Theia went to her wardrobe and pulled out velvet-lined drawers glittering with jewels. “How about a necklace of emeralds to match your gown? Argyle’s colors.”
She’d rather spoon her eye out than sit at dinner with Eldrik.
Alora frowned as she watched her friend pick out earrings next. “Leave that, Theia. You’re a lady now, and in no position to tend to me like a maid. You should be in your own castle with ladies-in-waiting to tend to you.”
Theia paused, flushing as she bit her lip. “Right…”
She came to stand with Alora at the windows and her gaze lifted to high towers of Stormwatch’s Keep on the bay.
“Calveron seized my father’s stronghold when they invaded,” she murmured, her hands tightening in her skirts until her knuckles blanched. “He was at sea leading the naval assault when land forces breached the gates. Caelum came for my mother and me. It’s a miracle we escaped. Our guards…were not so fortunate.” Her gaze flicked down to the Hydras snapping their jaws below, then slid away quickly, as though the sightdragged her back to a frightful memory. “We are grateful King Laurent has graciously given us the east wing for the time being.”
Alora’s jaw clenched. Graciously. As though it were kindness to strip a duke of his keep and tuck his family into borrowed rooms. Theia did not deserve such humiliation, nor her father such shame.
“This doesn’t feel real, does it?” Theia murmured. “Argyle is not the kingdom we once knew.”
Though Alora wouldn’t say she was raised here long enough to say the same.
“I am not going to dinner,” Alora said curtly. “Do tell my father I must decline his summons. I am unwell, and thus in no state to endure tea with hisguests.”
“But the King?—”
She shook her head, scowling at the foreign ships on the gray seas. “I will not play the docile broodmare for their amusement.”
But even as she said the words, they rang empty. What choice did she truly have?
“I wish…” Theia said softly. “I could take your place, and you could take mine. Then at least one of us might be happy.”
Alora met her gaze, confused by the guilt there.
Theia looked down, tears gathering on her lashes. “Caelum told me… that you spoke last night.”
Sighing, Alora pulled her into an embrace. “I hope you know that I am not cross with you, Theia.”
Theia’s trembling hands wrapped around her. “I’m sorry…” she said, her voice catching. “I know how much you loved him.”
Alora laughed wetly, patting her back. “It was a child’s idea of love. But you are my best friend, and that love is far more precious.”
Theia cried on her shoulder, reminding Alora how much her best friend wailed at the gates when she was sent away. Lastnight, she had demanded her father return Theia’s letters, and he did.
All three hundred of them.
“I suppose a part of me will always love him,” Alora admitted. “But our fates are no longer entwined.”
Saying it aloud snipped an invisible thread in her heart. At last, she could let go of her old affections.
“I know you don’t wish to marry, but you could not have made a better match.” She pulled back and smiled faintly at Theia’s tears. “Oh, stop. If you cry, so will I.”
Theia let her go, sniffling. “I hate that you have finally returned home only to be sent away again. That fae, he’s a terrible person, Alora. I am so terrified of what he will do to you.”
Alora used her sleeve to wipe Theia’s cheeks. “Don’t you worry about him.”
“What will you do?”
“I must find a way out of this.” Alora drew in a breath and folded her arms as she watched the rows of foreign solders gather in the courtyard. “Does it not strike you as strange that Calveron would sail across the sea from Arthal to conquer a small kingdom? Out of all the kingdoms in the Land of Urn, why Argyle? We have no mines of gold, no salt flats or silk trade. No treasures worth the cost of battle. Our modest wealth comes from vineyards and timber. The United Crown would have been a far richer conquest. So why here? It bears no reason.”
Sighing, she glared at the ceiling as if the stones might yield an answer.
Theia’s eyes flicked to the door, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves listened. “They came at the height of winter, when no wise king would wage war. King Thalion claimed he sought easy spoils, that his people relished battle, and we fit the mark. Their attack was brutal but short. Then a soldierarrived bearing a letter for terms of peace. No demands of land, no tribute. But your hand in marriage to his son Eldrik. In exchange, the war would end, and he would lift our curse. Your father agreed.”
