I laughed. “I never thought I’d say this, but I envy you right now, Rylan. I wish I could just up and disappear. Instead I have to deal with whiny politicians, and now Iannis’s relativestoo.”
Rylan raised an eyebrow. “Iannis’s relatives? I didn’t know he had any that were living. Are they coming to thewedding?”
I shook my head. “We invited them, but somehow we didn’t manage to get an invitation to Iannis’s grandmother, and she’s pissed about it.” I gave him an abridged version of the letter, leaving out the part about his grandmother being a Tua. That was a closely guarded secret, and few people knew about Iannis’s mixedheritage.
“Sounds like a bunch of nut jobs,” Rylan said when I’d finished. “Complaining about not being consulted, after being out of touch that long? I wouldn’t worry about it. Obviously, they’re busybodies with nothing better todo.”
“I know.” I scraped my hands through my hair. “It just seems like these issues keep piling up, one after the other. I might lose my mind if I get any more badnews.”
“Hey.” Rylan punched me lightly in the arm. “All that stress isn’t good for you. When’s the last time yousparred?”
I blinked. “Uhh…” I trailed off as I tried to remember, but I came up blank. Had it been a month? Threemonths?
“Exactly.” Rylan grabbed my elbow and hauled me up. “Come on, cousin. Let’s go find that old training room of yours. Time to get rid of that stress the old-fashioned way. And besides,” he added with a quick jab to my face that I barely ducked, “you’re getting slow. At the rate you’re going, Melantha will be able to knock you on yourass.”
“Shut up,” I growled, jabbing back at him. Melantha was Rylan’s older sister, and she was even prissier than Mafiela. Rylan easily sidestepped my punch, then darted out the door, laughing. I chased him all the way to the training room, my blood already pumping in anticipation. I tackled him the moment we were inside, and we went down in a tangle of limbs, fighting to get inside each other’s guard. Choking out Rylan might not solve my problems, but it would get some of this pent-up aggression out of my system, and I was a big believer in taking whatever I could get out oflife.
5
My morning trainingsession with Rylan was exactly what I needed. We spent a good hour trading between boxing and weapons, and by the time I rushed back to shower and change for my meeting with Nelia, I was feeling a million times better than I had lastnight.
Of course, some of that old pressure and resentment settled back on my chest when I sat down in my office with my social secretary, who was fresh as a daisy and ready with her clipboard. I had a feeling it would be a very long time before I grew out of that. But at least facing the day’s work was bearablenow.
Nelia started by reporting on the guest list—acceptances were still coming in—and all the new presents that had arrived since the previousmorning.
“The High Mage of Castalis sent a replica of a famous portrait in his family’s possession,” she recited, as she went down the list. “Of his ancestress, the daughter of the First Mage herself, with a jeweled frame. I wonder why he pickedthat?”
“Not many portraits have survived the Conflict, so it’s of historical interest,” I said. Fenris would be fascinated to see it, if he ever came back. “I’ll write back to thank the High Mage personally. Bring the portrait here tomorrow and we’ll find a good place to display it.” This was my own ancestress too, and I was curious to know what she had been like. I wondered where the hell they were putting all the other gifts—was there a mountain of them stashed in a hidden room somewhere, just waiting to crash on top of someone like an avalanche if they opened thedoor?
“We’re going to have quite a busy month ahead of us, aren’t we?” Nelia said once we’d gone through the rest of the list. “Not only with the wedding, but the Convention now coming toSolantha.”
I held in a sigh at the sparkle in Nelia’s eyes—I wished I could share in her excitement, but it still all sounded like one big nightmare to me. “I imagine I probably won’t see Iannis at all until our wedding day,” I said mulishly, picking at one of my nails. “But at least I won’t have to get involved with the political stuff.” Or so Ihoped.
“Do you think we should invite some of the officials to stay at the palace?” Neliaasked.
“The Minister should definitely get an invite,” I said grudgingly—as much as I didn’t like him, he was Iannis’s “boss,” for lack of a better term, and had stayed with us before, on his way to Garai. “There are a few Chief Mages we’ve worked with on fighting against the Resistance who probably also deserve aninvite.”
“While part of me agrees with you,” Nelia said cautiously, “it is very possible that you may slight the rest of the Convention if you only invite some of the Chief Mages and not others. Since the palace doesn’t have enough large guest apartments to host all of them, plus the families they may be bringing to the wedding, it is probably best not to extend invitations to a select few. Though you could still send one to theMinister.”
I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “Right. I forgot how touchy these guys can be, always ready to take offense where none was intended. I guess we can invite close friends and family to stay? Not that a lot of people will be taking us up on that—they all already live in thecity.”
A small shiver went down my spine as I remembered Iannis’s Tua relatives, but I pushed that aside. They weren’t coming out here—they’d made that clear. There was nothing to worryabout.
“I have to admit that I’m glad Thorgana is dead and gone,” I went on. “With so many important people gathered in one place, these events would offer a prime target for the Resistance. If she were still lurking here, as she had in the months before the quake, I shudder to think what she coulddo.”
Nelia nodded. “Very true. Luckily, without a mastermind to lead them, these days the Resistance is a snake with its head chopped off. There are only a few rabble-rousers left, scattered across the country. Between the Enforcers Guild and Director Toring’s security team, we should be able to fend off anythreats.”
Right. I’d forgotten that Garrett was coming, but of course he would—he would have been in charge of Convention security in Dara, so it was only natural that the Minister would put him on the same job here. That meant he would arrive well before the others. “How many agents is the director bringing?” I asked. “Do we knowyet?”
“A few dozen, Iunderstand.”
“He’ll need them,” I said, looking out the window at the city, which was still being rebuilt. Solantha had come a long way from the piles of rubble that portions of the city had been reduced to during last year’s big quake, but there were still plumes of black smoke coming up from various parts of the city where steamtractors and other machines were hard at work reconstructing buildings that we had not managed to properly secure in time. “We’re already crowded as it is—with the influx of guests and officials, Garrett will have his hands full. And the enforcers will be working lots of overtime.” Maybe, I reflected optimistically, that extra income would help ease the jealousy between the older and youngercrews.
Moving on, Nelia flipped to another sheet of paper on her clipboard and read the day’s headlines to me. With so much to do, I had no time to listen to broadcasts or peruse the news, so Nelia did it for me every morning, then gave me the highlights. As she read them off, I gradually grew more and more annoyed—the newspaper and tabloid headlines had taken a sour turnlately.
When Iannis and I had first announced our engagement, they’d written up the whole thing as a touching romance. Our epic love had been a beacon of hope, proof that two people from vastly different classes and races could come together and make the world a better place. But someone at theHeraldmust have gotten a bug up their ass, because a few weeks ago they’d published an article saying that Iannis was cradle-robbing. The rest of the human papers had followed suit, and now there was an article popping up nearly every day questioning the suitability of our match. Paparazzi were following us around everywhere, to the point that I rarely left the palace anymore unless I was in disguise. While the papers pretended to champion me, they also threw out subtle digs about the disparity of power between Iannis and me, and made me sound like a poor little orphan girl with no family to supportme.
“Isn’t there anything we can do to set the record straight?” I finally asked, my voice simmering with frustration. “I’m getting really tired of the media taking potshots at Iannis and me. Magorah knows we’re not perfect, but this is getting ridiculous! Honestly, who gives a shit about our age differenceanyway?”
