“The alliance is strong, then?” James hated how part of him hoped relations were faltering, because it would make what he needed to do easier. “Trade flows?”
His uncle grunted. “Trade flows both ways, but that is only half the bargain. Edward promised war against Amarid, but William cares for nothing but claiming the bridge. He is like a toddler in pursuit of a toy.”
“Not forgotten, Father,” Lestara soothed. “It is only that the matter of the bridge is so pressing. Ithicana has caused terrible harm to Harendell, but worse still, Aren’s foolishness is doing harm not just to the nations of the north, but also to Maridrina and Valcotta. Ithicana needs to be ruled by a nation with a strong and steady hand. Once that has been achieved, William will look to punish Amarid for its crimes.”
It seemed that Lestara had taken in Alexandra’s lies as much as William.
“Is Amarid Ithicana’s ally or not, girl?” Ronan snapped. “You speak out of both sides of your mouth, in one breath claiming that Katarina and Aren conspire in all things and in the next that vengeance must be delivered separately.”
He slammed his cup down on the table, infamous temper rearing its head. “You speak of the importance of family, but you, thetrustedqueen of King William, seem to care little for avenging the murder of your own blood.” He leveled a finger. “Siobhan and Cormac were your aunt and uncle, yet you care more for a Harendellian whose only ties to you are words spoken before the representatives of a god you don’t believe in. You say you value this alliance, daughter, yet as always, it seems you only care for achieving your own ends!”
“I am bound by blood to the Ashfords through the babe in my belly!” Lestara shouted back. “The heir to Harendell is your grandson, which means he is your blood, too!”
“Of that, there is no doubt,” Ronan answered. “As to whether he is William’s…” He lifted one shoulder. “I would not be surprised if the child was born with eyes of Veliant blue. All know the ways of thequeen of Harendell,her only gift that which is between her legs. Perhaps that is why William sent you here, girl.”
James grimaced, disliking this line of abuse. If his uncle were to call Lestara out for anything, it should be for treason and murder. She’d had no choice about wedding Silas, certainly no choice about bedding him, and James suspected Royce Veliant was a conquest made out of desperation. Besides, Lestara had been too long away from Maridrina for the babe in her belly to be a Veliant.
Even so, she paled at her father’s insults, and James took pity on his cousin. “You sold your own daughter to a man who used women like broodmares, Uncle. Don’t forget that.”
Ronan gave him an irritated glare, but then a female voice spoke.
“Your son will be king of Harendell, Lestara, and the bones singthat the Ashford line will rule the Twisted Throne for generations to come. The stars have always favored you, and they favor you still, but remember that they are souls. And souls can be fickle if they feel betrayed.”
James turned to find Calythra walking toward them. The queen of Cardiff embodied everything that Harendell feared about astromancy. She was dressed in furs and her face was painted with the constellation of her ancestors, the skulls dangling from her headdress brushing against the wrinkled skin of her cheeks. Her hair was as gray as steel and her eyes as gold as the metal itself. While Ronan’s first wives were political matches that yielded many children, he had eventually married Caly out of love, the pair having been close since they were young. She was equal parts beloved and feared in Cardiff, and while Caly cared little for politics, his uncle heeded her every word when she deigned to opine on matters of state.
James had known Caly all his life, and he respected her deeply. Yet she also made his skin crawl as though a thousand fire ants danced upon it, magic seeming all too real in her presence. It was not lost on him that he’d not heard a door open or shut; the queen seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
“I was sitting in the corner, Jamie,” his aunt said, patting his cheek as she passed. “You just weren’t paying attention.”
Rather than easing the prickling crawl of his skin, her ability to read his thoughts only made the sensation worse. Especially given that, from her expression, Lestara hadn’t known her mother was in the room either.
Caly knelt on the thick rugs before Lestara’s chair and took one of her daughter’s hands. She turned it over and examined the lines, muttering in Cardiffian, which hardly anyone spoke anymore and which he didn’t understand. Lestara understood it, though, and James did not miss how the pulse in Lestara’s throat fluttered faster and faster, her fear of her mother palpable.
“I was the one who told you that you would be queen,” Caly finallysaid. “And now you sit at the right hand of the king on the Twisted Throne. Tell me, girl, have the other certainties I whispered in your ear come true?”
“Yes.” Lestara was trembling, looking on the verge of tears. “Many have come true.”
“So you believe the things I see, yes?”
“Yes.” A tear trickled down his cousin’s cheek, and James grimaced. There was no love lost between him and Lestara, but he hated seeing her terrified.
“Good.” Caly pressed one hand to Lestara’s pregnant belly, then withdrew a handful of polished bones from a pouch at her waist with the other. Human finger bones and knuckle joints, for though any bones could be used to cast, James knew the lore that the bones of one’s enemies told the clearest truths. Caly bounced them in her hand, then cast them carelessly onto the table. Her voice was soft yet somehow as loud as thunder as she said, “Look.”
It was like having someone grab him by the back of the head, forcing his gaze to the bones, but James resisted even when he heard Lestara sob, “I can’t cast for the child inside me any more than I can cast for myself. Our fates are yet entwined.”
“Icast the bones. You can read what they say.”
Lestara shook her head, her whole body trembling and the hair at her temples dampening with sweat.
Caly snorted in disgust. “James, prove you still remember what you were taught and read the cast.”
Against his will, James looked at the table. Except it was not the finger bones his eyes fixed upon, but the tiny skull in the center of them that he swore had not been there a moment before. Above the skull, set in a pattern in the shape of aW,lay finger bones, and for all the world it looked to him as though the skull wore a crown. “Power,” he whispered, forcing himself to look at the other patterns. “Influence. Leadership. Justice…no,revenge.”
“What else?”
He saw many things, but James gestured to the skull with the crown. “I’ve never seen this pattern before, but the meaning seems obvious enough.” He pointed to bones that sat in aVshape. “A fork in the road, a critical choice. Though there is no way to know whether it speaks of Lestara or her child.”
Lestara overcame her fear and looked down, and a gasp tore from her lips as she saw the crowned skull. Caly said nothing, only pulled a bag of blue sand from her belt and let it trickle through her fingers, creating an outline around the fallen bones. When she finished, James’s stomach dropped, because it perfectly replicated the shape of Harendell on a map.
