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Black ringlets frame her pearly, overpowdered face. She’s squeezed into an ochre dress with a bodice tight enough to milk cows. Everything it’s lifting bounces when she sits down. “Did you read today’sLacy Things? What’d you think of the constellation analysis?”
Ugh, birth constellations. If Cyrus really cared about false divinations, he’d outlawthose.“I don’t really deal in—”
“As a quarter-moon Swan, Prince Cyrus is a naturally private person. He likes riddles and keeping tidy, and dislikes obnoxious people.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. “Does anyonelikeobnoxious people?”
“I do. I’d be a hypocrite otherwise.” Ziza cackles and leans over the divining table with a gleam in her eye. “So, Miss Lune. Tell me who it will be—the bride Prince Cyrus will choose.”
My brows rise. She couldn’t know of the king’s plans.
She laughs again. “It won’t be me! I’m ambitious, not delusional. Consider the odds: he’s only going to marry one girl—one girlat a time.Not good odds at all. But the future queen can have as many friends as she likes.”
So this is her aim—smart. Even better to befriend a queen before she’s crowned, to make the connection seem more genuine. “If I knew the answer, we wouldn’t be having this bride search in the first place,” I say coolly, reaching for my pot of cold tea. Chatty patrons like Ziza parch me.
“Well, that’s a pity.” Ziza slumps in her chair. “My uncle thinks there’s a chance Cyrusdoesn’tfind his true love. I know Sighted Mistress Felicita might have been mad, but the Council seems very anxious about her prophecy still. I heard they’re considering Lord Fidare of the Tenth again.”
As I pour into my cup, it nearly overflows. “For the throne?”
Lord Fidare, lovingly nicknamed “Fifi” among impolite company, is older cousin to Cyrus and Camilla. The Council of Dukes made a considerable effort to get King Emilius to appoint him as heir instead when Cyrus fell gravely ill at fifteen and the fear of his curse reached a mania.
But I heard what they shouted behind closed doors, what they whispered to each other when they thought they were among friendly company—their push for Fidare wasn’t born from fear. No, the dukes didn’t like that the prince met so briefly with their sons and daughters and preferred the company of a Balican—Dante. Nor did they like that he was so stubbornly vocal against the Fairywood burnings and ambrosia fad that’s made them rich.
Ultimately, Cyrus got better and King Emilius sent Fifi to the borderlands to preside over the Tenth Dominion instead, where he’s been for the last four years. Haven’t heard a peep about it since—until now.
Ziza flaps a hand. “Oh, but it’s just noise. The Council can’t push for anyone while Cyrus is alive. His Majesty would never replace his son! I do wonder if Lord Fidare will be at the ball, though.”
I lift my cup to my lips. “Fifi— Lord Fidare is already engaged.” To some Yuenen mercantile heiress, from what Irecall.
“You say ‘already engaged,’ and I say ‘not yet married,’ ” she declares, and I nearly choke on my gulp. “Wouldn’tyouprefer Fidare on the throne?”
I snort automatically. Fifi’s a nice gent—too nice—but he’s about as sharp as a loaf of bread. There’s no question he’d end up the puppet of the other dukes if he ruled, and the other dukes aren’t interested in anything but multiplying their own coin.
“You wouldn’t?”
I look up and find Ziza appraising me as much as I am appraising her. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “Forgive me if I speak too frankly, but the animosity between you and Prince Cyrus is well-known. I myself wondered if he would return from his tour with a poached Seer and replace you. Verdant has two Seers, after all, and he visited their court, did he not?”
A prickle of a threat runs down my spine. “Replacing a sitting Seer is unprecedented in Auveny.”
“Ah, but it’s a king’s job to set precedent. You are a dangerous woman, Miss Lune, and I mean that in the best sense.” Ziza’s fingers clink with a dragon’s hoard’s worth of rings as she folds them together. Her smile could cut glass. “Kings may rise and fall by the love of their people, but a Seer demands nothing as fickle as love. It iswewho demand you. Your Fate-blessed words carry weight with or without a formal title. Words that could prevent His Highness from taking the throne, if you wanted to.”
My eyes narrow. Treasonous.But true.I could foretell any number of dreadful things about his reign and send Cyrus’s coronation plans spiraling; it’d have consequences,like any knife to the back, but Icoulddo it. Easy as a whisper, as long as people believed me.
But…I couldn’t stomach giving the dukes an easy win. I dislike Cyrus, but he’s right to demand integrity from them.
I don’t receive as many patrons from the countryside, but I see enough in their threads to paint a picture of struggling villages. It doesn’t match up with the wealth that floods in from their dominions. In the threads of lords, I see their safes full of coin and smudged ledgers, and I wonder what they’ve done to make the math favor them. Greed is more common than flies, but it still repulses me when I think too long about it; they already have so much.
I might admire the prince’s idealism if he had practical plans attached to it. But he’d have a better time trying to squeeze integrity out of rocks.
No, I wouldn’t choose the wolfish Council or Lord Fidare or some other untested scheme over Cyrus. But the possibility of my betrayal exists, like a weapon sheathed.
Without breaking my gaze, I swallow any hint of temptation. “I think you speak too frankly.”
Lady Ziza bows her head, a tiny smile playing on her lips. “My apologies, Sighted Mistress.”
The patrons who come in after Ziza are not nearly as interesting as her. For a brief while, I’m thankful, until the hours start feeling like days. Beyond divining love lives, I also give readings to a woman investigating a family secret, travelersfrom Yue seeking approval from the Fates for their crusade, a farmer who wants to know what his newly bought magic seeds will sprout into—my Sight doesn’t work on inanimate objects, but my regular eyes could see they were dried peas.
