Sigis burst out laughing. “Pretty demonstrations? You think your father’s laughable displays are all we get from magic?” He held the pearl an inch from my nose, and his voice turned soft again. But this time, it wasn’t the softness of a man trying to woo me. It was a softness concealing a world of ugly threats. “Do you know what I could do with this? I could make an army of men with unbreakable armor and blades that froze the skin wherever they struck. I could raise walls around any city until it surrendered. I could make you a ring with a diamond the same color as your eyes.”
“Gray?” Did he really think that was romantic?
“Your father had petty rules about magic—how much he sold, how we could use it. He could have ruled the world if he’d wanted to.”
I wondered if Sigis knew that magic had a temporary life span. I wondered if he realized not everyone wanted the things he did. “Magic belongs to the real Avenko line,” I said.
Something dark flashed over his face—rage that I’d contradicted him. That I’d told him, for the second time, that he couldn’t have something he wanted. He caught my wrist and squeezed until my bones ground together. I clenched my teeth. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me whimper. “Prove it,” he murmured, dropping the unrefined pearl in my palm.
It couldn’t be that simple. The power wasn’t conferred upon me just because I was grand duke. Logic said so.
But magic was not logical.
I clenched my fist. Light burst from between my fingers as the pearl popped and the fire died. A glimmering fish leaped over our arms. Pain seared me where Sigis’s fingers held tight to my wrist. He yelped, and we flew apart with such force that I slammed into the back of my chair. It tipped dangerously. Sigis’s knees rammed the edge of the table, sending our wineglasses toppling.
The fire in the grate flared back to life. Sigis smiled, though it seemed forced as he rubbed his knees. “Not exactly a display worthy of an audience.”
Wine stained the oak table and spattered the floor with a ruby rain. The silk at my wrist had melted in the pattern of his fingers, and the skin beneath was red and tender. I watched as Aino righted our cups and cleaned up the wine until lunch was served.
The lunch was more Drysian than Kylmian, and I wondered if that meant the cook was on Sigis’s side. I glared at my cheese dumplings and cabbage browned in butter. Aino took a little piece of everything, nodding as she determined it safe to eat. I drank enough wine to wet my tongue and tried not to make a face at the sour burn of it.
Sigis toasted again. “To your father, to his legacy, and to the coronation trials.” He took a long drink.
I swallowed carefully. My heart refused to slow its patter. My dress and coat pulled at me in all the wrong places, but shifting would make me look uncomfortable, and I couldn’t show him that. Grand dukes didn’t show discomfort. They acted as though other people were beneath them. And really, Sigis didn’t even rate in the “people” category, no offense to the animal kingdom. I started to classify him.
Hunting tactics: keeps prey off-guard, always nervous and fearful.
“I presume you’ve executed his servants, of course.” Sigis shook his head at my blank look. “You have too soft a touch, Ekata. It was the servants’ task to protect their sovereign, and in that they failed quite miserably. In Drysiak, we would never tolerate such laziness.”
Weaknesses: incredible arrogance and nationalism. “Of course not.” I took a bite of pigeon, another Drysian delicacy.
“And your man of the people. You must have done something with him.” I frowned, and Sigis rolled his eyes, clarifying. “Reko. Execute him as well. Swiftly and quietly, if you can. Kamen had a soft spot for him, but you don’t have to.”
I swallowed my pigeon. “Why do you care? Win the coronation trials and you can do whatever you want.”
Aino cleared her throat behind me. Sigis’s mouth turned up in what more foolish people would have called a smile. “Perhaps I will. And what happens then?”
“Then you can talk to Father when he wakes up,” I said.
Sigis set down his knife and fork. “There’s one trial I can’t do without you, Ekata.” He reached for my hand. I shot back. His stare was unwavering, blue eyes clear and shining and dangerous. “I need the will of my wife to become grand duke. No other woman will do.”
I could still hear him snarling, Her Grace is a child. “I’m afraid I’m already married.”
“A trial marriage.” Sigis lifted my cup, brought it to his lips. Wine trailed from the corner of his mouth, red as a kiss. “To a horse rider. You can go back to her tiny, peasant islands and be nothing, or you can stay with me and be a queen. Travel the world, learn as you like. Or come back and fix all the things that are wrong with Kylma. But do it with me.” He stopped, and his eyes ran over me again. “You’d look so stunning in our royal scarlet…”
“Does that compliment actually work on girls?”
Behind me, Aino let out an explosive cough. Sigis turned red under his beard. “Don’t get so cocky,” he snarled. “It’s not like everyone’s lining up to get a taste of your winning personality.”
So much the better. I was already trying to get rid of a wife and a suitor; how much more could I be expected to take?
The rest of the meal was awkward. Any small talk I came up with sounded trite in my mind. I couldn’t fathom marrying him. Our relationship would be like my parents’. Was preserving a duchy worth that?
“It’s time, Your Grace,” Aino said at last, and I almost slumped in relief before remembering I wasn’t allowed to.
“Second trial.” Sigis’s polite pleasantness was back. “Best of luck, my Ekata. You won’t catch me unsuspecting this time.” His smile was all teeth and charm. “I have always been so fond of the archimandrite. She stood against your stubborn father for years. I hope you don’t make the same mistake.”
“All of Kylma stands together at this time,” I said stiffly as I rose.
Sigis made a derisive noise. “You realize no one’s on your side because they like you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have friends.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
We retreated to my rooms, where Aino prepared me for the trial and parade among the people. Layer after layer was piled on: cotton, wool, fur, petticoats, bodices, and long underwear. “You’ll wear your father’s ceremonial cloak, of course,” she said.
“Why?” I’d look like a doll wrapped in a full-size blanket.
Aino’s mouth twisted. “It’s part of the symbolism of the royal house. Your father always looked the part, even for the people.”
“Do they hate him?” I said.
She began to braid my hair. “That is a difficult question to answer. Your father has done things… that make it difficult to love him.”
I supposed I could understand that. Why should I expect the entire duchy to love my father when I bore no love for him myself? “Aino?”
“Hmm?” She tied off the braid and wound it in a crown around my head, pinning it with diamond-studded hairpins.
“What should I do? To make people like me?”