Chapter Two
Valeris
Beating my uncle at chess was the most exciting part of my day—which was sad for a prince.
He eyed the tumultuous checkered board, my eyebrow twitching as I watched him play out every scenario in his head. I’d cornered him. Anywhere he moved resulted in my victory.
As always.
“I can feel you gloating,” he grumbled without taking his concentration from the pieces. “Try to not enjoy this so much.”
I smirked. “You’re the one who taught me strategy. Shouldn’t you be the one destroying me?”
His gray eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. “Bah,” he grumbled, moving a bishop in his only possible move.
I quickly swiped it off the board with my queen. “Checkmate.”
The piece clattered to the floor, his chair legs screeching as he rose and stalked to the window. “This is why I don’t play with you anymore. It’s always a slaughter.”
“I like to give you the opportunity to practice and improve. Besides, who else would I spend my days with?”
He turned to me with a scowl. “Then you should find yourself a wife, Valeris, to occupy your time. Women are very demanding of it.”
I showed no visible anger, but my insides roiled with irritation as I leaned down to retrieve the fallen piece. “You should know better. If I marry before the Paravellian Balls, I’ll lose half of our bargaining power.”
He shrugged. “Some people don’t consider marriage to mean you’re off the table.”
My gaze darkened as my fingers clenched around the bishop, nearly snapping it. “Some, including me, Uncle Wylan, do.”
I ignored his sigh. He’d been embedded in the corruptions of court for too long to hold any kind of morals, but my morals were the only thing that kept me from barreling off the edge.
That kept me from losing both myself and my sanity in this house of madness.
The only things in my life I could control.
Marriage would never be anything more than a political alliance. I would chain myself to a stranger I most likely wouldn’t tolerate or even like so we could smile for the crowds while enduring the rest of our miserable lives in an unhappy arrangement—just like my parents.
My uncle lifted his chin and clasped his hands behind his back. The man had been more of a parent to me than the two of mine combined, and I knew he was preparing to dispel some thought or insight to me. I could feel it in the room like a cold draft.
“You’re twenty, Valeris. At the last Paravellian Balls you were too young to wed. Right now you’re in your prime. If you wait for the next seven balls, you’ll be considered too old to be of any use as a bargaining chip.”
I held in my eye roll. I would only be twenty-five at the next Paravellian Balls and he made it sound like I would be at my death bed.
“As long as I maintain my usefulness as a bargainer, my father feels no pressure to choose a bride for me. When I find someone I like, with bargaining power and whom I choose, I will wed. But until then, I intend to play my power games.” I stood from the table and joined him by the window. “And continue beating you at chess.”
I knew I would have no decision in whomever my father decided to marry me off to, but I spoke the words with confidence, as if believing them would bring that reality into existence.
My uncle stared beyond me into some unknown vision. “Don’t you ever want more, Valeris?”
I looked out the large bay windows to the city below and the snow-capped mountains rising in the distance behind it.
At a kingdom that would never be mine. Being a prince meant little when you were seventh in line for the throne.
“All I have is strategy. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I will never hold claim to more than that.”
A frantic knock sounded at the door.
“Yes?” I called.
A page entered.
“Prince Valeris,” he said. “The king wishes to speak with you.”
––––––––
I SAUNTERED INTO MY father’s study, suspicion creeping up my spine like a scorpion.
The familiar smell of raw leather, dust, and paper permeated my senses, drudging up memories I would rather forget.
Nothing good had ever or would ever come from taking a seat in this room.
The four walls produced nothing but endless shame and disappointment. My childhood knew it well.
My father didn’t glance up at my entrance, a greeting I was used to.
He hovered over the documents on his desk, the chancellor standing close behind and whispering in his ear.
I shifted on my feet. Being in the presence of my father rattled my bones with unease no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.
My body sensed the danger even if my mind did not.
He was my father by name and blood only. No attachment wound deeper than that.
The doors swung open again behind me, letting in a rush of air.
My brother Zandyr and sister Ezrielle ignored me as they strode in, heads held high, clothes immaculate.
I stiffened as they stopped to my left, my discomfort doubling.
I couldn’t recall the last time we’d occupied a room together that wasn’t a banquet hall.
Our father did not summon us to his office. Ever.
My gaze darted around the room, searching for a trap, every possible outcome of this meeting coursing through my brain. Ezrielle and Zandyr eyed our father coolly, but their rigid stances told me they too suspected something amiss.
“Sit down.” My father’s impassive voice grated like stone against stone.
He didn’t even bother to look at us.
I moved forward with caution before easing down into the center chair before his desk, my siblings on either side.
The chancellor frowned at our intrusion before backing away a few steps.
I held in a scoff. As if that provided any privacy for the conversation about to take place.
Ezrielle crossed her legs. Zandyr stifled a cough with his hand.
I tapped my toe inside my shoe. Tension stretched between us like a cord about to snap.
My father finally looked up, inspecting each of us in turn as if we were spindly cadets applying for the military academy. “I received word your buffoon of a brother, Rivero, was assassinated yesterday in broad daylight.”
His words died in the air, and the room reverberated with silence.
No one said anything. Or moved.
Not even a finger twitched.
One might expect tears to fall, but all our eyes remained dry as the Hadrian desert. Of the five present, I showed the most emotion—but I was also the only one capable of emotion. The only one who didn’t house a heart of solid stone.
I lowered my gaze. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for my brother.
Looking beyond his foolish mistakes I had heard about from when he was younger, I knew he was a good man, but he was twice my age.
Over ten years had passed since I’d last seen or spoken with him.
He had married before I was born and was tasked with overseeing the northern territory of Paravellia.
He’d been expected to return before the next Paravellian Balls to train underneath my father in preparation for ruling the kingdom one day.
“By who?” I asked.
My father steepled his fingers. “We don’t know.
It’s under investigation, but what I have shared does not leave this room.
A scandal like this getting out before the beginning of the balls would destroy any hope of our alliances.
It would be disastrous. If any news of his death reaches the public, we’ll spread rumors he died in the night from a heart condition. ”
I hated to admit he was right. If the other kingdoms attending the Paravellian Balls found out Rivero had been assassinated, they would back out of all alliances with us—old or new.
His murder put a target on our back; to make a deal with us would be to risk a target on their back as well.
Warring kingdoms rarely managed to make good alliances at the Paravellian Balls—if they managed any alliances at all.
“But in light of recent events,” my father continued, “and considering how ill of a choice your brother was for crown prince in the first place, I have spoken with the chancellor, and we have decided to change the line of succession.”
I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure any of us in the room even breathed.
If not for the serious expression hardening my father’s face, I might have laughed.
No one had ever broken the line of succession before.
When a king died, his eldest child took the throne.
If the eldest child passed before his father, the next eldest child took the crown, and so on.
No one was skipped unless that child was already married to the heir of another kingdom.
As seventh in line for the throne, I’d never imagined the possibility. Never dared to consider it.
“Your siblings Javamir, Dianzella, and Evonnora are all married. Evonnora is the only one wed to a crown prince, but Javamir and Dianzella have already fulfilled their usefulness. They possess no strategic advantage for Paravellia nor do they live here. That leaves the three of you, Ezrielle, Zandyr, and Valeris, to choose from.”
Choose from?
I held in my scoff. Ezrielle was the eldest of the three of us in the room, and I was convinced the only reason she hadn’t yet married was because no man she had met could stand her.
The only thing occupying her heart was manipulation and deception.
Zandyr cared about nothing but his connections and only helped those who could offer him something in return.
He would cater to the nobles, not the people.
To even think of putting Zandyr or Ezrielle on the throne was preposterous.
Political suicide. Zandyr failed to manage the city ordinances without resorting to scandal and bribery, and Ezrielle would drive this country straight into the ground through her selfish greed.
Her priorities in life lay solely with herself and her advancements.
“How will it be decided?” Ezrielle asked.
My father’s eyes narrowed. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
“There are certain alliances I want formed during the seven balls,” he said.
“Trades within our kingdom I want accomplished—rumors of war on the continent could complicate our deals this year, but above all else, I want to know who is behind your brother’s murder, who is plotting against our kingdom.
Whichever one of you accomplishes these tasks first and to the best of my liking will be presented as the new Paravellian crown heir at the finale. ”
He couldn’t be serious.
“And if we fail?” Zandyr asked.
My father shrugged. “Maybe I’ll lock you up. I haven’t decided.”
I cocked my head. “What specific alliances are you wanting?”
“The chancellor will have the full list for you two days prior to the opening ball. You are dismissed.”
I snorted. That was my father. Drop two bombshells on us then kick us out. No discussion. No sympathy. Nothing.
Zandyr stood abruptly, the book he’d been reading tucked securely under his arm. Ezrielle gave me a sweet smile as she rose from her seat, but I detected the deadly poison within the curve of her lips. I threw her a sly smile of my own as I left the room.
My father wasn’t thinking logically. Even if most of them were more connected to their spouses’ kingdoms, my married siblings would be a far better gamble for the throne than Zandyr or Ezrielle.
Neither one of them could be allowed to reign.
Not if Paravellia wanted to prosper long enough to see the next descendant crowned.
Which means you would have to reign instead.
My steps slowed, the idea infiltrating my mind.
Me.
King Valeris of Paravellia.
Seventh in line for the throne had left me powerless, but if I became king, maybe I would have more control over my own future.
Do what I wanted—not what was expected of me as my father’s pawn.
Maybe this was an opportunity for me to make my own destiny.
To do something good for the kingdom of Paravellia.
I grinned.
Winning would be beyond easy. It wouldn’t be difficult to outmaneuver my two siblings.
I returned to my uncle’s study, joining him by the window.
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “What was that about?”
My smile grew wider. Maybe my father had planned it this way because he knew I would win.
If he’d simply handed the throne directly to me, Zandyr and Ezrielle would have called for retribution, possibly even considered assassination out of spite.
Especially Ezrielle. But by making it a level playing field with a competition ...
they couldn’t argue with that. Two months ago I had prevented a war with Andovar over a trade tax, and last year I had eased border tensions with Dervonne by paying them a visit and using only flattery as a weapon.
No one was as calculating as I, and my siblings all knew it.
They knew they couldn’t beat me. Zandyr couldn’t make a proper argument to save his life; he always let his temper get the best of him.
And while Ezrielle was conniving, her precarious method of making alliances was to simply sleep her way through the court.
I laughed and looked up at my uncle. “Haven’t you heard the news? I’m going to be the next king of Paravellia.”