Violie
is still feeling the aftereffects of the poison by the time the guards come to escort her to the trial that evening, so much so that they have to support her as she walks down the hall on shaky legs, hands bound behind her back with iron manacles. She is improving, though, which is a relief. A few more minutes breathing in the poison powder surely would have killed her. Of course, it would be much more of a relief if the hangman’s noose weren’t dangling before her—metaphorically, at least. She still has to go through a trial first.
As she slowly makes her way to the great hall where her trial will take place, she thanks the stars that there will be a trial at all. It occurs to her that if anyone even suspected she tried to kill royalty in Bessemia or Temarin—or even a lady, as Eugenia was pretending to be in Friv—she wouldn’t have been afforded the same opportunity. But she is guilty, and she has no expectation of a different outcome.
When they reach the great hall, more guards are there to open the doors and steps inside, the weight of hundreds of eyes on her. Glancing around the room, she feels her stomach drop—everyone in the castle must be here, gathered around a single chair set at the center of the room, servants and nobles alike, to see the girl who tried to assassinate a queen. And no matter what name she had given, most people seem to have known that’s exactly what Eugenia is.
’s eyes scan the crowd, finding Leopold first, with a group of other servants watching from raised platforms along the room’s back wall. He looks like he didn’t sleep last night. She wishes she could tell him that it’s all right, that as much as she does trust him, the mess she’s created for herself is too much for him to ever clean up. She doesn’t hold that against him.
Daphne and Bairre are standing behind King Bartholomew near the center of the room, just in front of the empty chair, but Daphne seems to be studiously avoiding looking at her. Instead, she is talking to Bairre, face turned away from as the guards guide her to the chair.
At least helped accomplish one thing in Friv, she thinks, her eyes lingering on Daphne. At least she was able to make Daphne see reason. At least the princess and Leopold will have each other for support now—they won’t need her at all.
It’s enough, she tells herself. Sophronia would be happy that she’d managed to accomplish that. And even with her execution on the horizon, can’t bring herself to regret anything that’s led her here. Well, perhaps one thing—she wishes she’d succeeded in killing Eugenia.
Suddenly, Daphne turns toward her, eyes widening and mouth gaping open. She stares at for a long moment as is shoved toward the chair at the center of the room.
“Sophie!” Daphne cries out, and in an instant she is pushing away from Bairre, past the king, and, ignoring the guards, she throws her arms around ’s neck, holding her tight. “Oh, Sophie, you’re alive!”
freezes for just a moment, her mind struggling to catch up, but it’s enough time for Daphne to whisper in her ear.
“Go along with it, it’s the only way.”
’s body moves before her mind can process, leaning into Daphne’s embrace.
“Princess Daphne,” King Bartholomew cuts in, as the guards pull none too gently out of Daphne’s resisting arms. “What is the meaning of this?”
looks at Daphne, as eager for an explanation as anyone else present, though already she’s beginning to understand Daphne’s plan— looks like Sophronia, a similarity thought was the reason the empress chose her in the first place, a similarity that made Beatriz herself mistake for her sister. And no one in Friv has ever seen Sophronia, no one except…’s eyes find Leopold’s and he gives her a brief nod. He’s in on this too, she realizes.
“I…I can’t explain,” Daphne says, shaking her head and clutching ’s arm tightly. Tears are leaking down her cheeks now—a nice touch, admits. She herself has always had trouble crying on cue, but Daphne is excellent at it. If didn’t know better, she’d swear the tears were genuine. “But it’s my sister, it’s Sophie—Queen Sophronia of Temarin. Everyone said she was dead, but she’s here.”
“That’s impossible,” King Bartholomew says, though his voice has softened. “Every report we heard—”
“I don’t care about reports!” Daphne exclaims. “Do you think I don’t know my own sister when she is right before my eyes? I’m telling you, this is Sophronia Fredericka Soluné, Princess of Bessemia and Queen of Temarin.”
“It’s true,” hears herself say. She’s always been good at lying on her feet, and she allows that instinct to take over, crafting a story that fits in with the lie. “We arrived at the castle so I could seek my sister’s aid, but before I could reach her, she was gone and I didn’t know who else I could trust and…” She trails off, her eyes going back to Leopold as he pushes his way through the crowd. If she’s meant to be Sophronia, that means Leopold can only be himself. “Leo!” she cries out.
“It is true,” Leopold says, his own voice shaking as he comes to stand on ’s other side.
“And who are you?” King Bartholomew demands.
Leopold holds his head high. “I’m Leopold Alexandre Bayard, King of Temarin,” he says. “And this is my wife.”
—
Chaos erupts in the great hall after ’s and Leopold’s proclamations, and King Bartholomew immediately orders the room cleared of everyone else apart from , Bairre, Daphne, and one of his advisors. From her time working in the castle, knows his name is Lord Panlington. feels like everyone in the room is staring at her, staring at the woman they believe is Sophronia.
There is no going back from this, she realizes with a sinking stomach. From this moment forward, will always be Sophronia. Reclaiming her true identity won’t just mean losing her own life, but Daphne and Leopold have vouched for her identity. She can’t reveal herself as a fraud without making frauds of them, too.
For the rest of her life, she will be Sophronia; will be good as dead.
She wonders if that will ever not be strange to her: responding to Sophronia’s name, stealing her sister, her husband, her very life—to say nothing of the fact that she is now pretending to be a queen of one country and a princess of another.
“You’d best start at the beginning,” Bartholomew says now, looking between and Leopold.
knows she is a much better liar than Leopold, so she takes the reins. She clears her throat and lets her natural Bessemian accent come forth, with some minor adjustments to make her sound more like a princess than the daughter of a courtesan.
“When the Kavelle palace was attacked, Leopold and I found ourselves trapped and helpless. If not for the help of my maid, we would have been killed—as it was, she helped us escape and was killed in my place. We looked similar, you see: the same hair color, the same eyes, the same figure. Those who gathered to see the execution only ever saw me at a distance, it isn’t surprising they believed she was me,” says. “Leopold and I, meanwhile, made our escape. We tried to go to Cellaria at first, since we both have family ties there, but we received word there had been a coup and his cousin and my sister had been exiled. It was unlikely we would have been welcome there, so we came here instead, on a boat. We arrived at the palace the night before Daphne and Prince Bairre left on Prince Cillian’s starjourn.”
Lord Panlington leans forward, but his eyes don’t stay on her. Instead, they dart to Daphne and back several times— perhaps searching for a resemblance—before settling back on .
“Then why not reveal yourself then?” he asks. “You would have been reunited with your sister, and King Leopold’s mother was here as well.” When Bartholomew looks at him with a furrowed brow, Lord Panlington shakes his head. “Please, Bartholomew, it was the worst-kept secret in the castle.”
“It was because of my mother that we kept ourselves hidden,” Leopold says, jumping in with the part of the story imagines he and Daphne worked out without her. “Much as it pains me to admit, she was involved with the riot in Temarin—she’d fueled it and financed it and arranged for the siege of the palace. She’d tried to kill Sophronia and me, and we were wary of making ourselves known to her. We were trying to figure out how to find Princess Daphne alone so Sophronia could speak with her privately, but then I heard about my brothers and I knew my mother was responsible for that as well.”
King Bartholomew leans forward in his chair. “You believe your mother kidnapped your brothers.”
fights the urge to frown at him—Eugenia had nothing to do with kidnapping the princes. That was the rebels. But when she glances at Daphne, she catches something passing between Daphne and Lord Panlington. Lord Panlington leans back in his seat, mouth pursed.
“I know it,” Leopold says, drawing ’s attention back to him. “Gideon and Reid confessed it to me themselves, when we found them at Lake Olveen.”
“They did,” Bairre adds. “That was the true reason we thought it best to send them elsewhere instead of bringing them here. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, Father, but it seemed wise to keep that quiet.”
“They’ve been sent away from Vesteria, to stay with an ally of my family’s,” Leopold adds.
When his father turns to look at him, Bairre shrugs.“Leopold confessed his identity to us when we found the boys,” he says, “and they recognized him at once. But we made the decision to withhold the information until we returned, to avoid rumors spreading faster than you could control them.”
“You didn’t tell me?” Daphne exclaims, managing to look truly surprised and hurt. “She’s my sister and you knew she was alive?”
Bairre gives her a guilty look. “I thought it would be kinder to let you see her with your own eyes, instead of having to wait the whole journey back to know if it was the truth or not,” he says, and has to admit, it’s a decent lie—not logical, admittedly, but the emotional motive is believable.
“I don’t know if I would have believed you anyway,” Daphne admits, squeezing ’s arm tighter in her grip.
“And you?” Bartholomew asks, eyes returning to . “Queen you may be, but you still stand accused of attempted murder.”
“I didn’t do it,” says. She feels Daphne’s eyes on her, wary, and can’t blame her for her worry. But luckily, can spin a story just as well as she can. “I did sneak into Eugenia’s room, yes, but I only wished to speak with her. To understand why she’d tried to have Leo and me killed. What kind of mother could try to kill her own child?” She shakes her head. “I suppose I did want to scare her, that much is true, but I didn’t try to kill her. That was Genevieve.”
“Her maid?” Bartholomew asks, frowning.
nods. “She was there when I snuck into the room, holding a strange container near Eugenia’s face. When I entered, she startled and came toward me and we struggled, waking Eugenia up, but then Genevieve dropped the container and there was powder everywhere. I suspected it must be poisonous and tried to cover my mouth but…well, that’s the last thing I remember.”
“But why would her maid try to kill her?” Bartholomew asks.
shrugs. “I expect the only person who can answer that question is Genevieve, and it’s my understanding she didn’t survive.”
Bartholomew mulls this over for a long moment before shaking his head. “There will be no keeping your identities quiet now,” he says finally. “The whole country will know before the end of the week, I’d wager. And they’ll be none too happy that Friv is hosting a foreign king.”
Lord Panlington makes a sound in the back of his throat and King Bartholomew turns to him.
“You disagree?” he asks.
“At least partly,” Lord Panlington says, his eyes lingering on Daphne a moment longer before he turns fully to King Bartholomew. “The country will be upset if they believe they should be. This image of Friv as an independent country, one that needs no one and helps no one—it isn’t sustainable. Even now, it’s an illusion. We trade with the rest of the continent easily enough, don’t we?”
glances sideways at Daphne to see a small smile on her lips. Those are her words, she realizes.
“Perhaps,” Lord Panlington continues, “it is time to show Friv just how strong we can be if we support and are supported by our allies.”
“I agree with Lord Panlington,” Bairre says.
“As do I,” Daphne says before muttering “obviously.”
King Bartholomew considers this for a long moment. “Very well,” he says. “I’m not about to send you back to a country that tried to take your heads,” he adds to and Leopold. “But we will have to approach this carefully.”
“If I may, Your Majesty,” Daphne says, stepping forward. “I believe the best way to approach this is with the truth—it is a remarkable story, isn’t it? Full of romance and adventure and hidden royalty—it almost sounds like a children’s bedtime story. It will be difficult for anyone not to support them—support us, ” she adds, looking at again with such tenderness that has to remind herself it isn’t real. “Long-lost sisters, reunited.”
“Well put, Princess,” Lord Panlington says. “In fact, Bartholomew, I think you should capitalize on this, and the…fervor currently surrounding Princess Daphne. It won’t do to be overshadowed by another royal love story under your own roof—Prince Bairre and Princess Daphne have waited so long already. Why not marry them as soon as possible?”
Beside , Daphne goes suddenly still. Bairre, too, looks confused, though he tries to hide it. This, it seems, was not part of her plan.
“An excellent idea,” Bartholomew says. “It is long overdue, and if we arrange a quick wedding, there is less chance for the rebels to interfere again. You’ll marry tonight, at midnight, when the stars are at their brightest.”