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“Conor,” Kel said, gently, “you’re drunk, that’s all. You’re the Prince; Castellane is yours. Her fleets and caravans are yours. And her people love you. You saw that today.”
“Not,” Conor said, slowly, “not—all of them.”
Before Kel could ask what he meant, there were footsteps on the stairs; someone was coming. The footsteps turned out to be Alys. She pursed her lips in concern when she saw Conor but did not seem surprised. Perhaps Falconet had told her. Perhaps he had been like this when she’d pulled him away, earlier. Before tonight, Kel would have asked, but he could not trust Alys now.
Nevertheless, he let her guide them out the back entrance, where their horses had already been brought around by the footmen. She was apologetic—had the Prince not enjoyed himself tonight? Kel found himself reassuring her, even as he thought of Merren and wanted to demand what she’d known.
But Conor was there. He might be drunk, but he wasn’t insensible. Kel kept his questions to himself, bidding Alys a stiff goodbye as Conor swung himself onto Matix, his injured hand held close against his chest.
Kel had gotten Conor home drunk many times before, and he had no doubts he’d manage it again tonight. Conor had always been a skilled rider, and Asti and Matix knew their way to the Palace. He and Conor would go home, and they would sleep, and in the morning there would be Dom Valon’s hangover cure, followed by training and light disapproval with Jolivet, then visits from the nobles, and all the usual furnishings of an ordinary day.
He wondered if Conor would remember how he had cut his hand, or what he’d said to Kel, a thing he’d never said before:I’ve made mistakes, Kel. Bad mistakes.
Another voice cut past the memory of Conor’s words.Your choices are not your own, or your dreams. Surely that cannot be what you hoped your life would be. Everyone was once a child, and every child has dreams.
But the Ragpicker King was a liar. A criminal and a liar. It would be a fool’s errand to listen to him. And Conor said all sorts of things when he was drunk. There was no point placing too much weight on them.
Up ahead, Conor called for him to go faster; they were nearly to Palace Street, where the land began to slant up toward Marivent. Kel glanced down and saw the paper crown that had been tangled in Asti’s reins. It was already coming to pieces; after all, it had never been meant for anything but show.
The time of the Sorcerer-Kings was a time of immense prosperity. Great cities rose up, and clad themselves in marble and gold. The Kings and Queens built for themselves palaces and pavilions and hanging gardens, and there were great public structures: libraries and hospitals and orphanages, and academies where magic was taught.
But only those who attended the academies, whose attendance was strictly controlled, were allowed to perform High Magic, which required the use of the One Word. Low magic, which could be done without using the Word, flourished among the peasantry, especially among traders, who traveled between kingdoms. Low magic consisted of combinations of words and numbers etched upon amulets, and was tolerated by the Sorcerer-Kings only because of its limited power.
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings,Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
As Kel had predicted, the day after the visit to the Caravel was uneventful. Conor woke with a vicious hangover. Kel took himself off to the kitchen to retrieve Dom Valon’s famous morning-after cure: a vile-looking substance made with eggs, red pepper, hot vinegar, and a secret ingredient the head cook refused to divulge. After downing it, Conor had stopped complaining about his headache and started complaining about the taste of it instead.
“Do you remember anything about last night?” Kel asked as Conor dragged himself out of bed. “Do you remember telling me you’d made a terrible mistake?”
“Was the terrible mistake punching Charlon Roverge?” Conor had peeled the black kerchief from his hand and was making a face. “Because if I did, I think I broke my hand on his face.”
Kel shook his head.
“Must have smashed a glass, then,” Conor said. “Don’t summon Gasquet; he’ll just make it worse. I’m going to go boil myself in the tepidarium until the water turns into royal soup.”
He stripped off his clothes and made his way, naked, across their rooms to the door that led to the baths. Kel wondered if he should point out to Conor that he still had his crown on, anddecided not to. It wasn’t as if hot water and steam were going to do it any harm.
When he was younger, Kel had assumed that one day he would be given his own room—near Conor’s, certainly, but still separate. That hadn’t happened. Jolivet had insisted that Kel continue to sleep where Conor slept, in case something happened in the night. And when Kel had asked Conor about it, saying surely Conor also wanted privacy, Conor had said he wasn’t looking to be alone with his thoughts, unless Kel reallywantedhis own room, in which case Conor would make sure he got it. There had been genuine hurt in his voice, though, and Kel had dropped the topic.
Queen Lilibet, after all, shared her apartments with her ladies-in-waiting, keeping a golden bell beside her bed to summon them to her side. Master Fausten had slept on a cot outside King Markus’s door in the Star Tower since the Fire on the Sea. And the rooms Kel shared with Conor were vast, encompassing not just the room where they slept, but the library upstairs, the roof of the West Tower, and the tepidarium. Being alone wasn’t impossible, so Kel decided he’d been unreasonable to ask in the first place.
Kel, who had already bathed, began to dress, ignoring the stinging in his right hand. There were three wardrobes in the apartments: one, the largest, for Conor’s clothes. One for the sets of clothes required for public appearances and other events at which Kel might need to take Conor’s place at a moment’s notice, containing two of everything, matching: frock coats, trousers, even boots. And the third for clothes that were Kel’s own, inflected with the style of Marakand. For after all, wasn’t he Amirzah Kel Anjuman, the Queen’s cousin? Lilibet had taken some delight in making sure his wardrobe reflected that. Silk tunics in jewel tones with loose sleeves, colorful scarves, and long tapered coats of gold or bronze brocade, their sleeves slashed to show green silk beneath. (Green was the color of the Marakandi flag, and Lilibet wore it almost exclusively.)
Kel dressed in black today, with a green tunic buttoned over: The loose sleeves were useful, as they concealed the daggers secured tohis wrists with leather buckles. As far as he knew, Conor had no special plans for today, but it was always good to be prepared.
They ate breakfast in the courtyard of the Castel Mitat. Marivent was not in fact one large castle, but a scatter of different small palaces, or castels, dotted among richly planted gardens. The story was that this had made the Palace easier to defend—even if an army were to get past the walls, they would have to siege multiple fortresses—but Kel did not know if that were true, or if it simply reflected the fact that kings and queens over the centuries had found it easier to add new buildings than to expand the Castel Antin, the oldest of the palaces, which contained the throne room and the Shining Gallery.
The Castel Mitat sat dab in the middle of Marivent; it was a hollow square, surmounted by the sturdy West Tower, which looked out over Castellane and its harbor. Half in sun, half in dappled shade cast by arbors of climbing vines, its courtyard glowed like a jewel box. Orange and red poppies and grandiflora hung from vines like drop earrings of polished coral. In the center of the courtyard was a sundial tiled in scarlet and green, representing the marriage of Lilibet and Markus. The green of Marakand, the red of Castellane.
According to the sundial, it was closer to noon than morning, but as far as Conor was concerned, that still meant breakfast. Bread, honey, figs, and soft white goat’s cheese, alongside cold game pie. And wine, of course. Conor poured a glass and held it up to watch the sunlight strike through the liquid, turning it to stained glass.
“Perhaps we should go back to the Caravel,” Kel suggested. He was picking at a fig; he found he had not much appetite. “Since you’ve forgotten yesterday anyway.”
“I haven’t forgottenallof it,” said Conor. He had left off his crown, or lost it in the tepidarium. There were shadows smudged beneath his gray eyes. Once they had had eyes of different colors, but that had been changed long ago. “I recall Falconet doing some truly scandalous things to Audeta. She seemed to like them. I ought to ask him how—”
“Well, then, if you enjoyed yourself, all the more reason to return. With Falconet, if you like.”Which will allow me to seek out Merren and demand some answers.
“I prefer not to wear the same thing twice in a row, or do the same thing two nights running.” Conor turned the glass in his hand. “If you’re missing Silla, we can always have her brought here.”
