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Lucas kept his eyes fixed on the Empress.
Senevier sat at the head of the long banquet table, conversing lightly with the Eastern lords. Men who ought to have been on their guard against her hung on every syllable she uttered as though entranced.
Lucas let out a hollow scoff at the preposterous spectacle, then shifted his gaze to the woman seated at her left.
While the Empress held the hall captive with radiant charm, Talia Roem Shearkan sat in frigid silence, nursing her wine goblet. The stark disparity set his teeth on edge.
‘Why does that woman always look as if she’s attending a wake?’
At a glance, the pair could have passed for twins.
Had Talia chosen to smile and beguile as the Empress did, perhaps no one in this keep could have withstood her.
Instead, she was perpetually bristling like a hedgehog with raised quills, repelling anyone who dared draw near.
She had seemed to make some effort at playing the Grand Duchess for a time, yet these past few days she had abandoned even the pretense of courtesy. The lords who had shown her goodwill had grown weary and turned cold.
‘Has her health taken another turn for the worse?’
The thought made Lucas narrow his eyes. Talia Roem Shearkan looked paler than usual, staring blankly into the candle flame upon the board.
She looked unwell beyond doubt.
Just as a strange unease stirred in him, Varkas strode into the banquet hall.
Lucas unconsciously stiffened. His brother’s arrival seemed to flash-freeze whatever merriment had lingered in the air.
He was not alone in that chill; everyone along the table watched the quiet confrontation between the Empress and Varkas with taut faces.
“It has grown so difficult to catch a glimpse of you, Duke Shearkan. I had begun to feel quite neglected.”
Senevier broke the thick silence first.
Moistening her lips with a sip of wine, she wore an expression of mock chagrin.
“It is well and good to greet comrades you have not seen in ages, but do spare some regard for me and my daughter as well.”
“I offer my apologies if I have caused any offense.”
Varkas reached the head of the table, answered evenly, and took his seat.
“Matters have grown rather chaotic at the Imperial Palace. I was detained in conference. I ask your understanding.”
At the pointed reply, a chillingly smooth smile curved the Empress’s lips.
Lucas marveled inwardly at her composure.
She sat squarely in the belly of enemy territory. What was more, half the envoys escorting her belonged to the Roem Knights. She was enveloped by her political rivals. How could she remain so serene?
Her eyes narrowing into crescents, the Empress spoke softly.
“I trust the discourse proved fruitful.”
An uncomfortable hush descended over the banquet once more.
The Empress was clearly aware that Varkas was laboring to dismantle her designs, and Varkas made no effort to conceal it.
Lucas glanced back toward Talia. Her face was set hard, her fingers whitening on her wine goblet as she bit down on her lip. She had surely caught wind that her husband was straining every sinew to rescue his former betrothed.
Lucas brought his glass to his lips, watching his brother’s inscrutable profile.
Once their father’s stone sarcophagus had been laid within the crypt, Lucas had been formally named aide to the Grand Duke of Shearkan. Over the past few weeks, he had acquired an unsparing grasp of the political undercurrents between the East and the Imperial Palace.
Rifts were already spreading between the Eastern lords and the court conservatives. Into those fractures, the Northerners were seeking to drive a wedge.
The danger went far deeper than a hunger for political influence.
The Balto clans had recently been massing their arms, expanding their hosts at an alarming rate.
Nor was that all. Traces had been uncovered that they were funneling war funds through various merchant syndicates.
If their goal was Balto independence, worst-case scenario, Ayla Roem Guirta would be reduced to a hostage used to hold the imperial throne by the throat. The First Princess’s proposed betrothal bore every chance of striking the spark that tore the empire apart.
Because of this, Varkas was neglecting the administration of the duchy to pour all his strength into prevailing upon the Crown Prince and the conservative faction.
‘None of this would have happened if Brother had simply wed Ayla Roem Guirta from the start.’
Lucas grumbled inwardly.
Had Varkas honored his allegiance to the Crown Prince instead of bending to the Emperor’s will, he would not be running himself ragged now.
Raedgo Castle would have felt far less like a tomb, too.
Perhaps Raina would have endured their father’s death with greater fortitude.
Ayla Roem Guirta was renowned for her gentle grace; she would have looked after the girl with care.
And Talia would not have had to suffer needlessly in a harsh, foreign land.
‘Not that her suffering is any concern of mine.’
Lucas caught himself with a sharp snap of his thoughts.
The only things that demanded his loyalty were House Shearkan and Raina. The Empress and her daughter were merely a plague imperiling the East.
Shaking off his wandering thoughts, Lucas slipped quietly from the banquet hall. His head felt on the verge of splitting if he had to look another second at his cold brother, the viperous Empress, and his corpse-pale sister-in-law.
He walked along the corridor, tugging loose the stifling collar of his doublet.
He already longed for the days when he could gallop across open plains without a care in the world. He even felt a flicker of pity for his brother, who had shouldered such torment his whole life.
Kneading the knot at his nape, he glanced down through a window into the rear garden.
‘Should I go check on Turgan?’
Thinking of his mount, neglected for nearly a fortnight, he worked his stiff muscles—until two figures standing in an alcove of the grounds caught his eye.
Servants coming and going across the courtyard were an ordinary sight, yet something made Lucas halt and watch.
A woman with a face he half-recognized was speaking gravely to a young man dressed in the garb of an envoy. It took Lucas a moment to place her: Talia Roem Guirta’s personal healer.
‘Do they know each other?’
He tilted his head.
By the cut of his livery, the man was in the Empress’s service.
Since the healer had also been sent by House Taren, encountering an acquaintance among the Empress’s retinue was hardly unthinkable. Yet a nagging sense of discord stuck like a thorn in his mind.
“What are you lingering here for?”
A low voice murmured behind him just as he was straining to read the movement of their lips.
Lucas looked back. Tyrone, draped loosely in a tunka of black satin, was ambling along the stone corridor. He must have followed him out of the hall.
Lucas parted his lips to describe what he had just seen, then shut them again, realizing there was nothing outwardly suspicious to report.
When he glanced down at the garden once more, the pair was gone. Scanning the empty paths with a faint unease, Lucas shook his head to brush it off.
“Nothing.”
The imperial delegation remained for seven days before departing.
Talia, watching the tail of the procession wind away from her sill, drew the heavy curtains shut.
To the very threshold of her carriage, Senevier had pressed her to yield to her design. Talia had not breathed a single answer, yet her mother had departed serene in the knowledge that she could not refuse.
No. Perhaps she had not been entirely certain. She had made sure to stoke the fanatic fire in her faithful servant before leaving.
“You must share a bed tonight.”
Nanny spoke in a steel-edged tone, lifting a slip of translucent gauze—the Empress’s gift—from the depths of a chest.
“The mourning rites are ended. There is no cause left to delay.”
END