With her back to the wall, she slid to the ground. Her belly hurt almost as much as her hip, from terrible emptiness, but there was nothing she could do about that. Not until the monster’s men were long gone.
She huddled against the cave wall, tired beyond all understanding, but she wasn’t sleepy. So she didn’t understand why her vision was going black, why the world was disappearing. The girl fought to stay conscious. Something important troubled her thoughts as she pulled the cloak from the basket. There was something Mamá would have wanted her to do before she slept. She would remember it any moment, if she could just keep herself from falling. . . .
4
Now
THE Quorum of Five council chamber lies in the very center of the palace, in a sacred space centuries old. It’s low ceilinged and windowless, with walls made of bulging river rock and thick mortar, draped on all sides by tapestries displaying the sigils of the major countships. Flames flicker from sconces set into the mortar between tapestries. On the floor is a low table, made of a single oaken slab with remnants of bark still clinging to the edges. It’s surrounded by red velvet sitting cushions.
The meeting room is hot, airless, and utterly quiet. Elisa is speaking to Hector as we enter. “Did you see Ariña? Standing beside Lady Malka. Looking smug.”
“Why did we give her a pardon?” Hector says, his voice so taut with quiet fury it scares me.
“We didn’t. The chamber of condes did. It’s been the better part of a decade. Her friends assured us that she regrets opposing me, that she suffered enough in exile. If she weren’t Queen Cosmé’s sister, I’d—”
The double doors thunk shut, and the bolt slides home. I feel safer than I have in weeks.
It’s like being in a cave.
Elisa plops onto one of the cushions. Little Mena crawls into her lap, and the empress absently strokes her daughter’s hair. “So,” Elisa begins. “What went wrong?”
Hector’s fist crashes to the table, which is the kind of thing that usually startles me, but at the moment I think it’s impossible for me to be any more tense or alert to danger. “We had the votes. We had them.” He looks around at everyone, his face grave. “We were betrayed. What happened to Captain Bolivar? He was supposed to vouch.”
Lord-Commander Dante of the Royal Guard speaks in a quiet voice that is more menacing than any shout. “He’d better be dead, because that is the only excuse I will accept. My best men are searching for him—or his body—right now.”
“Oh, no, not Bolivar,” Mara says. “He was such a good man.”
“We’ll find him,” Elisa says. “Maybe he yet lives, and has a good explanation.”
The room is crowded with bodies, and growing even hotter. The Quorum is here: the empress, Lord-Commander Dante, the General, and two of the empire’s highest-ranking condes, Tristán and Juan-Carlos. The five of them usually meet here alone, but with the addition of me, Rosario, Hector, Mara, and the princess, there’s barely room for everyone to sit.
And they’re all looking at me.
“I . . . I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong—”
“Nothing!” Rosario practically yells. “You did nothing wrong!”
“Red, don’t apologize,” Elisa says.
Conde Tristán puts a hand on my shoulder. “You did everything you were supposed to do. Like Hector said, we were betrayed.”
Suddenly all eyes move to Conde Juan-Carlos. It’s a reflexive thing. His predecessor was a traitor who nearly plunged our nation into a civil war.
Juan-Carlos’s eyes narrow. “I am not my father,” he says in a tight voice. He’s young for his station, only a few years older than I am, and his face seems perpetually on the verge of a frown.
No one responds. Hector and the General exchange a meaningful glance.
“I have voted with the Quorum every time since taking office,” Juan-Carlos continues, “in gratitude for my family retaining its rights and holdings. You can’t possibly still doubt my loyalty.”
Everyone shifts uncomfortably. I get the feeling they’ve had this conversation many times behind closed doors.
At last Elisa says, “I do not doubt your loyalty,” and I can’t be the only person who notices that she refrains from saying “We.”
“We’ll figure out what happened,” Lady Mara jumps in, before anyone can point out the obvious. “The spymaster is seeing to it personally. I expect we’ll hear a knock on the door any moment.”
“In the meantime, we need a plan,” says Conde Tristán. “I hate to say this aloud, but I worry for Red’s safety.”
The General has been quiet until now. He leans forward, elbows on the table, and says, “Our enemies would be well advised to carry out an assassination now, while we appear weak.”
The safe, cave-like feeling dribbles away.
“They have to consider that we will regroup and try again, maybe next year. They’ll want to put a stop to any future adoption while sentiment is low.” The General is an older man with gray hair and a deep squint pinching a narrow nose. He refused the spectacles Doctor Enzo offered, calling them “modernistic and untrustworthy,” though it would be a mistake to think him unprogressive. I clearly remember his acceptance speech eight years before, when he publicly declared that the young Empress Elisa had one of the finest military minds he’d ever encountered.
Elisa sighs. “Overturning a rejected petition would require a two-thirds majority vote. I don’t see us getting two-thirds, even in the best of circumstances.”
“For now, Red could accompany us on our state visit to Orovalle,” Hector says.
“That might be best,” Elisa says. “Most of the Royal Guard will be escorting us. And I’m sure once we tell Queen Alodia about our situation, she’ll be glad to assign extra protection from her own guard, which is formidable.”
Conde Tristán is tapping the table with his forefinger. “I wonder,” he says. “Perhaps your schedule was a factor here, with your state trip coming so soon after the adoption ceremony. Whoever engineered this vote knew you would not be around to deal with the repercussions.”
Elisa’s brow furrows. Mena squirms out of her lap—the empress’s absent stroking had become a little too fierce—and plops down beside Hector instead. “That could mean,” Elisa says, her hand drifting to her belly of its own accord, “that news of my pregnancy has leaked. They know the real reason for this trip.”
Tristán nods. “And that you would never cancel it, no matter what happened. You absolutely must be in Orovalle to give birth.”
In a more forgiving climate, he means. Surrounded by midwives familiar with the difficult births experienced by the women of Elisa’s family.
Hector reaches across his daughter for Elisa’s hand and holds tight. The gesture happens mostly under the table, but we all see it. A muscle in Hector’s jaw twitches.
They lost their first child in a difficult birth. A son. He suffocated, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, before Doctor Enzo could extract him from Elisa’s womb. Three years later, the empress almost bled to death giving birth to Princess Ximena. I was surprised—we all were—when Elisa and Hector decided to try one last time.