They both looked at him, a bit blankly. “Exactly this,” Ali said.
“We’ll bear witness for you,” Dianna said, “if it will help.”
“Unlikely,” Ali countered, “as he has only hard spots for us.”
“Well, our mother didnotmake Soren happy.”
Ali chortled. “No, she didnot.”
“Oil and water.”
“More like oil and fire!”
“Dianna, Ali,” Sebastien broke in, trying to be patient. “You know I love you, but—”
Love you,Nonna said.
Love you,Nina said.
“But,” Sebastien persisted, “why won’t our father simply have me executed?”
“Youarehis son,” Dianna pointed out gently. “There’s a reason Rotten Rupert has had to resort to creating accidents, since Soren hasn’t agreed to execute any of his children. Yet.”
“And you’re Este’s son,” Ali said with raised brows, “which matters even more.”
“Agree to submit to the blood geas, go away to school—”
“To one of the three academies teaching zoopathy,” Ali said with excitement, opening the encyclopedia again.
“At the time of printing,” Dianna cautioned. “That could have changed.”
“We should see what we can find out.”
“Write some letters.”
Sebastien left them to their amiable bickering, figuring the best way to show his earnest remorse for his inadvertent crime was to act on the knowledge immediately. With Nina and Nonna flanking him, Prince Sebastien went—for the first time in his two decades of life—to request a private audience with his father.
King Soren stroked his long, red beard and frowned at Sebastien in silence. “How is it possible,” he finally said, “that one of my children is an unbound magic-worker, which puts me in violation of my own laws?”
Sebastien squirmed with guilt, already tremendously uncomfortable beneath the scrutiny of the man who’d always more or less ignored him, aside from occasional gifts, like a jeweled belt buckle Sebastien had unfortunately lost, Kismet, and theequivalent of a pat on the head now and then. “I guess it can happen? They test us when we’re young, but sometimes a late bloomer slips through, especially since they didn’t expect to find the talent in Your Majesty’s progeny. And my ability is very weak. Practically nonexistent.”
“Yes. Itisso unlikely as to test the bounds of credulity. Fortunately this works to our favor.”
Startled by this switch, Sebastien nearly asked how, but summoned the wit and discretion from somewhere to only nod in sage agreement.
Soren, no more fooled than his clever daughters, beetled his brows at his empty-headed son. “In the wake of Uhtric’s untimely demise early in the summer,” he clarified, “followed by the wasting sickness of his only declared heir.”
Ah. Sebastien knew something of that. He knew nothing about why his tiny gift for talking to animals had anything to do with it. He’d known Uhtric had planned a campaign to conquer Queen Zarja’s lands, something that had everyone talking politics nonstop the previous summer. But the deaths of Uhtric and Crown Prince Mirza had stopped the war before it began, with Uhtric’s empire crumbling into its component realms again, the various nobles there fighting like jackals over the rotting scraps. Sebastien had been under the impression that, while Zarja was no ally, everyone was relieved to have the threat of war vanish. And no one would miss Uhtric and his acquisitive gaze looming on the northern horizon.
“Is the political unrest in the Northern Lands a concern for Your Majesty?” he asked, a nicely broad and neutral question.
Soren snorted. “You’re so like your mother,” he observed with rueful nostalgia, “flitting from party to party and paying no attention to the forces that govern our lives.”
He sounded almost affectionate about it, so Sebastien smiled and sketched a bow. “A good thing, Your Majesty, that I’m not your heir. I have no head for politics.”
The king grunted thoughtfully. “But you have this magic and the ladies adore you, I understand, so that makes you useful.”
Sebastien managed not to flinch. He shouldn’t be surprised his father knew about his flirtations, but he didn’t care for the accompanying curl of shame. It made him useful to the king, he told himself. Who could have imagined?
