Author's Preface
Of course, by 5 o’clock p.m., the petition is all anyone is talking about. Word travels fast nowadays, especially when the court of pleas shares a direct wire with the city’s largest printing presses, who can send leaflets flying off the line and into the hands of the public in a matter of minutes. The details of the petition are confidential, since evidence and exhibits are kept sealed until the King decides they should be made public, but the cover page is fair game.
I am keeping a deliberately low profile at the engagement party. None of my coworkers from the records department are here, since most of them are rather insular middle-class folk who have better things to do on their Friday evening than bump elbows with gossipy nobility. I, on the other hand, still have my job to do. At first, Ezra and Moretti pitched the idea of dressing me up like a servant, allowing me full and unfettered movement throughout the party—no one is more invisible to nobles than a servant, after all. I was fine with this, but Thorunn objected on security grounds, arguing that it will be more difficult to protect me if I am dressed in the same white cap and black dress as three dozen other female servants. So now, I stick close to the wall in a copper-colored satin dress. The bodice leaves my shoulders and collarbones bare, and the skirts cling close to my body in the growing modern trend against hoopskirts. I miss the swish of my petticoats, but I cannot deny that the fresh new look is interesting. I only wish Thorunn were by my side to admire it.
Alas, he is not yet here. The only familiar faces that I see amongst the party guests are Moretti, Ezra, and Edgar. One of those options is a nonstarter. Edgar is in the eye of a hurricane made out of people, a churning vortex of reporters and nobility clamoring for his attention. Most of these people were not even invited. The news of Edgar holding an engagement party broke over a month ago to absolutely zero interest. By now, Edgar and Olivia have been betrothed for so long that “engagement parties” are really just code for “an event where the Rosencrantz parents and the Guildenstern parents each show up for about five minutes to squawk at each other and Edgar gets blackout drunk in the first half hour” which is entertaining the first time and just embarrassing every time afterwards, so few guests RSVP’ed and even fewer actually intended to show up.
Then Edgar filed his petition this morning. And all of a sudden the castle gates are besieged by guests and reporters and busybodies who “must have lost their invitation in the mail.” Everyone wants to know who Amira Al’Kilic is. Everyone wants to know if Edgar really has a daughter. And everyone wants to know how the juicy drama will unfold when Lady Olivia Guildenstern shows up—because, like the thunderclouds building over the sea, she will show up tonight.
I have no hope of getting past the swarm of paparazzi to my father, so I leave him to it. Moretti is similarly indisposed, fighting through the crowd towards Edgar to instruct him when and how to answer, and in so doing only igniting the busybodies’ curiosity further. Incidentally, just as I am weighing my last option, the last option himself sidles up to me with a glass of champagne in either hand.
“Care for a drink, ‘Grand Duchess’?” asks Prince Ezra.
I don’t like how loud he says it, but I take it and just try to lean further into the shadows. Thankfully, no one is really around to hear. And at such events, the sight of Prince Ezra harassing a young man or woman in a lonely corner of the venue is so commonplace that we will likely not attract any additional attention. With a wrinkle of my nose, I take the glass. “Is this how you check in with all of your agents in covert operations? By flirting with them?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, then scowls indignantly. “Well, actually, yes. But not with you.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“Are you kidding? This again? I don’t know how else to convince you that I am genuinely sorry about asking you to engage in incest.”
“You could apologize.”
“I. Am. Sorry. It was an accident . It was too dark to see your face and—fucking hell, nevermind, this is making it worse.”
We have been bickering this whole time, but all the while, our eyes are scanning the crowd. Ezra himself taught me how to do this. He is leagues better at it than I am, able to effortlessly carry a conversation and even crack jokes while staying constantly vigilant to the people and happenings around him. I am a mewling novice by comparison. I am stiff as a board in most social situations anyway, and my responses grow even more rude and clipped the harder I am trying to follow people’s movements or eavesdrop on their conversations. It is a good thing that Ezra’s proffered drink is actually just carbonated water mixed with apple juice to give it that pale gold champagne color, since I must be as clear-headed as possible tonight.
“Ten o’clock,” Ezra says suddenly. “Dowager Duchess Gwynevere Macduff.”
“Geshundheit. What about her?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? Gwyn is that girl in high society. Everyone knows her, everyone loves her, everyone follows her. And—she is Princess Emerlane’s best friend in the entire world.”
Princess Emerlane is not yet here. Nor is her father the King or brother Prince Edwinn IV. It is not customary for members of the royal family to loiter about their siblings’ semiformal social events like Ezra does; he is an outlier, and this is also technically part of his job. For other royals, they can be expected to show up towards the middle or end of the event, greet guests for a few minutes, possibly make a short speech, and wrap up with a regretful apology that they could not enjoy the whole thing. Then they scuttle away to do something better with their time than gossip with a bunch of vapid nobles. But from those vapid nobles, much can be gleaned about the royalty they so idolize.
“I overheard,” says Ezra, “that Gwynevere obtained a full copy of the petition.”
“How?” I ask incredulously.
“Don’t know. She has her sources, just like I have mine—one of these days I have to get coffee with her and ask for tips, she’s very subtle. But she has an interesting outlook on all of this. She’s not at all concerned with the engagement controversy or Lady Olivia. ‘I worry they’re smoke and mirrors,’ she said. ‘The monetary fraud claim has one answer. But the King cannot answer that claim without first burning every bridge with his wife, his family, and the very institution of Saelic colonization.’”
“She’s not wrong,” I reply. “I told Moretti—those last two clauses were a mistake. Too…politically charged. We should have left the annulment alone and just focused on the fraud first.”
“No. It wouldn’t be possible. We may well lose on the annulment claim, but it is indispensable from the other claims in the petition. We cannot justify the legitimacy of Edgar’s gifts without arguing the legitimacy of his marriage and child. And to do so…Gwynevere has hit the nail on the head, I’ll say that much. To do so, we have to pit mother and son against each other. That’s the crux of the matter.”
Mother and son against each other. It is starting to sound more and more like civil war. In my past life, the civil war was generally viewed as the nobility versus the royalty—not royalty against each other. If the nobility see infighting in the royal family, could this possibly stave off the war? Or will it only beckon its coming even sooner?
“Three o’clock,” I tell Ezra. “That steward. The brooch on his lapel is the crest of House Guildenstern.”
“He’s doing the exact same thing that we are,” says Ezra. “Gathering intel.”
“Are they all coming? All of the Guildensterns?”
“Without question. We received word that their carriage suffered a broken axel…pfft. A likely story. So their arrival will be delayed until after eight p.m.”
“The oracles predict a storm will roll in by seven thirty. Edgar’s hoping to end the party before then.”
“If we’re lucky, we can avoid a confrontation between the two fianceés.”
“And if we’re unlucky?”
“Then pray that Thorunn will bring a fast getaway cab.”
The easy, lighthearted music played by the string quartet does not match the quickly-darkening clouds over the sea, nor the breeze that is gradually beginning to pick up. As Ezra and I make our way across the garden towards Edgar’s personal hurricane, a woman’s hat blows past me, and the wind rips a crêpe streamer from a nearby banister. I hold on tight to my own hat, and as I do, subconsciously touch the silk ribbon around my neck to make sure it is secured as well.
Then I glimpse red. The white tips of my gloves are stained with blood. My heart skips a beat as I scramble for a handkerchief, then press it to my neck to confirm the worst.
My scar is bleeding.
“Your Highness,” I hiss, grabbing Ezra’s coat, “I have to go.”
He turns back to me, bewildered. “What? Where?”
“I—um—womanly things.” I duck my head quickly so that he does not see my neck. “Just fill me in later.”
I run before he can stop me. I do not need to go far; the garden party is located near some open-air parlors which have their own attached powder rooms, so I duck inside one of those and lock the door behind me. As the weak incandescent bulb slowly illuminates the tiny powder room,
I turn to the mirror and check the damage. A thin stream of blood trickles out from under my black silk ribbon. When I remove the ribbon, I can see that a tiny, two-inch length of my scar has opened up into a fresh wound. It is not as bad as I feared; barely more than a papercut, really. But the rest of the normally whitish scar is angry and raw, as if threatening to burst at any moment.
My head is spinning. What do I even do? I can rinse the blood off my glove, leaving only a subtle pink stain that should escape notice, but a bleeding neck won’t be as easy to hide. If I still lived in the records basement, I could run back to my room and get a bandage, hopefully without being noticed by anyone. Except that room is empty now, and all of my first aid supplies are down in my new beach villa, a long walk from the palace. I scour the powder room for something I could use as a makeshift bandage, but in my haste to get away from the party, I did not notice this one was not stocked. No feminine products, no towels, not even a scrap of toilet paper.
Someone knocks at the door. I am in such a state of shock and fear that I stumble, my back bumping against the wall. “Um—occupied!” I call.
“Miss Odric?” comes Edgar’s voice. “Are you alright?”
His voice is so unexpected that it snaps me out of my shock. “Edgar?” I say, then amend, “Y-your Highness? What are you doing here?”
“Ezra told me something happened. He’s distracting the crowd—it’s just me for now. Is everything okay?”
My knees are shaking. Slowly, I slump to the ground, trembling. How oddly fitting. Of course I have heard the whole trope of girls never getting their monthly until only their father is home to help them—it never happened to me, of course; I got mine when I was fourteen, many years before I even met Edgar. It happened one night when I was closing up the tailor’s shop where I used to work, after my boss went home. I had cried for what felt like hours in a washroom just like this one, unsure of what to do or how to walk home in such a condition.
Right now, I almost want to cry again.
Finally, I manage to lie, my voice hoarse and wobbly, “I got my monthly. But there are no toiletries in here.”
“O-oh. Well…hang on just a moment.” There is a silence outside of the door, and I am almost convinced that he has abandoned me entirely when he knocks again. “I, um, I think I got enough. Can you make it to the door?”
I stand and open the door just a crack, and Edgar sticks his hand inside to pass me the goods. He has acquired more feminine supplies than I know what to do with—six tampons, five cotton pads, a whole roll of deluxe triple-ply toilet paper, and one empty spray bottle that I am actually not sure what it is for or why he thinks that I could use it for a period. The collection of items is so bizarre that it pushes a laugh into my throat and tears to my eyes. I am not suffering my monthly right now, of course, but if I was, Edgar has given me enough free toiletries to last the whole week.
“Thank you, Edgar,” I reply. “I feel better.”
“Oh, good,” he says cheerfully. “Well, um, sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Never done this sort of thing before, you know. Never really…had a real daughter.”
“I know,” I chuckle.
“I have to head back. Gods, these people are a fucking nightmare. But the lady of the hour should be approaching any minute now, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world. Do you need anything else before I go?”
“No, I…I think I’ll be okay. I will be out in a minute.”
Once he leaves, I return to the mirror and begin to clean myself up. The bleeding has somewhat slowed, enough that I can staunch the flow with a scrap of toilet paper. With a little extra work, I rip open one of the menstrual pads and line the inside of my black silk ribbon with cotton, which should absorb the blood and prevent it from leaking if more of the scar opens up. Under close scrutiny, it may look a little odd. It is somewhat lumpy, instead of flush against the skin of my neck, and some wisps of cotton inevitably peek out from the edges. But that is better than bleeding all over my dress. It will have to do. Just like Edgar, I would not miss Mom’s arrival at this party for the world.
I compose myself and step back outside just as her carriage is pulling up. It is not technically her carriage; it is Pansy’s, but since she is too young to attend one of these events she was happy to lend it to Mom for the day. During my absence, the garden has filled practically to the brim. Dozens of people, possibly hundreds, crowd and clamor to see the mysterious new carriage that has pulled up to the entrance, with such eagerness that the palace guards struggle to clear the path.
The carriage stops. The door opens, and two women with long pale hair, colorful robes, and massive battle axes step out. Both are equals in their formidable size and stature. Any noble worth their salt at this party would instantly recognize them as Vallikyr, highly trained female mercenaries from the northern tribes. To have a Vallikyr by one’s side is the envy of any wealthy woman. They are extremely selective in their clientele and ludicrously expensive to retain. But their mere presence is often enough to deter anyone who would do their employer harm. The two Vallikyr dwarf the palace guards, and their presence is so unexpected by the onlookers that a hush falls over the crowd.
The third person to emerge from the carriage is Thorunn. As the official ambassador of the Northern tribes, he is a familiar face in the royal palace, except that for today’s special occasion, he has transformed into a much more imposing figure. His familiar fur cloak is newly adorned with silver chains, a bronze pauldron, and garnet-studded fastenings. His sandy hair has grown long enough to braid, with a hammered iron crown pushing the shorter wisps back from his face. Red stripes of ceremonial war paint adorn his forehead, chin, and cheekbones in the suggestion of splattered blood, causing some of the polite gentry guests to gasp and step back in fear. I want to climb him like a tree.
“Presenting the delegation of the Ironwulf Province,” a steward announces aloud, “with its representative, Jarl Thorunn Halfdansson, heir apparent to the Oberjarl!”
After he has been announced, Thorunn turns and extends his hand into the carriage. The hush resumes. Even the wind dies down, as if holding its breath. Slowly, a veiled woman steps down from the carriage. She is clad in white from head to toe, only small hints of color peeking through the lace—delicate cinnamon-brown hands, long raven-black curls, plump wine-red lips. Every inch of white silk shimmers with golden beads. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And as Edgar steps forward to greet her, she is smiling.
“Presenting,” cries the steward, “the delegation of the Alamar Isles, a Sovereign Theocracy, and its representative, the Last Saintess, Amira Al’Kilic!”