"Betrothed? You mean that you received a letter of intent? A request for an official visit? You can't be betrothed."
I was stunned. Royal engagements were often negotiated in secret, but it usually wasn’t well-guarded. They took time, care, and the leaking of carefully curated tidbits to the press before the official announcement was made at the Catonian annual ball.
"No," Cardilia said. "I mean, yes. Well, some items are still being negotiated, but it's almost a done deal."
"Who's the lucky prince?"
Cardilia straightened. "Prince Arlen of Catonia."
My eyes went wide, and I leaned back in my chair. "How did Mother pull that one off?"
Arlen of Catonia was the crown prince. The heir to the most powerful province in the Federation, the eldest son of KingAlaranthus Tekumuton the Fourth, the Head of the Council, and the one who would one day rule over the entire Elurian Federation, because a Tekumuton was always the Head of the Council.
Arlen Tekumuton was so far above the reach of Cardilia of Tarina that I could not imagine what our mother had done to snag him for my sister. It couldn't be anything aboveboard. Did she have some dirt on King Tekumuton and was blackmailing him into an alliance by marriage?
She sure didn't have any resources to tempt him with other than the best goat cheese in the Federation, and I was sure that the king wouldn't give his most valuable marriage alliance in exchange for cheese, no matter how delicious it was.
"How did Mother manage to do that? We are a small, poor province whose only claims to fame are goat cheese and the border we share with Elucia. Catonia doesn't look at us. Catonia has never looked at us. Crown princes of Catonia marry daughters of Vandaris and Heldor and Atheria, they marry into wealth and armies and trade, they do not marry the heir of a province that exports cheese and wool and lags twenty years behind Catonia's industry. Mother must have schemed and plotted and threatened people with secrets I don't want to know about, because there is no other way that Tarina lands the crown prince of Catonia for its heir. This is the greatest thing that has happened to this court in centuries. She must be ecstatic. I bet she's planning a celebration that will bankrupt us."
I looked at my sister, expecting a secretive satisfied grin, and found instead a woman hiding behind a tall glass of iced tea. She was holding it in front of her face, pretending to sip it but in fact using it to hide her face behind it.
"Why do you look like you're about to be sick? Aren't you happy?"
She set the cup down with exaggerated care. "Arlen isn't the crown prince anymore."
I stilled.
"What do you mean? Why was he demoted? Did he abdicate?"
My mind was racing with possible scenarios. Not every prince and princess had what it took to rule, of which I was the prime example, but I'd seen Arlen in those damn annual balls all courts had to attend, and he looked like he'd been born to be king.
Well, he had been. But it took more than blood.
"He was gravely injured," Cardilia said. "There was an attack or an accident, I don't know exactly, the Catonian court has been ferociously careful about what they'll put in writing, and what they'll say out loud is even less. All I've been told is that the prince was badly hurt while protecting his father. He's no longer considered fit to inherit, and the succession will pass to one of his brothers." She drew a shaking breath. "That's how I landed Arlen of Catonia. With me, he will still be royalty, the husband of a queen, and he'll be far away from Catonia and the public eye. They approached Mother with the proposal, and she accepted it with both hands."
The whole thing needed to be turned around in my head.
This wasn't Mother's masterstroke. It was about a damaged prince, set aside from his own throne, being quietly married off and shipped to the smallest, most remote, most forgettable province in the Federation, because we were exactly the kind of nowhere a great house would send the son it would rather the world stopped looking at.
And naturally, Mother had said yes. A blood-tie to Catonia, by any means, was more than Tarina could ever have dreamed of, and our mother would have sacrificed a limb for it and thanked them for the privilege.
"It's still an extraordinary match for us," Cardilia continued. "A direct tie to Catonia. Tarina will never want for Catonian goodwill again."
I shook my head. "Were you even told what state he is in? What if he's dying and this alliance dies with him? Maybe he didn't get hurt protecting the king but is suffering from a terminal disease?"
"Arlen is not dying," she said without much conviction, which meant that the thought had crossed her mind. "He'll need care and patience, and I can give him that. And who's to say he won't recover? If he does, they might reconsider him for the crown, and then I'd be..." She stopped, hearing it, and her mouth twisted. "I'd be Queen of Catonia and Lotian will be King of Tarina."
Yeah, and they would also find a way to reach the fabled Dolis. Both were equally as likely.
"Cardi." I sat down across from her and made my voice as even as I could. "You have to find out what's wrong with him before you sign the agreement. You can't go into this blind."
"They said he needs time to recuperate. That means it's not something terminal. That's all I know."
"What if he's blind? What if he's lost limbs? What if his face was burned off, what if he can't speak, what if he's not right in the head? If they are not willing to tell his bride what's wrong with him, then it's probably something really bad."
"I saw him on television a few days ago. The Catonian court holds those monthly televised audiences, and Arlen was there, seated at the king's right hand the way the heir always is." She lifted her chin, and a little of the old certainty came back into her. "He looked fine. His face was intact, as handsome as ever, just a little thinner, a little diminished."
"Did he speak?"
