Katherine knew she was in hot water the moment she heard Louise wished to receive her as guest of honour at her levée. There had been rumours Katherine had been trying to ignore: not just about her own daughter being ordered to Dos Lunas as heiress of the new Baradran regime, but equally about a new member of the Chavanet clan that made good chances of being legitimised. The details were blurry. It was like she was intentionally being left out of the conversation in order to confuse her or somehow to close her into the perfect space that had been fitted for her by her hosts. Despite her great reluctance to be trapped, and with the memories of her last meeting with her aunt, she dressed herself in morning dress and headed out to appear by Queen Mother’s side.

  Morning dress had started meaning something different since she moved in Sbaian grace. From a bolt of gifted silk chiffon from the embassy she had a loose dress fashioned, pale purple and so airy that it seemed to float over the floor as she walked, the rustling of the silk as loud as her footsteps. Over the past few weeks, as the Baradran debacle unfolded without offering her any information on the matter, Katherine’s attitude had begun to shift. Instead of worrying about the statement it would make to so boldly display her other alliances, it now appeared more like armour than bragging, to show that there were still important people on her side even if the King of the Baradrans had been slain. Many were left scrambling for friends in powerful places: Katherine’s ease in this realm was not treason to her family, but rather padding against the blow.

  The room was cold though the fire was roaring. Her arms were crossed, the hanging sleeves of her dress obscuring much of her skirts, and she felt immediately watched by the servants who were pouring tea and fussing about Lady Louise.

  ‘Morning, my lady,’ she cooed, pressing a smile onto her face in an attempt to avoid the humiliating loss of composure that Louise had drawn from her the previous time that they met.

  Louise was being made up by her maid. The audience had not yet arrived, and Louise’s glossy brown hair was still dressed in curlers. Though the ceremony was meant to show the Queen Mother at her toilette, the most informal audience of them all, and would showcase her great natural talents and charm, Louise was hardly one to turn away from artifice. When the first guests arrived, she invariably already had her hair unwound from the curlers, and her lashes augmented with charcoal. Before that, only her nearest were allowed to see her.

  She was regal and beautiful even before the charade, sipping wine as she greeted her niece. ‘If it isn’t our Courtenay darling,’ she drawled. ‘You look like a doll. Sit.’

  Katherine did as she was told, crossing her legs over each other to reveal the embroidery of her pink stockings. ‘You’ve asked for me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve been in and out of crisis councils over the past month. Hardly had any time at all to check in with my son’s beautiful fiancee.’

  She did her best not to scoff. ‘I would have preferred to meet with you not under the prying eyes of your court,’ Katherine said. ‘But I suppose I too have been busy.’

  Louise let her eyes glide over Katherine’s body, shielded by frothy silk. ‘You’ve been doing well, I take it,’ she said. ‘Making new friends.’

  ‘Not precisely,’ Katherine snapped back, taking a wine from the servant. ‘Worried sick about my future, trying to find solace in opportunity.’

  ‘Solace in opportunity…’ Louise repeated. ‘You really are a poetess.’

  Katherine wondered about the exact amount of sarcasm Louise’s tone hid, but it was too late to ask, for the audience began to creep in. Louise’s hair had just been combed, one curl at a time, revealing a shiny mass of perfect corkscrews that framed her face like a lion’s mane. For much of her life, Katherine had thought that Louise naturally appeared so intimidatingly perfect.

  The guests were Massouric courtiers, both from Souchon Palace as well as the provinces, Ilworthians, the first Baradran refugee Gineforts, and ambassadors — Katherine hoped that if Freyza were to be present that she would spot him among them, considering she would be required for Sbaian lessons after this. So far no luck, but the guests were still trickling in.

  Katherine felt uncomfortable being viewed besides Louise. Both women were dressed the way they would be for a private breakfast, and yet were now expected to answer any pressing questions from court. Louise, as power behind the throne, had much less to fear than Katherine, especially given that it was Louise’s de facto court they were up against.

  It only dawned on Katherine then that Louise was wearing her house colors: a simple grey kirtle of wool, covered by a black and red taffeta gown belted at the waist. It had not occurred to Katherine to represent her house, and she was beginning to wonder if this was the first mistake she had made that day.

  The amount of red-topped heads in the crowd was alarming — all Gineforts. As the last guests came in, and the door closed behind them, Katherine combed the bits of hair out of her face that had been stuck to her forehead with sweat. Louise took the word: ‘Good morning, ladies, gentlemen. It pleases me to see you so well on this fine summer’s day. It pleases me to see so many living Baradrans. I’ve brought my own living Baradran as well, as you can see. Half of a Ginefort, my guest of honour.’

  There were mumbles of affirmation. Katherine shifted in her seat, clutching her glass with both her hands. ‘I am happy to have been extended an invitation by my gracious former liege and gentle-hearted mother-in-law to-be,’ Katherine said, smiling all the while. ‘And of course to see my kin. In particular, my dearest aunt Scemena. Gabriel.’

  The sorrow on their faces would not fade easily from Katherine’s mind no matter how she looked away. Scemena had aged significantly since she had last seen her in Dos Lunas, having become much frailer and thinner than the vivacious and athletically lanky woman she recalled. Her children mostly appeared uneasy, as if they found Katherine an equally hard sight to behold as she found them.

  ‘And, how could I forget,’ Louise said. ‘It is not all doom and gloom in Souchon Palace. Our beautiful and yielding Lady Diane Neville will be on her way when she is in a position to do so, she wrote us this morning.’

  Katherine narrowed her eyes. ‘Lady Diane?’ she asked. ‘It’s been a very long while since I’ve last seen her. Does she have any business here this coming time?’

  Louise’s mouth slipped into a wide grin. ‘Oh, you haven’t heard?’ she asked. ‘My darling, you’ll be happy to hear, it’ll lessen the burden on your own little body in the coming years. Lady Diane has very recently given birth to a healthy full-blooded Massouric noble child which our great king sired. Given his miraculous Chavanet characteristics already at such a young age, it cannot be other than God’s sign for us to have him legitimised.’

  Katherine thought she would retch out of shock, or combust into ribbons, but to her own surprise, she sat petrified in her chair and quieted her chattering teeth. ‘What a spectacular achievement,’ she said, not breaking eye contact with Louise even if she felt the moisture of her eyes seep over their edges. ‘I cannot believe— I cannot believe I must have been in Ilworth when this was announced. What a terrible fact to miss.’

  It seemed that Louise responded in her way to Katherine’s obvious shock, as scandalised mumbles began to float through Louise’s boudoir. She reached over to Katherine, but Katherine shot up as if to shake her off. At this point, while her face still appeared placid, she wiped the beginnings of a tear from her eyelashes. ‘Sorry,’ she said beneath her breath.

  ‘Oh, you needn’t be sorry, my love,’ Louise said forth, loud enough so anyone could reckon Katherine had apologised, clearing up any confusion around Katherine’s gesture. It was clear she had started to cry. ‘I understand that it has been a hard month for you as it has been for us all. Especially considering the impending departure of your daughter.’

  Katherine felt herself go cold as if finally the last bit of insecurity and vulnerability had been wound out from the ball of yarn in her guts by Louise.

  ‘There is no impending departure of my daughter,’ Katherine said, scraped her throat, and added, ‘I’ve been made out to be the enemy over the past three weeks for a failed courtship, now coming up to six years dissolved, to a man who I have not chosen, let alone to be wedded into a house I had not chosen, to live in exile at your doorstep, Lady Louise, not for the character of my person, but for the character of a man whom I had been promised to, and whom I had inadvertently given too much in the folly of my adolescence. I will not then choose for my daughter’s life to repeat mine, being shipped from court to court not for her deeds or even for her nobility, but for the deeds and nobility of those bearing only the faintest of familial relations to her, but whose name she unfortunately must bear. My daughter lives under my protection — I am her remaining warden. I stand with my people, first and foremost, the Ilworthians and the Courtenays, and I stand with the Gineforts second for they are my mother’s blood, but among the Courtenays I count my Johanna.’

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  A few gasps made their way around the small crowd, and one of Scemena’s ladies took her flag fan from her girdle belt to wave it. Louise sat back as a servant rouged her cheeks, remaining languid in the illusion of the levée as a recreation of her morning ritual. She looked regal, her face installed onto her large skull, resting atop of her wide shoulders. She appeared to be scaled up like in a portrait of a goddess.

  ‘You have just one child,’ Louise said once her servant had finished painting her lips. ‘If you are, against all odds, blessed with the unlikely fecundity to one day have more — given your age, I believe that it may come to be, that you regret forfeiting your alliances against your daughter’s immediate well-being. Besides, she shall be with her kind. De Serras have this particular temperament. I’d be afraid of her turning into one of them, and I’d be eager to get that possibility out of my mind. But of course, we are very different queens.’

  The heads of those in attendance moved from one queen to the next whenever one began to speak.

  ‘Indeed, we are different queens,’ Katherine agreed and cast her gaze downward. ‘Unlike you, Lady Louise, I know that a forfeiture of an alliance is but the price of an unwavering loyalty to one’s people. I am not here to benefit myself, or my fellow nobility. I am here to benefit Ilworth. That may not suit many of you, but I can assure you that when the chronicler walks out of this room having writ my words, they will resonate with those in the majority: the common people. At the end of the day, I am not a duchess in a coronet sucking up to my high-born peers. I have been chosen by God to protect my people. In order to do so, I can forfeit a war-torn Baradran Kingdom for a wealthy Sbai Empire.’

  She stood up and felt the eyes stick on her. ‘We are different queens, Lady Louise,’ Katherine repeated. ‘You stand for your class, which is a noble task as queen mother, and fitting as you have not ruled a populace in years. However that may make you forgetful of the fact that the crown on my head is placed by thousands of merchants, peasants, labourers and craftspeople, and the price of that crown is the fierce defence of their lives.’

  Louise held her hands up. ‘You’ve studied a speech,’ she said. ‘I would’ve preferred it if you’d chosen your own time to present it. Your people are dying in the streets of the Baradran Isles, this isn’t the time for a political campaign.’

  ‘I haven’t studied a word, Lady Louise,’ Katherine said bitingly, gesturing flamboyantly as she spoke. ‘I cannot stop any Baradran citizens from being slaughtered, indeed, without slaughtering my own men. I will denounce the government but I will not send troops there to be fed into the fire of chaos, and I will not send my daughter into the lion’s mouth, and I will not be made to feel like a spineless queen for having the best interests of my people at heart. If you will excuse me, I’m running late elsewhere.’

  Katherine threw a furious glance towards the door and servants opened it. With all of the calm she still had within her, she strode out, not giving anyone a last glance until she had dragged the stones that seemed attached to her feet out onto the hallway, where she balled her hands into fists, clenched her jaws firmly, and attempted to blink away the heated tears that were welling up and the great loathing she had for her mother in law and everyone present at the levée. She was crying again and cursed them all underneath her breath; her heart was beating so violently she worried it may leap from her chest.

  She was not late — if anything, she was early. She hurried up the stairs, the stones cold on her stocked feet, weeping desperately and breathing heavily, and once she had arrived by the door in that spindly little tower, she was brought to her knees by the exertion and depth of emotion, and after that she collapsed as she wept and her quickening breath made her wheeze. Her teeth were chattering — from where she stood, the game had been played.

  Not only had she spoken up against Louise, she was lined up to be replaced by Diane — after all, she already had an heir ready. The image of Diane’s face, interrupted by images of what she thought the Chavanet babe to look like, flickered by each time she blinked. While she was being tormented by her own thoughts, the door opened a little and light came into the dark corridor.

  She looked up and saw Freyza standing in the doorframe, his jaws clenched so tightly she could see the tips of the muscles contract just above his beard. She chuckled madly, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘I can explain,’ she said.

  His face was grave as he bent through his knees to look at her closer, unclasping his short cloak to offer to her. ‘I’m not quite sure of what to say,’ he admitted. ‘Except… you’re early.’

  With chattering teeth, Katherine accepted the cloak and draped it over her shoulders. He helped her to stand back up, though he noticed that besides her shivering and the deeply disturbed look in her face, there seemed to be little wrong with her physically. It was not the dreadful state he had assumed her to be in judging by the little pile of her on the floor that he found. She sat down in her spot and looked lifelessly at the writing equipment and examples of Sbaian characters that Freyza had written for her.

  ‘Tea?’ he asked. Katherine nodded.

  ‘I’ve forsaken my family,’ she said, sniffling.

  ‘Hm.’ Freyza walked towards the hearth and put the kettle on. ‘Do you wish for me to know more?’

  ‘You’ll hear it from the court gossips anyway, so I might as well,’ Katherine said, hoisting her legs up to hold them, ‘I was called to the levée this morning.’

  Freyza broke eye contact with her to keep tabs on the water, but when she stopped talking, he looked over again, and saw her slouched over the desk, staring vacantly. ‘And it didn’t go well?’ he asked.

  Katherine shook her head and wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘That bitch Louise invited me just to show all of court my weakness. To make herself look better or to force me to cower before her in marriage negotiations, I don’t know. Perhaps she really is deep in the pockets of the Gineforts, that she must act this way. Either way, I may as well be a prisoner.’

  He was quiet a while when he poured the hot water over the tea leaves in the cups. At last, when he brought them over to his desk, he said: ‘If you feel as though you are being provoked intentionally, and if it causes you such distress, perhaps it would be wise to inquire with your advisors if you can leave Souchon Palace until the continent is in calmer water. Otherwise, another possibility would be to invite a guest of honour who can take some of the focus off.’

  He sat down opposite her and offered her a sympathetic smile. ‘As much as I look forward to our lessons and our negotiations, it pains me greatly to see you hurt.’

  Katherine had both her palms cupping her chin and jaw, her fingers resting on her cheekbones. ‘And then what? Sit idly by as they legitimise Diane Neville’s bastard, and sing the first notes of the goodbye song they’ll sing me when they cut me off, or make like Isabella and ship my body off in a noble oaken coffin?’

  ‘Diane Neville’s bastard?’ Freyza asked.

  Katherine tried to smile. ‘It’s foul play, Freyza,’ she explained. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of the ways Louise keeps me from amassing too much power.’

  ‘I’m not sure I am authorised to know,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, I don’t give a damn,’ Katherine said. ‘She doesn’t deserve the secrecy. I’m being poisoned, no matter how far-fetched that sounds, so that I won’t be in Diane’s position of power, for I won’t be healthy enough to carry a child, and therefore I won’t have a Chavanet bastard to parade around when negotiations go awry. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be policy, for Henry’s others prospects are treated by the same Lady Louise like goddamned breeding mares.’

  He looked calmly into the cup, gazing at the softly stirring remainder of the tea leaves that he could not remove. ‘It’s not far-fetched at all,’ he said. ‘I recall Lady Louise was known to do the same thing to herself in her youth to keep up the belief of her purity before she married Lord Silouane. Besides, you have much power already. It is women such as Diane who scavenge for it wherever.’

  ‘Well, don’t say it forth,’ Katherine said. ‘Richard figured this and we’ve been letting it happen. I am safe, and in its way, it is convenient to live at Souchon Palace at the feet of the world’s largest embassies, unburdened by the possibility of carrying a child. Especially now I’m starting to think there may be better suitors for me, if less prestigious.’

  Freyza huffed. ‘You don’t have to tell me that, Lady Katherine. I’d be a fool to say anything at all forth, and while you’ve seen me foolish, you won’t see me so foolish it warrants separating my head from my neck.’

  She began to sip her tea, calming just from the silence around them. ‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘I would be particularly reluctant to let you go. Your foolishness is an amusing respite from your formality.’

  ‘I will try to keep my head on,’ he said after all. ‘Do you wish to hear my thoughts on this, Lady Katherine, or shall I drily continue with the alphabet? I wouldn’t want you to think I’m underestimating your intelligence by giving you council or meaning to do favours for you, but…’

  ‘But what?’ Katherine asked with a chuckle. ‘You can’t let the opportunity pass to help a damsel in distress against her evil keeper?’

  ‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘I feel called to toil in your name.’

  Katherine snickered and was only just beginning to revert back to her regular, self-possessed posture. ‘I hope you know, Master Freyza, that even though I am considering new suitors, you needn’t harbour illusions. Your toiling will remain unknown and unappreciated. Why do it at all?’

  As if to read the answer in his porcelain cup, Freyza intently peered at the remaining leaves. ‘I happen to have a couple of reasons that have barely anything to do with my illusions of your hand.’