The messenger’s voice suddenly rose from the sunroom. Kiva and I fell silent, leaning closer to listen.
“My queen has given her answer, Your Majesty,” he practically purred.
My head snapped up at the mention of the Illucian queen, and I locked eyes with Kiva. Something flickered in my chest, a spark of anger springing to life. Then Caliza stepped onto the patio. The messenger loomed behind her with a smug look of satisfaction that made my stomach turn.
“We need to talk,” Caliza said to me, then looked at Kiva. “Privately.”
Kiva stood. “I have recruit training. Come see me after.” She bowed to Caliza before sweeping past her. The messenger made to remain, but Kiva looked at him expectantly. Her imposing figure made it clear staying wasn’t an option. Wisely, he went with her.
Caliza took Kiva’s seat, removing the silver circlet shaped like a garland of feathers from her head and setting it on the table. I eyed the circlet. She took every opportunity not to wear it, claiming the edges got tangled in her hair.
It makes her think too much about Mother.
I understood. Its matching piece—the bracelet of silver feathers on my wrist—had belonged to Estrel. They were both dead now. My mother, they’d ambushed in the rookery, but Estrel… Her death hadn’t been swift.
Caliza’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Do you have anything productive planned for today?” My eyes cut to her, narrowing. She sighed. “It’s a fair question, Thia. You hardly talk to anyone, and you spend so much time in your room. If you’d try a little—”
“If this is what you wanted to talk about, I’m leaving.” I didn’t need this lecture again. Feeling this way—it wasn’t my choice. I couldn’t make it stop. I’d tried.
A vein in Caliza’s forehead twitched. She looked so much like our mother when that happened, an impression aided by the thin oval face and high cheekbones they’d once shared.
I looked like her too, except my black hair was curly where Caliza’s was wavy. The brown freckles speckling my face were absent from hers, and where she was tall and willowy, my body was hardened by years of rider training. Or at least it had been. Now my figure was a little less muscle, a little more curve.
We had the same eyes though, our mother’s eyes. Not the typical dark Rhodairen umber, but bright gray like storm clouds lit by lightning.
“You’re seventeen; you’re an adult,” she said. “You have to pull yourself together. You can’t spend the rest of your life in your room.”
“Pull myself together?” My voice broke. How could three simple words make me feel so small?
Her hand fell atop my unscarred one. I stared at it, feeling as though mine were someone else’s hand. “You’re alive, Anthia. Be thankful. Move forward.”
I flinched, jerking my hand away. “You don’t understand. I can’t—I don’t—” My throat tightened, locking the words inside. How did I explain something I didn’t even understand myself? This was just like Caliza, to think a problem could be solved with only logic.
This was why I’d hidden in my room, why I wanted to run there now. Alone, no one could make me feel like an ungrateful little girl, rejected and inferior. No one could look at me like Caliza was now: disappointed, impatient, accusatory. As if this were all in my head and it’d go away if only I tried hard enough.
Didn’t she understand that I would if I could?
I swallowed hard. “What do you want from me, Caliza? To marry some foreign prince and pretend to like him so our countries can get along?” She stiffened, and I regretted the words instantly.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair,” I said. Caliza had married Kuren because Trendell’s support was helping keep Rhodaire alive without the crows. He was the second oldest prince of the eastern kingdom, a good man. Even now, he was in Trendell coordinating aid on Rhodaire’s behalf. “Have you heard from him?”
“This morning.”
I waited, but she said nothing more. The silence stretched. A familiar weight settled on my shoulders, the urge to crawl into bed and spend the day under the covers slowly growing stronger.
No. My hand found Estrel’s bracelet. I pictured the weight as a snake like Kiva had once suggested, imagining it slithering off my shoulders until it was gone. Except it never truly left.
Caliza worried at a few strands of hair with her fingers. She even had our mother’s nervous habits. They’d become more pronounced lately, though she still kept her emotions in an iron grip in front of other people. A skill I’d never mastered. Around me, she’d been snappier and more finicky than ever.
“What is this really about, Caliza?” I asked.
Her fingers stilled, and she met my gaze. Her eyes were silent and strong, but I saw the storm prepared to break behind them. It’d been growing for days.
“Armies aren’t easy to build,” she said. “They take time to grow, to train, to supply. After we lost the crows, what we taught our soldiers had to change. Trendell has been very supportive, and we’ve made progress in the last few months, but not enough. And with the food shortages and loss of jobs, with everything, if Illucia—”
“Are they threatening to attack?”
Caliza’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Queen Razel doesn’t threaten. She subtly implies until you’re not sure if she said it or if you thought it all up yourself. But whether she’ll say it or not, she’s made herself clear. Our scouts confirmed: half her army is now sitting on our border.”
My breath caught, hands closing into fists. “What does she want?”
“I’ve tried to find another option, Thia. Please believe I would never willingly choose this. But we can’t sustain a war with Illucia. We have no choice.”
“What are you talking about?” My heart stilled. What had she done?
“I’ve agreed to a marriage between you and Prince Ericen.”
The words pierced me like talons, hooking deep. I waited for the pain. Nothing came. Because this wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening.
My throat burned—I wasn’t breathing. Caliza said something, but her words sounded like they were swimming through honey to reach me.
Something touched my arm, and I sprang to my feet, knocking over my chair. Caliza had stood up, her hand outstretched as I stepped back.
“Please, Thia.”
Something like a laugh bubbled out of my throat, except wilder, more dangerous. She hadn’t even given me a choice. She’d engaged me to the son of the woman who’d ordered the destruction of everything I cared about, who’d killed our mother, caused Estrel’s death, and left me permanently scarred.