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Cassia considered her words. Sabina took after her father, so Cassia risked speaking bluntly. “I gave you my blessing to have an affair with the man I thought I was going to marry. What further proof of my good intentions do you wish for?”
Sabina tugged on two viciously tangled colors and made a little sound of frustration too low for anyone but Cassia to hear.
“I will never marry him,” Cassia insisted, “and neither will my sister. I want to make that very clear.”
“She shared the Fire Dance with him,” Sabina hissed.
Cassia suppressed a groan. She had known they would pay for her failure to prevent that. Once again, she found her own plots backing her into a corner.
“She has shared many more dances with Lord Hoyefe,” Cassia said.
“But not the Fire Dance.”
It would take more than Hoyefe’s flirtation to overcome the cultural significance of that. Solia would not thank Cassia for what she was about to say. But Cassia was not above stirring some rumors in Tendo’s favor, whether he and Solia liked it or not.
“My sister has an understanding with an Imperial prince,” Cassia murmured. “His brother rules one of the most powerful kingdoms in the Empire.”
“Yes, well, whoever he is, he’s on the other side of the Demussavi Ocean. Do you expect us to believe Her Majesty will not seize the powerful free lord in the hand instead of the mythical Imperial prince in the bush?”
“I’ve met him. I promise you, he would never let Flavian marry Solia.”
“The lords of Tenebra will never let a foreigner marry their queen and occupy their throne.”
The lords of Tenebra had not met Tendeso of the Sandira Kingdom. Cassia knew that if Monsoon decided he wanted something, the oafs of the shadowlands would not stand a chance against him.
But it was clear Cassia would not succeed in persuading anyone of that tonight, least of all Tendo and Soli. Cassia would have to change Sabina’s mind some other way.
There was one fact she was certain would alter Sabina’s opinion of her forever. But it could also come back on Cassia and everyone she loved more dangerously than any other revelation.
If Sabina chose Flavian’s side and told him what Cassia was about to reveal to her… She and Lio could lose everything.
Cassia stood frozen with indecision for a long moment. She had no time to ask Lio if he would agree to this. Just as he’d had no opportunity to discuss it with her before he had confided in Eudias.
She had understood his decision then. Surely he would understand hers now.
Her palms sweating, Cassia said, “I’m in love with someone else.”
Sabina went still and stared at her.
Cassia let out a humorless laugh. “You look as if you find this hard to believe. Does everyone truly believe I am so cold?”
Sabina huffed. “Cold? Hardly. You’re dangerous when you get that fire in your eyes. But I doubt you have any use for sentimental attachments, except to spin a tale to win my sympathy.”
“Did you have any use for sentimental attachments that summer in Saxara when you met Flavian? Did you expect to fall in love with the last person in the world you are supposed to want?”
Sabina hesitated.
Cassia blurted, “My forbidden person and I had a winter in Solorum.”
Sabina’s hand lowered, her thread forgotten in the basket. “Good Goddess. I think you’re telling the truth. Winter…at Solorum…” Her eyes widened.
Sabina glanced over her shoulder and pulled Cassia farther into the corner of the tent, behind a tapestry on a rack. “The Equinox Summit? The Hesperine ambassador?”
“Lio’s feelings are not one-sided. He is as important to me as I am to him.”
It stung a bit, how stunned Sabina looked. “That’s why you did all of this? It wasn’t some political scheme we can barely understand? It was an affair?”
“It was love.” Cassia suspected we in this case meant Sabina and Flavian. They had spoken at some point, and Sabina had shared his suspicions about Cassia’s motives.
