Van didn’t move, didn’t blink. Their jaw was set, and they held Nova’s gaze until she backed off. This relationship of theirs was long and familial, for better or worse. But each was aware of the power at play in it.
“I think maybe instead of these little monthly headaches, you’d be better served getting the people’s word from the radio,” they said calmly.
“Now you’re being dramatic.” Nova returned to the desk.
“You don’t take me seriously—”
“I take you as seriously as you take this!”
“You don’t take the faith seriously, so how can you take people of faith seriously?”
Nova shrugged aggressively at them from across the desk. Therewas nothing to say here that would be both appeasing and honest. The existence of living gods was as uncontested as the existence of the Mer. The subject of their relevance, their ongoing interest in the lives of those who worshipped them, was only of interest to Nova as far as it motivated hatred toward the Crown and who donned it at any given time. But saying as much now wouldn’t be helpful.
“You underestimate your influence,” Van said in a pleading sort of tone. “You should visit the Rakelands. You should know these people as they are, not just as subjects tied to history. There are many who believeyoucan repair this when you’re on the throne.”
“A thousand things to do before then, though.” Nova hated thinking about the weight of the crown, impossible to avoid in a union with Yemi. She did not consider herself a political figure, though that didn’t much seem to matter.
She exhaled long and slow and held up the purse containing Van’s fee, then gripped their hand when they reached to take it. “The queen is dying. Every stress is heightened. I haven’t been honoring your position, the time and effort you put into coming here. I think we would get better sides of one another if I did. I will work on it.”
Van squeezed her shoulder in something like appreciation or an apology of their own.
“I love you, Cousin. Obé keep you,” said Van.
“Yeah. Love you back,” said Nova.
• YEMI •
Yemi took a deep breath and gathered her voice.
“So sorry to intrude!” she declared in a vaguely disinterested tone. The guests’ chairs scraped backward on the stone floors as they stood for her to enter.
“Not at all, My Light! What a pleasure!” Dorian Drake beamed. He was barely tall but wiry and wore his white hair in a bun. Yemi foundhim overloud and turned her wince into more of a strained smile before anyone noticed.
“Daughter,” the queen said, tilting her cheek of iron fur upward as Yemi kissed it.
“Mother,” Yemi replied, taking her seat beside her mother at the long table. Knowing she would decline to eat as long as her mother couldn’t, servers rushed a glass of wine to her side instead. It was early for wine, but looking around the table, maybe not early enough.
“What have I missed?” she asked without any real interest. She would use the cover of conversation instead to silently inspect her mother for signs of distress, but the woman was an enigma behind the mask. The Bear Queen wore black, always now, either in perpetual mourning or to distract from the flaking stone of the flesh along the right side of her body. Tonight an ornate collar of pearls dripped like a constellation of stars down her chest. The assassin’s bullet steeped in the stone poison had passed through the eye of her personal guard, a woman named Lidia, and carved a short scar into the queen’s left bicep. It had been enough. Yemi had watched it from mere yards away.
“We could ask you the same! Come back from an adventure, did you?” Dorian Drake asked.
“He means you smell like the sea,” Dahlia Drake muttered into her wineglass. Her voice had a rasp to it that Yemi could find attractive. They were about the same age. Dahlia was pale, objectively pretty, statuesque, with curious green eyes and an intelligent, occasionally off-putting demeanor. Yemi could relate.
“Not quite. Naval exercises. Keeping the fleet fresh,” Yemi replied.
“Settle something for us. Her Majesty seems bent on holding the diplomatic position.” Sofia waved her wineglass. “On the matter of roads—”
“Personal conveyanceis what she’s against, and for obvious reasons!” Marvel Packard interjected, clearly the least sober of all of them.
“ON THE MATTER OF ROADS,” Sofia began again. “Which is to be the priority? The maximization of access, meaning more roadsdesigned to reach every possible destination for every possible person, or the preservation of everything we stand for as a country, including its natural resources and the spirit of community developed by a well-run mass transit system?”
“That wasn’t a biased presentation at all, was it?” Marvel grumbled.
“My apparently unfavorable take,” said the queen, “was that balance is required. We cannot stifle progress or independent invention, but there’s a bedrock of tradition and lore in our lands that shouldn’t be disrupted in those pursuits.”
Sofia smiled with pursed lips as she swallowed her wine. “See? Diplomacy.”
“And dodging the actual question.” Dahlia turned to Yemi with a curious intensity. “So which is more important?”
