His lips curl. “Yes. If.”
I rack my brain frantically, searching for another reason to object. When I can’t find one I say, “And what if I refuse?”
“You could,” Lord Murcendor says, glancing around the room meaningfully, “but of course, Lord Quinlan and I would have to figure out what to do with you.”
It’s not much of a choice. Impersonate the princess, or die. Of course I will do it. But there is one thing I want in return. One thing I want so badly I’d escort Wilha not just to Kyrenica but across the Lonesome Sea and back again if I could obtain it. “I’ll do it, on one condition.”
Lord Murcendor seems amused by this. “I was not aware you were in a position to issue any conditions.”
“What I’m asking for will cost you nothing.”
“And that is?”
“My name. Before the king and queen sent me away, what did they name me?”
“They didn’t,” he answers flatly. “Your father handed you over to me and said that as far as he was concerned, only one child had been born that day.”
“What?” It takes a moment for his words to register. “They didn’t name me?” My chest is heavy, and I curse at myself when I feel wetness on my cheeks.
How could they have denied me the simple courtesy of a name?
“I will leave you to your meal,” Lord Murcendor says and stands up. “When you are finished, Wolfram will escort you to your new room.”
Several minutes later when I am finally myself enough to eat, I take a bite. But the rich, colorful food tastes rotten, and I spit it from my mouth.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 21
WILHA
I hold up my candle and look at my masks inside the glass cases. Each of them stares back at me. A silent, expectant audience. I press my thumb on the embedded opal, and the wall next to the cases slides away, revealing the passageway beyond. I swallow my fear, and step hesitantly inside.
The Guardians have decreed that Elara and I are to be kept separate while she is trained to be my decoy. Elara will be housed in the old servants’ quarters near the armory until we leave for Kyrenica. And though I know I should follow their orders, tonight I cannot. Not when I know my very own twin is so near.
With a soft moan, the wall to the servants’ quarters slides back. The room is windowless and smells musty and rank from disuse. Bunk beds line the far wall. Outside the door, I hear guards laughing. The only light from the room comes from several candles on a nightstand.
Elara sleeps in the lower bunk beside the nightstand. Her tangled hair spills over a grimy pillow. Her lip is swollen. Her hands are calloused, and her fingernails are rimmed with dirt. I watch as she scratches at a cluster of bites on her arm.
“Elara?”
Her eyes flutter open. She bolts upright, a dagger clasped in her raised hand.
I jump backward. “It is only me,” I whisper. “Wilha.”
She lowers the dagger and blinks. “Wilha?” she says thickly.
I nod, staring at the dagger. “That is what everyone calls me.”
She rubs her eyes, which are red and puffy, and then looks to the door.
“The guards don’t know I am here,” I say.
“How did you get in?” she says, blinking again.
“Through a secret passageway. The palace is full of them.”
We stare at each other. I am sure the curiosity in her eyes is reflected in my own. After a moment’s thought, I decide to remove my mask so she can see my face.
“May I sit down?” I ask, gesturing to her bed.
She hesitates. “You’re a princess, aren’t you?” she answers finally. “I don’t suppose you need permission.”
I sit and she scoots backward, putting some distance between us. She leans against the wall and tucks her knees underneath the plain cotton shift she wears.
I look away from her. There is a pitcher of water and a clay pot of sweet-smelling salve on the nightstand.
“It’s for the bites,” she says, following my gaze.
“So they are treating you well here?”
She shrugs. “They kept me in a cell until last night. Today Lord Quinlan has brought me my meals. He says tomorrow I am to begin training to be . . . you.”
Her face is inscrutable as she speaks. For so many years I studied other people’s faces; I was trying to understand what about my own appearance was so different that it required the mask. Now, after so much careful observation, it has become easy to read others’ expressions. But this girl, my very own sister, is unreadable.
“Why have you come?” she asks.
“I needed to know if it is true.”
“If what’s true?”
“The Guardians say you might have been involved in the . . .” I cannot finish. The idea that she could have been part of the assassination attempt leaves me nauseous.
She shakes her head. “It’s not true. I had no idea who I was until you walked into that room.”
Her face is still impassive, but her voice betrays more than a hint of bitterness. She crosses her arms over her knees, as though she is holding herself together, and I find I believe her. I do not see another Aislinn Andewyn, a younger twin determined to wear a crown. I see a shell-shocked girl, one who looks just like me. And one who, judging by the look of her, has not been well taken care of these last sixteen years.
“I never knew about you,” I say suddenly. “If I had, I assure you I would have done something. I would have . . .” I stop myself. It is a meaningless promise. For all the deference the Guardians pay me it has never amounted to anything remotely resembling power.
It occurs to me that if Elara had not been born, I would not have been removed from the line of succession. I would have been raised to rule Galandria, as Andrei is now. The next statue to grace the Queen’s Garden would have been my own.
But none of that seems to matter right now.
“I always wanted a sister,” I whisper. “Have you?”
“I always wanted to find my family . . . ,” she answers, and it looks like the admission costs her some effort. She glances around the room.
She doesn’t finish her thought, but her meaning is clear. Whatever she expected to find, being accused of treason and locked inside this sour-smelling room is not it.
Her gaze travels from my silken night dress, to the plain cotton shift she wears. “Please don’t come here again,” she says.
She lies down and turns toward the wall, as though she has forgotten me already.
CHAPTER 22
ELARA
“Hold still!” Arianne, the king’s impossible secretary, and the only person the three Guardians have told of my existence, attempts to drag a comb through my wet hair. She grunts and tugs as pain shoots up my scalp.
Early this morning Lord Quinlan introduced me to Arianne and said she would be assisting me with my training. So far that has meant the humiliation of bathing in front of her and hours of being plucked, pulled, buffed, and scrubbed until my skin is raw and red.
“Lord Quinlan must think I am a miracle worker,” she grumbles. “Now pay attention. You will need to know about the Kyrenican royal family,” she says, and launches into a vitriolic description of the Strassburgs.
Arianne is interrupted when a knock sounds at the door and Lord Quinlan enters the room. “Ah, Madame Arianne, I was just coming to check on your progress.”
“Well, I don’t know what you expect,” Arianne snaps. “She has spent most of the morning complaining and has the manners of a pig.”
“Oink, oink,” I snort.