"Because I told her." My mother grimaced. "To sweeten the offer. I thought, here is a fifth son who is also our hedge against losing Arlen again, worth far more than he appears. I expected her to leap at the chance to bind such a prince to Cardilia. Instead, she pocketed the information and turned it against me. That is the caliber of woman I am dealing with."
I frowned. "I don't understand. Does she want me to marry Cardilia or not? She's not making any sense. She doesn't want Cardilia married to a potential heir because she wants her to remain in Tarina."
"Margada doesn't want you to marry Cardilia. She wants you to marry Idrilia. Her other daughter. This still gives her an alliance with Catonia, and if Arlen abdicates or becomes ineligible again, she gains a crown prince for her daughter, while keeping Cardilia free for another important alliance later. I have to admit that Margada has negotiated brilliantly. If you become heir, Tarina suddenly becomes the most influential province after Catonia. If Margada manages to snag Prince Werden of Helsta for Cardilia, she will catapult her poor and insignificant province to the top of the list. He's the second son, but he still wields a lot of influence, and Helsta is affluent."
I had stopped listening after my mother casually threw the name Idrilia at me. I didn't remember her. Had she been too young to attend the annual balls? Or had she been so unremarkable that I hadn't noticed her?
"I don't even remember Idrilia," I said.
"She is a scientist, from what I hear. A botanist. You like intelligent women."
My mother's emphasis on Idrilia's intelligence and professional interests meant she wasn't memorable because she was plain and quiet, not because she'd been too young.
Not that it mattered. I didn't want her. I didn't want any princess except for the two I'd left behind in Elucia.
"Then it hardly matters, does it?" I set the wine down. "Cardilia or Idrilia, I don't want either. But since Idrilia is the spare, ending things with her shouldn't cause a diplomatic incident."
My mother glared at me. "Haven't you been listening to anything I said? Queen Margada demanded you by name for areason. You will marry Idrilia. Your only choice will be where you want to live. You can go and live with her in Tarina, or bring her here, which I prefer for the simple selfish reason of a mother wanting her son close by."
Give Avren to Idrilia, and inform her that he's the most probable replacement for Arlen, then have her come here. Problem solved.
I felt like an ass for saying that. Especially since I suspected Avren of sabotaging Arlen. I didn't believe that he'd been behind the assassination attempt. That was taking it too far. But once he'd tasted the possibility of becoming heir, he must have liked it too much to give it up and arranged for the window incident that had ruined weeks of Arlen's progress.
Still, that was enough to disqualify him in my eyes. If he'd been behind the incident, he was dishonorable and, therefore, should never be king. It might be naive to think so, but I truly believed that my father would never have done something like that.
"Queen Margada will see right through it and her offense will reach explosive proportions. I already told her that we had a deal."
I let out a breath. "So, why go through the charade of calling me in here and kicking your staff out if you never intended to ask me if I accept?"
She smiled. "I kicked them out in case you turned petulant, which you did, so they wouldn't have to witness the prince throwing a tantrum."
Ouch. That hurt.
"I'm not a child, Mother, but you are asking me to sacrifice everything I care for, and no matter how hard you try to convince me, I don't think Tarina is all that important and worth the sacrifice."
She closed her eyes for a moment. "Every council vote in our favor matters. We are teetering, Alar. These marriages will ensure that we maintain the lead. Without them, we might lose the seat of the Head of the Council to Varilia. King Sonof is gaining the support of many provinces, and he has two sons and a daughter. I know that Margada is trying to match her son with his daughter. Usually, it would have been punching way above her son's grade, but the princess is rumored to be deformed and dimwitted, so there aren't many takers. I don't need to spell out for you what happens if you decline, and Margada's son marries Sonof's daughter. Tarina will vote with Varilia."
I felt the noose tightening around my neck and the floorboards about to go out from under my feet.
"Your father survived the last assassination attempt thanks to Arlen," My mother said quietly. "I want to ensure that everyone knows killing him would get them nothing because his five sons are all married and each of them is ready to take the throne, and because we have enough allies to vote whoever ascends to the throne of Catonia to the Head of the Council. I will not hand our enemies a willing ally because you refused to do your duty. You will marry Idrilia, and Tarina will stay ours, and that is the end of it."
The verdict had been pronounced, the floorboard went out from under my feet, and I was hanging from the noose, dying.
"If you find Idrilia unbearable," she said more softly, "you may take on a paramour. Discreetly, of course. It is done in nearly every court in the Federation, and it is an open secret. You can even bring your Elucian girl to court and put her in a suite of rooms."
My head came up. "How do you know about her?"
"Ah."
"The clerks." The words came out hard. "Your people in Tarina, the ones who pass my letters. They broke the cipher, didn't they? They read what I wrote, and they reported it to you."
"They did no such thing." She looked almost amused now. "They tried, but your cipher is impossible to break. I didn't need to know what you wrote in those letters. I needed only to count. A young man does not send letter after letter, going to extraordinary trouble to speed them across a continent, for the sake of his friends or even his beloved cousin. He does it for a woman."
I couldn't deny it, so I said nothing, which was its own confession.
She rose, smoothing her skirts, the queen back in place over the mother. "You will accept Idrilia at the ball, in front of the whole Federation, and you will be gracious about it. You will smile, and you will bow over her hand, and you will give no one the smallest reason to think Catonia regrets its bargain. We are the party in breach, this match is a compromise, and you will perform a perfect act of acceptance."
I nodded because I couldn't force a single word past the tightness in my throat.
