Aveline had never stopped resenting her for it.
The books didn’t mention that, either.
Faron had once hoped that if she apologized enough, she and Aveline could talk,reallytalk, about all that the gods had given them and all that the gods had taken away. She’d been disappointed every time, and by this point she knew to expect nothing better than to be used as a weapon or a trophy.
All she wanted to know now was which it would be.
“I need you, your sister, and the Warwick boy to come to Port Sol today,” Aveline admitted, “and stay through the Summit.”
Faron cursed, forgetting that her parents were even here until Mama smacked her in the side. But no stern comment followed. Her parents were equally stunned by this change in plans. They’d objected to the San Irie International Peace Summit as much asFaron had, if not more, but Aveline had still convinced them to let her go. In their eyes, Aveline had brought their runaway daughters safely home from war. There was little they wouldn’t do for her, even now.
San Irie had rebuilt a lot in five years, thanks to the summoners and the scalestone, but Faron thought it was far too soon to invite the empires here to discuss treaties and trade. When a burglar broke into a house and tried to steal the deed, no one in their right mind invited them back to see the new security improvements. But Faron was an overvalued guardian. Aveline was the ruler. If she said there was to be a Summit, Faron didn’t get a say in that.
This, however, she deserved a say in.
“I’m not supposed to come until the weekend. And forone night,” she snapped. “I was promised—”
“Things have changed.” The queen’s tone was even, a calculated move to make Faron feel as if she were being irrational. Worse, it was working. “We are moving the demonstration up to the beginning.”
“The beginning isn’t for anothertwo days. And why do we have to stay the whole time after that?”
“The Langlish have arrived on Iryan land.”
Mama placed a shaking hand over Faron’s. Aveline had saidthe Langlish,but it was obvious what she really meant.
Their dragons.
“They are landing over on the nearby islet of San Mala as prearranged, but our people are starting to get nervous. We have not had this many dragons near the island since… well, you remember.” Aveline’s jaw tightened into a stubborn line. “We have drakes on standby at the airfield, but I believe—or, rather, Iknow—thateveryone would feel better if the Empyrean was there as well. In case there are any incidents.”
Faron clutched Mama’s hand tightly, the way she’d used to when she was younger. Before her prayer, before her direct line to the gods, before she’d gone to war, she had been a scared girl from a fading farming town in a flyover zone at the base of the Argent Mountains. Dragons would often burst over the peaks flame-first, killing the land with their blazing breath and blowing wooden shacks across the plains with their wings. Every morning, she had woken up wondering if today would be the day she would die, a fear that had done nothing but calcify over the years, overlooked but never completely forgotten.
With so much out of her control, she’d prayed. She had prayed and prayed and prayed to Irie to end this war. She’d never expected that she would be that ending.
Even now, it was still surreal to hear Aveline talk about her as if she were the only hope of a bunch of strangers. They should be praying to the gods, not pinning all their faith on her. She barely had any of that left for herself.
“How many dragons?” she heard herself ask.
“So far, three.”
“Three.”
Faron felt as if she were an astral and the person sitting there between her parents was a different girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She just couldn’t seem to fit herself into this scene, where the queen of her country could tell her that the only thing that would make her people feel safe from the presence of three dragons was one seventeen-year-old girl.
“—students from their training academy, Hearthstone,” Avelinewas saying when Faron snapped back into her body. “Apparently, they are here to ‘observe,’ not to participate. That is something that I did not think to ban.” She brushed imaginary dust from the bodice of her dress. “I assure you I willnotmake that mistake twice.”
“Will we need to have a peace summit more than once, Your Majesty?” Papa asked, his politeness just shy of reproachful. “I thought the point was to make a show of our strength. Won’t that message lose effect if you have to repeat it?”
“Well—”
Faron heard keys in the lock and ran to meet Elara at the front door.
Her sister was sweaty but smiling, her waist-length braids twisted up into a half bun on top of her head. She was wearing a casual black riding habit with matching trousers, which meant she’d been out running with her friends again, and she sagged into Faron’s hug, which meant she’d been outsummoningwith her friends again.
Faron had to laugh. “Overdid it today?”
“Don’t you start.”
“All right, all right. But I’d like to remind you that you’re supposed to be the responsible one.”
