not be queen, but consort isn’t beyond your reach. There’s precedent enough for that.”
Savedra pried her fingers from the pearls and touched instead the telltale bulge above them. The joke of her birth, that kept the rank of queen forever from her as surely as politics did. If only that were as easy to rip away as a necklace. “There will be a queen. The betrothal is already set and Lychandra’s death won’t dissolve it. And even if this foreign princess doesn’t make Nikos set me aside, I’ll still be nothing more than another pearl. Sorrow doesn’t negate practicality.”
Nadesda raised a hand when her husband would have spoken. “Enough. This is a time for tact as well as sorrow. Vastian, leave us. I’ll help Vedra dress.” Her teacup didn’t clink against the saucer, but her veils spoke in a dry rasp of lace and netting as she rose.
Her father gave them both a sardonic little bow and retreated to the antechamber. Savedra found a comb on her dresser while her mother opened the wardrobe to inspect her gowns. Sandalwood teeth caught in snarls and she fought the urge to tear them free. The sharp pain in her scalp grounded her.
“Why do you bother, Mother? I won’t be queen, and I’ll give you no Severos heir or cat’s paw bastard. Why keep including me in your schemes?”
Nadesda pulled out Savedra’s white mourning dress—a year out of style—and turned, sinking onto the bed next to her daughter. She wore eucalyptus oil to keep insects away, and the sharp minty smell clashed with the more familiar perfume clinging in the folds of her skirts.
“My love for you has nothing to do with the children you can’t bear, or the marriages you might make.” Her manicured hand closed over Savedra’s and she smiled. “I’ve always been grateful to have a daughter, even if it took us a few years to discover it.” The smile fell away. “But my love and loyalty to the house demand I take all of those things into account. As a mother I want you to be happy with your prince, but as archa I have other well-beings to consider too.”
Savedra continued combing for a moment, then gave up and twisted her hair into a thick knot at her nape. No one whose opinion she valued would care what she looked like right now. “Just remember, schemes that hurt Nikos will hurt me as well.”
“None of us can stop the world from hurting those we love. The best we can do is be there to ease the pain.” Her mother draped the white silk across Savedra’s lap and went to the bathroom; water gurgled, and she returned with a damp cloth. “So wash your face and go to your prince. You could have made worse choices, even if he is an Alexios.”
Savedra couldn’t help but smile at the approbation—the strongest an archa of House Severos might ever grant their ancient rival. “Mother, can’t you leave us out of your machinations?”
Nadesda rarely frowned, but her beautiful face stilled with sadness. “Even if I could, others won’t. I can only promise to spare you any suffering that I can, and to keep you innocent of anything that might compromise you.”
Savedra wanted to argue. Wanted to scream. But she was too tired, too empty. More than anything she simply wanted to go to Nikos. Her hands tightened on the washcloth till water dripped onto the dress in her lap. She’d need a new one made, anyway. The palace would be awash in white for a year.
“Thank you,” she said at last. Then she began to scrub away the clinging smoke, and the ghosts of tears she hadn’t yet shed.
CHAPTER 1
499 AUC
In the Sepulcher, death smelled like roses.
Sachets of petals and braziers of incense lined the marble halls and scented oil lamps burned throughout the long vault, twining ribbons of rose and jasmine and myrrh through the chill air. Meant to drown the smell of blood and rot that crept from the corpse-racks in the walls, but death couldn’t be undone so easily. The raw copper scent of recent violence teased past the sweetness, creeping into Isyllt Iskaldur’s sinuses as she studied the dead woman on the slab.
Blue-tinged lips parted slightly, expressionless in death, but the slash across her throat grinned, baring red meat and pale flashes of bone. Barely enough blood in her to settle—some clotted like rust in brass-blonde hair, pasted damp-frizzed tendrils to her cheeks. Lines down her ribs showed where