Their answers would tell her much about their intentions.
“Lady Elia!” called the Twice-Princess Ianta from below. “Come join us!”
Grateful to put an end to this discussion, Elia nodded to Aefa, who bent over the balcony rail to wave affirmatively.
Elia gathered herself and her cup of coffee, and followed Aefa into the narrow hall between bookshelves, to make their way down the even narrower spiral of stairs to the main floor.
At the round table, the Elder Queen and Morimaros’s sister sat, drinking spiced, hot milk from their pearl-rimmed mugs.
Calepia, like her son, presented an excellent example of straight shoulders and thoughtful, irrefutable authority. She wore the red and orange and white of Aremoria almost exclusively, with silver bracelets beaten wide, armorlike, to remind any who approached that she was yet a force of the law. Gray filtered through her rich saffron hair, and instead of covering it with veils or circlets as would most women, she had her ladies wind in white and silver ribbons, putting an accent on her age and making her hair all the crown she needed. Again like her son, her pink mouth was generous and soft when unperturbed.
The daughter, Ianta, had not inherited that mouth, nor the smoothsun-kissed skin. She was paler and less gorgeous than her mother and brother, narrower in face and expression but also rounder in body, with a happiness and prosperity that spilled out of her in ready laughter and fleshy confidence. She seemed comfortable in her natal roles—mother, sister, daughter—as much as she had pacing the marble floors of the throne room. Ianta could defeat even Gaela in presence, Elia often thought, though it would be like a clash between natural seasons: smiling, full-petal summer against bloody, crisp, martial autumn.
Elia bowed her head to Calepia, and smiled good morning to Ianta.
They bade her sit, and she did. Aefa took up a maid’s position near the door.
The Elder Queen began a charming story of her children when they were young, fighting over a single slim volume of animal poetry from the Rusrike. It had been a simple war of one hiding it from the other, until found and hidden from the opposite. Ianta had kept it the longest, for she hid it inside her dress, straight down the back, both to help her sit straight and because she knew her brother would never presume to search her clothing as she wore it. Finally, Mars had negotiated for the location, offering up the greatest prize of all: his willing defeat. In giving up, he’d regained the book, and though all the courtiers amused by their antics knew he’d admitted his loss, he held his chin up and tucked the book under his pillow. Calepia laughed lightly, nostalgic with love. “He always was the best strategist.”
“Win the war, never the battle,” Ianta said, in the tone of one who’s heard it many times before.
Elia hid the tightening of her smile behind a sip of coffee; the story seemed a threat, though Elia was certain if one looked constantly for such things, they would be found. She couldn’t tell if the Elder Queen meant her story as a warning, or only offered it up as a way for a potential daughter to learn more about her maybe-future husband.
Likely, it was intentionally both. Everyone connected to a crown played games; that was the nature of it, she was learning, and so Elia needed only discern who played them for power, and who for love.
“My Morimaros would say this, frequently,” Calepia explained to Elia.
“Mars’s and my father,” Ianta added. She paused, then spoke again. “My brother told me you read his birth chart for him at the Summer Seat.”
“I did.”
“How delightful. We don’t have them done in Aremoria anymore. Or”—she winked—“we aren’t meant to.”
The Elder Queen said, “Your father himself taught you prophecy and the stars?”
“He did. My father was his father’s third son, and he spent his youth preparing to be a star priest. It was not his preference to leave the chapels and rule, but one does what one must for family and country.”
“And then he used his influence to rebuild the domination of the stars under his crown,” Twice-Princess Ianta said. “To overthrow the earthly ways of your ancestors.”
Calepia answered with a wry note, “There must be some benefits to becoming king.”
Elia glanced up, wary of being tested. But Calepia’s attention was on her daughter, and the two Aremore ladies shared some private humor.
“Tell me of my son’s stars,” Calepia said.
Elia hesitated briefly. “His Lion of War is a glorious but lonely birth star.”
Calepia made a strange purr of annoyance, then said, “My birth chart gathers dust in a corner of my treasury, inked in gold and set with some tiny rubies. It’s rather more worth its weight in jewels than usefulness, here.”
“What were you born under, if I may ask?” Elia said.
“The Elegance,” the queen said with a suggestion of hidden pride in the corner of her mouth.
“A star of resolution,” Elia said, digging through her memory for more. “And diplomatic promise. Do you know what the moon was?”
“I don’t remember.” Calepia sipped her spicy milk, eyeing Elia over the decorative pearls. Elia did not press.
“I had my holy bones cast once, at a festival,” Ianta said. “Do you do that?”
