The duke laughed at that, a warm and indulgent sound that puffed out water around his gills. “Not your father’s daughter, I think. He would never have offered so openly.”
I pressed my lips together. What should I say to that? Should I try to take back my own words?
The duke Below continued as though he hadn’t noticed my hesitation. “We must first arrange the coronation trials. It is not precisely condoned to share plans with a contestant…” His smile gleamed again, pointed as thorns.
“I won’t be having coronation trials,” I said.
Around the hall, heads cocked again. Had I said something wrong?
“Are you not the Grand Duke of Kylma Above?” the grand duke Below asked.
“My father is,” I replied.
The duke’s fins fluttered again, and his ministers imitated him. I tried to decipher their emotion. Nervousness? Unhappiness? “Ekaterina Avenko, you must have the coronation trials. An Avenko must hold the throne,” the duke Below said.
I tried to explain. “I am holding the throne. It’s only temporary—”
“You know of the bargain our families made three hundred years ago,” the duke said.
I nodded. Three hundred years ago, my ancestors had been the first to speak with the citizens Below. The Avenkos had been the first to refine magic, the first to make Kylma something more than a frozen wasteland everyone avoided. And they’d been the first to discover that magic was temporary, but its effects were permanent. So they’d cast magic over our frozen city. They’d arranged for our walls and our palace and our markets to thrive without cracking the ice sheet. And as long as an Avenko kept the throne, we held the secret as well.
“This agreement is delicate in times of succession. If you lost your position…”
“To whom?” To Eirhan? To one of my other ministers? When he didn’t reply, I tried a different tactic. “Maybe you can just give me the secret. I won’t tell anyone.” Not even Farhod, who would probably bargain away years of his life to know. “I can cast the magic I need, and—”
And try to ignore that I knew something spectacular? Try to never use magic again? That was probably the most obvious lie I would ever tell.
The duke held up a hand for silence. For a moment, I wondered if I’d offended him. But then he gestured, and a servant came forward bearing the ice bowl. The duke dipped his long fingers in, drawing out a note of creamy paper with ink that quickly feathered.
His dark pupils widened. “Your father left you in a state indeed.”
I swallowed. “What do you mean?”
All stilled around us. Heads bent as the court Below turned one ear up, listening.
“It seems there is an army on the ice,” the duke Below said.
Meire led me back through the city. I had no chance to admire the architecture, the merchants who flitted past with baskets of wares hanging from their shoulders, the hunters who returned from the lake hauling fish that rivaled me in size. I wanted to see it all. I wanted to see the lowliest hovel. I wanted to see the place of their god. I wanted to see them fight and build and try to sell me something. I wanted to stay until my eyes grew round and luminous, until my pale skin sloughed off, leaving scales behind. I wanted to see if magic obeyed me now.
But Meire’s powerful legs pumped, and all too soon she was brushing the green lamps aside, taking us back into the dark of the middle of the lake. This time she didn’t draw magic on my hand, and it didn’t glow. “I apologize that your visit has been cut short,” she said. “The guards will be called to our stations at the moat. We will be ready to assist you.”
“I’ll be watching for you,” I said. And I didn’t say the private, foolish hope that I would be back soon to learn the rest of what I did not know.
The water grew lighter as we approached the ice. The white expanse should have called to me—it was my home, after all—but dread weighed me down and dragged me back. I knew nothing about politics. In all likelihood, my ministers would rather kill me than teach me. And now I had an army to contend with.
You are the throne, and the throne is yours. The thought hardly reassured me.
Meire stopped at the jagged edge of the ice. “I wish you well.” She bowed again, fluid and flawless. I resisted the urge to bow back. “And much prosperity between our peoples. We will help in the coming days, where we can.”
She pressed her webbed fingers to my mouth.
My lungs burned. I clapped a hand over my nose to keep from inhaling. Dots started to pop in my vision. With a final bob of her head, Meire flipped around and swam away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Aino and Minister Olloi helped me out of the water and hurried me toward the warmth of the steam room. My arms and legs trembled, and I weakly snatched for the towel Olloi proffered. As I squeezed out my braid and wiggled into a fresh shift, I told Aino about the army. She did up my dress with quick fingers, and we set off toward the study at a rapid pace.
Eirhan looked up as I flew in. His demeanor was as calm as ever, and for a moment, I wondered if the duke Below had been wrong about the army. “I suppose he wanted to discuss the trade agreements and the coronation trials?” Eirhan asked.
I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Of course he would ask about that first. “We got a little distracted. What’s on the ice?”
Eirhan smiled without humor. “It’s Sigis.”
“What?” Sigis ought to be sleeping after inserting himself into last night’s excitement. “The palace is under quarantine. He can’t leave.”
“He hasn’t left.” Eirhan’s smile twisted sourly. “His army has simply come here.”
“So he’s invading?” It made no sense to stay in our palace and leave his army out in the cold. We could take Sigis hostage.
“I expect he’ll use it as a bargaining tool,” Eirhan said.
“Bargaining for what? He only came for the brideshow.” Even as I said it, I realized how wrong I was. I stared at Eirhan, waiting for the same realization to cross his face, but his expression remained impassive. I went on. “Sigis was dressed in new clothing when he came to the coronation ceremony.” He’d been wearing his rings and medals. He’d looked like a king. “He planned this, didn’t he? He planned for my family to fall ill so he could sweep in and annex us.”
“You cannot claim the head of a sovereign nation has deliberately targeted your family. You’ll bring us to war.”
“He’s got an army at our door. What am I supposed to do?” Show no fear. “The walls of Kylma Above have never been breached. The army of Below is ready to help us.”
“A siege is not our first and best option,” Eirhan bit out.
“What is?” I snapped. If Eirhan wanted to rule the country for me, the least he could do was provide answers.
“We need to see what Sigis wants, exactly,” Eirhan said.
The duchy, no doubt. If Eirhan didn’t realize that, maybe he wasn’t such a formidable political enemy after all.
Eirhan, Viljo, Aino, and I went out in four layers of fur, with our hoods pulled up and our mittens wrapped snugly into our sleeves. My braid froze stiff as we hit the cold air, and I thought I heard Eirhan mutter a curse. A high wind whistled in the gaps between the peaks to the west, and the air smelled wet, clean of smoke, promising storms. By nightfall, it would be the kind of wind that drove a man to his knees and kept him there till he died.