The horn blows. The king and his servants, carrying his extra arrows and swords and daggers, head off down the trail into the darkness of the forest. Ambassador Nhicol follows, and then all the rest of the Montrician nobility after him. Cal and I hold back a bit, waiting for the crowd to disperse among the trees and pathways of the duke’s property. He does have some of the greatest grounds of any estate I’ve ever seen.
“I’m going to catch up with my husband,” Lord Mathieu tells us. “It was a pleasure making your acquaintance. I’m sure we’ll see one another at dinner.”
“The honor was ours,” Cal says, and I repeat the same.
When he’s out of earshot, Cal frowns. “A friendly joint prize between King Hansen and the ambassador?”
I nod. “We need to find out what’s going on here.”
We venture into the woods off the path so we can watch the others.
Dogs bark in the distance. A man shouts. Leaves crunch under feet; a lady lets out a high-pitched shriek, then giggles. We won’t find the answer to the question of how the ambassador became so friendly with the king in the fields. “This is pointless. We should just go back,” I say to Cal. He doesn’t respond. “Cal?” I look around.
“Over here,” he says in a loud whisper.
I follow his voice behind a tall shrub. “What are you doing?”
“Look.” He points at something on the ground.
I lean closer. There’s a bit of glass—something shiny. I reach out to touch it. Cal grabs my arm. “Don’t touch it!” he says. “It might be dangerous!”
The dark glass swirls.
“It’s the shield!” I exclaim. “That’s what the Aphrasian guard was wearing on his chest, but bigger.”
“I had a feeling.”
“How did you find it?” I ask.
“I saw something glittery, thought it might be lost jewelry at first. There were a few shards of whatever that is. It led me here. Looks like it broke off, maybe?”
As I reach for it, a twig snaps.
“Leave it for now.” Cal grabs on to my arm and pulls me low to the ground with him. About ten feet away from us, Duke Girt appears to be tracking an animal. He hasn’t seen us. He draws his bow back. Aims.
The trumpeter’s horn blasts through the air.
The duke lowers his bow and misses. I hear a small animal escaping into the forest. The horn scared it off.
We watch it run away while the duke heads in the opposite direction. When he is gone, we join the rest of the hunting party gathered in the field. To our surprise, Duke Girt is being crowned the winner of the royal hunt. A dead stag lies at his feet, and I feel a frisson of wrongness. Why am I seeing a pile of wooden branches? I blink my eyes again, and I see the stag once more.
Magic, I think. The duke has somehow ensorcelled the branches to look like a dead deer. I tell Cal as much. “The duke is a mage,” I whisper. “That’s not a stag.”
Cal frowns, watching as the duke takes his bows.
“Pure luck!” he tells the crowd. “Thank you, thank you.”
Is the duke an Aphrasian? Have we unwittingly stumbled into the conspirator’s home? The Duke of Girt is clearly a liar and a cheat, but could he also be part of the enemy order that has plotted the death of the Renovian dynasty?
Someone touches my shoulder. I look to my right. Ambassador Nhicol is standing there with his hand extended. “We haven’t been introduced,” he says. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. My mind is spinning—
“Apologies, she is terribly shy,” Cal says, deepening his voice. “May I introduce you to my sister, Lady Lila Holton. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“And this is my brother, Lord Callum,” I say weakly.
“Ambassador Nhicol of Renovia, on behalf of Queen Lilianna. What brings you to Montrice, Lord Holton?”
“Merely passing through.”
“Is that so?”
“Traveling to claim our late grandfather’s estate,” Cal says smoothly.
The ambassador nods. “Very nice.” He claps for something the king said about the prize money.
“If you don’t mind,” Cal says. “Aren’t Renovia and Montrice . . . ? I’m curious how this arrangement came about?”
“Well, you know how it goes. If I told you, then I’d have to kill you,” the ambassador says, grinning.
Cal puts his hands up. “Understood.”
“And . . . if you don’t mind me asking, why the masks?”
“Well . . . I suppose the same answer applies.” Cal smiles broadly.
The ambassador slaps his arm. “Funny!” he says to Cal.
“It’s an Argonian custom,” Cal explains.
“Back to the house for food and libations!” Duke Girt announces.
“That’s my cue,” Ambassador Nhicol says. “Looking forward to speaking with both of you more tonight.”
“Likewise,” Cal says. I simply curtsy. I feel sweat pooling under my wig. Now I’m certain I’ve met the ambassador before. I can’t place him. The voice, I know it from somewhere, I’m sure of it. Why do I think I heard it in Deersia? But that’s not possible. Perhaps I wasn’t fibbing when I said he’d purchased honeycomb at the marketplace. As soon as he walks away, I exhale a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. How are we going to make it through this visit? We can’t wear masks the entire time.
We step in line and begin the procession back to the house for the resting period before dinner. Behind us, servants load the dead stag onto a cart. They’ll bring it to the taxidermist to be stuffed and mounted on a plaque. I wonder if all the duke’s hunting trophies are phonies.
When it’s our turn to file into the duke’s great hall, I step through the door to find King Hansen standing there. I curtsy; Cal bows. “Your Majesty.”
“I’m sorry to have missed you at the hunt,” he says to me, as a beautiful courtier behind him sneers in my direction.
I curtsy once again. He’s holding a bouquet of wildflowers, which he hands me. “I picked them myself.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I’m supposed to flirt with him, but all I want to do is run upstairs.
“They reminded me of you. Wild and beautiful,” he says, his voice thick.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I repeat, taking them from him and keeping my eyes on the floor.
The king exits abruptly after that, his personal servants trailing after him.