A Throne for Sisters

“No, it’s fine.”

A part of her wanted to tell Sebastian exactly what had happened, but what could she say? That she’d read Rupert’s mind and knew what he wanted?

“We still have some time before dinner,” Sebastian said. “Would you like to take a walk around the maze for a while?”

Sophia nodded. Anything, so long as it was out of there, and with Sebastian. She walked with him out into the gardens, where lamps were starting to light up flowers that had opened in the dark, pale and silvery.

“They’re midnight orchids,” Sebastian said, obviously noting Sophia’s gaze. “They open to attract the moths that aren’t out in the daylight, so that they don’t have to fight for butterflies’ attention with the other flowers.”

“They feel that they can’t attract the butterflies?” Sophia asked. “But they’re beautiful.”

Sebastian touched her arm, and the contact was enough to send a shiver along Sophia’s skin. “Sometimes, the most beautiful things can come along at unexpected times.”

They kept going into the maze. Sophia got the feeling that Sebastian knew his way around it, because he took the turnings with confidence even though she couldn’t make sense of them.

“It seems like a good place to get lost for a while,” Sophia said. “Is that why you like to come here?”

“It’s part of it,” Sebastian said. “Although it also means we have some privacy.”

Sophia made the most of it, leaning in to kiss him. She couldn’t believe that she was free to do that with someone like Sebastian. That, and almost anything else she wanted. More than that, she couldn’t believe that she’d found someone like him at all.

She had, though, and Sophia held close to him as they kept going through the maze.

“There’s a sundial at the center,” Sebastian said. “And a pergola with a chaise inside.”

“I like the sound of that,” Sophia said with a smile. A place for them to sit together. Potentially a place for them to do more than just sit. Sophia hadn’t felt this way with anyone before. “Just so long as you know the way.”

“I do.”

They kept going along the close-walled stretches of the formal maze. It was comforting to know that he knew the way out of there, but even so, she found herself caught up in memories: of running along narrow corridors, running, hiding, hoping that they wouldn’t be found. Of flames, licking at the edges of things so that she could feel the heat and taste the bitterness of the smoke. Telling her sister to stay quiet, because the least sound could —

“Sophia?” Sebastian said in a gentle tone.

Sophia came back to herself, looking over at him and putting her arms around him. “Sorry. I wasn’t there for a moment.”

“Are you all right?” Sebastian asked. “If you aren’t well, maybe I can persuade my mother that it’s okay for you not to come to dinner.”

Sophia could see that wasn’t really an option though. What the dowager wanted, it seemed, the dowager got.

“No, it’s all right,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to make things difficult with your mother.”

And yet, she had a sinking feeling that things with his mother were about to get very difficult indeed.

***

Sophia stood with Sebastian outside the doors to a small dining room, waiting for a servant to announce them. She tried as hard as she could not to let her nerves show, but the trembling of her hand in his must have given it away.

“It’s all right,” Sebastian said. “My mother isn’t a monster.”

That was easier for him to say than for her to believe. The dowager had ruled the kingdom singlehandedly since her husband’s death, managing not to be overwhelmed by the Assembly of Nobles or the Church of the Masked Goddess. She’d stood through plots and economic troubles, wars overseas and threats of rebellion in the Near Colonies. Faced with her, Sophia felt certain that her deception would be unmasked in an instant.

“Prince Sebastian and Sophia of Meinhalt!” a servant announced, opening the door to a dining chamber that seemed quite small by the standards of the palace. That was to say that it was smaller than an entire building elsewhere.

There was a table there, and there were perhaps half a dozen other people seated around it, all dressed in a kind of court finery that was nevertheless a step less formal than it might have been for an official banquet. Sophia recognized Prince Rupert, but none of the others.

She quickly found herself caught in a bewildering round of introductions, obviously designed to put her at her ease, but which mostly seemed to impress on her just how out of her depth she was.

A woman in a silver gray veil was revealed as Justina, the Highest Priestess of the Masked Goddess. A man with mutton chop sideburns and graying hair turned out to be an admiral. The others were a baronet, a Shire governor, and the governor’s wife. There seemed to be no particular reason for this collection of guests other than it being what the dowager wanted. Perhaps these were friends from her youth, or people in her favor who happened to be visiting.

The only thing that made Sophia more nervous was when the dowager herself walked in. Dowager Queen Mary of the House of Flamberg was not a tall woman, and age had left her gray in both hair and pallor, but there was an iron hardness to her posture that said nothing would shake her. She wore mourning black, as she had since her husband’s death. She stood at the head of the table, gesturing to the others there.

“Please be seated,” she said.

Sophia did so, hoping that the presence of the others might allow her to hide a little, just one more guest among all the others there. Yet, as the servants started to bring pigeon and grouse, Sophia felt those steely eyes upon her.

“Sebastian, you must introduce me to your guest, dear.”

“Certainly, Mother. This is Sophia of Meinhalt. Sophia, this is my mother, Mary of Flamberg.”

“Your Majesty,” Sophia managed, bobbing in place as best she could.

“Ah, Meinhalt,” the Dowager said. “Such a sad affair. Tell me, girl, what is your opinion of the wars that beset the continent?”

Sophia could see enough of her thoughts to know that this was a test, but not enough to know what the answer ought to be. In the end, she grabbed her answer from Sebastian’s thoughts, hoping that he would know his mother well enough for it to be a good choice.

“My worry is that they won’t stay there,” Sophia said.

“A concern I’m sure we all share,” the dowager replied. Sophia couldn’t tell if she’d passed the older woman’s test or not. “Although it seems that my son is grateful that at least some things have come over the Knife-Water. You must tell us about yourself.”

Sophia did her best, trying to disguise lack of knowledge as modesty or reticence. “I came over before the city fell, Your Majesty. I think I was quite lucky in that.”

“The Goddess gives her gifts,” the High Priestess murmured.

“Indeed,” the dowager said. “Although I seem to recall you saying that she gives us hard gifts as well as pleasant ones sometimes, Justina.”

More questions followed. Had she enjoyed skating on the river in winter there? What did she think of the different sides of the war? Sophia did her best, but there was only so much her talent could help her, and only so much she knew about Meinhalt. She should have spent more time reading about it in the library. In the end, she did the only thing she could, and sought for a distraction.

“Admiral, I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to try to keep track of an entire navy’s movements. How do you manage it all?”

“Maps, my dear,” he said. “Mostly maps.”

He clearly intended it as a joke, so Sophia laughed along with him. He started to go off into a discussion of the various methods of combining nautical charts. Prince Rupert interrupted, claiming that no one could possibly want to know about that, and started to talk about hunting instead. Sophia didn’t mind, so long as she could keep the discussion away from her.

The eyes of the others weren’t on her, for the most part, but there were exceptions. The High Priestess glanced at her from time to time with an odd look Sophia didn’t dare try to read her to interpret. Sebastian seemed to be looking at her whenever Sophia looked over at him, his expression soft with love, or hopeful, or wanting to make sure that she was all right. Rupert glanced at her more than once with a hungry look that said what had happened earlier between them wasn’t done. That was enough to make Sophia want to cling close to Sebastian and not let him go.

And the dowager considered her evenly, as if trying to make sense of Sophia or stare into her heart. There was something unchanging, certainly unblinking, about that gaze. That worried her more than the rest of it put together. She felt like a specimen kept under glass for examination, unable to keep anything hidden. Right then, she felt as though she was an imposter, and every glance, every word out of place, only made her feel it more. How long could she keep up this deception?

Somehow, she managed to make it through the dinner, exchanging polite conversation with the others while they ate what seemed like an entire feast’s worth of food. Sophia ate sparingly, and when the time came to leave, she was only too grateful to be allowed to stand, ready to go.