Later that evening, Ursa insisted on another foot soak.
"I'm glad the queen hasn't seen these." She had my left foot in her lap and an exaggerated, desperate expression on her face.
"They're not so bad. Besides, worst case I can wear slippers instead of sandals and no one will see my feet."
"All the other queens, princesses, and ladies will be wearing strappy, high-heeled sandals." She worked the pumice along my heel with more force than necessary. "You're going to put these feet into a pair of silver sandals and stand in them for five hours, and everyone in Vedona is going to look down and see a goat herder's feet instead of a princess's."
I was sitting on the edge of my bed in my nightdress with my foot in a basin of oiled and salted water gone tepid, my hair loose around my shoulders, and my face clean of makeup. Ursa could say whatever she wanted and it wasn't going to get a rise out of me.
"I could just not go," I said. "Plead illness. Climbing fatigue. A relapse of mountain lung."
"You could not." She dried my foot and reached for the salve. "Your mother would carry you to Vedona in a sedan chair before she let you skip it this year. Hold still." The salve was cold andsmelled of beeswax and aromatic herbs. "She's right about one thing, by the way. This isn't an ordinary year."
"Did you find more information about the ball?"
"More of the same." She worked the salve into the cracked skin. "Catonia's court is spending a fortune, hiring the best entertainers from all seventeen provinces, and Chef Verdigio is in charge of the banquet. I bet they have a big announcement to make."
"Like what?"
"That's the part that's still noise." She set my foot down and lifted the other one, inspecting it with the same dismay. "The thread that keeps coming back is the heir. The Catonian crown prince. Word is he'll stand up at the ball and announce his bride."
I leaned back on my hands. "I pity the poor princess, whoever she is. Married off in front of the whole Federation to seal someone's alliance." I thought of my mother's hands, restless on the bolts of fabric, and dismissed the connection before it could form. "Poor girl. At least it's nothing to do with us. Catonia doesn't look at Tarina, and the crown prince certainly isn't looking at us. Cardilia's the heir, so she's off the table. He'll want a second daughter from somewhere that matters."
Ursa arched a brow. "Or a third child?"
I snorted. "Right. Even if I were a great beauty, which I'm not, Catonia would gain nothing from an alliance with Tarina, and who gains what from whom is all that matters."
23
ALAR
“The most dangerous ground a King has to traverse is the polished floor of his own court.”
—King Aldric III of Catonia, Letters to My Queen
By midmorning, we crested the shallow hills above Vedona's northeastern flank, and despite my mounting worry and ever-present anger, I had to admit that there was something to be said for coming home.
I'd forgotten how beautiful it was.
Towers rose from the valley floor in tiers of pale stone and glass, catching the auroral shimmer and reflecting the magnificent colors. The council building was the tallest and crowned with the banners of the seventeen provinces. Boulevards ran between buildings in clean lines, bordered by manicured trees, flowerbeds, and lawns. In the plazas, great fountains put on performances, jets rising and falling in time to music we couldn't hear, water sculpted into arches and spires and then allowed to collapse, only to climb again.
Everything was engineered to perfection and meant to impress and intimidate.
Vedona was the most magnificent city in Aurorys, but a shadow network ran beneath its boulevards, where deals were struck under the table, influence was traded like any other commodity, and smiles were fake.
All that subterfuge was quite ironic for a nation that prided itself on following the Precepts of Truth.
"She's a sight, isn't she, Your Highness?" Colonel Krest said. "There is nothing like coming home."
I had spent ten days in the armored hover-vehicle with the guy, and other than greeting me in the morning and wishing me good night in the evening, those were the first words he'd said to me that hadn't been absolutely necessary.
"It is," I agreed because it was true.
In a way.
I dreaded what awaited me at home.
I'd called my mother from every inn and rest stop that had a telephone line, but she'd always given me the same evasive answers, and with each subsequent call, my anxiety intensified.
