Perhaps they’d come here for that purpose, and not to conquer. They hadn’t seemed inclined to fire on Calanthe, or my people, as I’d prepared for in case the enchantment hadn’t worked as I hoped. Most likely Con had used his keen strategic mind, intuiting that the silly young Queen of Flowers would be swayed by his savage handsomeness and fall, fainting and giddy, into his arms—and consequently positioning him to attack Yekpehr. Never mind that he’d decimate Calanthe in the process. What was one more ransacked and dusty kingdom to him?
It burned me no end that he’d been so close to convincing me. Years of certainty and icing my heart to think of only duty, then a few minutes in a garden with a charismatic man and I’d nearly gone against everything my father taught me.
Ambrose bowed, beaming like an honored guest visiting for tea, balancing on the staff as he made a leg with the misshapen one. An odd choice. Mocking me and my throne? The raven half spread its wings, ducking its head in mimicry of the bow.
I’d been planning to restore Ambrose’s magical staff to him, but now I reconsidered. I also considered leaving him in the obeisance. Both would be petty whereas I wished to earn his confidence. Still, I’d wait until I had a sense of whether he planned to attack me before I gave him additional weapons. There. I was thinking strategically again.
“You may rise,” I said, studying them both as they did. Though the wizard’s eyes had been downcast, the raven’s had not. Much as I could see through the eyes of Calanthe’s birds during the dreamthink, Ambrose probably had at least that much ability with his familiar. Likely far more and better controlled. I so hoped he could teach me.
“So, Your Highness,” Ambrose said brightly, ignoring protocol by speaking before I invited him to. “I understand I’m to be added to your Court of Curiosities.”
I raised a brow at the impertinence and he shrugged with good cheer, leaning in and winking. “That’s what we call it, those of us in the circles of the types of folk you collect. It’s meant with affection and all due reverence for Your Highness.”
I seriously doubted that. And I decided not to address the implicit irreverence. No doubt having a wizard for an adviser would come with all sorts of concessions on my part. Plus, none of Con’s people were quite as they appeared, including himself. The jovial mien the wizard displayed didn’t quite hide the canny and ancient being inside. Indeed, the raven had turned its head, hard orange eye on me, as the wizard apparently looked around at the flowers with an absent smile playing on his lips. He never took his attention off me.
“Ah, then, Con spoke to you of the plan. Excellent.” I wouldn’t have to explain it yet again—or face the sort of nastiness I’d endured with Sondra. You’d have thought I was planning to flay her alive rather than offer her a life of ease in the Flower Court.
“Conrí,” he said. “I’m naturally looking forward to seeing some of my friends who’ve accepted your generous offer of luxurious asylum,” he continued, “even as I’m sorry to refuse for my part and Merle’s.”
The raven croaked an agreement, bobbing his head, as if regretfully apologizing. I eyed it, wondering if Merle echoed his master’s thoughts or conveyed his own. He might not be truly a bird at all.
“Not this again,” I replied, having no trouble sounding utterly weary of this group of martyrs. “Con certainly has gathered himself a crew of professional victims. Let Me guess—you’d rather be tortured and executed by His Imperial Majesty, also.”
“Conrí, Your Highness. The rí is an honorific in Oriel,” he clarified. “To truncate it demonstrates either familiarity or disrespect for the crown prince.”
I barely disguised my shock. Conrí, the crown prince of Oriel? And he’d stood there and let me malign his bloodline … I’d throttle the man. I swore I would.
“Is that so?” I said, smooth and barely interested. “Oriel … the golden kingdom in the high hills. Legendary for its prosperity, blissfully happy population—along with the noble but vicious Warriors of the Orb that guarded its borders from attack.”
“Indeed.” Ambrose dropped some of the clownish mask. “One of the first to fall to the upstart tyrant.” He hadn’t bothered to lower his voice.
“Have a care, Syr Ambrose,” I warned him.
“No honorific needed for me.” He stroked his familiar. “Call me Ambrose, and this is Merle.”
“Ambrose,” I replied with studied patience, “Merle, even I cannot protect you from the consequences of treason if your words are connected to your face.”
“Can’t you?” It sounded like a challenge. “I don’t think the Abiding Ring would’ve accepted you if that were true. May I?” He extended an oddly long-fingered hand toward me, a glimpse of something beneath illusion.
Interested to test that, I laid my hand in his, the orchid fluttering its petals almost coyly, like one of my ladies simpering at a handsome courtier. Have some dignity, I thought at it, and it stilled, obeying for once. Merle opened his beak in a smile, while the wizard had his human gaze on the blossom. His hand felt normal. Excellent illusion then. He was more powerful than I’d guessed.
If I could learn that trick, I might be able to wear fewer clothes. An enticing thought, though minor in the grand scheme of the problems I faced.
“As extraordinary as I’d hoped,” Ambrose said, releasing my hand and leaning on the staff, regarding me like one of my naturalists dissecting a newly discovered beetle. “You’re not what I expected, however.”
“No?” I raised a brow, going for supercilious cool.
Ambrose shook his head ruefully. “It’s not your fault, your mother being taken from you so young and your father passing as he did … And losing your wizards, too. Well, the past can’t be helped, but I did hope for more.”
I squelched the need to ask what he could possibly know about my mother. Another attempt at manipulation, no doubt. He couldn’t know anything of importance, I reassured myself. “I am grieved to disappoint you,” I replied in a tone that froze even the most incautious of courtiers.
But Ambrose waved a hand as if in forgiveness. “I’ve learned to live with worse disappointments. Once you marry Conrí, that will put us on the right path. I’ll be able to begin your instruction.” He beamed at me, somehow making it the expression of a generous and ancient teacher despite his boyish face.
It required all my years of training in courtly impassivity not to gape at him.
“Even if I weren’t engaged to His Imperial—”
“Which you’re not,” Ambrose cut me off. Then added a slight smile. “Don’t try to trick the trickster, Euthalia. I know exactly how much of your apparent betrothal is smoke and mirrors.”
“Will you assist Me then?” I asked, seizing control of the conversation. Perhaps if I’d had access to a wizard years ago, when I first ascended to the throne, too young and in the wake of my father’s untimely death, I could’ve avoided this trap before it bound me so tightly. “Is there a way out?”
“Of course!” He smiled and straightened. I doubted he truly needed to lean on the staff at all. “Though you already have it. I’ve already convinced Conrí that marrying you is the best course. See, there’s a prophecy that—”