Leopold shakes his head. “There’s no pressure on that count, Sophie,” he says, stooping to press his forehead against hers. “I meant what I said on our wedding night. There’s no rush. And I know I’ve broken your trust.”
Sophronia doesn’t speak for a moment. He isn’t wrong—his actions hurt her as well as Temarin. The boy she knew from letters wasn’t the boy she met, the boy she married. He isn’t perfect—but he’s trying.
Her mother warned her about losing her heart to him, but the prospect of not doing so seems ludicrous now, not because she’s forsaken her mother, not because she has no more plots or plans against him, but because she realizes she’s already in love with him. She doesn’t know when it happened or what their future holds. All she knows is that what’s between them now is so much stronger than a perfect figment of ink and paper. It’s real.
She tilts her head up and catches his lips in a kiss that she feels all the way to her toes. She could kiss him like this every day for the rest of their lives, she realizes. The idea makes her giddy. She pulls back a fraction of an inch and grins at him.
“Why don’t we retire for the evening?” she asks.
Leopold’s brow furrows in confusion. “It isn’t even dinnertime—are you tired?” he asks.
Sophronia holds his gaze and shakes her head. “No,” she says, kissing him again. “I’m not tired at all.”
* * *
—
Sophronia and Leopold have nearly made it back to their room, hand in hand, when they hear shouting coming from down the corridor. Leopold glances at Sophie, frowning.
“I know that voice,” he says, pulling her down the corridor toward the shouts. Sophronia follows, though she’d like nothing better than to drag Leopold into their rooms and close out the rest of the world for a few hours. She knows that voice too, and she knows deep in her gut that nothing good will come of this.
They round the corner to find Ansel being held by two palace guards, struggling. When he sees Leopold, he struggles harder.
“You liar!” he shouts. The guard holding his right arm reaches for his sword, but Leopold holds up a hand.
“Stop,” he says to the guards. “Let him go.”
The guards exchange a look but do as he says. Ansel looks just as confused as they do, shrugging off their hands, though he makes no move toward Leopold and Sophronia.
“What are you talking about?” Leopold asks him, keeping his voice level and calm.
Ansel frowns, glancing between him and Sophronia. “You’re joking,” he says, but when Leopold doesn’t respond, he stands up a little straighter. “You declared war on Cellaria, after you said you wouldn’t. It’s all anyone in Kavelle is talking about.”
“Then it’s a rumor without a foundation,” Leopold says, shaking his head. “You were there when I made my decision to avoid it. Nothing’s changed.”
One of the guards clears his throat. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I was one of the guards who posted notices of the war in town this morning. The palace is recruiting soldiers as we speak.”
Bewildered, Leopold glances at Sophronia, who lets out a low exhale.
“Your mother,” she says, quietly enough that the others can’t hear her. “She went behind our backs.”
Leopold shakes his head. “She wouldn’t. Covier or Verning, maybe—”
“Covier and Verning couldn’t buckle their own shoes without guidance—your mother’s guidance, specifically. She wanted a war, and when you didn’t give in, she went around you,” Sophronia says. The rest of it rises to her lips—the letter from Cesare, how Eugenia has spent the year since Leopold took the throne draining Temarin’s war chest, how she has quietly been plotting against him and the whole country—but she holds her tongue. This is not the place, not when they have an audience. Still, the words she does say shock him.
She looks at the guards and Ansel.
“We aren’t going to war,” she tells them. “There was a…miscommunication. We’ll be sorting it out now.”
“It’s too late for that,” a new voice says from behind them. Sophronia and Leopold turn to find Eugenia approaching, vivid violet silk skirt billowing around her. She doesn’t look smug, Sophronia realizes. Which is a surprise—after all, she got what she’s been working toward for at least a year.
“I hope you had nothing to do with this, Mother,” Leopold says, his voice low.
“Me?” Eugenia asks, raising her eyebrows. “I didn’t send a declaration of war to Cellaria.”
“Neither did I!” Leopold snaps.
“And yet one apparently arrived. I understand that it was signed by you,” Eugenia says.
“Signatures can be falsified,” Sophronia says. She should know—she was meant to falsify King Bartholomew’s signature to force Friv into the war as well, though a signature is nothing on its own.
“From what my spies in the Cellarian court tell me, the letter was also sealed,” Eugenia adds, as if reading Sophronia’s mind. “Marked with a drop of blood.”
“Not my blood,” Leopold says.
Eugenia shrugs. “An empyrea would have been able to clear that up easily enough,” she says.
“But sorcery is illegal in Cellaria,” Sophronia finishes, understanding dawning on her, “so they would never know. And they had a signature, Leopold’s seal marked with blood that was allegedly his, and a mad, paranoid king on the throne who will take any excuse he can get to reignite the Celestian War.”
This has her mother’s fingerprints on it, but Sophronia can’t see how they got there.
Eugenia nods slowly, unable to smother a smile. “Which means we are now at war with Cellaria, whether you like it or not.”
Leopold shakes his head. “I’ll tell them it was a mistake,” he says.
Eugenia looks toward Sophronia, and Sophronia sees that now she looks smug.
“You can’t,” Sophronia tells Leopold, dread pooling in her stomach. “That kind of back-and-forth will lose you all credibility with your people. And Cellaria won’t believe it was a mistake. We can refuse to go to war with them, but they’ll still come at us.”
It’s a brilliant move, backing Temarin into a corner. Eugenia claims she didn’t do it, and Sophronia believes her. She knows her mother’s work when she sees it, and with a sinking feeling, she realizes she knows exactly how her mother carried it out, and who helped her do it. Without a word, she pushes past Eugenia, leaving Leopold, the guards, and Ansel behind as she hurries to her rooms. She dimly hears Leopold calling her name, but she ignores him. She runs through her sitting room, into her bedroom, and to the wardrobe where she hid King Bartholomew’s seal.