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“I ask nothing of you. I am going to give you what I know you want—knowledge. A rose like you feeds on it. I know, because it is my nightly drink. Listen to what I have to say. You will know what to do about it.”
Cassia was not sure she wanted to know any of Konstantina’s secrets. They would be useful, to be sure—but they must come at a great price.
Konstantina watched her, waiting. “I do not have to teach you that what you do not know can hurt you. When has someone like you ever turned down information she could use?”
“You have indeed been growing roses longer than I. Very well. I cannot refuse what you wish to tell me.”
“Watch me trim the spent blooms, and I will teach you.” Konstantina took up her shears and headed for the center of the greenhouse.
“Baat,my Knight. Stay here by the potting bench and show the princess what a mannerly fellow you are.” He didn’t budge as Cassia joined the princess beneath the spreading limbs of the Sanctuary Rose.
Konstantina paused to examine the tangle of vines at her eye level. “Ioustin has told Lio a secret. My brother is unpredictable in many ways, but not when it comes to honor. I am certain that when Lio proposed the Solstice Summit, Ioustin felt honor-bound to express his gratitude by revealing something that shouldnever”—she snipped off a wilting bloom—“have reached the ears of anyone outside the royal family.”
“I breathe royal secrets, Second Princess. They do not frighten me.”
Konstantina reached for a flawless white flower and turned it around. The petals on the other side were disfigured by disease. She cut the bloom off and sent it up in a flash of light. “Has Lio told you what Ioustin revealed to him?”
Konstantina must be talking about the Departure. Was she trying to set a trap for Lio? “All I know of the First Prince, I learned at the Queens’ circle upon my arrival. Hypatia was there and can relate to you what Lio and I spoke of with his Ritual father. Although you disapprove of the Summit, you surely do not doubt that Lio is trustworthy.”
Konstantina snapped her shears closed again. “I bounced Lio on my knee when Ioustin’s hands were too full of weapons to hold a baby. As I told you, I am not going to drive a wedge between you and Lio. You may thank me later for helping you avoid a rift.”
“We are partners in all our aims, I assure you.”
Konstantina met her gaze. “There has been a plan in place since our people fled Tenebra, a measure to which we have never had to resort in the history of Orthros. The ruins of our ancient temples were still smoking, and the Equinox Oath was young. We were not certain the Mage King’s guarantee of protection for Hesperines errant would hold, or that his new Tenebra would be a strong enough buffer between Cordium and Orthros.”
“So this secret is another holdover from the Last War.”
“A piece of wisdom,” Konstantina corrected. “We have always kept in mind the eventuality that we might need to make the Departure. The night before Lio’s proposal of the Solstice Summit, my mothers were ready to call our Hesperines errant home for all time.”
There was no use trying to hide from the Blood Union. Konstantina was probing Cassia to see if the news came as a shock, and the princess would sense that Cassia was not surprised. She would also feel how Cassia dreaded the threat.
Let her. “I know about the Departure. If that displeases you, Second Princess, you must address yourself to the First Prince. Your brother gave Lio express permission to tell me.”
“Of course he did. Naturally, my brother is in favor of the Summit, for it allows him to deny for just a little while longer that he is out of time.”
“With respect, Second Princess, the Departure is not a foregone conclusion.”
The princess looked at Cassia over her shears. “Of course it is, because I shall see it done.”
A chill went down Cassia’s spine. So this was the fortress of thorns she and Lio faced.
“I see,” Cassia answered calmly. “So Lio and I find ourselves in the middle of a political contest between the Queens’ two most powerful children. Thank you for the warning.”
“It is not a warning.” Konstantina slid her finger along the blade of her shears. From her blood, a spell light came to life and shone upon a rosebud. The petals unfurled all at once into a magnificent bloom. “It is an invitation to help me restore the garden.”
“You’re askingmeto take your side against the prince?” Cassia demanded. “You think I would use the Summit to promote the Departure? Do you have any idea what Hesperines errant did for me?”
“I do.”
“The crows would have picked apart my sister’s body. The arms that held me and made me feel safe. The face that smiled at me. The throat that gave voice to the only words of love I ever heard. I would have lain dead on the same field, just out of reach. A seven-year-old girl with an arrow through my heart.”
The princess’s eyes flashed with emotion. “I am trying to save lives, Cassia, not cost them.”
Cassia stripped off Konstantina’s gloves and hurled them at the princess’s feet. “You have tried to recruit the wrong person. I will not lift a finger to help you.”
“On the contrary, I have spoken to precisely the right person. The Hesperine errant who once tried to save my life is still in Tenebra, just like those who rescued you. We must stop at nothing to make sure they return home unharmed.”
“What does your defender have to say about the Departure?”
