But Alodia does, and she grasps the extent of my plan before anyone else, because her eyes turn as feral and angry as a cornered cat’s. “Are you the sacrificial offering?” she says to Storm in the most scathing tone possible. “The princeling who must wed the enemy?”
Most people flinch away from my sister’s crushing condescension, but not Storm. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he says calmly. “And a most willing one.”
Cosmé is looking back and forth between them. She bursts out laughing. “You want him to marry Alodia!” she says to me. “She deserves it.” And at Alodia’s withering glare she adds, “Well, you do. You married her off to that spineless imbecile of a king and then didn’t bother aiding her when she had to work around him to save the world.” One of her advisers whispers in her ear, and Cosmé says, “I can say whatever I want about him. He’d dead.”
Alodia has the grace to look ashamed. “Is it true, Elisa? Is this your revenge?”
“No.” Now that I have Hector, I’ll never deny someone I care about the same opportunity at love. “You don’t have to. I won’t make you.”
She doesn’t bother to disguise her puzzlement, and it saddens me that she still doubts me so much, that her default assumption is always that I’m seeking to hurt her—as if we are still children together in the nursery. How long will it take to convince her otherwise? The Inviernos are in a similar position, I suppose. One horrendous act thousands of years ago, and they have assumed ill intent ever since.
Peace is such hard work. Harder than war. It takes way more effort to forgive than to kill.
“It’s an opportunity, Alodia,” I say. “Storm will be a Deciregus someday. The equivalent of a king. Surely you want an alliance with such a man?”
“Impossible!” interjects the Invierno woman, and her oily black eyes shimmer. “He is outcast. Anathema. He—”
“His father reinstated him and consented to this union,” I say. “And Storm has been claimed by the zafira, which means he is probably more powerful than even you.”
Alodia is shaking her head. “How can you ask such a thing of me? It would consign the royal line of Orovalle to extinction.”
Not extinction. Hector’s and my grandchildren would be eligible for her throne. But now might not be the best time to say so. “You could appoint an heir,” I say. “You’d have time to prepare. To groom exactly the right person. I understand how difficult it will be for your people to accept, and no, I won’t require it of you. I ask only that you consider it. Think of it, Alodia. A God-ordained alliance with a prince of Invierne. No one in history has achieved so much.”
She blinks at me. She’s a smart woman. She knows how to make the hard decision.
She straightens, clasping her hands in her lap, and then she says, “In that case, Prince Storm, I invite you to visit my palace in Amalur as soon as it is convenient for you. We should . . . see if we can learn to bear each other’s company.”
“I accept,” he says, with a slight lowering of his head. Just enough deference, I note, to show respect without appearing cowed.
We adjourn for the day, agreeing to hammer out the finer details of our accord tomorrow. Cosmé offers to take the Deciregi on a tour of the palace and its grounds. They decline, because why would they want to do that? Cosmé takes a calming breath and patiently explains that it is a customary honor extended to visiting dignitaries. They exchange glances, shrug, and grudgingly agree. I smile after them as they depart, proud of my friend for trying.
I’m heading out the door with my companions when Alodia pulls me aside. “Elisa . . .” she begins, but declarations have never come easily to her, and she stalls.
“I’ve missed you,” I say.
She pulls me into her arms. “My little sister is all grown up,” she says, her voice wavering. “There were times I didn’t think it would happen, but you proved me wrong.”
It’s a barbed compliment at best, but it will do as a start.
“Thank you for coming,” I tell her.
“I’m glad I did.” She releases me and regards me appraisingly. “Even though you stole my country out from under me. You’ve become so powerful. So decisive and conniving, so—”
“So much like you.”
She grins, her rare true grin that always has a little naughtiness in it. “Papá and Zito both always said we were more alike than we wanted to admit.”
“I’ll tell no one if you won’t.”
“Agreed. And Elisa? I’m sorry for not telling you about Papá.”
Her apology bursts something inside me, and tears prick at my eyes. I’ll have to find a place to be alone, and soon. It’s as though Alodia has given me permission to grieve.
“Thank you for saying so,” I manage.
“Forgive me for asking,” she says. “But I must. Is all this a ploy to put one of your heirs on my throne?”
Of course that detail would not escape her. “You are free to appoint one of my heirs as your own—except Rosario. He is for Joya, and that is not negotiable. Your children, if you have them, are free to do the same. But Orovalle belongs to you, Alodia, and it is your choice.”
She regards me thoughtfully, then her gaze shifts to Hector. “Not a horrible choice, maybe,” she says to both of us.
My face flushes a little. All this talk of children and heirs, when Hector and I have yet to discuss it ourselves.
Alodia and I say good-bye, and we both retire from the audience hall, my sister with her advisers, me with my friends.
Hector walks on my left, Storm on my right, the others behind me. “I hope you’ll give her a chance,” I tell Storm. “I know she’s difficult. But she’s brilliant and honorable and—”
“She’s magnificent,” he says.
I whip my head up to stare at his profile. He wears a loopy smile, as if someone put a little too much duerma leaf in last night’s tea.
Moments later, Hector shuts the door of our suite behind us and turns the full force of his gaze on me. “Everything you did today, everything, has been with the intent of obliging our people and theirs to comingle. To become accustomed to each other.”
I plop onto the bed. “Yes.”
“I admit I had doubts about your decision to allow them access to the zafira. But like you said, it will take time to mine through to it. And uniting our kingdoms was a masterstroke.”
I hope he’s right. “My empire can’t last, Hector. It wasn’t for no reason that I let Basajuan secede. Empires are too large, too unwieldy. Eventually, another rebellion will rise up—another Malficio. But like the mining, it will take a while. Generations, maybe. And by then . . .”
“By then we’ll have lived side by side for so long with the Inviernos that we’ll have forgotten to be enemies,” he says. “You rose up a champion, just like it says in the scriptures. Though not in the way anyone expected. Maybe this was your destiny, your act of service.” His face holds such raw hope, and I’m not sure why it never occurred to me before that the egregious survival rate of God’s chosen bearers must weigh heavily on him.
“Maybe.” But I doubt it. I put my fingertips to my belly, trace the Godstone’s familiar solidity. The few bearers who completed acts of service lost their stones. The stones cracked and died, detached from their bodies, a sign that they were no longer needed. But mine still lives inside me, pulsing with the promise of power.
God is not done with me yet.
36
THE morning brings a letter sent via pigeon from Captain Lucio, Hector’s second-in-command. Cosmé herself hands it to me with an apologetic shrug, saying it’s been waiting for me for some time. “It’s addressed to ‘Tuciela,’” she says. “It was passed around a lot before one of our former Malficio friends remembered that you used that name as a code.”