Daphne
The morning after and Cliona discuss Levi’s identity, watches him closely as they ride east, trying to recall the details of the portraits of King Leopold she’s seen. She never studied his picture as closely as she studied Cillian’s—there was no point since, in all likelihood, they would never cross paths. Leopold would be Sophronia’s enigma to unravel; had her hands full enough already. But she remembers he was handsome, with strong features and a toothy smile, reminding her more of a puppy than the prince he was at the time. She remembers that she never understood why Sophronia was such a fool for him, blushing as she read his letters dozens of times apiece, sometimes until the paper broke apart in her hands.
Eyeing Levi as he rides ahead of her, deep in conversation with Bairre and Cliona, searches for similarities between the boy in the portraits and the one before her. His hair is different—longer and darker—but that isn’t the main difference. It takes her a moment to realize what exactly the difference is: that puppy-like quality is gone. In every portrait she’s seen, Leopold has seemed cheerful, even when he’s been attempting a serious pose. His eyes have always sparked, even when his mouth has been unsmiling.
Now, though, that spark isn’t there. He’s closer to a thundercloud than a puppy, quicker to glower than grin.
But it is him. The more watches him, the surer she is of this. Not necessarily because of any similarity to the portraits she’s seen, but because there is something unmistakably royal about his bearing and the way he speaks, even with that atrocious accent. Lost royalty isn’t exactly in short supply at the moment, but only one matches Levi’s description, hair color aside.
It isn’t even a good alias, she thinks, as they continue east. Levi instead of Leopold. But by the same token, someone unaccustomed to assuming a fake identity would have an easier time responding to a name vaguely like their own. That must have been the servant girl’s idea—Violie, remembers with a dose of distaste.
When the sun is directly overhead, their group stops to eat a packed lunch and let the horses graze and drink from a nearby stream. approaches Levi where he stands beside his horse, rummaging through his saddlebag. She feels almost like a lioness on the hunt. It isn’t an unfair comparison, she realizes, the thought souring in her stomach. If he is Leopold, that does make him her prey, along with his brothers.
She needs to be careful, and she needs to be smart. If he knows she even suspects his true identity, he’ll run and then there will truly be no finding him. She can’t imagine the mortification of having to tell her mother that Leopold slipped through her fingers for a second time.
But her mother’s orders aside, desperately wants answers, and Leopold is the only one who can give them. Namely, she needs to know why he is standing here before her when Sophronia is dead. Even thinking that floods her veins with fury. She doesn’t know all of the details of what occurred in Temarin, but she knows that the mob there was caused by Leopold himself—a foolish king who ran his country into the ground.
Sophronia didn’t cause that, she even sought to help right it, against their mother’s wishes. She’d always been ruled by her emotions, but that was a step too far even for Sophronia. knows that Leopold was responsible for that, too, for turning her sister against her family and the purpose they had been born for. The fury in her quadruples.
Patience, her mother’s voice whispers through her mind.
Leopold must feel her eyes on him, because he turns toward her. “Can I help you with something, Princess?” he asks, bowing his head.
shakes herself, forcing a pleasant smile that doesn’t feel like it reaches her eyes.
“Yes, actually. I caught sight of some apple trees just back there,” she says, gesturing to the way they came. “But I’m afraid I can’t reach the apples. Might you be willing to help?”
He glances over her shoulder, where she knows Bairre is standing with Haimish and Cliona. He must be wondering why she’s asking him—a fair question, she supposes, but not one she has an answer to. “I thought the horses might enjoy a snack, but if you’re too busy I can ask someone else.”
She gets a few steps away before he speaks. “No, I can help,” he says, still looking perplexed, but he falls into step beside her as they walk toward the apple trees. She needs to earn his trust, she thinks, though it occurs to her that for the first time she’s at a loss as to how to charm someone. All she really knows about him is that he seemed to truly care for her sister, but that doesn’t do her any good. is as different from Sophronia as two people can be.
The questions she wants to ask rise to her lips, but she forces them down. There will be time for those later. “I have a sister named Sophie as well, you know,” she says instead. “Well, Sophronia, but those of us who loved her called her Sophie—Sophronia was awfully stuffy for a girl who spent her free time baking cakes in the kitchens.”
She watches his face carefully and is rewarded with a nearly imperceptible flinch. For whatever it’s worth—and to it is worth very little—Leopold did love her sister. Perhaps the route to charming him lies there, showing him how much she, too, loved Sophronia. Which means the role she needs to play is frightfully simple. She needs to be the grieving sister, something she hasn’t let herself be since learning of Sophronia’s death.
“She died,” she tells him, the words sticking in her throat as if they don’t wish to be spoken, don’t wish to be true. “Just over two weeks ago now.”
She feels him glance sideways at her, though she keeps her gaze straight ahead, on the horizon. Bairre and Cliona both gave her condolences, and she knows that Bairre empathizes with her more than most people could, as someone who recently lost a sibling himself, but she realizes that talking to Leopold about Sophronia is different because to him, Sophronia isn’t a stranger. lets out a heavy breath.
“I still can’t quite believe she’s gone,” she tells him. “That I’ll never hear her laugh again. She had a wonderfullaugh, you know. Our mother hated it—she said Sophronia laughed too loudly, that she sounded more like a pig rolling in mud than a princess.”
It’s only when says the words that she realizes she’d forgotten about that, forgotten how Sophronia’s face would fall every time their mother made that remark, how she tried so hard to soften her laugh, even if, to ’s secret relief, she never quite managed to do so.
For a moment, Leopold doesn’t say anything. “That’s cruel,” he says finally.
blinks. “I suppose it was,” she says, shaking her head. “They never quite got along.”
Her mother was cruel to Sophronia. That isn’t new information to —she recognized the cruelty even while they were living through it. and Beatriz were on the receiving end of that cruelty as well, it was simply how their mother was, but Sophronia got the worst of it. More than that, she felt the cruelty more harshly than and Beatriz did.
told herself it was because Sophronia was weaker than they were, that she hadn’t yet developed as thick a skin. She told herself that in some way, Sophronia deserved the cruelty, that if she’d worked harder, done as she was told without question—if she could just be stronger—their mother wouldn’t be so cruel to her.
Now, thinking about that causes the seeds of guilt in her to sprout. She remembers the last letter Sophronia sent her: I need your help, Daph. You must have seen how wrong she is now, how wrong we are to do her bidding.
Again, thinks of the difficult task her mother has set before her, the lives she’s demanded take, including that of the boy standing beside her. Surely, Sophronia would feel that this is wrong as well, but their mother said it was the only way to guarantee their safety. Could something be both wrong and necessary?
“Our mother is a difficult person,” she says, pushing that train of thought to the back of her mind, and her guilt with it. “But only a difficult—and yes, sometimes cruel—person can hold a throne the way she has for nearly two decades. Sophie understood that.”
“I’m sure she did,” he says softly. “But it couldn’t have been easy, growing up with a mother like that. For any of you.”
stiffens. What did Sophronia tell him? Or was it that servant girl, Violie? “My mother raised her daughters to be as strong as she is,” she says coolly. “I’m grateful for that every day.”
“Of course,” he says, a bit too quickly. wishes he’d push back just a bit more, let the mask he’s wearing slip, but it isn’t time for that yet. He is playing his role, and she needs to remember to play hers.
“There,” she says, stopping in front of a tree and pointing up to the apples that hang from its branches. “If you can gather a dozen, I’m sure the horses would be grateful.”
“Of course, Your Highness,” Leopold says with a bow of his head.
—
“There’s no need to torment him,” Bairre says to her when they are riding again—the last leg of their journey before they reach the summer castle at the southern edge of Lake Olveen tonight.
“Torment who?” she asks, though she has an idea of who he’s talking about. She wouldn’t say she’s tormented Leopold, but she’s certainly spoken to him more than Haimish, Rufus, or the two guards today.
“Levi isn’t here to fetch apples for you,” he says.
laughs. “The apples were for the horses,” she says. “And besides, that is precisely what he is here for, considering he is a servant. He’s here as part of his job, which encompasses fetching things, including but not limited to apples.”
Bairre frowns and doesn’t reply. Glancing sideways at him, smothers a sigh. Despite growing up so close to the throne, Bairre is still so idealistic. Or perhaps it’s his history with the rebels that did it. As soon as she thinks it, though, she knows it has nothing to do with them. After all, Cliona is as ingratiated with the rebels as a person can be, and she has no hesitation about employing or utilizing servants.
“Still,” Bairre says after a moment, “you’re paying an awful lot of attention to a servant.”
flashes him a smile. “Jealous?” she asks.
She thinks his cheeks flush, but it might just be the winter chill in the air.
“Suspicious,” he says after a moment, and ’s stomach sinks.
“What is there to be suspicious of?” she asks, hiding her worry with a laugh. “He’s a servant from the highlands. Unless you think he’s actually working for my mother?” She laughs louder as if it’s a ridiculous thought, which it is, if not for the reasons Bairre might think. “Or is he one of the assassins who tried to kill me, but I’ve managed to convert to my side?”
It’s another ridiculous idea, but Bairre doesn’t smile. “I don’t know, ,” he says with a sigh. “But you said yourself you were keeping secrets—”
“No more than you are,” she retorts, annoyance sparkingin her. Bairre isn’t the na?ve boy she once believed him to be, and she won’t be made to feel like the only dishonest one of them. “Unless you’re ready to tell me the truth about what the rebels are planning, you have no room to speak on what secrets I choose to keep to myself.”
“That isn’t fair—”
“I beg to differ,” she interrupts. She realizes their voices have risen only when the others riding ahead turn to look at them. forces a smile and waves. “Just a lovers’ spat,” she calls out.
“Ugh, is there another term you can use?” Cliona yells back, wrinkling her nose. “I hate the word lover. ”
From where he’s riding beside her, Haimish leans over to say something to her, quiet enough that only she hears it. In response, she shoves him so hard that he nearly falls out of his saddle, though both of them are laughing.
Watching them makes ’s heart clench. She and Bairre have never been destined for that sort of romance, the kind made up of jokes and teasing and easy lightness. But Cliona and Haimish are both entrenched in the rebellion, both fighting on the same side, with their interests wholly aligned. There is a future for them that they are steadily moving toward, with the possibility of forever on the horizon.
That isn’t the case for and Bairre. Maybe before, when didn’t know who Bairre really was or that he was working for the rebellion, she thought there might be a future there. When he was just a hapless reluctant prince who had no desire to rule and no interest in politics. Then, thought perhaps that when her mother conquered Vesteria, Bairre could be convinced to fade into the background and stay with her as consort once she succeeded her mother as empress.
It was, she realizes now, a foolish hope. Looking at him, she can’t imagine a world where he would stay with her after he realized the extent of her betrayal. And if she’s honest with herself, she can’t imagine a world where her mother would let him.
The thought sours in her stomach. Her mother won’t kill him, she tells herself. But he would be banished to some other land, never allowed to return to Vesteria. He would be dead to her, just as she surely would be to him.
That’s what she’s told herself her whole life, at least. But that was before her mother gave her orders to kill Leopold and his brothers. Bairre might not be important enough to have killed, his claim to the throne far more tenuous, but knows that killing him would certainly be cleaner, and her mother has always preferred to be tidy in her plots.
The thought haunts her as they continue to ride in silence. She imagines what her future looks like now: her returning to Bessemia triumphant, having delivered Friv to her mother; her reuniting with Beatriz, their differences forgotten; her mother telling her how proud she is of her, one day ruling all of Vesteria. Before, the thought of the future would have buoyed her, filled her with giddiness and a sense of purpose. Now, though, it leaves her hollow.
There is no longer a Sophronia in that future. There is no Bairre, no Cliona, and it seems more and more likely there will be no Beatriz, either.
The future has always been heading toward since she took her first steps now strikes her as incredibly lonely.
—
The summer castle isn’t nearly as grand as the name led to expect, though her standards for grandeur have plummeted since she arrived in Friv. It is, she concedes, a very grand manor, stretching up three floors, but referring to it as a castle is quite a stretch. She guesses it would fit inside the Bessemian palace at least ten times over.
Bairre mentioned that it had only just been opened up by the small staff of servants there, the bed linens changed, the candles lit, the rooms aired out, but as a maid gives a tour of the west wing, where her bedroom is, she is struck by how stale the air feels. She supposes it went unused this past summer, with Prince Cillian so ill, so it has been quite some time since anyone walked these halls.
The room the maid leaves to is at first chilly, but with the fire roaring in the hearth, it grows tolerably warm, and after a day spent riding, she can’t bring herself to complain. The large four-poster bed at the center of the room is piled high with silver furs.
“I’ll arrange for a bath to be drawn for you, Your Highness,” the maid says, bobbing what thinks must be her twentieth curtsy in the last half hour. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Yes,” says, turning back toward her. “Parchment and pen. When does the mail go out? I’ll need a letter sent to Bessemia at the earliest opportunity.”
She’s tarried too long already, her mother will need to know about Leopold.
The maid’s eyes go wide and she stutters. “Oh, um…w-well, Your Highness, in the winter, it is difficult for the mail cart to get through the snow. We have riders for local mail, of course, but I don’t think anyone will be able to get a letter to Bessemia for weeks—not until the frost melts.”
stares at the girl for a long moment, feeling her temper flare. “Weeks,” she echoes.
“Unfortunately, yes,” the maid says. “You see, we don’t have much cause to send mail to Bessemia. I fear you’ll be better off waiting to send the letter until you return to Eldevale.”
closes her eyes and grits her teeth. “Fine,” she says on an exhale. “Fine, a bath will do. Thank you.”
The maid scurries out of the room, closing the door behind her, and sinks down onto the bed. Annoyed as she is that she won’t be able to tell her mother she knows exactly where Leopold is, there is a part of her, deep down, that is relieved as well.