Cardilia gasped, and I looked down at my lap to hide my face.
My mother could always read me like an open book, and I didn't want to betray Cardilia's confidence and reveal that I'd known about the betrothal.
Our mother made an impatient sound and waved a hand.
"Oh, for pity's sake, Idrilia, stop staring at your knees. I know perfectly well that Cardilia told you about her betrothal."
I was relieved that I wouldn't have to pretend this was the first time I was hearing about it. I had no idea how she'd found out and decided not to wonder about it now.
"I'm sorry," I said to Cardilia.
My sister nodded but kept her gaze on our mother. "What's happened?"
"Prince Arlen has made a spectacular recovery and is restored to being the crown prince. That changes everything. Queen Hanith has graciously informed me that the betrothal could stand on the condition that you abdicate your claim to Tarina's throne, hand it over to your brother, and move to Catonia to live as the heir's wife and the future Queen of Catonia. I have to admit that it was a very generous offer, but I couldn't accept it."
Cardilia's chin came up. "You refused?"
"Of course, I did." Our mother's voice was flat with the contempt the very idea deserved. "You were raised to rule, tolead, not to become second fiddle to a husband. I will not throw that away so that you can be a decoration in someone else's court, however grand. Your husband comes to you. You do not go to him." She smiled. "I told Queen Hanith so, and because Catonia is in breach of a promise between crowns, she offered me as a replacement her fifth son, Prince Alar."
Cardilia frowned. "The fifth? Why would we accept the fifth son? They're the ones who broke faith, and we have the upper hand in the negotiations. Why not press for the second son? Aric or Aden? I’m not sure which one of the twins is considered older."
Our mother looked at my sister with naked pride, the look she saved for the moments when Cardilia proved that she was worthy of the crown.
Because neither the second, third, nor fourth is the next in line after Arlen.
Cardilia's eyes widened. "They are not?"
"In order to sweeten the deal, Hanith told me in confidence that should anything befall Arlen again, the succession does not pass to the twins or Avren. It passes to Alar. The fifth son is the chosen contingency, and the other brothers don't know it. No one does, I assume for safety reasons. Elurion knows how many assassination attempts there have been on King Tekumuton and on the heir. I would have done the same in her place." She tapped one finger on the desk. "Bottom line, the fifth son is worth a great deal more than his place in the line suggests. He is, in truth, the most valuable prince Catonia could offer me."
"Then you agreed to swap Alar for Arlen?" Cardilia asked.
"I did not." And there it was, the thin smile widening into a grin. "As you said yourself, my dear, we have the upper hand in these negotiations. I can have the prince who is second in line without offering my crown princess. I can save the best foranother advantageous deal." She turned to look at me. "I offered her you, Idrilia."
I felt the floor shift under me, and I was too stunned to do anything other than stare at my mother.
She looked like she'd won a war, and in her mind, she probably had. "Hanith would never have agreed to give her son to you under ordinary circumstances." Our mother's satisfaction took on a life of its own and was filling the study like a charge in the air. "Her contingency heir, the prince she'd chosen to safeguard her dynasty, married to a third child of a minor queen of a poor province, a girl who collects weeds on mountainsides. She'd have made a laughingstock out of me if I suggested it. But she was cornered and out of time, with the whole Federation descending on Vedona for the ball, and she had nothing left to bargain with. So, she accepted." Our mother spread her hands as though presenting me with a wrapped and ribboned gift. "Idrilia. I have got you Prince Alar of Catonia. You couldn't have seen this coming in your wildest dreams."
No, I couldn't.
I sat with my hands locked on the arms of the chair, frozen and mute.
"I pulled it off," our mother said, and she was beaming with happiness. "Do you understand what I've done? A match so far above your station that neither I nor you could have dreamed of it two weeks ago. We have an alliance with Catonia, sealed through you, the cheapest piece on my board, and I have kept Cardilia and Lotian free to make two more. Tarina rises three rungs in a single move." She shook her head in wonder at her own cleverness. "And listen, listen to the best of it. If Prince Arlen's recovery does not hold, if he falters again or decides that the throne is too much for him and abdicates, then Alar becomes the heir, and you, my dear Idrilia, become the future Queen of Catonia. Can you believe it?"
I remembered Alar.
The name had meant nothing for one heartbeat and then everything I'd ever filed away about him came up at once. He was named after his father, Alaranthus, and that should have been a clue.
I'd seen the youngest of the five Catonian princes at the four annual balls I had attended so far. He was handsome, serious, and he seemed to be enjoying himself as much as I was, which meant not at all. All the eligible ladies noticed him, and he'd smiled politely and had even asked a few to dance, but he hadn't seemed engaged. I'd noticed him the way everyone else did, but he hadn't noticed me. I would have staked my life that he could not pick me out of a crowd of three.
I might not have minded him. That was the bitter joke of it. I might even have been intrigued. But the man didn't matter. The destination did.
Vedona meant giving up on everything that mattered to me and spending my life as a meaningless court decoration. Not even that, since I wasn't all that decorative.
Married into the royal court of Catonia, I would never again climb the mountain slopes on the border between Tarina and Elucia. The Silver Princess would become a memory, a notation in a journal, the way she'd become for Professor Haldren.
And the shimmer in the storm, the thing I'd half seen and could not stop turning over, would stay a mystery because I wouldn't be able to search for it.
Gavon flickered through my mind and out again, and I felt nothing much. I could keep him or discard him. I was sure Prince Alar had his own paramour. Perhaps more than one, so he wouldn't mind mine.
