“Which crown is she loyal to?” Luca turned to meet Gil’s eyes.
He huffed into his thick gray mustache. “There’s only one crown.”
Luca shook her head, sighing heavily. “Not right now. There’s the legal, inherited claim, and there’s the one sitting on the actual seat. Right now, we’re all pretending it’s all right and that we’ll reconcile the two into one, but—be honest, Gil.
“If I don’t solve the problem here, do you think Nicolas will be so eager to move his ass? If I don’t fix Qazāl, we’ll have a succession trial at best. I know how that will go. We’re not the first royal family to have a contested succession. Not even the first Anciers.” Luca snorted and gestured out the window. “And all of that assumes I’m not murdered here.”
Gil clasped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side. “I’ll never let that happen.”
The hug comforted Luca and made her feel too small at the same time. She straightened out of it and pulled her frustration closer instead.
“I feel like the general wants to push me out of the way, like I’m too stupid to know what I’m doing—or to learn.”
And why wouldn’t the general assume that? An untested queen—no, a princess, who hadn’t governed anything unrulier than a library and a pen to anyone else’s knowledge. That’s why her uncle, the regent, had sent her to this sun-scorched desert in the first place. “To gain experience,” Uncle Nicolas had said, “before taking the crown.” Despite his words, however, they both knew there was the possibility that she would fail. That she would make an utter mess of it and he could make a case to the nobles that she wasn’t fit to rule. It wouldn’t be the first time one Ancier had disposed of another for incompetence.
“I have to be the one to fix this,” Luca murmured as she looked out the window.
The Quartier was only a brief strip of desert away from where the soldiers lived and one cog of her empire turned. Beyond that, she could imagine the night noise of the city far in the distance. Just beyond the city flowed the River Hadd, and beyond the Hadd were the ruins of the Second City. Somewhere in the Second City was the Scorpion Library. The First Library.
And maybe the secrets of the Shālan magic that could help her rule one day. The magic that her father had never managed to claim. The magic that might have saved his life.
Luca ran a finger along the stone sill of the window. It was cool to the touch. “I’m twenty-eight years old, Gillett. I should have been crowned this year. The only reason I agreed to this test of his is so we don’t end up mired in another ten-year civil war. You know I have as strong a grasp of strategy and economics as Nicolas. I’ve read everything there is to read. I’ve been tutored in Shālan since before I could walk.” She turned to him, her voice low and bitter. “He’s too excited to test his Droitist this or Droitist that. Every corner of the empire will be like this if he’s not careful.” She gestured back to the city, as if she could point directly at the gallows and the hanged rebels.
“I know, Luca.” He tried to soothe her with his murmurs, his rough hands rubbing her shoulders. “You’re going to need people to do this, though. The right people.”
Luca made a delicate, peeved sound in her throat. “The right people?”
“Like Cheminade. Cantic. Even Beau-Sang. Never overlook a good weapon.”
Luca grunted and rolled her eyes. Later, however, her thoughts drifted to the handsome conscript. Perhaps she would make a good weapon, too.
CHAPTER 4
CAPTIVES
Alive.
Her mother was alive.
Touraine reeled silently in the lonely dark of the carriage cab. She wished, not for the first time that night, that Pruett or Tibeau could have come with her.
After the meal, Touraine spent the evening standing awkwardly to the side just like the body servants, except for when Cantic introduced her to the princess. She’d thought this dinner would be the peak of her success, that she’d show everyone that the Sands could belong just as much as anyone else. That hadn’t lasted long at all, between the comte de Beau-Sang and whoever that old noblewoman was. So it was a relief, at first, when Cheminade approached her.
“Lieutenant Touraine.” The governor-general handed her a drink. Lord Governor Cheminade had a surprisingly tender air for a politician. The wrinkles in her face spread as she smiled.
Touraine bowed, more out of uncertainty than anything else. The drink was sweet and fragrant and delicious.