Noises of shock rose as whispers carried Marthe’s veiled accusation to the far corners of the crowd.
I schooled my features to apathy. “The King was seen by the Descended healers in Fortos. Once his condition declined beyond treatment, a team of mortal healers cared for him here in his final days.”
“So you admit you treated him?”
I swallowed. “I assisted the healers on a few occasions.”
“Including on the day of his death.”
“I… yes. Luther asked me to evaluate his condition. The King was very unwell, and we both believed he would pass soon.”
“In fact, you were left unattended with the King in his bedchamber, were you not? Armed with a weapon?”
“If you’re suggesting—”
“And a guard walked in to find you standing over the King’s body with your weapon drawn, isn’t that true?”
The hum of gossip became a roar. Iléana gave a loud, showy gasp and threw an arm in front of her grandmother, as if to suggest I might attack at any moment, while Jean shook his head and gave a low whistle. Even Remis and Aemonn eyed me uneasily.
“It was a misunderstanding.” I was practically yelling to be heard over the chatter. “Luther examined the King’s body personally. He can confirm I didn’t—”
“Where is the Prince?” Marthe asked sharply. “I, for one, would dearly like to know why the man we all believed to be Ulther’s heir saw fit to leave our ill, defenseless King in the company of a violent stranger.” Her eyebrows rose. “A stranger I hear he is now welcoming into his bedroom.”
The room erupted. My Corbois entourage exchanged expressions of shock, confusion, and suspicion. Perthe looked around nervously and edged closer to my side, his knuckles white on the hilt of his blade.
It looked as if my Challenging might come several weeks early.
Across the bond, I felt Sorae pace along her perch, stretching her wings in preparation to crash through the stone walls of the ballroom to come to my side. For a brief moment, I considered letting her.
My gaze darted around the room, instinctively searching for Luther. He would know how to fix this—he always had some clever trick to end unwanted inquiry or some curt excuse to steal me away that no one ever dared to oppose.
But he was gone, cleaning up my other messes. This was a battle I would have to fight alone.
I painted on a haughty look of confidence and raised my palm high into the air.
“You dare accuse House Corbois?”
I spoke so softly the room had no choice but to fall silent as they all strained to hear my words.
Finger by finger, I curled my hand into a closed fist. “You dare accuse House Corbois?” I repeated.
“It is not House Corbois that I am acc—”
“It was House Corbois that sent the King to Fortos to be examined there. House Corbois who chose the mortal healers who treated him for months. Corbois guards who stood at the King’s side, Corbois servants who prepared his food and drink, Corbois attendants who cleaned his body after his death.” I gestured to Remis and Garath. “It was these men, the leaders of House Corbois, who had complete control over the King’s care during his illness.”
The spectators finally turned their eyes from me to the two brothers, who shifted their weight nervously and took a step back from the Hanoverre contingent.
Marthe scoffed. “Even the finest Houses can be tricked by—”
“I wouldn’t want a simple misunderstanding to cause any bloodshed,” I said, calmly but forcefully, “so I’ll ask you again. Does House Hanoverre accuse House Corbois of murdering its own beloved Ulther?”
“That’s not what I—”
“If so, you must believe the Fortos healers to be complicit in this extravagant scheme. Perhaps the Fortos representatives have not yet departed—I’m sure their King would be very interested to hear your accusations against him.”
“I would never—”
“I’m sure you must have simply misspoken. Because if it were discovered that you had invented such a vicious lie, without even a shred of evidence to support it, in order to stir up unrest against your Queen… well, that would be treason.”
Marthe’s mouth snapped closed.
“Let me ask one final time: Does House Hanoverre accuse House Corbois, and the King of Fortos as its accomplice, of murdering King Ulther?”
Marthe’s lips flattened into a thin, pale line.
“No. We do not.”
The wrinkles spanning her face seemed to fill with shadows as her gaze narrowed in a dark promise. Any triumph I might have felt at surviving her and Iléana’s attacks quickly withered and died.
I might have survived this battle, but House Hanoverre was preparing for war.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
I sank into the plush armchair and whimpered at the rush of relief that shot up my aching feet. The room was cold, lit only by dim candlelight, but the quiet was a badly needed refuge.
We were hours into the ball, and I had only just now finished the receiving line of guests. Having kissed a thousand cheeks, forced a thousand smiles, and hid a thousand scowls—mostly at Aemonn’s frequent implications that we were practically mated—I sweet-talked Perthe into a brief moment of privacy and excused myself to freshen up.
After swiping a bottle of wine on my way out, of course.
I had tucked into a nearby reading salon, where I sat with eyes closed, trying to resist the urge to walk straight out of this palace and go home to curl up in my own bed at our family’s cottage on the marsh.
Standing up so boldly to House Hanoverre had been effective at warning off the other Houses from threatening me outright, but it had also taken my strategy of playing dumb and cut it off at the knees. There was no longer any point in pretending I was Remis’s hapless puppet.
For better or worse, the Houses of Lumnos now knew that I had claws—and that I was willing to use them.
To make matters worse, a shade of suspicion now tainted every interaction I had. Marthe Hanoverre had planted her hateful seed in the soil of the Twenty Houses, and her loyal flock would be hard at work cultivating it and watching it bloom.
I could have endured it a little easier if their accusations were baseless, but a part of me wondered whether my mother really had played a role in the King’s death—and whether I had unwittingly helped.
A year ago, it would have been inconceivable that my mother was involved in a convoluted plot to overthrow a Descended King and place me on his throne.
Now, I didn’t know what to believe.
I groaned as music wafted down the hall, a signal that the dancing was about to begin. I tipped the bottle of wine back and took a heavy swig. The warmth of the magic-infused alcohol spread through my chest, and a snorting laugh bubbled out. How naive of me to have believed the dancing would be the hardest part of this wretched ball.
Any other day, I would have cherished a night of dancing and drinking with friends. Tonight, though, the idea of twirling in a ballgown while the mortals lived in poverty, Henri languished in the dungeon, and Luther took on the Guardians had me feeling every bit the selfish Descended monster I once accused all the people in this palace of being.
Sometimes, the line between who I hated and who I had become was paper thin.