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Lio felt Cassia’s pain in his own blood. Certainty passed between them. Solia had already made her choice before she set foot here. Just as Cassia had known what she would do before she abdicated in the Empress’s court.
There had never been any hope of changing Solia’s mind. These two sisters might as well be stars set on their paths in the heavens. Lio wished Tendo were here, for he was the only other person who understood.
Solia’s voice echoed, unwavering, across the Queens’ rooftop. “I will take the throne of Tenebra. I ask for the support of everyone here. If you cannot in good conscience aid me, then I hope for your blessing. If even that is too much to expect, I pray only that you will not seek to sway me from my cause.”
A soft wind chased her words, only the fountains speaking as she awaited Queens’ response. The ancient monarchs exchanged a glance, a sign that they must be silently consulting via their Grace Union.
Queen Alea’s aura was wrapped in her rare Sanctuary magic, a beautiful secret to Lio’s senses. “For Hesperines to intervene in the politics of Tenebra, after the Equinox Oath forbade us to do so for sixteen hundred years, is a decision that must be weighed with the utmost care.”
“I understand,” Solia said. “Shall we discuss my strategy so you may take it into consideration?”
Cassia leaned into Lio. He understood her need for that physical anchor to each other. Tenebran affairs were a storm rising around them—Solia’s firestorm. They were watching it begin, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
“You intend to secure the queenship by peaceful means?” Queen Alea asked.
Solia answered, “I will claim the throne not my might, but by law. When the Council of Free Lords revokes their mandate from King Lucis, I will win their support and become the rightful queen.”
Uncle Argyros raised his open palm in the circle petition to join in the discussion. “What is your plan for gaining their favor?”
“Cassia assures me the people remember me. I will give them the queen they have always wanted, but thought they lost.”
Aunt Lyta extended her hand next. “How will you ensure that the deposed king does not retaliate?”
“Is Lord Hadrian still as honorable as I remember him to be?” Solia asked Cassia.
Cassia’s aura balked at being drawn into her sister’s plot, but she answered. “Honorable to his bones. He hates serving Lucis, but continues to do so for the greater good of the kingdom. As a veteran of the feuds that once tore Tenebra apart, he knows only a strong monarch can keep the free lords in check.”
“How likely is he to transfer his loyalty to me?” Solia asked.
Cassia swallowed. “The night we thought you died, he—the most powerful lord in all of Tenebra—begged until he was hoarse. But the king would not let him save you. He has held you in his heart as his true queen all these years.”
“I regret his needless grief,” Solia murmured. “When he follows me, his men will follow him. Lucis will be left with a weak force that obeys him out of personal loyalty—or fear. He will not have the might to oppose me.”
“He has a mighty ally,” Queen Alea pointed out. “Cordium supports his reign. They have already sent war mages to aid him. When you challenge him, you know how they will respond.”
But Solia smiled. “Indeed, I am well aware how the Mage Orders will react to a woman like me. A walking abomination against their religious laws.” She counted them off on her fingers. “No one may wield magic outside a temple. No man may wield both spell and sword. Oh, and women are not to wield the sword at all.”
“As much as that needs to change,” Kia said, “it will be incredibly difficult to uproot those ideas from people’s minds.”
“They don’t even believe women can be fire mages,” Xandra reminded her. “They still kill girls with our affinity, thinking it a mercy because our magic will only drive us mad and destroy us.”
“Not during my reign.” Solia’s tone could have left a man with burn scars. “I have devoted my life to putting a woman with magic on the throne. But when I revealed my plan for Cassia to my allies, it was my downfall, the reason I lost their support and had to flee. The reason she and I were separated for fifteen years. It was the most harrowing lesson I have ever learned. Do not imagine I will make the same mistake twice. This time, I will choose my moment wisely, and when I finally demand they accept their queen’s magic, I will be ready.”
Queen Alea’s voice was gentle. “I was alive during the Ordering. I lived through the Last War and all the persecutions the mages unleashed on women like us, who wield power against their doctrines. Are you certain you can be ready for such a reality?”
Solia raised her chin. “I don’t expect change to happen overnight. Not all of it will be accomplished in my lifetime. But I will be the beginning of the end of the Ordering.”
Lio remembered how lofty his own goals had been on his first journey to Tenebra for the Equinox Summit. How he and Cassia had clung to those ideals during the Solstice Summit when she came to Orthros. Solia might believe in her cause, and she might have been honed by politics and war at the Empress’s side, but she had been in the Empire too long. He and Cassia had been here, fighting the Mage Orders with every diplomatic word and act of sabotage.
Solia had no idea what she would face. But Lio said nothing, for she would find out, and he did not wish that moment of reckoning on her.
“I can rally Tenebra to stand with me against the Cordium,” Solia promised.
“If you miscalculate,” Queen Alea cautioned her, “you could provoke the Mage Orders to retaliate as they have not done since the Last War.”
“If it comes to that, the Empress will provide me with military aid,” Solia said. “Even Cordium’s mages, princes, and mercenaries are a pitiable force compared to the Imperial Army.”
Hespera’s Mercy, how calmly Solia described the Empire and Cordium marching to war against one another.
