CHAPTER ONE #2
It’s tempting, but I straighten my spine and fix my expression. “Mathson, Yelina.” I try for a polite smile. “I didn’t realize we were expecting you. Luc isn’t here.”
“We know. We’re here for you,” says Mathson.
Few things scare me. My father and stepmother wanting a private word makes fear cling to the back of my throat like a dry biscuit soaked in honey. I try to swallow it—it sticks the whole way down. “Oh?”
“The time is coming for you to prove I wasn’t wrong to open my home to you, Remira.”
It’s an impressive rewrite of history. After I lost my mother, Mathson didn’t let me come live with him out of the goodness of his heart. At ten years old, I arrived on his doorstep alone and starving, with no home or mother to return to. I begged him to take me in—after all, he was my father.
“You’re either useful to me, or you’re nothing,” he’d said, before slamming the door in my face.
So, I made myself useful. Stole a secret of an Honorate for Mathson to use as blackmail. I proved my worth, and he let me stay. I’ve been proving it ever since.
My thumb traces the golden tattoo on my inner wrist. “If this is about tomorrow’s vote—”
“Of course it’s about the vote.” Yelina cuts me off with a stern glare. “I expect my son to be the longest-reigning Praeceptor in history.”
“He will be.”
“For your sake, I hope so.” There’s a dark gleam in her eyes. She’s a petite force of a woman. Shorter than me by a head, and skinny, yet still terrifying. “The decurio are always looking for new soldiers. I’m sure they’d be interested to learn you’ve kept your gifts hidden all these years.”
My breath mists from the freezing air, and my fingertips lose sensation from her chilling threat.
The decurio, the Republic of Virdei’s military force, entirely comprises those of us with magic.
All magic users are required to report themselves.
Failure to comply can result in anything from imprisonment to forced service.
Some dream of joining the decurio. I know better. Opheran soldiers are expendable. It’s no secret we receive the least training and most dangerous assignments compared to those born in Virdei.
My mother knew a man who turned himself over to the decurio. They trained him for a week and sent him off to die just two days later. There was no announcement or service following his death. The only person who mourned him was my mother.
My tattoo marks me as Opheran. It doesn’t matter that I’m the Praeceptor’s sister—an assignment in the decurio would be my death sentence.
“The order will pass,” I say. “I guarantee it.”
There’s a rattle from inside as Luc enters his study. Mathson and Yelina linger just long enough to give me one last withering scowl, before stalking inside to greet him.
I take a moment. Breathe deeply, steep myself in the freezing air, allow it to cool my temper and settle my dread, before following them inside.
“Lucien.” All the animosity of our exchange is melted away as Yelina stretches up on tiptoe to embrace her son. “We came by to extend a personal invitation to you and Remira for dinner the day after tomorrow. To celebrate your victory.”
Luc chuckles. “The order hasn’t passed, Mom.”
“Yet.” Yelina backs away from Luc and slings a casual arm over my shoulder. Still smiling, she gives a squeeze. Not hard enough to bruise, but enough to remind me that she could. “You’ll remember what we discussed, won’t you, Remira?”
The feeling of her hand on me makes my body itchy and tight, as if I no longer fit in my skin. I want to wriggle out of it, burn it off—anything to get her to stop touching me.
I force a smile. “Couldn’t forget if I tried.”
I don’t breathe until she and Mathson say their goodbyes and finally leave.
Luc settles into the seat behind his desk, looking at me expectantly. “I assume you have notes?”
I always do. I write his speeches, arrange his haircuts, and spend all my time coaching him for this position I stole for him. “You went soft toward the end.” I slide into my role as though tugging on an oversized sweater. “Your tone was too kind, and you used her first name.”
Luc groans. “It slipped out. I felt bad for her. What was I supposed to do? Be rude?”
“We’ve talked about this.” I keep my voice even. “When you interrogate someone, you’re not Luc, you’re—”
“I know, I know. I’m Praeceptor Lucien Kyler. But that isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes,” I say flatly. “Be rude.”
“It’s not easy for me, the way it is for you.” He runs a hand tiredly down his face. “She was so young. She reminded me of Aja.”
My chest burns, not from magic. Ajalique Selane. My mother.
Like Pelene, Aja was a liar. She lied constantly, but rarely alone. There were dozens of men swooping in and out of our lives and her bed, spewing lies of their own: that they loved her, that they wanted to build a better life for her—with her.
I saw through them like glass. Aja scarfed them down like warm bread.
Maybe I should be grateful for the lies. After all, they’d fueled my magic, and magic was the only thing keeping us warm in Ophera. Growing up, I’d stare at the icy peaks, begging the stars for that life, in one of the hulking houses built into the mountain.
I guess the stars were listening. And I guess the stars are assholes, because they shoved me into the mountainside Republic of Virdei, right into the arms of that new life my mother was always promising.
All it cost me was her.
At the sound of her name, faded memories flicker to life in my mind’s eye: Aja holding my hand and squeezing tight as my tattoo was inked into my skin; me, curled into her side, stumbling over words as she taught me to read.
Seven years later, and I still miss her every day.
“Aja is dead.” I say it harshly, but I feel myself softening.
“I know,” Luc says gently. “I’m sorry. But don’t you wish someone had been kind to her?”
More memories whirl like snowflakes in a blizzard.
Aja smiling at some wide-mouthed man who talked too fast and made too many promises he never intended to keep, Aja sobbing her broken heart out in front of our empty fireplace, Aja promising me she wasn’t shattered when they left. And they always left.
She was the only person who loved me with no agenda, and my clearest memories of her are of a heartbroken liar.
“I don’t wish more people were kind to her.” I fold my arms and jut out my chin. “I wish someone were honest.”
Luc flinches. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used Ms. Harcot’s first name. Next time, I’ll do better.” He risks a peek at my face. “Are you mad?”
Yes. I force the tension from my body. “No.”
He accepts this lie with no resistance. “I’m nervous about tomorrow.”
“Don’t be. Everything is under control,” I say. “Tonight, Nox will receive a letter from the Shadow Queen. If he doesn’t want his private affair made public, he’ll vote the way we tell him, and we’ll have the majority.”
“What if he refuses?”
“He won’t. Luc, look at me.” I wait until his worried eyes meet mine. “Relax. After tomorrow, it’s over. Only Honorate and their sons can try for the throne. We have secrets on all of them. When you announce you intend to rule again, you’ll run unopposed.”
Luc still looks anxious.
I hold in a sigh. Time for my secret weapon. “Do you trust me?”
“With every lie I’ll ever tell.”
I take all my fears and doubts and tuck them away behind a wide smile. “Then we’re golden.”
It’s our code and, as always, it works. His tension eases, and he wraps me in a warm hug. “Thanks, Mira. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
With my face safely hidden in his shoulder, my fake smile is free of its audience, free to fade away. I’ve salved his worry and quieted his fears, but I still carry mine.
By all counts, I’ve made it. I live in Widow’s Hall; I have a breathtaking view of the entire mountain and the affection of the most powerful man in the Republic.
From below, this life was all I wanted. Now that I’m here, I wish someone had told me that the shadows of Widow’s Hall are just as cold as our empty fireplace in Ophera.
If I’m being honest, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss shivering and starving at the base of the mountain with my mother who was incapable of telling the truth. Except when she, without asking for anything in return, told me she loved me.
Turns out, the breathtaking view from the top isn’t a reminder of how far I’ve come—it’s a constant threat of how far I’ll fall if I ever make a mistake.