CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Shadow

THE ENGAGEMENT RECEPTION, HELD IN the grand marble ballroom, is everything a bride could possibly dream of: hundreds of friends and well-wishers, inside a gorgeous castle decorated with the fullest, most vivid blooms to be found for miles around, excellent food prepared by royal chefs, free-flowing champagne, a beautiful dress. And the future groom? A powerful young king.

But the bride is me, and I am miserable.

And I can hear people whispering, buzzing about the coming wedding. I could try to ignore it, but I’m also trying to listen for word of Caledon’s whereabouts, so I have to endure the chatter.

So far he’s nowhere to be found. I need to speak with him, desperately. I need to explain, but he vanished after the engagement was announced. I couldn’t even look at him while it was happening, but it was the only way to save us. To save both of us. My mother made that clear.

His pardon was my one condition for going through with the marriage to Hansen.

The queen—my mother—floats toward me.

My mother is the Queen of Renovia. I have known this for my entire life. And I have been in denial about this truth my entire life. For my own safety, I do not speak of it, let alone think of it. When I was little, my aunts cast a spell to keep me from the truth. When I was older, I learned to guard my words on my own. In my mind, my mother is merely a high-ranking member of the Guild who serves at the palace.

Royal bodyguards follow me everywhere I go. They have always followed me, but I learned to shake them early in my childhood.

I liked to pretend I was merely a maiden of Nir, a farm girl from the Honey Glade. But I have always known who I am. The day I was running in the forest, I was running away from the truth, because I had told my aunts and my mother I wanted to join the Guild and they forbade it. My place was as a princess, not a spy, they argued. I had a royal duty to fulfill.

I am Princess Lilac, hidden away to ensure my safety, given to the greatest assassins of the Guild, Moriah Devan and her wife, Mesha Abad. When my mother summoned me to the palace, when the trunks arrived, the jewels given to me were the crown jewels.

I didn’t want to be the princess, so I disobeyed the queen and ran away to become Cal’s apprentice. I wanted to show them I could be as dangerous and deadly as they were. I wanted to show them I had the strength. Instead I put myself and my country in danger. If Cal hadn’t been so quick with a blade, if the duke had had enough time, he would have been able to kill me and his duchess would have taken my form. Duchess Girt wasn’t as dumb as she looked; she was actually a witch.

The Aphrasians would have taken the crown once more.

But they didn’t, because Cal is good at his job.

Now the queen is right in front of me, her eyes hooded as they have always been. I cannot read her thoughts or emotions. I have never truly known my mother.

When she called me to the ambassador’s house, it was to tell me I was betrothed to King Hansen. I refused to comply and fought with her and my aunts that night. There had to be some other way to bring peace to the land. They allowed me to return to Girt only because there was no safer place in the country than at the side of the Queen’s Assassin. They knew that Cal would keep me safe. They were right.

I told them that night that I would never marry King Hansen. Yet here we are. Funny how things work out like that.

“Selling me to Montrice was part of the plan all along, wasn’t it?” I ask my mother.

Her back stiffens. “What a foolish thing to say,” she tells me. But it is not an answer.

When the ambassador found out that Cal and I were to be executed for the duke’s murder, the queen was already in Mont.

She was too late to stop the trial, but she was able to negotiate our release and force the king to accept me as a bride in return for not sparking a war between our kingdoms. She threatened to tell the neighboring kingdoms of Montrice’s betrayal, how they had harbored Aphrasian rebels in order to frame Cal and me for the duke’s murder. By funding the Aphrasian resistance in Renovia, Montrice had broken the treaty between the former nations of Avantine. Renovia could make an alliance with Argonia and Stavin instead, but the queen preferred Montrice and its highly defensible fortresses. Besides, it appeared Montrice and Renovia were owed an engagement.

The king accepted her offer. It helped that he already found me beguiling, he told my mother.

Viscountess Karine walks over to me and curtsies. “My greatest wishes on your auspicious engagement, Your Highness,” she says, beaming.

“Thank you,” I say, and nothing more. I don’t want to encourage conversation. Lucky for me, she curtsies again and departs. There are some benefits to royalty, I discover. People don’t impose themselves on you as much. They keep their distance.

When I turn back to the queen, she motions to me. “Come here, child.”

“You’re hardly my mother,” I say, feeling bolder by the second. “You shipped me off to be raised by the Guild, and only appeared when you felt like it.”

“You have no idea what you speak of,” she says. She looks stricken. But it was her decision to send me away, to ensure that we were estranged.

“If I hadn’t asked for his pardon, you would have left Cal in that prison cell! He uncovered the conspiracy and found the enemy’s true face! You had no qualms about leaving him to rot, when he was only following your orders! That was cruel, Mother.”

She opens her mouth, but she’s interrupted by a tinkling sound from across the room, then more noises joining in. People are tapping their crystal goblets with their rings, spoons, anything they have at hand.

The king stands at the front of the room. He puts his hands up to quiet everyone first, then looks at Queen Lilianna and me, holds his hands out toward us, and says, “My future queen!”

He’s inviting me to sit at the front of the room alongside him, a visual display of our combined power. The people want to see us together. Want to believe in a love match, the symbol of a new peaceful future for our two kingdoms. That’s fine. I’d rather sit there with a fake smile plastered on my face than continue to talk to my mother.

I do my best impersonation of an elegant stroll to assume my place next to my fiancé. Once I’m there, footmen begin their service.

Queen Lilianna takes her leave, nodding to Hansen and me. The rest of the party returns to their gossip and wine and food, and my betrothed returns to ignoring me, leaning his body as far from mine as possible to speak to the beautiful courtier next to him. The one who looked at me with so much disdain when he handed me some wildflowers not too long ago.

I am alone in a foreign court, and the whereabouts of my only friend are a mystery to me.