Petunis watches me without revealing anything.
Then, rather than remain standing below me, she steps to the side and takes the smaller seat beside the throne.
“You will be trained aggressively,” she says. “In judgment. In queenship. In power. In how to channel it, use it, conceal it, and turn it when others think they understand it better than you do.”
My hands remain on the carved arms of the throne.
Below us the room is empty.
It will not remain that way for long. Petunis looks out over the hall, as though measuring exactly how much of it will need to be torn apart and remade. This is my first time seeing the staff up close, and I am surprised that it is translucent, almost as though made of glass.
“You have much to learn,” she says.
I look out over the throne room, over the pale winter light and the long floor where blood had stained the stone the night before, and feel something inside me rise to meet the shape of it.
“I know,” I say.
Petunis inclines her head once.
“Good,” she replies.
And seated above the hall that should have been mine all along, with my aunt beside me and the doors of the palace beginning to open to the day, I understand at last that whatever I have been until now is already ending.
The News
SEVRIN
Rathmor Palace
The painted room holds its silence.
Color covers every wall, Asharin repeated in different moments that never quite resolve. Veiled, turning, standing with that composure she chooses when she is deciding what not to give. The painters have learned the structure of her face and still miss the mouth, still soften it into something that does not belong to her. Light from the ceiling lanterns spreads across the plaster and lifts along the painted fabric, the illusion close enough that he can stand here and not look elsewhere.
Sevrin stands near the center of the room, one hand in the hair of the woman kneeling before him, the other resting against the wardrobe door he left open. The golden wig falls around her shoulders in arranged waves that echo the figure on the wall. Her movements are practiced and careful, her breath uneven as she works him, and he watches the painting rather than her, his attention fixed on the version of Asharin that is closest to correct.
A knock sounds at the door.
"Go away," he says without looking.
"My lord." Cofaris, from the other side, his voice controlled in a way that carries urgency rather than calm. "It cannot wait."
Sevrin's hand tightens once in the woman's hair, interrupting the rhythm. Another knock follows, firmer.
"Enter."
The door opens. Cofaris steps inside and stops near the threshold, his eyes lowering as the room resolves itself around him.
"My lord. There has been an explosion at sea. The ship was destroyed. There are not believed to be any survivors."
The woman's movement falters for a fraction of a second before Sevrin pulls her away from him, the motion abrupt and final, her breath breaking as she is forced back.
"Leave."
She rises quickly, the wig shifting as she gathers her clothing, and exits without looking up. The door closes behind her.
Sevrin remains where he is, his attention still on the wall.
"That is not accurate," he says at last, his voice quiet, the certainty in it even as his hands tremble once before he draws them behind his back and stills them. "And if Teorin has any part in this, it would be exactly the sort of deception he would play."
