Chapter Eleven
Valeris
“What do you mean we can’t get rid of her?” I slammed my biscuit back onto the plate. Not only did she interrupt my alliance, but now she was interrupting my morning meal. “You have my seal. I watched the guards leave to escort her from the city.”
“They did go to escort her from the city,” my uncle said.
“Then why—”
“Patience, Valeris!” Red shot up through my uncle’s neck and cheeks.
I fell silent, leaning back in my seat and composing myself. My uncle rarely showed visible anger. Pressing him would be a rather unwise choice.
“She has a special invitation.”
“Then I’ll go ask my father to remove her. Why would that be hard?”
“Are you sure that’s the right question you’re asking here?”
I sighed, reevaluating his words. For all my grumbling, everything valuable I’d learned in life had been from my uncle. I cocked an eyebrow and sought an answer.
“Rather,” I tried again. “Why would my father have invited her here?”
He crossed his arms, leaning against one of the plush breakfast chairs. “Those special royal invitations are beyond difficult to come by. If your father invited her here, it was for a reason. A very specific reason.”
I shrugged. “Why not ask his permission to remove her? She did sabotage one of the alliances he wanted.”
“Would that be wise with this competition between you and your siblings? Using force over calculation to eradicate an annoyance would not bode well with your father. Especially if the party we’re talking about was invited by him.”
He was right. Going to my father over this would make me appear weak, unable to handle my own problems, and trying to usurp his authority.
A thought struck me, made the wheels of my mind turn even faster.
A small laugh escaped my throat. “Do you think this Kallistar girl and everything she did was a setup for my father to test me?”
A light flicked in my uncle’s eyes as he considered it. “To see how you would respond to defeat and if you could fix the alliance she tried to destroy?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him, and it provides the logical explanation.”
He thought about it. “It is possible.”
My father loved his mind games. He could never outright tell us what he wanted. As a child I had been forced to guess which indiscretion I had committed, unaware of what I was being punished for.
“What do we know about her?” I asked.
“She is staying at the Ferris Way Inn, room 604. She checked in yesterday morning, showing up late for her reservation, which she booked nearly two years ago with a full deposit.”
I picked up my biscuit, turning it over in my hands, running the facts through my mind and not liking the answers I came up with.
“Most regular attendees of the ball book their rooms five years prior, at the end of the last event—if they like where they stayed. Less common to book no more than a year ahead of time.”
I pulled off a piece of biscuit, nibbling on the bread as I considered it.
“Why pick the sixth floor? That’s a long walk, and the grander rooms are closer to the bottom.
Unless you wanted to ensure you wouldn’t be disturbed.
If you’re booking that far ahead, you would have the pick of rooms. Easily the second or third floor would be completely open. Why go so high?”
“And if your father hired her, most people would have demanded a better room.”
I took a bite, chewing on the bread. “I’m not convinced she’s working for my father, but I’m also not unconvinced. Either way, I can’t afford for her to mess up anything else for me at the next ball. What she did was deliberate. It was smooth, calculated. I need to ensure she won’t do it again.”
He stared me down. “If she is as good as you’re saying, she could be a valuable asset.”
“What are you implying, Uncle?”
“What any great leader would say. If you can’t beat her, befriend her.”
I made a sour face. But he was right.
I threw the rest of my biscuit down, anticipation replacing my appetite.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to step out.” I grabbed my cloak and smiled up at him. “I’ve got a friend to make.”
“You think it will be easy to befriend her?”
My hand caught on the door frame, a crooked smile lighting my lips. “I’m a prince of Paravellia, Uncle. All I am to a girl at the ball is power and money. I could have twenty wives if I wanted—and if it was legal.”
I knew without looking he was rolling his eyes.
“If you’re king one day you can make it legal.”
“There’s no if.”