TWO
My younger sister storms into the breakfast room, still in her dressing gown, and yanks the velvet drapery open. Morning light spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows across from me, watery and sullen—not unlike Isidore’s current mood.
“They put us in the oldest wing,” she announces, glaring at the opulence around us like she expects the walls to crumble imminently. “A girl from Velesont told me.”
“So?” I shrug.
Last night, my siblings were asleep when I dragged my half-frozen ass in from my Petition.
They were still in bed when I visited a Leontian healer at dawn to mend my wounded hand.
But I knew the peace wouldn’t last. Not when they started smelling coffee and bacon and the dozen other scents currently torturing my stomach.
Isidore spins toward me, hair swirling like ink over her shoulders.
She’s wearing one of the new dresses our brother bought us, but the neckline is a good two inches lower than mine.
“We’re in the worst rooms in the palace, Arden.
It’s an insult.” She aims her glare at me.
It falls on the necklace I’m wearing, and she grimaces.
My sister shakes her head, staring at the shabby locket like it’s worse than the walls. “I can’t believe you put that on.”
Ignoring her, I pile as much as I can onto a gold-rimmed plate, hoping the delicate porcelain doesn’t break from the weight.
There’s enough food to feed half the conscripts in Order Marius.
Then, I pour coffee into an equally delicate teacup that’s decorated with a gold-leaf crown—the constellation of the royal line of Augustus.
Lifting the cup, I inhale the rich aroma, steam tickling my nostrils.
Coffee is the one crop we rarely get to keep back home.
It’s too valuable. Most of our fields need to remain devoted to food, not luxuries, and the last few years, my family’s magic needed to grow the beans has been fickle.
What we manage to harvest is sent here or collected by Order Velesont to sell in shops in Antares’s largest cities—along with nearly everything else we grow.
“The other orders think they’re better than us,” Isidore says, her voice catching.
She’s not going to let it go.
I drop into an upholstered chair at the table. It creaks in protest. Even the furniture is offended by our presence. “Let them.”
I nearly tell her about last night, nearly ask her if these are people we want to impress. Something stops me. Something in her ever-changing hazel eyes. Something hungry—that has nothing to do with the food in front of us.
“It’s … it’s …” Her lower lip trembles.
She doesn’t have to explain. I might ignore the feeling, but it’s still there. The feeling that everyone else is on a pedestal, staring down at us. Sighing, I push my cup toward her. “Try this.”
Isidore is a few years younger than me, so I know she’s never tasted coffee.
That’s how long it’s been since we could justify keeping any.
Her eyes light up as she takes it, but her nose wrinkles with the first sip.
“That’s disgusting.” She shakes her head but takes another drink. “People like this?”
For twenty-two, she’s still such a child.
But at least now she’s a distracted child. I reach for it. “Give it back.”
She rolls her eyes and keeps drinking. “There’s plenty here. Get another cup.”
I admire her determination to take full advantage of the opportunity—even if it means suffering.
“Are you ready for tonight?” She taps the porcelain between sips.
I shrug and cram a bit of a buttery crescent-shaped pastry into my mouth, scattering flakes all over the pristine linen tablecloth.
There’s nothing like this back in Damalis.
Our food is simple but plentiful. Roast meats, fresh vegetables, bread when one of us bothers to make the dough.
Food to survive. This food tastes like sin.
I’m going to need larger clothing when we return home, because I plan to hunt down every pastry in the royal capital before we leave the city. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
That’s a lie. I stared at the ceiling last night, listening to Isidore snore in the bed next to mine while replaying what happened over and over again.
Every noble-born enters an astrolatory for the rite that prepares them to receive their birthright.
Even Broderic did it four years ago, although not in front of a bishop.
No one really talks about their rituals. Now I understand why.
Still, I can’t be the only one who refused the sacrifice.
“I wish it was me,” Isidore says dreamily before frowning at the coffee.
“It’s enough that you’re here, and you got a new dress,” I remind her.
I’d thought the same. That it should be Isidore, the more charming of us, who got the chance to be presented at the royal court, where they would appreciate her beauty.
Long-limbed and slender, rather than compact and curvy like me.
Her hands don’t have calluses from long hours doing the work that magic doesn’t.
She’s exactly what’s expected of a noble-born daughter, devoting her time to volunteering in the village and keeping house.
She would be the better initiate—except she’s never culled a herd or flock.
I bet Broderic would have warned her better, because if she’d been handed that knife …
Then I remember the hunger in her eyes. Do I really know what she’s capable of? I push the thought away and reach for another pastry.
Before she can snap back at me, a blur of elbows and knees vaults into the room and nearly crashes into the table. Andreas, our youngest brother, grins up at me from under his mop of curly brown hair.
“I bet I could climb out that window,” he says, glancing toward its latch with the reckless ambition of a boy who has never been in a room this high from the ground.
I arch an eyebrow. “You’ll break your neck and stain the stone below. And then poor Broderic will have an aneurysm.”
Andreas scowls, as if falling to his death were preferable to another hour of confinement indoors. He’s twelve and has yet to break enough bones to learn this lesson. Not that he hasn’t been trying his hardest.
“Why do we have to be here?” he whines. “Arden could have done the ritual at home.”
“Because the king is bored and enjoys watching the children of dead patrons embarrass themselves.” It slips out before my brain catches up with my mouth.
They both fall silent like they do whenever someone mentions our parents in the past tense. Mom’s been gone longer, but it has only been a year and a half since Dad died, and they still don’t know how to talk about it.
Neither do I, apparently.
The silence hangs for a moment before Isidore mutters, “Why was I worried that Andry would embarrass us when you’re here to do it?”
I consider arguing with her, but she’s not wrong.
But Andry isn’t so easily deterred. “Why can’t we go into the city?”
“Because you will get lost,” someone booms from the door, “and miss all the fun tonight.”
My little brother barrels toward the familiar voice, and Kieren, our personal guard during this trip, catches him.
His broad shoulders strain against the too-small uniform he borrowed from a retired city guard who lives near our estate.
His position has always been honorary. We’ve never needed security in Damalis.
I want to laugh every time I see him with his black hair slicked back and tucked behind his ears, trying to look the part for the sake of our family’s reputation. A year younger than me, he’s far from intimidating.
We released our remaining household staff last year. Arriving without a single attendant would have been noticed, so Kieren stepped up like he always does. All he’s done so far is mediate when we start bickering—and stay by my older brother’s side to boost his status.
“Please,” Andry begs. “I won’t get in trouble.”
“When have I heard that before?” Broderic asks as he enters the room next, giving Andry a stern look.
My brother is a couple of inches taller than Kieren, though not as broad-shouldered and muscular.
He’s dressed for the day in a velvet morning coat cut to his trim figure.
The rich emerald fabric draws attention to the green hues in the hazel eyes we all inherited from our mother.
But he is the only one of us with her copper hair.
This morning, it falls across his forehead in a sweep of soft curls.
I suspect that he’ll catch the attention of plenty of noble-born daughters today.
He gives our little brother a stern look. “Did you go into my room?”
“No!” Andry says a bit too quickly to believe.
Kieren tuts, flipping Andry upside down and shaking him until the gold astrolabe that belonged to our father falls out of his pocket. “There you go.”
Broderic scoops it off the ground and pauses like he might lecture Andry. Instead, he shoves it into his jacket. “Why don’t you go play in the snow?”
Andry is moving the minute Kieren deposits him onto his feet.
“Don’t stray too far from the palace, or a heart collector will get you,” Isidore calls after him.
Andry races out of the room like he’s been given a challenge, and my older brother smiles, but it doesn’t reach his tired eyes.
The exhaustion is nothing new. Not since Dad’s illness took a turn and Broderic became patron overnight, only to discover how much our father’s treatment from Leontia had depleted our accounts.
Deep down, I’d hoped that this trip might give him a chance to rest.
That was before he announced his intention to use the Quincentennial to make connections. Something our family has never been very good at.
So, while I was off making bad impressions at the Royal Astrolatory, he’d been out with Kieren doing just that in a desperate attempt to shore up the estate by any means necessary.
“Did last night go well?” I ask. The circles under his eyes are darker, like he didn’t sleep, either.
“Fine,” he replies in a clipped tone.