“She’s spoiled enough as it is, you know,” Eleanor warned with a laugh. “Speaking of spoiled… I know you’re already familiar with cousin Aemonn.”
I shot her a look at the suggestive eyebrows she wiggled in my direction. “He’s been very welcoming, though he doesn’t seem to be popular around here.”
“On the contrary, he’s very popular. Just not with the male cousins. They’ve lost many a prospective lover to his winks and smiles—and Aemonn never lets them forget it.”
The memory of our unsettling garden stroll had my smile fading. “Is he trustworthy?”
She shrugged. “He’s ambitious. His magic is weak, so he’s had to make up for it with charm and wits.” She flipped her hair back and smirked. “Just like me. I’m not surprised he was the first to try to get in your good graces. He knows how to court power.”
“And should I let him in my good graces?”
She chewed thoughtfully on the tip of her pencil. “He could be helpful to you. He knows the other Houses well, and he always has the best court gossip—other than me, of course. But everything with Aemonn is an exchange. Whatever he gives, he always demands something of greater value in return. It may be enough for him that you’re the Queen and he wants your favor, but he could just as easily sell gossip about you as sell it to you.”
I groaned. How had I managed to spill one of my most sensitive secrets to a man infamous for selling them?
“What about his brother?” I asked.
“Taran? Oh, they’re opposites in every way. Aemonn is always polished, always planning. Taran is a wild boar let loose in a glass maze.” She smiled fondly. “You’ll like him. He doesn’t care one bit about court scheming. With his strong magic and his father being the King’s brother, he could have had any title he wanted, but he refused them all. I’ve always wondered how he came from that family line—it drives his father mad that he has no interest in power.”
Sorae impatiently pawed at the soil, clawing a divot into the grass. I tossed an apple into the air, and within a blink, it disappeared between her jaws with a juicy crunch.
“Who else?” I asked.
“There’s Lily of course. She’s a sweetheart. Though I worry she may be too naive about what it means to be the only Princess.” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I’m sure Remis is plotting to marry her off the moment she comes of age.”
A knot formed in my gut at the thought of Lily being sold off like chattel—and what I knew it would do to Teller. “Luther would let that happen?”
“Luther would burn the palace down before he’d let her get forced into it.” She gave a deep sigh. “But Lily is devoted to making her parents proud. If Remis wants her to do it, I fear she’ll convince herself it’s what she wants, too.”
It reminded me so much of my brother, who had always been quick to accept my parents’ demands without complaint. I still wasn’t sure he even wanted to attend the Descended school, but my mother had proposed it with such conviction that I suspected he’d agreed just to make her happy.
It was no wonder, then, that he and Lily had become so close. But it also made their bleak future all the more inevitable.
“What about Alixe?”
“She spends all her time with the Royal Guard, so we aren’t very close, but she’s certainly worth knowing. She would behead me for saying this—literally, I think—but she’s just as ambitious as Aemonn. She’s simply more interested in earning her way up by merit rather than scheming or birthright.”
I scratched at Sorae’s scaly jowls, and she leaned into my hand with a contented trill. “What’s her story? She seems more like a soldier than a lady of court.”
“Her father is highly ranked in the Emarion Army. Her mother died young, so her father used to take her along on his assignments. I suppose she got used to being around soldiers and battle. She told me once that she dreamed of leading an army someday. I still believe she might. No one would stand a chance against her.”
I swallowed tightly. If Alixe did lead an army, I was likely to be on the wrong side of it.
“Are female soldiers common among the Descended?” I asked. “That’s rare for a mortal.”
She nodded. “Since we fight with magic, even a petite woman can overpower a big brute. Though I’d wager Alixe could take a man out with her bare hands just as easily as her magic.”
Even from what little I’d seen, I had no doubt that was true. Alixe reminded me so much of myself—or at least the me I’d dreamed of becoming.
“You haven’t mentioned Luther,” I noted.
Eleanor gave me an intrigued look. “I didn’t think I needed to. You two already seem so close.”
“We’re not,” I shot back a little too quickly. “I barely know him.”
She arched one of her delicate, expressive eyebrows. “Luther is… hmm, how to explain him? Sometimes I think he was born one thousand years old. He had the future of Lumnos on his shoulders even before his magic came in. Every now and then, I see glimpses of the man he might have been in another life, but it’s buried too deep under his obligations to the realm and the Crown and the House. He’s so consumed by duty, there’s no room left for anything else.”
There was a sadness in her tone that tugged at my heart. The picture beginning to form of Luther’s upbringing was a grim one, lacking in the affection and joy that had been such a staple of my family home.
It explained so much about him—his coldness, his obsession with titles and protocol—but it also made him an enigma. If his lifelong loyalty was to his family, why help my mother? Why help me?
Eleanor grinned cheekily. “Every year I tell him the only birthday present I want is to see him get so drunk that he finally lets loose. Taran’s the only one who has seen it, and he swears it’s a riot.”
I tried to picture the brutally serious, eternally brooding Prince as a giggling drunk. My mind came up blank, the prospect too impossible even to imagine.
But there had been moments…
The luminous thrill in his eyes when I’d released my power. The morning after he’d rescued me from the armory—his casual smile and candid stories about Sorae. The smirk that peeked through whenever he found a way to get under my skin.
Eleanor was right—there was something else hiding beneath Luther’s facade. Someone else.
Perhaps he had been telling the truth when he said he intended to serve the Crown rather than wear it. Maybe seeing my power unleashed had been a confirmation for both of us that this was real and not some dream that we would awake from.
For me, it had been like finding iron chains on my wrists, anchoring me to the undying ground while my mortal beloveds drifted away in the current of time. But for Luther, perhaps it had been like discovering his chains were finally broken.
Or perhaps I was buying too easily into a carefully crafted lie he wanted me to believe.
“He must have been looking forward to being King and not having to answer to anyone,” I said. “I can’t imagine he’s pleased that his father’s bargain means he can’t raise a Challenge against me.”