Chapter 16 Thessia
Thessia
The queen of Mythria did not know hangovers could last this long.
Is this how Beatrice quested? Thessia wondered, marveling at the possibility. When her friends had set off to rescue Hugh in Vermillion Vale, was this how the former Lady de Noughton’s head had pounded, how her stomach had lurched? Impossible.
Fucking heroic.
Thessia had even requested that the royal kitchen prepare Clare’s famous—“Famous,” Grandhart had insisted, repeating the recipe
so often Thessia could remember it readily—Hangover Corn-Toast. However, either the Vestriyan kitchens did not prepare them
correctly or Clare had oversold his invention, for Thessia remained miserable despite the plateful she’d consumed.
By the morning of the Realm Chalice, she was just beginning to feel like a person again, instead of like a bilious sledgeling
on the floor of her bathing chamber.
If she was honest with herself, heavy drinking had not entirely been to blame for her inability to roust herself from the—wonderfully
cool, comforting—marble floor yesterday. Mortification had kept her plenty self-confined.
She’d kissed her husband. Passionately, without restraint! The man who’d made no illusions or misrepresentations concerning the entirely formal pretenses of their relationship! She’d kissed him like they were shadow play characters, he her long-lost love and she the wildhearted ingenue!
Had it been the best kiss of her life? Obviously. Not that she’d much to compare the kiss to, but kisses could not possibly
get much better. If they could, nothing in the realm would ever get done.
Which only made this worse.
Thessia forced the memory from her painfully pounding head. She’d been avoiding Hugh ever since. The hangover was her convenient
excuse. When Hugh’s carriage returned them to the palace, Thessia realized in full what she’d done, and fled his company using
faked illness . . . which wound up being very not-faked illness.
Hugh, for his part, had intuited her discomfort—emotional, digestive, both. Either out of gentlemanliness or horror at her
impropriety, he’d found other lodging. Thessia was left entirely on her own, without company other than the enterprising palace
chefs and the toilet in her bathing chamber.
The Realm Chalice, however, demanded Hugh and she reunite.
Hungover was not, put generously, the ideal conditions for one to experience the horseball Realm Chalice. Each year, the match united fans
from every city, every realm, every class as they filled landmark stadiums with cheering, food, drink, carousing, and general
merriment. The event was utterly enormous.
Vestriya’s capital stadium, the queen could concede, surpassed most and rivaled Mythria’s grandest sporting halls. The marble
coliseum rose sky-high out of the western commercial district’s stone streets. Crowds dressed in team jerseys streamed in
from every direction, and the scents of liquor and fried goods pervaded the sun-seared day.
Protected by royal escort, Thessia had processed through the stadium to the Notable Persons box. Of course, celebrities from
each realm spectated the epic match, congregating in the field-side gilded compartment with cushioned leather seating and
endless mead on tap.
Thessia sat next to Hugh, each of them forcing smiles for the players to whom they were introduced.
It was . . . tense. When Thessia bumped Hugh’s arm accidentally while reaching for the spice-salted potatoes, Hugh practically
leapt from his seat. When they were requested to pose for a conjuration with Zevan Wintersmith and his husband, Nevo Yrillis,
players on opposing squads today, Hugh was suddenly uniquely ungainly. He placed his hand much too high on Thessia’s back—nearly
on the queen’s shoulders!—like he feared touching her waist or lower.
Thessia was certain the conjuration would capture her pained smile. Wonderful.
It was ironic. They’d pretended this whole time to be besotted husband and wife, but now, after actually kissing for the first time, they suddenly did not seem married at all. How grand.
Zevan and Nevo were ushered forward to conjurations with Ezio in the front row. The Vestriyan crown prince looked impressively
regal, his white-gold hair impossibly straight, his generous smile illuminating every conjuration. There were rumors he’d
used royal funds to pay for all the city orphanage’s children to watch the Realm Chalice from their own box.
Honestly, could he offer lessons in effortless royalty? Thessia would count herself interested.
Instead, Thessia found herself effortful, when she was finally without publicity obligations to distract her from Hugh’s presence.
She could bear it no longer. If Beatrice could confront hungover questing, Thessia could confront the uncomfortable matter
of her own husband. She turned to him and opened her mouth—
Not knowing what to say, she promptly closed it. The silence—oh, the silence—was horrible. Hugh winced. Composing his expression
with evident force, he faced her in turn, but seemed to know no more than she how to commence this conversation.
“Nine horses with nine riders take the field! Where courage and good sportsmanship shall not yield.”
The voice that ended their stalemate was neither Hugh’s nor Thessia’s. Ario leaned down, close to them, sharing his horseball
poem with evident pride.
Here as the elusive and dangerous spymaster, he was dressed once more entirely in shades of black. His snail, Benjamin, was
nowhere to be found.
Hugh grasped the interruption with relief. “Bravo!” he replied overenthusiastically to their interloper.
Ario straightened in delight. “You think so? Ezio told me I was to get all my rhymes out before the guests arrive, but maybe
this one—”
“Ario, you promised. No rhyming relapsing,” Ezio cautioned, pausing on his way to the front of the box. “I fear sinister evil
today. You need to focus your energies on spycraft.”
Pouting, Ario withdrew to his seat. “I wish Benjamin were here. He would like it.”
“I’m sorry,” Hugh murmured to her when Ario had receded.
Relief coursed through Thessia. Finally, they were talking about it. Her gratitude for Hugh’s plainspoken courage was immense.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I never should have . . . I was very drunk. Let’s just—forget it.”
Hugh cleared his throat.
“I meant about Ario,” he explained. “I could have endangered his reputation.”
Embarrassment hit the queen hot and mercilessly. She felt her cheeks flame. Could she leap onto one of the horseball horses
and ride right out of the stadium? Could she consult River on how to disappear from public life entirely?
“Thessia,” Hugh said.
She determinedly faced the field. Perhaps if she pretended with queenly conviction that the conversation was concluded—
“Thess,” he insisted.
Now Thessia could not fight the memories of him calling her “Thess” in his carriage. She wished she had head magic of memory
erasure. Her own, specifically.
“No, really. It’s—” she managed.
Hugh interrupted her. “I wasn’t using my magic on you in the carriage. I want you to know that. I would never—do that. It
wouldn’t be right.”
“Oh,” Thessia said, quietly crushed. Deep down, this was the only possibility she’d held on to. The only opalicyte lining
on the dark clouds of her mortifying memories. That perhaps he’d wanted her, even a little, enough to want to conjure melodic,
magical desire in her. “Of course you weren’t. Why would you want me to do what I did?” she continued.
She immediately wished she hadn’t spoken out loud. When Hugh’s eyes found hers in puzzlement, Thessia knew she’d earned what
she wanted least—the prolongment of this discussion.
“That’s what you think?” Hugh inquired. “Thessia, I—I mean, anyone would want—anyone would be lucky—”
He was fumbling his words. Uncomfortable, like her. Oh, where were Ario’s horrible rhymes when you needed them? Thessia sought
to put Hugh out of his misery.
“Yes, because I’m the queen,” she said, looking away. “But they don’t really feel those things for me. It was the same with Galwell, wasn’t it? He couldn’t break his promise to me, and neither can you.”
Hugh grasped her hand fiercely. The urgency of the movement was enough to pull her eyes back to him.
“You must not think that,” he demanded, his tone half desire, half determination.
“What we did the other night was a mistake, but it was one I wanted. One I . . . enjoyed. Too much. My regret has nothing to do with you, and is only because I know I cannot give my heart to another,” he explained.
“I have always made it a rule not to act on physical desires when I know I cannot give more of myself. Last night, I succumbed. Because you were . . . irresistible. But I should have been better,” he concluded. “Nobler.”
His voice was rough and low. Yet for Thessia, his words sounded like music—lovelier than the sweetest melody, for one word
resonated in her heart. Irresistible.
She dared hold his gaze. In his eyes she found—hope.
Irresistible. No one had ever thought of her that way.
She was opening her mouth, starting to formulate how she would venture to inquire more, when they were interrupted. Mona entered
their Notable Persons compartment with Galwell. She was here to help protect him, like Hugh, until Galwell was in River’s
care. He would be safe from assassins.
Whether he was safe from Mona was another matter, Thessia realized.
The crime princess was dressed in lush purple, her dress shimmering in the sun. She looked over the emerald horseball field,
the clamoring spectators, the preening players and celebrities with enviable control. Like everyone, everywhere, was one grand
mark for her endless cunning.
Following her, Galwell tried chivalrously to help her to her seat. Mona ignored him, cheerfully seating her herself right
next to Ario.
Galwell frowned.
Odd, Thessia noted to herself. “Prince Ario, yes? Mona Grandhart,” she introduced herself, voice like silk. “I’ve long been a
fan of yours.”