“I’ll remember that,” he laughs, then sobers. He puts both books on the nightstand and turns toward her. “If I could go back, Sophie, I’d do it all differently. When my father died so suddenly and his council swept in and said they would handle everything, I…was relieved. I was fifteen and I didn’t want my life to change. I wasn’t ready to be king and I knew it. I was glad to have an excuse not to take on the responsibility, glad that someone else would. If I could go back, that’s what I would change. The state Temarin is in now is my fault.”
Sophronia sees how much it hurts him to say those last words, sees the truth of them hit him square in the chest. She doesn’t know if she’s forgiven him for it, doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to look at him without seeing those bodies hanging from the gallows, but she also understands that they had very different upbringings. He was a boy who wasn’t prepared to be king, and the blame for that isn’t his alone.
“We can’t change what’s past,” she tells him, placing her palm against his cheek. “But I trust that you’ll change the future.”
“We’ll change the future,” he tells her, kissing her again, and she’s glad he can’t see her face, sure the myriad of lies she’s told are suddenly etched onto it. When he pulls back, she’s managed to school her features into a smile.
Leopold falls asleep with his arm around her waist, and she can feel his deep, even breaths soft against her neck. She can’t sleep, though.
We’ll change the future. She hears Leopold’s words again and again in her mind, and she begins to imagine what that future might look like, if her mother’s plan didn’t exist. She sees them side by side on the Temarinian throne, sees them older and wiser, riding through a cleaner, happier Kavelle, where the people cheer their names; sees them leading council meetings together, like they did today, but with advisors who respect them. She sees them ruling, together, for the rest of their lives, and she knows they could do it. She knows it deep in her bones.
The only thing she doesn’t know is how that future and the one her mother’s been plotting for can coexist.
* * *
—
The next morning, Sophronia sits down to write her mother a letter she likely should have written immediately after her conversation with Sir Diapollio. She needed proof that the message from King Cesare was legitimate, she tells herself, but she knows that isn’t the whole truth. She was afraid to tell her mother that Eugenia and Cesare were plotting to take Temarin out of her grasp. She was afraid her mother would find some way to twist it into being Sophronia’s fault.
But she has not only confirmed those suspicions but started undermining Eugenia’s plans, and she knows her mother cannot find fault with her now—she might even be proud, though that feels like too much to hope for.
Still, Sophronia is proud of herself, and that feels like enough.
She details the events of the last week in full, including the letter from Cesare to Eugenia word for word, then tells her mother the steps she is taking to undo the damage Eugenia has done. She knows her mother wants Temarin to fall, but on their terms, not Eugenia and Cesare’s. If Cellaria manages to get control of Temarin, Bessemia will have a hard time conquering both.
Feeling quite pleased with herself, Sophronia uses the Hartley Obfuscation to code the message into a bland and boring letter about the Temarinian weather and gives it to Violie to deliver to Bessemia.
When the empress summoned the princesses to the archery field for a lesson a month before their sixteenth birthday, Daphne was thrilled. Ever since she’d first picked up a bow at the age of eight, after her mother’s spies learned that Prince Cillian loved archery, she’d felt like it was a part of her. She would spend most afternoons on the field, with the string pulled taut and the feathered tail of the arrow brushing her cheek before she let it soar through the air. Few things were as satisfying as the sound of the arrow’s point piercing the target.
But her mother wasn’t waiting for them alone. With her was a group of five young men Daphne recognized right away—archers. She’d seen them compete at the last tournament, though none of them had made it to the semifinals. All of them had been, in Daphne’s opinion, entirely average.
“Your lucky day, looks like,” Beatriz said, looping her arm through Daphne’s and giving her a quick grin before her eyes darted over the boys. “Though it might be mine, too,” she adds thoughtfully.
“If you make it through the day without flirting, I’ll give you my new shoes. Those lavender heeled slippers with the bows you were coveting,” Daphne told her, mostly because she knew Beatriz would fail horribly, though it would be fun to watch her try to control herself.
“Those shoes are gorgeous, but I don’t want them that badly,” Beatriz said with a laugh.
“Add my new hat to the pot,” Sophronia said from Beatriz’s other side, sharing a conspiratorial look with Daphne.
Beatriz scowled at Sophronia, but she was fighting a smile. “Throw that violet day dress in and you’ve got a deal,” she said.
Sophronia looked at Daphne with raised eyebrows and an amused smile. “Deal,” she said. “But the second you bat your eyelashes or drop any kind of innuendo, we get to borrow whatever we like from your wardrobe for a month.”
“Two months,” Daphne corrected.
Beatriz pursed her lips. “Fine,” she said. “But it’s a moot point anyway. I can behave myself.”
When they reached the empress, she greeted her daughters with her usual tight-lipped smile.
“I thought we would have a little fun today, my doves,” she said. “Let’s have an archery competition, shall we?”
Her eyes lingered on Daphne as she spoke, and Daphne stood a little straighter, trying to hide her own smile. Beatriz always flourished in their seduction lessons, while Sophronia did best with coding and bookwork. Daphne’s skills were usually strongest in lockpicking and poisons, but those talents weren’t quite as showy. Winning an archery tournament, though—that would certainly impress her mother.
They were paired off then, and Daphne easily defeated her first opponent. Sophronia and Beatriz advanced as well, though neither came as close to the bull’s-eye as Daphne had managed. In the next round, she beat Beatriz without even trying, while Sophronia lost gracefully to the last of the men.
He had better aim than Daphne expected, though his arrow had a habit of veering left.
“All right,” the empress said with a gracious smile that managed to not show teeth. “Our last round. Sir Aldric, you first.”
Sir Aldric stepped forward and lifted his bow. His right shoulder was too high, Daphne thought. He needed to relax it before he—
As soon as she thought it, he released the arrow and it predictably veered off, just barely landing on the target.
Daphne smothered a smile as she stepped forward and aimed her arrow. This would be easier than she expected, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to show off.