Covering my potatoes with a heaping scoop of sweet corn, I noticed my mother had already funneled half of her newest glass of wine down her throat.
“The fuck is wrong with you, Ma?” I asked without thinking, once again clapping my hand over my mouth. Old habits die hard.
Castemont did his best to hide his snicker, but his mouth full of lamb burst open at my comment. He quickly turned it into a cough and covered his mouth with his napkin. “Excuse me,” he tried to say.
“Evarius, please,” my mother said sharply as she turned to him. “Two weeks. She hastwo weeksto learn how to behave well enough to stand in front of the Board of Blood.”
I grabbed a roll from the basket to my left and the tray of butter to my right. I considered grabbing my knife to spread the butter, but decided against it, instead dipping my roll directly into the butter tray, scooping a melting glob directly into my mouth.
“Petra!” my mother scolded me. I threw my hands up and widened my eyes at her as I chewed.
Castemont was doing his best — but failing — to conceal a laugh. “Why waste a clean knife?” I said, mouth full. I didn’t care if I lived in a royal house — well, a Low Royal house. And not so much a house but a mansion-sized section of the Low Royal Castle. But still mine. I watched my mother give an exasperated look to Castemont, silently urging him to aid her in this battle.
“She’s put in tremendous effort, Irabel,” he said in a tone that was only half comforting. “She’ll be just fine.” He inhaled deeply, stuffing another bite of lamb in his mouth. I watched as he chewed, his face contemplative, his square jaw working over more than just the meat. He was a handsome man, thick black hair smattered with silver, the clean style highlighting the sharp cut of his cheeks and the deep brown of his eyes. It was a face I had only recently begun to appreciate.
People had begun to whisper about the Lord’s love life in the years before he met us. He was the only one of twelve Eserenian Lords not to take a wife. He had been betrothed a few years before, to a foreign noblewoman’s daughter who lived in Eserene. She was taken by a fever not long after she accepted his proposal, around the same time our lives fell apart for the second time. Then he met my mother, all because I was desperate and delinquent. And it’s because of his generosity, his faith, that we survived. Even when I railed against every kindness.
Had it been any other Lord, we would not be in this position. The Lords, Ladies, Barons, and Baronesses of the Low Royal Court were terribly aloof. They had drawn a clear line in the sand between themselves andothers.Not only had we beenothers, we were filth under their boots, the mud puddles they stepped around.
“Lady Marita tells me you’re still working on your gown for Initiation. Tell me, do you have much left to do?” Castemont asked, my mother clearly egging him on.
I couldn’t tell the truth. I should have finished that Saints damned monstrosity a week ago. “If I tell you, it would give away the surprise,” I chided. My mother saw right through it, inhaling to undoubtedly push me on the subject.
Suddenly, Tyrak barged through the door, the action so loud and fast that I was surprised the door remained on its hinges. “My Lord, a word?” The look on his face was grave.
Tyrak’s olive-skinned hand was on the gilded hilt of the sword that swung on his hip. I could sense the frenzy of urgency radiating from his body. Even though Tyrak’s dark eyes were filled with wild worry, Castemont’s face stayed neutral, nodding to us as he excused himself from the table and entered the hallway, Tyrak close behind.
Tyrak was Castemont’s head guard and had been since they both entered the court at the age of twenty-one. Not sixteen or seventeen. No Initiation was held for the men of royal standing. Just a small ceremony and a romp through the city to celebrate coming of age, adding lovers to their list and drinking a lion’s share of mead and ale. Nothing like what the women had to endure.
My mother and I looked at each other silently as the door closed, the air thick between us. I knew almost nothing about any other countries and their relations to Eserene and Widoras until becoming a Castemont. And still, what I had learned was basic. It was, however, enough to piece together the fact that there had long been unrest stirring across the continent of Astran. The borders between the three countries of Astran shared tenuous relations since the dawn of recorded history, but the grumblings were growing into shouts.
“I sometimes forget that we live in a capital city,” my mother muttered.
“Well, it wasn’t necessarily important knowledge until you became a part of its royalty.” I took a sip of wine. “I forget that there’s a life outside the city walls.”
Castemont told us that we, as royals, generally didn’t worry about what happened beyond city walls, across country lines, or on the dirt of other continents. Tyrak’s intrusion, however, produced a small kernel of fear that had been buried away deep in my gut.
Sensing the shift, my mother reached across the table and laid her hand flat in the middle, the emerald in her betrothal ring catching the candlelight of the silver chandelier hanging overhead. I laid my hand across hers, something we’d do on the dark days in the ragged kitchen of my childhood home, when we pined for our life before loss and devastation, when her face was blank and vacant. Her hand was as maddeningly delicate as it was then, and I fought the bitterness that began to rise in the back of my throat. “I’m sure it’s just a small military movement that Tyrak feels is worth reporting. Or maybe a skirmish along one of the borders. Saints knowthat’snot news,” she offered, lifting one side of her mouth.
“Maybe,” I replied. “Probably.” Still, my heartbeat had increased the moment Tyrak had stormed in and refused to settle. I removed my hand from my mother’s before she could feel the sweat forming on my palms. I wiped both hands on the heavy crimson velvet of my skirts, watching as the fabric darkened to the color of blood under my touch. I knew it was only because of the fibers being pushed in the other direction, but the sight was unsettling nonetheless. I knew the pressure of my new life was building, but I did my absolute best to lock it away, to ignore it completely.
Castemont pushed through the door, leaving Tyrak in the hall. “Not to worry, my loves,” he offered as he reclaimed his seat at the table. My mother raised an eyebrow, expectantly waiting for more information from her husband. “A small band of rebels infiltrated the Cabillian border carrying leechthorn. They’ve been dealt with.”
“Leechthorn?” I asked, the volume of my voice surprising everyone at the table, including myself.
Castemont resumed cutting into the lamb on his plate, looking uninterested. “A plant that only grows in Cabillia.” He placed a piece in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and took a deep dreg of his wine. “It’s dried in the sun, ground into a powder, and smoked from a pipe. Horribly addictive, but I’m told the high feels like walking among the Benevolent Saints themselves. One drag and you’re enslaved for life. The longer you go without it, the stronger you get. And if you can’t get your fix in time,” he said, his voice grim, “you’ll rip yourself to shreds.”
“Well, remind me never to try that out,” I said jokingly, trying to lighten the dark mood that had swept over the dining room. “How dismal.”
“And it’s made its way into Widoras?” my mother asked, her gaze boring into his cheek, her face painted with worry.
“It’s been in Widoras for some time now,” he said quietly, not raising his eyes from his plate. “All is well. It’s under control. Nothing new. Nothing of note.”
A sinking feeling hit my chest out of nowhere, my mind swirling with bits of my past I had worked so hard to bury. Clouds of smoke, flaming debris falling, the screams,herscreams–
“The corn is delicious. It must be fresh,” he said, quickly placing a forkful of sweet corn in his mouth. My mother’s gaze did not leave his face. He loudly cleared his throat.
The subject was dismissed.