She eyes the wineglass as King Cesare passes it back to Nicolo.
“So I say: death to the heretic who dared worm his way into my home, and death to any Temarinian who seeks to avenge him. And lo and behold,” the king continues, reaching into his pocket to remove a cream-colored envelope, with a theatrical flourish. Beatriz is close enough to make out the vague shape of the seal—a sun, cast in yellow wax, with a spot of violet in the center to mark it as royal. “It seems my young nephew is foolish enough to declare war before I’ve even spilled blood! Well, if King Leopold seeks to make war with us, we’ll teach that boy a thing or two about what war means. To Cellaria!” he cries out, lifting his glass again. The rest of the court follows suit, echoing his toast, and Beatriz goes through the motions as well, even as her mind is spinning.
War with Temarin, just as her mother has designed, just as she and Sophronia have put into action. Vaguely, she wonders what Daphne is up to in Friv, but she can’t waste her thoughts there—whatever it is, she’s sure Daphne is making their mother proud. Just as Beatriz herself has, just as Sophronia must have if she’s convinced Leopold to declare war. Her thoughts drift to Lord Savelle, his death warrant signed now, but she forces herself to ignore him. Soon Cellaria will fall and Bessemia will claim its pieces. Soon Beatriz will get to go home.
Her false smile feels somewhat more real as she lifts the wine goblet to her lips and takes a sip.
* * *
—
Beatriz supposes it doesn’t actually matter whether someone is poisoning King Cesare or not, whether he actually has been conspiring with his sister or not—Cellaria will likely be under her mother’s control long before this possible poisoner succeeds. It shouldn’t matter…but Beatriz’s curiosity gets the better of her. At the end of the banquet, she tells Pasquale to go back to their rooms without her because she’s left her shawl in the banquet hall. Of course Pasquale doesn’t notice she wasn’t wearing one to begin with—he might not even know what a shawl is.
It’s an easy enough thing after that to wait around a corner until she hears King Cesare’s booming voice coming toward her. She steps out at just the right moment, walking straight into him.
“Oh!” she says, looking up at King Cesare with wide eyes. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I was thinking about how wonderful your speech was and I got a bit distracted,” she says with a bright smile.
Behind him, his usual entourage of simpering courtiers fusses over him—as if Beatriz’s bumping into him might have caused him serious bodily harm. He waves them away impatiently, keeping his gaze on her. Beatriz has to force herself not to recoil from his leer and hold on to her smile.
“It was a wonderful speech, wasn’t it?” he says, looking pleased with himself.
“Yes, indeed,” Beatriz says, before breaking off into a little cough. “Oh, I’m sorry, my throat’s just a bit dry—”
“Nico!” King Cesare says, holding his hand out for the goblet.
Nicolo looks at her with a furrowed brow but passes the goblet to the king, who passes it to Beatriz. She’ll explain it to Nicolo after, she thinks, once she knows for sure.
Beatriz takes the wine, then frowns as if a thought has just occurred to her. “Oh, if I am getting sick, the last thing I would want is to make Your Majesty ill as well,” she says, glancing back at the courtiers, all carrying their own goblets. One woman—Duchess Lehey—holds it off-kilter, a sign that it has no contents she is worried about spilling.
“Duchess Lehey—might I take your cup? You look to be finished,” she says.
“I…of course, Your Highness,” the woman says, though she doesn’t appear happy about it. But when the king gestures for her to hurry up, she quickly passes the goblet to Beatriz, who pours a small amount of the king’s wine into the empty goblet. She pretends to take a sip of the wine and smiles at the king.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. It is quite refreshing.”
* * *
—
As soon as she gets back to her rooms, she says a quick hello to Pasquale, distractedly reading a book, and goes to her dressing room, where she finds a small glass vial in the false bottom of her jewelry box. She transfers the wine from the goblet into the vial and begins to pen a letter to Daphne.
Leopold leads Sophronia through the labyrinthine palace hallways, which she still hasn’t quite figured out how to navigate herself, even after almost a month here. They climb so many winding staircases that her leg muscles scream in pain and her breath goes short.
“Just a bit farther,” he says over his shoulder, though he, too, seems winded.
Sophronia grimaces at him but steels herself and continues to follow him up, up, up, until finally, he pushes open a wooden door and leads her into a small room, lit only by the afternoon sun pouring through a single wide window.
The room is circular and possibly the smallest chamber she’s seen in the palace—if she and Leopold were to hold hands, they could each touch an opposite wall easily. It’s also empty of any furniture, with only a threadbare, color-leached rug spread over the stone floor.
“It’s the highest guard tower in the kingdom,” he tells her, answering the question she hasn’t asked. “Not much of a use for it since the war with Cellaria ended, but it’s got the best view.”
He tugs her toward the open window and gestures. When Sophronia looks out, she can’t help but gasp at the sight that awaits. It feels like all of Temarin is spread out before her, stretching all the way to the horizon. Everything is so small she suddenly feels like a child playing with toy figures again. She can barely make out the dots that must be people below, clustered together in the crowded streets of Kavelle.
“They look like ants,” she says, her voice full of wonder. “And they all look the same. You can’t tell from all the way up here who is a commoner and who is a duke.”
“I doubt there are any dukes who dare to wander around Kavelle,” Leopold says, his voice low. He’s standing behind her, his head just over her shoulder, so close she can feel his breath against her cheek as he speaks.
Sophronia points to a particularly thick cluster of dots in one of the squares. It must be hundreds of people. “What’s going on there?”
“Ah. That’s what I wanted to show you,” he says, sounding quite pleased with himself. “Do you remember when we spoke about the possibility of a public fund? In theory, it would take some time for the tariffs that would pay for it to be put into place, but I decided to get a head start. You cut a significant amount of money from the palace budget for the month, and I managed to…encourage many of the noble families at court to donate—”
“Encourage?” Sophronia asks, glancing back at him over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
“With significant pressure,” he admits with a halfheartedly sheepish smile. “I may have very vaguely threatened a few of them with stripping their titles or taking away various estates. I told Aunt Bruna I’d been considering making her my new ambassador to Cellaria—a very exalted position, mind you.”