinks she can offer us a little generosity, but she has no idea what it would cost to really make a difference. It’s hard to imagine he’d harm her while she’s carrying his child. He’s got quite a bit of bluster along with the rest of his venom. Easy for her to make a show of caring when the consequences won’t fall on her anyway.”
Even Father nods at that statement, though he speaks more softly. “The first heir is nothing to mess with.”
The first heir—like my sister standing next to them, so much more important than I could ever be.
The problem isn’t just that they don’t trust Aurelia. They don’t trust my judgment either.
I give it another try. He’s been very unstable. I know she doesn’t agree with most of what he’s doing and that she’s pushing back as well as she can. I’m not saying to tell her anything compromising, but give her a chance.
When I hold up the last paper, Mother’s gaze only rests on it for a moment before her attention flicks past it to my face. In that instant, the sadness in her eyes takes me back to my first visit after I’d completed my dedication sacrifice.
“You’ve gone soft for her,” she says. “That pretty face—imagining her as some kind of victim in the emperor’s schemes… She’s encouraged you to think that way, hasn’t she? You’ve never been good at guarding your heart.”
It’s true and yet so far from the truth. The disappointment in her voice sends a flare of frustration searing through my chest. I grit my teeth against the urge to yell everything I know into her head.
She hasn’t manipulated me , I write instead. I’ve seen plenty of acts of kindness that have nothing to do with me. This is the first time we’ve had a royal from outside Dariu so close to the emperor
Before I can finish my sentence, Mother has already peered across the flames to read it. She reaches around the brazier to snatch the paper and drop it into the fire.
Resignation winds through her words, enough to dampen any affection that might have joined it. “Lorenzo, you’ve never been cut out for this kind of politicking. I know it’s been hard for you living in that place—that you’d want to believe in whatever goodness you can find. But that makes you a vulnerable target to the kind of woman who’d aspire to marry an emperor.”
I shake my head vehemently, but she keeps going. “You need to leave it to us to make the necessary judgments. Just stay strong, keep your eyes open, and focus on the facts. You can’t?—”
“Mother,” Leonor breaks in, stepping up to the queen’s side. “I think he’s gotten the idea.” She motions to me to stand up. “Let’s get out of this stuffy place. I’ve barely had a chance to talk to my little brother as a brother. I’ll request pastries and coconut jam for us to enjoy in my apartment.”
My stomach has knotted, but I’m never going to give up my favorite local treat. Maybe Leonor will listen even if Mother won’t. She knows how to be firm, but she has a little of Father’s gentleness in her upbringing too.
Mother lets us go, but her last order follows me out the door. “Don’t convey a hint of this conversation to that woman, no matter what she says to you.”
I flinch inwardly. Does she really think I’d be duped so easily into betraying my own family?
Leonor sets her hand on my arm. “Don’t mind her,” she murmurs as we make our way down the spiraling stairs. “You know how much it bothers her to leave anything beyond her control.”
Like me, off in Dariu for most of my life, far outside my family’s reach. Making sacrifices she’d never have approved of for a gift she thinks is frivolous.
As we head down the hall to her chambers, Leonor passes on word to a page. We’ve barely sat down at the table on her small terrace before a servant is bustling in with the requested snack. He leaves us a pitcher of sanson juice as well and slips away after a quick bow.
I grab one of the crackly traditional pastries, split it open to reveal the tender insides, and dip my spoon into the pot of coconut jam. The moment I’ve spread the treat, though, I hesitate.
Eating isn’t the most graceful of tasks for me at the best of times. I’ve numbed myself to the stares and sneers that can follow, and most of the Darium nobles are so used to it they barely notice now anyway. The thought of my sister watching me fumble with my food sends a prickle of self-consciousness over my skin.
As I tear off a carefully tiny piece and pop it between my molars, Leonor smears her own jam across a fluffy roll. She doesn’t look straight at me, but I can see that she’s gripping the knife tighter than she needs to.
“You’ve been away so long,” she says. “And I still haven’t— Dina is only two. I don’t know how long it’ll take before Alvaro and I give her a sibling, and then for that child to be grown enough…”
She halts, a shadow of such gloom passing over her face that I want to grip her hand and tell her she’ll never have to send one of her children to endure the same fate I have, that I’ll stay in Dariu until the end of my life if it keeps my future niece or nephew safe.
That’s exactly the kind of sentimentality that makes Mother doubt my judgment, isn’t it? I know it wouldn’t be possible anyway. Marclinus will demand whatever he feels like demanding, and a child makes a more effective hostage than a man who’ll be by then past thirty.
Instinctively, I make the brisk gesture that says, I’m fine.
Leonor blinks at me. Then her expression tightens with a more immediate sort of sadness.
She doesn’t know what I’ve said, but she knows I was trying to say something. All I’ve done is remind her of how difficult it is for me to do that.
I tug at my pouch and retrieve a new piece of paper. I’m fine , I print there, as if there’s any chance she’ll believe me. Don’t worry about me.
Leonor’s eyes fill with even more sorrow than I saw in Mother’s, and the sweetness of the jam turns to dust in my mouth. “Oh, Lorenzo, how can we not worry about you? Even if this new empress has some reasonable ideas, for you to be so keen on her… And besides that…”
She struggles to go on, which maybe is for the best, because a second later there’s a rap on the door. When Leonor calls for them to come in, one of the Darium soldiers pokes his head past the doorway.
“Prince Lorenzo’s presence is requested back at the imperial court.”
Of course it is. Why would Marclinus allow me even a full hour alone with my family?
The confirmation of how much he controls my life only adds more distress to my sister’s expression. I squeeze her hand for whatever comfort the gesture will offer and make the best show of confidence I can striding out to follow the soldier to the imperial building.
The Darium court is circulating in the gardens next to their secondary palace. As I step through the arched hedge that serves as a gate, my gaze veers straight to Aurelia’s walnut-brown hair.
She’s standing next to Marclinus by one of the flowering shrubs. Resting one hand on his forearm and tilting her body toward him as she talks, with one of those soft smiles that can unravel me in an instant.
But she’s aiming it at him .
I tamp down on the surge of jealousy before it’s more than a jab through my chest. She’s playing along like she has to. I can’t resent her for that.
Even if it kills me to watch.
I’m not sure I’ve seen her behave quite that fawningly toward him before, not when he looks even-tempered rather than in need of placating. Then again, who knows what might have happened behind closed doors that she hasn’t had the chance to relay to the rest of us?
It’s clear he didn’t have any particular need of me. He doesn’t even glance my way to acknowledge my arrival… and neither does she.
It’s smart of her, but I can’t say it doesn’t sting to feel so far away from the woman who owns my heart.
This is what my mother was most worried about—that I’d gotten myself so tied up in my feelings for Aurelia that I’d act like an idiot. That she’ll rope me into dangerous designs that’ll only hurt me in the end.
Mother doesn’t know how much our empress has already been hurt herself trying to save all of us. She doesn’t know how far I was prepared to go before I ever met Aurelia, at least until my foster brothers and I realized that our own designs were hopeless.
I draw my posture a little straighter, summoning all the conviction I can, and amble on through the garden. I’m already playing a more important role in the future of the empire than my parents or my sister would ever guess.
We can succeed. We’re already on our way.
Still, as I exchange a glance with Bastien, as I pause as if to admire a marble statue in the middle of a flowerbed, doubt gnaws at the edges of my mind.
I’m not sure we can see all our plans through without me convincing my family to believe in me. And right now, that task feels impossible.