“Your mother has been conspiring with King Cesare to bankrupt Temarin and drain its war chest so that Cellaria can conquer it easily. She’s been working against Temarin since you took the throne, maybe longer.”
“No,” Leopold says, frowning. “No, she wouldn’t do that.”
“She would and she did,” Sophronia says before taking a steadying breath. “I know because I was supposed to do something similar.”
Leopold’s expression grows even more confused, though there’s an added wariness to it now. “You…what?” he asks.
Sophronia bites her lip. “It’s a long story, Leo, and you won’t like me at the end of it, but I need you to listen.”
Sophronia desperately wishes she had use of her hands, if only so that she could fidget. As it is, she looks around the room, scanning the centuries-old paintings on the walls, the breakfast table with its pressed white linen, the fire crackling in the hearth—she looks everywhere she can to avoid having to look at Leopold, but eventually, his gaze draws hers back to him and she lets out a deep breath.
“My mother was never meant to be empress,” she begins. “Surely you’ve heard enough of her story to know that. She clawed her way to the throne and then she decided that it wasn’t enough, that Bessemia wasn’t enough. So when she gave birth to Beatriz, Daphne, and me, when my father died, she made a plan to rebuild the Bessemian Empire. That was where the betrothals came in. Ours, and my sisters’ as well. She began plotting and planning to take over the entire continent, using us as her pawns, sent to Temarin, Cellaria, and Friv to destroy them.”
Leopold sits up straighter. “She sent you here to…assassinate me?”
“No,” Sophronia says quickly. “No, of course not. It would be too easy—her hand in it would have been clear and her reign would have been a tumultuous one.” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “No, she sent me here to ruin your country, to urge you to a war with Cellaria that would weaken both countries so that she could conquer them herself.”
Leopold shakes his head. “But I didn’t need you for that,” he points out. “I was destroying Temarin well enough on my own.” He pauses. “Wait, you urged me not to go to war.”
Sophronia laughs. “My mother likes to say that the stars played a cruel joke on her by giving her me,” she tells him after a moment. “Daphne can be cold as ice when she wants to be, and Beatriz has her own sort of ruthlessness, but my mother has always said I’m too soft. I think now that she always knew I would fail her, that I would come here and fall in love with Temarin, in love with you. That’s why she sent Violie.”
“Your lady’s maid,” Leopold says, looking more confused than ever.
“My mother has an…effect on people. She senses weaknesses, knows exactly how to exploit them. She’s done it to me often enough; apparently she did it to Violie as well.” She pauses. “Violie was the one to send the declaration of war to Cellaria,” she adds. “She forged your handwriting, sealed the letter with a stolen royal seal.”
“How do you know?” he asks her.
Sophronia fixes him with a level look. “Because it was all planned, Leo. Daphne stole the royal seal from King Bartholomew and sent it to me—I’m the best at forging, so I was to write a letter in his hand, offering to support you in the crusade against Cellaria and forcing Friv into the war as well.”
Leopold shakes his head. “Because Friv would never get involved in the disputes of other countries on its own,” he says.
“Exactly,” Sophronia said. “Meanwhile, Beatriz got close to the ambassador, close enough to frame him for sorcery so that I could push you into a war Temarin can’t withstand. In a few months, all three countries would be ravaged enough that my mother could sweep in and pick up the pieces without much resistance at all.”
“Then what?” Leopold asks.
Sophronia frowns. “Then my sisters and I go home to Bessemia,” she says.
“And me?” he asks. “And Pasquale? And that bastard prince in Friv?”
Sophronia forces herself once again to look at him. “She wouldn’t leave loose ends hanging about,” she says quietly. “She would have exiled you to some faraway land, or so she said. I’m not sure I ever really believed that, though. My mother doesn’t do things by halves.”
“So she would have killed me,” he says. “And you would have let her.”
“I don’t know,” Sophronia admits. “If we had gotten to that point, I don’t know if I could have stopped her—I don’t know if I would have tried. As I said, my mother has an effect on people.”
“But we didn’t get to that point,” Leopold says. “Because you changed your mind.”
Sophronia nods. “But before I did, I wrote my mother about what I’d discovered about your mother, including a letter King Cesare had smuggled to her, thanking her for the work she’d done in draining Temarin’s war chest and sowing discord.” She doesn’t tell him the harsher points of the letter, the personal cruelties they exchanged about Leopold himself. “I thought she would want to be aware of their plots, but instead she recruited your mother to her side as well as the rebels, organizing the riot, the poisoned champagne, and apparently our executions.”
“You think our mothers want us killed?” he asks, shaking his head.
“I can’t speak for Eugenia, but my mother isn’t a forgiving sort,” Sophronia says. “Though I have a plan to get us out of this. Despite everything I just told you, I need you to trust me.”
For a long moment, he only stares at her like he’s never seen her before. In many ways, she supposes, he hasn’t.
“How much of it was real?” Leopold asks finally.
She leans her head against the back of the settee and closes her eyes for a moment before letting herself look at him once more.
“I tried so hard to keep my heart closed to you. In the beginning, you even made it easy,” she says. “There were so many lies, Leo. I know that, and I am so sorry for them. But when it came down to it, I chose Temarin. I chose you. I love you. That’s the truth.”
Silence stretches between them, and Sophronia all but holds her breath, waiting for him to speak or move or do anything but stare at her like she’s some kind of stranger to him. After what feels like an eternity, he lets out a long exhale, his shoulders sagging.
“After we survive this,” he tells her, “I’m going to be furious with you.”
Sophronia forces a smile. “After we survive this,” she echoes.
When Daphne opens her eyes again, the throbbing in her head has faded to a dull ache and she can sit up in bed without pain spasming through her body. Bairre is sitting in the chair by her bed again, alone now, with a book open in his lap. When she stirs, his eyes jerk up to meet hers and he closes the book.