“What do you think, Aria?”
At the sound of her father’s voice, Aria sat up with a jolt. She didn’t know how long her cheek had been slumped against the side of her high-backed throne, but the eyes of the Upper Court rested on her, awaiting an answer she didn’t know how to give.
“I agree,” she said with feigned confidence.
Her father’s lips tightened to a line. His brow furrowed.
Wrong answer. Mark.
“We’ll table this matter for now,” said the king. “Reconvene tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I have family matters to deal with.”
There could be no mistaking his implication, and as Aria caught the members of court offering her father pitying glances, her skin chilled, and she shivered. A manifestation of the curse. Along with her other gifts, Widow Morton had sent Aria homewith the frost of Northglen coating her bones, and every so often, the cold rose to the surface. As if she didn’t have enough reminders of her terrible mistake.
Once they were alone, her father’s posture softened at the edges, allowing his shoulders a curve as he sat at a slight angle in his throne. He studied her without speaking. Aria hated that more than a lecture.
“I won’t be late again,” she promised.
False promises. Mark.
He raised an eyebrow. “How am I to believe that, after three meetings in a row?”
Aria licked her lips but couldn’t think of a response. Her mind seemed like molasses when called upon, slow to deliver anything beyond the constant muted cry forsleeeep.
“You are excused from Upper Court meetings,” her father said. “At least for the time being.”
Aria bolted upright in her chair. “Father, no! I wish to be here. I—”
He held up a hand.
“If”—his fierce gaze bored into hers—“you can attend a separate duty with diligence, I will allow you back to the meetings. A fair trial.”
Itwasfair. If only Aria had the motivation to tend toanyduties. All she wanted was to yank the nearest tapestry off the wall, curl up in it, and disappear into a blissful oblivion.
“Yes, Father,” she forced herself to say. “Name it.”
“You have entertained a few suitors at this point, but none for more than a single meeting. You are eighteen now, Aria, and cannot continue putting this off. Find a young man to court, show me you take the future of our kingdom seriously, and I will welcome the return of my dutiful daughter.”
Of course, that was the problem—Aria hadn’t been dutiful at all. She’d been rebellious and foolish. She’d thought herselfwiser than her father, who had led his kingdom through a recovery from famine, then through decades of peace.
If she could go back and never speak to Widow Morton, she would.
Instead, she bowed her head and said, “I’ll do it, Father.”
She ought to have been dutiful from the start, but the least she could do was never disobey again.
The day of Eliza’s ball, Aria was asleep at her writing desk when her sister burst into the room, shrieking exuberantly.
“It’s here, it’s here, it’shere!”
Aria sprang to her feet, eyes bleary but the rest of her awake with panic. She looked frantically over her shoulder for an enemy that didn’t exist.
No, her enemydidexist; it just couldn’t be seen.
Eliza deflated. “You haven’t even laid out a gown. Aren’t we readying together?”
“Yes, of course.” Aria turned away, fumbling scraps of parchment into her journal, blinking hard. “I got caught up in ... finalizing my welcome speech.”
By that, she meant she’d lifted her quill and remembered nothing after. Her first time hosting a court event, and she was going to make a fool of herself. Worse, she was going to embarrass her sister.
