Chapter 4 #3
I didn’t know if I believed him anymore. My lips felt too dry. I licked them, and the movement caught Drustan’s attention.
“I’ll draft some policies for you,” he said. “But you need to make a choice soon, or—”
Kallen abruptly unsheathed his sword, making me jump. “Someone is coming,” he said, striding towards the door. “Is anyone else expected?”
“No.” Flames gathered in Drustan’s palms, and when he closed his fists, he held two daggers of fire. He cast a vicious glance at Hector. “No one else knew about this meeting.”
Hector stood, drawing his own sword, and Gweneira pulled a crystal lens from the pouch at her belt. I squeezed Caedo’s hilt, wondering what new disaster was on its way.
The ward only worked one way when it came to sound passing through. Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and I heard the tapestry being brushed aside. Then the knob turned, and the door opened.
A faerie wearing purple stepped into the room.
He was slender, with cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and his hair was the same startling crimson shade as Karissa’s, the failed Illusion candidate from the trials.
A relative? He wasn’t carrying visible weapons, but considering the type of magic he wielded, that meant nothing.
“Lord Ulric,” Gweneira said. “What an unexpected pleasure.” She didn’t put her crystal away, though.
Ulric smiled. “Sheathe your swords. I mean you no harm.”
No one moved. My skin crawled. Of all the magic the Fae exhibited, Illusion House’s powers unsettled me most. How did I know what I was seeing was real? The Fae operated on some sort of unspoken code to keep the peace, but we had moved far beyond keeping peace last night.
“Why are you here?” Drustan demanded.
“To deliver a message from Queen Imogen, rightful ruler of Mistei.”
Kallen had been right, I thought with a sharp bite of nausea. War did not wait. We hadn’t even begun discussing who Osric’s successor might be, and the new queen’s emissary was already here.
“Imogen?” Gweneira asked. “An interesting choice.”
“She must not have been paying attention last night if she thinks we’ll call her queen,” Hector sneered.
“The succession is set,” Ulric said. “This is how power moves in Mistei.”
“Right now, power moves however we wish it to.” Hector glanced around the room as if to ensure we were all with him.
I nodded slightly when his eyes touched mine.
Our supposed alliance was a mess, but I wasn’t going to accept someone I’d never heard of as queen, particularly if she was related to Osric.
“I am not here to argue the matter.” Ulric reached for a leather pouch at his belt, then stilled when Kallen, Hector, and Drustan all took a step forward. “It’s just a letter.” He pulled a scroll out, then set it on the table and backed away, hands up.
Gweneira put her crystal away to retrieve the scroll, which was marked in shimmering purple ink. She read it silently, and her jaw dropped. “Imogen calls an Accord.”
“What?” Drustan snatched the paper out of her hands and read aloud.
“?‘Mistei deserves a peaceful transition of power. I am sympathetic to the chaos unfolding in your houses and across this kingdom, so in the tradition of Queen Brigitta, I hereby declare a month of Accord, to end on Lughnasa. Let us celebrate the ending of one dark era before the beginning of a brighter one.’?” He lowered the paper. “This is…unexpected.”
Lughnasa was the next major holiday, positioned halfway between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. I moved closer to Kallen. “What is an Accord?” I whispered.
“A formal peace period declared during times of unexpected unrest,” he murmured, lips barely moving.
Even he looked startled by this development, though the expression was subtler on him.
“Queen Brigitta last declared one twelve hundred years ago, when her sister tried to usurp the throne at her coronation.”
It had been hard enough keeping track of the limited history I’d learned in the Tumbledown schoolroom; now I would need to be familiar with events from over a millennium ago. “And what is the point?”
“It offers time for negotiation to resolve the conflict peacefully. More realistically, it’s time to prepare for battle.”
“The Accord will last thirty days,” Ulric was saying, “starting with a silvered state dinner tomorrow night. Invitations are circulating throughout Mistei as we speak.”
“How generous of her,” Drustan said bitingly.
“Imogen is not Osric,” Ulric replied. “She is not eager to plunge the realm into war.”
“She still expects our surrender at the end of the month, I presume.” This came from Hector.
“She trusts that you will see reason by the end of the month.” Ulric looked at Gweneira, and the light shimmered in his blue eyes in a way so beautiful it had to be an illusion. “Torin and Rowena have already accepted the Accord—and pledged the support of Light House when it is done.”
Gweneira’s lashes flickered. “They cannot pledge what they do not control.”
Ulric shrugged. “And yet there they are, at Imogen’s right hand. For the rest of Mistei, that is authority enough.”
“And Oriana?” Drustan asked.
“She has accepted the Accord as well.”
Oriana had responded to Imogen’s invitation while ignoring ours. A fresh sense of betrayal poured over me.
“I will leave you to your secret meeting,” Ulric said, emphasizing the word secret . “But I look forward to seeing you at dinner tomorrow night.”
“Thank you for your courtesy in delivering the message,” Gweneira replied.
Ulric bowed, then backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
As soon as Ulric was gone, Hector turned on Gweneira. “?‘Thank you for your courtesy’?”
She looked at him coolly. “Ulric values etiquette, and not all of us negotiate at swordpoint.”
“Do you think there’s negotiating to be done?” Kallen asked, sheathing his blade.
“This is a much gentler approach than Imogen could have taken.”
“She needs this time.” He strode to the table to study the letter. “She’ll want to gain public support, considering the legacy she’s inheriting. And Osric’s guards were well trained and equipped, but the larger Illusion House army is poorly maintained. Osric grew lazy in his perceived omnipotence.”
Drustan, Hector, and Gweneira resumed their seats, so I did as well, placing Caedo back at my neck. My heart was still racing from the unexpected visitor. “How did he know where to find us?” I asked.
Gweneira frowned as she stroked the metal bird on her belt. “They’re probably watching our houses. We’ll need to be more cautious, and we should set patrols.”
“What we should do,” Hector said, smacking his fist on the table, “is ignore this invitation and strike while they’re unprepared.”
“We aren’t any better prepared,” Kallen replied. “As individual houses, perhaps. But a civil war won’t be won on the strength of one army—or the outcome of one battle.”
Hector grimaced. “I hate when you’re reasonable.”
“You must hate me all the time.”
Hector made a noise that was half grunt and half laugh.
Drustan glowered at the curling paper with its shimmering ink. “She’s already sent the invitations,” he said. “If we attack, we’ll lose popular support. No one’s ever broken an Accord.”
“Who is Imogen?” I asked. “What is she like?”
“She’s a distant cousin of Osric’s, and if you’d asked yesterday, I would have described her as a shallow hedonist dedicated solely to her own pleasure.”
“Osric thought the same,” Kallen said. There was a thoughtful crease between his brows. “It’s why he allowed her to live, even though she’s rumored to have a great deal of magic. She seemed to have little interest in anything but wine and merrymaking.”
It was a reminder of how close Kallen had been to the king. He hadn’t just been Osric’s sword—he’d been a confidant of sorts.
“She found a strategy for survival,” Gweneira said. “And she’s popular in the house, which can’t have been easy with Osric ever vigilant against challenges to his influence. I suspect she’s been laying the groundwork for this for a while.”
A single flame was dancing across Drustan’s knuckles, back and forth. “Thirty days,” he said. “While she tries to force Mistei to fall at her feet.”
“The Accord doesn’t begin until tomorrow night,” Hector said. “We wouldn’t technically be breaking it if we attacked Illusion House before then.”
Drustan shook his head. “That argument will not play well with the masses, and I don’t want to start my reign by spitting on an ancient tradition.”
“ Your reign,” Hector repeated scornfully.
The two started arguing again, but I ignored them.
Instead, I moved to the fireplace, staring into the cold ashes.
“A month,” I whispered. That meant extra time for Imogen, Torin, and Rowena to gather support and ready their armies.
They would only grow more dangerous over the next few weeks.
It would offer us time to do the same, though.
And it would give me time.
“Kenna,” Drustan said, raising his voice over whatever objection Hector had just made. “To get back to what we were discussing—”
“No,” I said firmly, spinning to face him. “If you want to win my support, you know what to do. I look forward to reading your policies.” I gave Hector a stern look, too. “Both of your policies.”
Hector’s eyes narrowed. “I look forward to convincing you, Princess Kenna.”
The muscles at the sides of Drustan’s jaw flexed. Then he nodded stiffly. “As do I.”