“With Aphrasian magic at your disposal,” Cal reasons, “you plague Stavin until it’s weak enough to annex. Then you undermine Montrice in a campaign of magical terror. Next target is Argonia, I suppose. Everywhere would be subject to the Kingdom of Renovia and its Dellafiore queen. The Avantine Empire intact once more.”
“All hail Avantine,” I say, unable to suppress my bitterness.
“All hail the queen,” Cal says, with a raised eyebrow. I know he’s teasing, trying to make me feel better about this absurd theory. This plan I would never want. I never wanted to be a princess, let alone a queen. That is my mother’s plan, my mother’s wish, but it is not mine.
“Just last week they loved us,” I tell him, pulling away from his embrace. “Hansen and me, I mean. They all wanted us to visit their manor houses and villages and harvest festivals. The groveling, the declarations of fealty. How quickly things change.”
“The kingdoms may be united in name,” Cal says, “but suspicion persists toward Renovia. Everything about this situation is new for the people here. Montrician queens are meant to be consorts, not joint rulers.”
“I may as well be a consort,” I say, unable to shake my dark mood. “No one listens to me in court. And my mother doesn’t seem to need my help back at home.”
“You’ll never be a consort.” Cal’s face softens and he smiles at me. “You’re a born leader. And a wild Renovian. That’s why they’re scared of you.”
He’s right. When they think that I can’t hear, Hansen’s courtiers speak of Renovia as a haven for animals, criminals, and the very darkest magic. They probably consider me half savage myself.
“They have long memories when it comes to old gossip about Renovian royals poisoning one another,” I tell Cal. “But short ones when it comes to how much my father—and your father—sacrificed while trying to break the Aphrasians.”
“The worst rumors have a way of lingering,” he says. “If people believe that your father poisoned his own brother, they’re ready to believe the worst of his daughter as well.”
“Especially with a lilac-colored pond full of dead children,” I say, shuddering. All the village’s children were taken in one fell swoop. Of course they would hate me. I hate myself right now, for being helpless against such violence. I should have protected them. I should have done more about the stories from the borders, warned them, shielded them. They are my people too. Perhaps it is my fault that they were so vulnerable.
Cal reaches over and lays a warm hand on my back. “It’s a message, isn’t it?”
“Not from me, it isn’t.”
“Not from you. But to you, and about you.”
I see what he is saying. “They want people to blame me. Hansen already blames me, I think, though he hasn’t said it out loud.”
“What do you care what Hansen thinks?” Cal’s tone is impatient.
“Well, he is my husband, and the King of Montrice.”
“In name only, according to you, at least.” Cal pulls away from me, frowning.
“Cal, we need him on our side.”
“Our side?” Now it’s Cal’s turn to sound bitter. “Earlier you talked about him as ‘we.’”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Last week the people ‘loved us,’ you said. Whose side are you on, Shadow? I mean, Lilac. Her Majesty Queen Lilac.”
I turn to him, alarmed at this shift in tone. “I have to be on Hansen’s side,” I tell him. “He could be a powerful ally if we let him.”
“We again?”
“You and me. Us.”
“Is there an us?” Cal growls.
“I know this isn’t ideal.”
“The furthest thing from it,” he says, so sharp he’s almost spitting his words.
“But it’s the only way for us to be together,” I remind him. “If you no longer want to . . .”
Cal sighs and gazes at the wall.
“I want you,” he says softly. “I’ve always wanted you.”
I reach for his hand and take it in mine. “You have me. Here. Right now. It’s just us.”
He pulls his hand away. “I wish that were true.” Cal lies back onto the bed, exhausted, staring at the red canopy above. I lie next to him. We’re together, but something is separating us. A nagging mistrust that won’t go away, no matter what I say.
“We can’t go back to the way things were,” I say softly, almost a whisper. “But we can make this new life work.”
Cal says nothing. I kiss his cheek and then roll toward him so I can kiss him some more. At first he just lies there, unmoving. But I am persistent, and at last he turns toward me, and when his mouth meets mine, strong and urgent, there are no more arguments between us.
Chapter Three
Lilac
In the morning when I wake, Cal is gone. When my ladies flutter in to pull back the canopy curtains around my bed and open the shutters across the windows, it looks as though I spent another night alone in my big bed. The key to the Queen’s Secret is back in its hiding place, and there’s no trace of Cal. It is as if he were never here. It is both a relief and a sadness.
I drink a little ginger tea from the jug my ladies carry in, and nibble on a piece of toasted bread. Every day it seems to take longer and longer to brush back my hair and pick out the day’s wig. They help me dress as well, because it takes at least two ladies to lift an embroidered gown over my head—wool at this time of year, trimmed with mink—and arrange it over my linen shift. I miss the days when I could wear my hair loose. I miss the days when getting dressed meant slithering into a simple gown, eager to bound out the door. Or dressing like the assassin I was trained to be, ready to clamber onto a horse or fight any opponent.
I miss Cal already. I never know when I will see him next. I wish that one day I could wake up with someone I love by my side, rather than have him slip away at dawn to avoid detection.
“Perhaps Your Majesty would prefer some honey with your tea?”
“Or perhaps some elderberry jam for your bread?”
“Or perhaps—”
“Nothing.” I wave them away.
Down in the courtyard, far below my window, I can hear bustle and shouting. When I peer out, I’m surprised to see all the ranks of soldiers, most of whom look incredibly young, marching up and down in new boots.
“What’s going on?” I ask Lady Marguerite. She’s slight and fair, with a face that’s always worried—certainly not the prettiest of the ladies-in-waiting. But although she’s the youngest of the group, she’s the most astute, the most political. She always seems to know more than the others about what’s going on in other parts of the castle.