Finally Isabel entered the throne room with Clarisse. The nobles were packed so tightly they were barely able to stay off the carpet. Isabel sniffed for fear, but all she smelled was an unpleasant mix of perfume and sweat.
“Coronations used to take place outdoors,” Clarisse whispered as they walked to take their places close to the throne. It was positioned on a slightly raised dais, and the area all around the dais was empty except for twin chairs elaborately decorated in maroon and gold. The chairs were for Clarisse and Will, but they wouldn’t sit at Rokan’s side until after the coronation. On the throne itself, nestled in the center of the maroon cushion, sat a slim golden crown. “Much more comfortable. But about two hundred years ago, you decided it was too dangerous.”
“That’s because it was,” Isabel said, and then they separated. Clarisse went to stand among the crowd to the left of the throne, Isabel to the right. Will was already there. He looked up at her and smiled tentatively. She started to smile back, realized how many eyes were on her, and had no choice but to finish the smile. It was out of character for the Shifter but better than publicly changing her mind.
She forced herself to work through the layers of sweat to whatever was hidden beneath the bustle of the room. There was steel here, invisible to the eye, but filling the air with its cold metallic scent. And another scent, less familiar but closer…
She turned her head sharply toward the man on her right. He appeared to be the Duke of Northbia, short and pudgy, but that wasn’t who he was. He met her eyes for a moment, and she thought, I could still stop him. She nodded slightly in acknowledgment, watched him return the gesture, then turned and stared straight ahead. She wondered when he would move and what he would do.
A crash of music rose from behind the huge double doors, where a group of musicians were playing under guard. She had insisted on the guard. The door opened, and the music wafted in with Rokan, stiff and regal in his black and purple robe. As he passed a young noblewoman in a dark blue gown, she leaned forward slightly, and every muscle in Isabel’s body tensed. But he walked past, and the noblewoman watched him go.
Isabel took a deep breath, realizing that if she had thought the noblewoman was really going to attack, she would have gone to Rokan’s defense. She glanced again at the fat man next to her and hoped Kaer realized how dangerous this was. He had to be the one to attack Rokan, or she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from defending the wrong prince.
There was no way to warn him, but she needn’t have worried. Kaer clearly wanted to defeat Rokan himself. He moved as Rokan was about to ascend the throne—sooner than Isabel would have advised—shedding his magical disguise as he stepped forward and stretched out his hand. For a moment Isabel thought the sword in it had been thrown to him. Then she saw Albin standing next to Clarisse, where a tall blond man had been a second ago.
Rokan swore, and before anyone else could so much as do the same, there was a sword in his hand, too. Isabel glanced at Albin, but he seemed as startled as anyone.
Kaer leaped toward the dais, and Rokan raised his sword just in time, knocking Kaer’s blade to the side. The two blades met with a clash louder than the music, which was swelling triumphantly. The musicians couldn’t see what was happening in the throne room.
The strength of Rokan’s parry knocked Kaer’s sword far to the side, but it also threw Rokan off balance; before he could regain his footing, Kaer thrust under Rokan’s blade and straight at his chest. Rokan parried again, but this time Kaer held. The two blades strained against each other.
“You will not lay a finger on my crown,” Kaer said, his voice carrying through the hall. The music came to an abrupt stop. “Imposter!”
It took Rokan only a moment to recover. He met Kaer’s eyes and stepped back, sliding his blade along Kaer’s. He lunged. Kaer parried.
Rokan took one step back, feinted twice, and then went for a killing stroke. Kaer’s blade followed his with lightning speed, but when Rokan lunged at him, Kaer dodged instead of parrying. Rokan whirled barely in time to meet his counterattack.
Isabel didn’t move from her place at the edge of the carpet. A dozen other noblemen stepped forward, and in a split second they were no longer noblemen but northern soldiers, with hard faces and long swords. One of those swords knocked Rokan’s out of his hand, and another hissed along his neck.
The room was deadly silent. Isabel could hear hearts pounding, but her own seemed to have stopped. Rokan turned, searching for her.
“Isabel!” he cried. Ten soldiers stood between him and her, but if she had shifted into a wolf or a bear they would have meant nothing. His eyes widened, and for a moment of scathing shame she thought he knew that she couldn’t. Then one of the soldiers jerked him back around, and she remembered that she was betraying him, not failing him.
Will let out a screech and flung himself into the fray; one of the soldiers plucked him off the ground like a puppy. Isabel’s eyes found Clarisse, who was already watching her. The princess stood frozen, her face white, but her eyes gleamed as if she had just been handed a wonderful surprise. Then one of the soldiers grabbed her, and she struggled for a few resigned moments before giving up.
Kaer was talking, addressing the soldiers in ringing tones. She should have been watching, because he might be in danger. Instead she stared at the prince who had been in danger for months, who was staring back at her with the resigned horror of a man watching a long-feared nightmare come true. The soldier holding the sword to his neck was very still. She watched that sword, because if it so much as moved the soldier was dead.
It shouldn’t have been that way. In her mind a sure little voice whispered, It will be easier when he’s dead. And another voice reminded her of what she had promised:
When the time is right, I will kill him for you.
The
throne was uncomfortable. It shouldn’t have been—it should have fit him like he was born to it, like the throne in his dreams. But it was hard, and the back was not hollowed at all, and his spine kept jutting into the intricate royal sigil carved into the thick wood. Kaer ignored all that. Owain had advised him against holding a Challenge Hour, especially after he had already crowned himself a few days ago, but the duke hadn’t mentioned the uncomfortable throne.
Once, years ago—when he had still been a boy practicing with a wooden sword, when he had thought he would one day face the usurper himself—he had confessed to Owain that he was afraid. Owain had put his hand over his, closed both their hands around the sword hilt, and said, “When the time comes you won’t be.”
Owain had been right. He had been right about so many things.
Kaer angled himself away from the back of the throne.
I’m really here. This has finally happened.
A part of him still didn’t believe it, and that made it even better. He surveyed his throne room, seeking out the Shifter first.
But before he could locate Isabel, a stir near the entrance caught his attention. The nobles near the door drew away and stared, fluttering like a flock of startled pigeons as Clarisse walked into the throne room.
She did so with a great deal of skirt swishing and nodding, making it seem like everyone in the throne room had been waiting for her arrival. Her gown was an elaborate concoction of yellow silk, her hair twisted and held so that it fell over her bare shoulders just so. She dropped a curtsy to Kaer—holding it long enough that everyone would notice, but not so long that it seemed anything other than routine—and lifted her eyebrows at him with a small, confidential smile.
Kaer turned away to hide how amused he was and almost jumped when he found himself face-to-face with the Shifter. Isabel had approached the throne so soundlessly he hadn’t heard her and now was glowering at him so fiercely that for a moment he found it hard to breathe.
“What,” the Shifter said in a voice that didn’t sound human at all, “is she doing here?”
Kaer drew himself up. He wasn’t going to show fear of anything, he reminded himself, not anymore. Not even of her. The Shifter watched him with unnaturally green eyes, dangerous and predatory even in her demure powder-blue gown.
She still seemed familiar to him, which was ridiculous—the form she bore now had no connection to the ones he had seen as a child. But the day before, in the audience chamber, her hair had faded from gold to reddish brown, and the nagging familiarity of her face had stirred a memory that made him want badly to love her again. To be a naive young boy, dreaming of the magical creature who would always keep him safe, if he could only find her.
He propped his elbow on the arm of the throne and frowned at her. “I can’t very well keep her locked up in her room if I may end up marrying her, can I?”
She leaned back to get a better view of his face—at an angle that should have been impossible without falling over, but she seemed not to notice. “Where is Daria?”
“She’s being fitted for a gown for next week’s banquet.” Kaer waved a hand. “I saw a beautiful swath of silk I couldn’t resist buying for her.”
“So that she would have to spend all week with the seamstress?” Isabel’s eyes narrowed. “Clever.”
“Thank you,” Kaer said. Clarisse was now talking to a noblewoman in a green gown with ridiculously wide sleeves. Clarisse looked up at them, met Kaer’s eyes, and winked. Then she murmured something to the noblewoman, and the two of them headed toward the throne.
Kaer stiffened, and one of the carvings on the back of the throne jabbed sharply into his back. This was not part of the plan. He reached behind him to rub his new ache.
“That’s Lady Amri,” Isabel said without turning her head. “She’s the wife of the richest banker in Risan.”
Risan was a southern duchy on the coast; Rokan’s father had ruthlessly curtailed its trading privileges in favor of Gionvar, a rival duchy with a river harbor. The Duke of Risan had promised soldiers and money to Owain and had delivered the money but not the soldiers. Kaer wondered how much of that Isabel knew. Most of it, he hoped, if she was worth her own myth, and he would tell her the rest later. For now he merely nodded, pressing his feet firmly against the dais to keep himself still.
“My lady,” he said with careful courtesy as the two women drew close to the throne. Lady Amri swept into a low curtsy, her wide sleeves sweeping the floor.
“Your Highness,” Lady Amri said, rising and clasping her hands together. “I wanted to thank you for your gracious hospitality. This is my first visit to the capital, and truly, the reports I’ve heard are not overexaggerated. The splendor of the castle, the tranquility of the climate, the beauty of the women…” Here she bowed slightly to Isabel. Isabel inclined her head politely. Clarisse snorted.
“Thank you,” Kaer said. He waited for her to get to the point.
He didn’t have to wait long. “I must admit, there was but one disappointment. The banquet last night was marvelous, the music, the dancing, the furnishing. But I found the food a bit bland.”
Ah. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Kaer said. “I must have someone speak to the head cook.”
“It may not be the poor man’s fault,” Lady Amri said. “I understand that the price of spices has nearly tripled in the past couple of years. The Gionvarian ships have not been faring well of late, have they?”
They had not been faring well because they had been attacked by Risanian-subsidized pirates, but that was none of his concern. “They have been quite unfortunate, it is true.”
The Shifter was gazing at the crowd, unconcerned by the spice trade. Kaer kept his face impassive as Lady Amri put a slippered foot on the dais and lifted one arm. There were three small brown nuts in her upturned palm. “We have fared better. This is nutmeg, the most expensive and hard-to-obtain spice in the known world. We offer you some as a gift. Ground into powder, these are worth—”
The Shifter moved in an explosion of coiled muscle and blue silk, leaping over the throne. A moment later Kaer saw a red and brown head flick out from Lady Amri’s sleeve, so fast it was no more than a blur. The Shifter knocked his hand out of the way, bending his fingers back, and the fangs sank into the back of her hand instead of into his palm.
For a split second the world froze. Kaer focused on the snake’s head, mottled and shiny, its flat round eyes gleaming. He could see the tops of its fangs, thin and white, sunk deep into the Shifter’s slim hand. Then, just as fast, the snake hissed and drew back into the woman’s sleeve.
Lady Amri stared at Isabel for a second before turning, but by then two guards were already there. Elsewhere in the throne room people were gasping and crying out; they hadn’t seen the snake, but they saw the guards with their swords drawn on the Risanian banker’s wife.
Kaer started to rise, but Isabel hissed, “Sit,” and he sat. Her hand was swelling up; already it was almost twice its normal size. Her face was twisted in pain, and he felt a surge of terror and guilt. “Are you all right?”
“I have to…” She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. After a few seconds she opened her eyes. Her face was calm again.
“Why did you let it bite you?” Clarisse asked in a tone of mild curiosity.
“Why not?” The Shifter lifted her hand, revealing smooth unblemished skin and tapered fingers.
Clarisse carefully arranged a curl over her forehead, remarkably unperturbed for having witnessed an up-close assassination attempt. “If you sensed the snake—”
“I didn’t sense it.” Isabel turned her head sharply, scanning the crowd. “I didn’t sense it because it wasn’t there until the moment before it attacked. Summon Albin—”
But it was too late. The assassin smiled in mocking acknowledgment and lifted her chin. Her face blurred, cheekbones sharpening, chin narrowing. Kaer didn’t recognize the woman who stood before them and, judging from her blank expression, neither did the Shifter.
“Don’t bother,” the woman said. “I’m more powerful than your high sorcerer.”
Isabel stepped toward her, and even the guards flinched. “Did Rokan send you?”
The woman moved her head away from the sword; the nearer guard inched closer, keeping the edge of the blade against her neck. “I don’t think I’ll tell you.”
“I think you will,” Isabel said. Not menacingly, just stating a fact.
The woman smirked and vanished.
The guard swore, sliding his sword through the empty air where the woman’s neck had been. Several noblewomen screamed. Kaer sat perfectly still, and Isabel lifted her shoulders ever so slightly.
“Not exactly unexpected,” she said resignedly.
He wondered if she meant the assassination attempt or the disappearing act. “No. Do you think she left the castle?”
“If the spell was powerful enough. It probably was, but…” The Shifter took a step back and gestured at the guards. “You saw her true face, and what she was wearing. I want you to comb the castle searching for her.”
The two guards obeyed her without question, even though it meant leaving their posts. Kaer watched them stride toward the doors.
“You can’t leave during the Challenge Hour,” the Shifter said in a low voice. “The guards will do whatever can be done.”
“I know that.” Some of his irritation over the guards’ behavior spilled into his voice. “But chasing her isn’t really
doing
anything, is it? We have to get rid of the one who sent her. Can I trust you to chase
him
?”
An expression flitted briefly across her fierce face—he would have called it hurt, if that wasn’t so ridiculous. It was close enough to make a small, mean sense of satisfaction well up in his chest. She had hurt
him
, after all.
And she had let a snake sink its fangs into her hand for him. Kaer opened his mouth to say something else—something grateful—but it was too late. The Shifter had already turned her back on him and was gliding into the crowd, moving with a predator’s grace that had everyone in the room drawing away.
Only then did Kaer turn to the other pair of green eyes that had been watching him all along. Clarisse inclined her head, a faint smile playing about her full lips.
It felt like a challenge. Kaer drew his knuckles across the arm of the throne and said softly, “You should be a little more afraid. You led that assassin straight to my throne. Did you know what she was?”
“How could I possibly know if the Shifter did not?”
“The Shifter saved me. You just stood there.”
Clarisse lifted one shoulder. “
I
am not bound by an ancient spell to protect your life with my own. Though I am aware that, given my current circumstances, things would go ill for me should you die.”
“You owe the Shifter a debt, then.”
She blew a tendril of hair out of her face. “Actually, Your Highness, I owe
you
a debt. It’s always a pleasure to watch that arrogant creature make a mistake.”
Kaer pressed his fingers down on the arms of his throne, so hard they went white. “You think it was a mistake that she saved me?”
“I think it was a mistake that she thought she had to save you.”
Kaer jerked back without thinking, earning himself another bruise. Her smile compressed into a smirk.
“I saw the way you were watching ‘Lady Risan,’” she said. “I guessed.”
Kaer swore. “Isabel didn’t.”
“Oh, I would never claim to be more perceptive than the Shifter.” The smirk disappeared, banished by a winsome head tilt. “But she didn’t know what to expect. I knew you were going to arrange a test for her. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s what I advised Rokan to do, back when he first summoned her here.”
Kaer regarded Clarisse narrowly, evaluating her through new eyes. She fingered the necklace at her throat, watching him back.
“Of course,” she said just before the silence grew strained, “it wasn’t a very good test. She saved Rokan, too, once upon a time. Before she turned on him.”
Kaer suppressed a flinch. “She turned on him because she discovered the truth.”
“And the truth is all that matters to the Shifter. So they say.” Clarisse hesitated a beat before continuing. “I never doubted that she would discover the truth, eventually. But I thought it might
not
matter. She didn’t act like the Shifter around my brother—not all the time. She cared about him.”
“She thought he was the prince.”
“About
him
,” Clarisse said impatiently. “I didn’t think she would actually allow him to die.” She blew out a short breath. “But it never hurts to be careful, which was why I advised my brother to be prepared. Just in case I was wrong.”
Kaer almost laughed. “And now you’re bragging to me about how you helped the imposter escape? Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“I’m telling you,” Clarisse said, “that my brother had those escape spells ready for one reason. Because even though he didn’t believe me, he listened to me.”
A faint quiver ran through that last sentence. Kaer didn’t think it was faked. This was her one chance, her last possible play for power. A final attempt to make herself indispensable, or at least useful.
She was the usurper’s daughter. He made his tone cruelly scornful. “You expect me to confer with you when I have the Shifter by my side?”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t like it. How many times has she warned you against me already?”
“An understandable caution.”
“You would think so.” Clarisse lifted one finger to her chin. “But she didn’t like it when Rokan conferred with me, either.”
Kaer shrugged and motioned to Owain, who had been watching them from the other side of the room. As the duke started toward them, Kaer said, “Interesting proposition. I’ll be sure to give it some thought.”
His voice dripped with sarcasm. But he knew, even as Clarisse backed away from the throne, that he was going to take her up on it. And he was sure that she knew it, too.