The
guests for Rokan’s coronation began arriving in full force the next day, and Isabel barely had time to breathe. Every day new dukes and commanders and princes from various outlying countries arrived, all with entourages of family and servants and hangers-on. Now she knew what all the empty rooms in the castle were for. Within five days almost all of them were full, and it was still several weeks until the actual coronation.
She didn’t have much opportunity to speak to Rokan, who had to greet every new arrival personally. It was probably for the best. The weight of the secrets between them threw her off balance; being around him distracted her from protecting him.
One day, though, Rokan summoned her to the gardens. He was sitting on a stone bench waiting for her, his elbows on his knees, and when she approached, his sudden smile made his eyes glitter in the sunlight.
Isabel sat next to him on the bench and regarded him warily. She had learned to pay attention to the variations in Rokan’s smiles. There was the sideways half-smile when he found something amusing; the slow, contented smile that appeared only rarely these days; and the wide, dazzling, unrestrained smile she had so far seen only twice, when he first came for her in the Mistwood and when they watched the hawk soar against the sky. And there was this one, the reason for her watchfulness: the impish grin that meant he wanted to do something he knew was stupid and was going to do it anyhow.
“It’s getting crowded in the castle, isn’t it?” Rokan said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “And it will be even more crowded before long. This would be a good time to get out and go for a ride.”
“Certainly,” Isabel said repressively. “And a grave insult to whichever dignitaries arrive when you are not here to greet them.”
“Isn’t it fortunate that there are certain dignitaries I wouldn’t mind insulting?” He rested his elbows on the back of the bench. “And I’d like to go riding with you again. The Duke of Elmbeg is going to be here this afternoon, and he’s going to spend at least an hour talking about how many ships he has. I think I could miss that without doing any great damage to my rule.”
“It’s an unnecessary risk,” Isabel said, remaining rigidly upright.
“I could get Clarisse to take my place. I’m sure
she
wouldn’t insult anyone.”
Isabel snickered despite herself, and Rokan tilted his head back with a satisfied smile. “Couldn’t you at least change your shape to look like me and take my place? That must be one of the tricks the Shifter plays.”
From the shiver of almost-memory that ran through her, Isabel knew he was right. “Now is not the time. Maybe after you’re crowned I can spare some energy to arrange for your outings.”
“Easy for you to say,” Rokan said with an exaggerated sigh. “You’re immortal. The days go faster for you.”
No, they don’t, she thought, and a flash of anger made her say, “Actually, there are a few immediate problems we need to deal with. There’s a rumor that some of the northerners are going to refuse to attend your coronation. They claim there’s something illegitimate about it. I don’t think they would dare, but I’m going to concentrate on stopping the rumor.”
Rokan tensed, and she immediately regretted it. He replied without meeting her eyes, his face flushed. “Some of the more distant of the northern dukes are nursing a belief that I have no right to the throne. There was—uh—a hundred years ago, a contested succession—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Isabel cut him off. She couldn’t bear to watch him stumble through such a patently ridiculous story. A hundred years ago the Shifter would have prevented contested successions. “I’ll take care of it. I should mention that most of those dukes are friends with Owain, and
he
hasn’t showed up yet.”
“He will.” Rokan grimaced. “If he stayed away, it would mean he was afraid. He wouldn’t besmirch his honor like that, not even if he was convinced I would kill him upon arrival.”
Which might not be a bad idea, actually. But she knew better than to suggest that to Rokan.
Duke Owain arrived two days later, accompanied by a thin, insubstantial wife and a surprisingly sparse collection of servants. He had not been seen at court since his niece and the high sorcerer had tried to kill Rokan. Isabel wanted to hate him, but the duke had a quiet dignity that made it difficult. He was staunchly old-fashioned without making any noise about it, taking no mistresses, being honestly solicitous toward the wife who had never given him an heir. He never mentioned his niece—the bastard daughter of a younger sister, according to court gossip, whom he had raised from infancy. He said something to Rokan that might or might not have been meant as an apology, and after that he stayed out of everyone’s way.
It bothered Isabel that she liked him, because the thought of him made her muscles clench. Rokan still believed Owain had known nothing about Albin’s plot, and Isabel almost believed it but couldn’t let herself be that stupid. Owain had been a known opponent of Rokan’s father, firmly of the opinion that the true rulers had been overthrown by treachery. Everyone was of that opinion, of course, because it was true; and there were people at court now who didn’t know enough to try to hide it from Isabel. But the prickly northerners had always had a difficult time subjecting themselves even to a king they believed had a right to rule over them. And Duke Owain’s sense of honor was pricklier than most.
With a fair amount of reluctance, Isabel decided to ask Clarisse about him.
That brought up another problem: Clarisse was very busy. The castle was suddenly full of young noblemen, all of whom either wanted to marry the new king’s sister or thought it would be wise to pretend they did. Clarisse seemed to despise them all; she treated them like dogs, exhibiting interest whenever it amused her, raising hopes and then thoroughly dashing them in front of as many people as possible, making secret promises to select young men and then pretending she had no idea what they were talking about. She was especially good at finding existing rivalries and heating them to the point of conflagration. By the time the first week was over, two duels had been fought over her and three narrowly prevented.
At first Isabel worried that Clarisse had some master plan. She spent hours with wounded young men who, being new at court, didn’t know who she was—and all of whom were eager to commiserate with another eligible young noblewoman. That was followed by more hours gossiping snidely with young women who were all second in line after the princess. Eventually Isabel concluded that the only motivation behind Clarisse’s intrigues was sheer malice.
Her excuse for talking to Clarisse was that the princess was stoking a rivalry between the princes of Flarine and Venir, two small island states with an intense and bitter enmity that was constantly threatening to explode into battle. A war between them probably wouldn’t affect Samorna directly, but it would hurt its trade, and Isabel decided to pretend that was her business. She caught Clarisse right after an afternoon banquet, fended off several approaching suitors with a wolflike glare, and pulled the princess into a quiet corner.
“What now?” Clarisse asked, shaking off Isabel’s hand. She was, as always, dressed like she cared about her suitors’ attentions, in a gray silk gown that managed to be elaborately ruffled and clingy at the same time.
“Sorry to interrupt your fun,” Isabel said. “I don’t want to keep you from making as many enemies as possible, but you’re beginning to step over the line. The Prince of Flarine—”
“—is my true love.” Clarisse blew a strand of hair away from her face. “Sorry, I’m impervious to reason where he’s concerned.”
Isabel rapidly revised her plans. She didn’t have the patience to spend an hour in a conversational dance, and she doubted she had an hour before some eager young man interrupted them. “Why is Duke Owain still alive?”
Despite herself, she still felt a thrill when she managed to startle Clarisse. “I beg your pardon? I believe you were there when my brother decided to let him go. Was I supposed to kill him personally?”
“You were supposed to argue with him about it,” Isabel said. “Rokan thinks Owain had nothing to do with the attempt to kill him. Do
you
think that?”
Clarisse looked at her for a moment, unblinking. Then she said, “Some men are more dangerous dead than alive.”
“Including men with nieces who try to kill the prince?”
Clarisse sighed, a little too heavily. Suddenly wary, Isabel shifted her sense of smell and caught a distinct whiff of fear. “I honestly think Rokan’s right about his innocence, though Owain bears part of the blame for raising Daria to hate the prince. The duke isn’t the sort to want people running about assassinating rulers with magic. He’d rather find the person he wants on the throne and make them fight it out in a nice noble duel, preferably preceded by an hour of dramatic speeches.”
She was dancing carefully around
why
Owain wanted Rokan off the throne, even though she was too smart to think Isabel hadn’t learned the truth by now. That might be the reason for the fear.
Might be…Isabel turned her bracelet around on her wrist and saw Clarisse’s eyes flicker toward the motion. But the scent of fear got no sharper, even though Clarisse must know that the bracelet was their only hold on Isabel’s loyalty.
Isabel hid a scowl. Now that she knew how easy it was for her to manipulate everyone else, her inability to maneuver around Clarisse was even more irritating.
A slight vibration in the air behind her made her aware of several men heading over to interrupt them. “Have you spoken to the duke since he arrived?” she asked hurriedly.
That was the right question. Clarisse made eye contact over Isabel’s shoulder, and three young men were there almost at once. She raised her eyebrows at Isabel with mocking regret as she was escorted away, leaving behind the scent of a faint flowery perfume and a fear so intense it was almost terror.
Straight to the source, then.
Isabel found Duke Owain in his room. She stood for a second outside his door, sniffing the odor of man and parchment and alcohol, listening to the occasional sip and whisper of pages. It would have been wiser to wait for a more natural opportunity, at a banquet or in the gardens. But she didn’t want to, and she was the Shifter, which meant it probably wasn’t wiser at all.
She picked the lock without making a sound—so she thought—but when she opened the door, the duke had his hands folded in front of him, no surprise at all on his thin bearded face. He was sitting at a small wooden table, a book open in front of him and a glass of white wine to its side. “Hello, Isabel.”
He knew she was the Shifter, but the smell of the room remained the same. No fear. “Hello, Your Grace.”
He nodded gravely. “Are you here to tell me something?”
“No,” Isabel said. “I’m here so you can tell me something.”
Duke Owain lifted his thick white eyebrows. “I can’t tell you where he is.”
Isabel had to shift her face expressionless—something she rarely had to do when she wasn’t talking to Clarisse. But the duke wasn’t trying to throw her off balance.
“I’m sorry,” Duke Owain went on, smoothing down the book’s ribbon to mark his place. “But you can understand my reluctance. You’ve done a good job of standing by the imposter. You almost fooled me.”
The man was mad. He had just signed his own death warrant, and done it with a faint regretful smile, without so much as a tremor.
She knew who “he” was.
You don’t have to serve those imposters,
he had told her, his hands shaking with fear and rage.
The confusion she had held at bay ever since Ven died welled up in her again, and she fought it down furiously. “I’m here about Clarisse,” she said.
He blinked. “Clarisse?”
“I want to know what the two of you are planning.”
He stared as if he had never seen her before—and suddenly Isabel realized how familiarly he had been looking at her until now. He knew her.
She reached for memories, but her mind was blank. Still, it should have been obvious. Duke Owain, loyal to the king, would have been on good terms with his Shifter. That was why there was no fear.
Which was foolish of him. No one knew the Shifter—she was wind and fog and loyalty and nothing else. He was thinking he could rely on her the way he could rely on a human being.
And even if I was human, he’d be a fool.
“You shouldn’t trust her,” Isabel said.
Owain untwined his fingers and folded them together again. “That’s what you came to tell me?”
It was as good as an admission. He had been talking to Clarisse, plotting with her. “Yes.”
Owain shrugged. He knew the Shifter well enough, then, not to expect her to tell him more than he needed to know. “I don’t exactly trust her. But I understand her, and that makes her somewhat predictable.”
Understand Clarisse? But maybe it was easy, if you were human with a full grasp of human emotions.
In her mind, she heard Rokan’s dismissive voice:
He thinks in straight lines.
But maybe, Isabel thought, he thought in straight lines because he preferred to. Not because it was the only way he could think.
It took her a moment to match her new emotion to a name:
regret
. This was a man worth admiring, if they had met under difference circumstances. If they had been on the same side.
“Just be careful,” she said, and as she turned she considered killing him. There were dozens of reasons to do it. He had as much as admitted he was harboring…harboring…her mind veered away from whom Owain was harboring, and went to whom he was plotting with.
Finally
. Finally, something she could use to pluck that burr out of her hair. And she might need Owain, to repeat to Rokan what he had said. So she left him alive, with his wine and his books, and went to find her prince.