Red Queen Novella #1 Read online

  Blank blank blank blank.

  She did not realize she was whispering the words to herself, fervent as a prayer, until she was out of the banquet hall, down a passage, and through an etched glass door. A tiny courtyard rose around her, smelling of rain and sweet flowers.

  “Blank blank blank blank,” she mumbled once more, moving deeper into the garden. Magnolia trees twisted in an arch, forming a crown of white blossoms and rich green leaves. It was barely raining anymore, and she moved closer to the trees for shelter from the final drippings of the storm. It was chillier than she expected, but Coriane welcomed it. Elara echoed no longer.

  Sighing, she sank down onto a stone bench beneath the grove. Its touch was colder still and she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “I can help with that,” said a deep voice, the words slow and plodding.

  Coriane whirled, wide-eyed. She expected Elara haunting her, or Julian, or Jessamine to scold her abrupt exit. The figure standing a few feet away was clearly not any of them.

  “Your Highness,” Coriane said, jumping to her feet so she could bow properly.

  The crown prince Tiberias stood over her, pleasant in the darkness, a glass in one hand and a half-empty bottle in the other. He let her go through the motions and kindly said nothing of her poor form. “That’ll do,” he finally said, motioning for her to stand.

  She did as commanded with all haste, straightening up to face him. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Would you care for a glass, my lady?” he said, though he was already filling the cup. No one was foolish enough to refuse an offer from a prince of Norta. “It’s not a coat, but it will warm you well enough. Pity there’s no whiskey at these functions.”

  Coriane forced a nod. “Pity, yes,” she echoed, never having tasted the bite of brown liquor. With shaking hands, she took the full glass, her fingers brushing his for a moment. His skin was warm as a stone in the sun, and she was struck by the need to hold his hand. Instead, she drank deep of the red wine.

  He matched her, albeit sipping straight from the bottle. How crude, she thought, watching his throat bob as he swallowed. Jessamine would skin me if I did that.

  The prince did not sit next to her, but maintained his distance, so that she could only feel the ghost of his warmth. Enough to know his blood ran hot even in the damp. She wondered how he managed to wear a trim suit without sweating right through it. Part of her wished he would sit, only so she could enjoy the secondhand heat of his abilities. But that would be improper, on both their parts.

  “You’re the niece of Jarred Jacos, yes?” His tone was polite, well trained. An etiquette coach probably followed him since birth. Again, he did not wait for an answer to his question. “My condolences, of course.”

  “Thank you. My name is Coriane,” she offered, realizing he would not ask. He only asks what he already knows the answer to.

  He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Yes. And I won’t make fools of both of us by introducing myself.”

  In spite of propriety, Coriane felt herself smile. She sipped at the wine again, not knowing what else to do. Jessamine had not given her much instruction on conversing with royals of House Calore, let alone the future king. Speak when spoken to was all she could recall, so she kept her lips pressed together so tightly they formed a thin line.

  Tiberias laughed openly at the sight. He was maybe a little drunk, and entirely amused. “Do you know how annoying it is to have to lead every single conversation?” He chuckled. “I talk to Robert and my parents more than anyone else, simply because it’s easier than extracting words from other people.”

  How wretched for you, she snapped in her head. “That sounds awful,” she said as demurely as she could. “Perhaps when you’re king, you can make some changes to the etiquette of court?”

  “Sounds exhausting,” he muttered back around swigs of wine. “And unimportant, in the scheme of things. There’s a war on, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  He was right. The wine did warm her a bit. “A war?” she said. “Where? When? I’ve heard nothing of this.”

  The prince whipped to face her quickly, only to find Coriane smirking a little at his reaction. He laughed again, and tipped the bottle at her. “You had me for a second there, Lady Jacos.”

  Still grinning, he moved to the bench, sitting next to her. Not close enough to touch, but Coriane still went stock-still, her playful edge forgotten. He pretended not to notice. She tried her best to remain calm and poised.

  “So I’m out here drinking in the rain because my parents frown upon being intoxicated in front of the court.” The heat of him flared, pulsing with his inner annoyance. Coriane reveled in the sensation as the cold was chased from her bones. “What’s your excuse? No, wait, let me guess—you were seated with House Merandus, yes?”

  Gritting her teeth, she nodded. “Whoever arranged the tables must hate me.”

  “The party planners don’t hate anyone but my mother. She’s not one for decorations or flowers or seating charts, and they think she’s neglecting her queenly duties. Of course, that’s nonsense,” he added quickly. Another drink. “She sits on more war councils than Father and trains enough for the both of them.”

  Coriane remembered the queen in her uniform, a splendor of medals on her chest. “She’s an impressive woman,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Her mind flitted back to Elara Merandus, glaring at the royals, disgusted by the queen’s so-called surrender.

  “Indeed.” His eyes roved, landing on her now empty glass. “Care for the rest?” he asked, and this time he truly was waiting for an answer.

  “I shouldn’t,” she said, putting the wineglass down on the bench. “In fact, I should go back inside. Jessamine—my cousin—will be furious with me as it is.” I hope she doesn’t lecture me all night.

  Overhead, the sky had deepened to black, and the clouds were rolling away, clearing the rain to reveal bright stars. The prince’s bodily warmth, fed by his burner ability, created a pleasant pocket around them, one Coriane was loath to leave. She heaved a steady breath, drawing in one last gasp of the magnolia trees, and forced herself to her feet.

  Tiberias jumped up with her, still deliberate in his manners. “Shall I accompany you?” he asked as any gentleman would. But Coriane read the reluctance in his eyes and waved him off.

  “No, I won’t punish both of us.”

  His eyes flashed at that. “Speaking of punishment—if Elara whispers to you ever again, you show her the same courtesy.”

  “How—how did you know it was her?”

  A storm cloud of emotions crossed his face, most of them unknown to Coriane. But she certainly recognized anger.

  “She knows, as everyone else knows, that my father will call for Queenstrial soon. I don’t doubt she’s wriggled into every maiden’s head, to learn her enemies and her prey.” With almost vicious speed, he drank the last of the wine, emptying the bottle. But it was not empty for long. Something on his wrist sparked, a starburst of yellow and white. It ignited into flame inside the glass, burning the last drops of alcohol in its green cage. “I’m told her technique is precise, almost perfect. You won’t feel her if she doesn’t want you to.”

  Coriane tasted bile at the back of her mouth. She focused on the flame in the bottle, if only to avoid Tiberias’s gaze. As she watched, the heat cracked the glass, but it did not shatter. “Yes,” she said hoarsely. “It feels like nothing.”

  “Well, you’re a singer, aren’t you?” His voice was suddenly harsh as his flame, a sharp, sickly yellow behind green glass. “Give her a taste of her own medicine.”

  “I couldn’t possibly. I don’t have the skill. And besides, there are laws. We don’t use ability against our own, outside the proper channels—”

  This time, his laugh was hollow. “And is Elara Merandus following that law? She hits you, you hit her back, Coriane. That’s the way of my kingdom.”

  “It isn’t your kingdom yet,” she heard herself mutter.

  B
ut Tiberias didn’t mind. In fact, he grinned darkly.

  “I suspected you had a spine, Coriane Jacos. Somewhere in there.”

  No spine. Anger hissed inside her, but she could never give it voice. He was the prince, the future king. And she was no one at all, a limp excuse for a Silver daughter of a High House. Instead of standing up straight, as she wished to do, she bent into one more curtsy.

  “Your Highness,” she said, dropping her eyes to his booted feet.

  He did not move, did not close the distance between them as a hero in her books would. Tiberias Calore stood back and let her go alone, returning to a den of wolves with no shield but her own heart.

  After some distance, she heard the bottle shatter, spitting glass across the magnolia trees.

  A strange prince, an even stranger night, she wrote later. I don’t know if I ever want to see him again. But he seemed lonely too. Should we not be lonely together?

  At least Jessamine was too drunk to scold me for running off.

  FOUR

  Life at court was neither better nor worse than life on the estate.

  The governorship came with greater incomes, but not nearly enough to elevate House Jacos beyond much more than the basic amenities. Coriane still did not have her own maid, nor did she want one, though Jessamine continued to crow about needing help of her own. At least the Archeon town house was easier to maintain, rather than the Aderonack estate now shuttered in the wake of the family’s transplant to the capital.

  I miss it, somehow, Coriane wrote. The dust, the tangled gardens, the emptiness and the silence. So many corners that were my own, far from Father and Jessamine and even Julian. Most of all she mourned the loss of the garage and outbuildings. The family had not owned a working transport in years, let alone employed a driver, but the remnants remained. There was the hulking skeleton of the private transport, a six-seater, its engine transplanted to the floor like an organ. Busted water heaters, old furnaces cannibalized for parts, not to mention odds and ends from their long-gone gardening staff, littered the various sheds and holdings. I leave behind unfinished puzzles, pieces never put back together. It feels wasteful. Not of the objects, but myself. So much time spent stripping wire or counting screws. For what? For knowledge I will never use? Knowledge that is cursed, inferior, stupid, to everyone else? What have I done with myself for fifteen years? A great construct of nothing. I suppose I miss the old house because it was with me in my emptiness, in my silence. I thought I hated the estate, but I think I hate the capital more.

  Lord Jacos refused his son’s request, of course. His heir would not go to Delphie to translate crumbling records and archive petty artifacts. “No point in it,” he said. Just as he saw no point in most of what Coriane did, and regularly voiced that opinion.

  Both children were gutted, feeling their escape snatched away. Even Jessamine noticed their downturn in emotion, though she said nothing to either. But Coriane knew their old cousin went easy on her in their first months at court, or rather, she was hard on the drink. For as much as Jessamine talked of Archeon and Summerton, she didn’t seem to like either very much, if her gin consumption was any indication.

  More often than not, Coriane could slip away during Jessamine’s daily “nap.” She walked the city many times in hopes of finding a place she enjoyed, somewhere to anchor her in the newly tossing sea of her life.

  She found no such place—instead she found a person.

  He asked her to call him Tibe after a few weeks. A family nickname, used among the royals and a precious few friends. “All right, then,” Coriane said, agreeing to his request. “Saying ‘Your Highness’ was getting to be a bit of a pain.”

  They first met by chance, on the massive bridge that spanned the Capital River, connecting both sides of Archeon. A marvelous structure of twisted steel and trussed iron, supporting three levels of roadway, plazas, and commercial squares. Coriane was not so dazzled by silk shops or the stylish eateries jutting out over the water, but more interested in the bridge itself, its construction. She tried to fathom how many tons of metal were beneath her feet, her mind a flurry of equations. At first, she didn’t notice the Sentinels walking toward her, nor the prince they followed. He was clearheaded this time, without a bottle in hand, and she thought he would pass her by.

  Instead, he stopped at her side, his warmth a gentle ebb like the touch of a summer sun. “Lady Jacos,” he said, following her gaze to the steel of the bridge. “Something interesting?”

  She inclined her head in a bow, but didn’t want to embarrass herself with another poor curtsy. “I think so,” she replied. “I was just wondering how many tons of metal we’re standing on, hoping it will keep us up.”

  The prince let out a puff of laughter tinged with nervous. He shifted his feet, as if suddenly realizing exactly how high above the water they were. “I’ll do my best to keep that thought out of my head,” he mumbled. “Any other frightening notions to share?”

  “How much time do you have?” she said with half a grin. Half only, because something tugged at the rest, weighing it down. The cage of the capital was not a happy place for Coriane.

  Nor Tiberias Calore. “Would you favor me with a walk?” he asked, extending an arm. This time, Coriane saw no hesitation in him, or even the pensive wonderings of a question. He knew her answer already.

  “Of course.” And she slipped her arm in his.

  This will be the last time I hold the arm of a prince, she thought as they walked the bridge. She thought that every time, and she was always wrong.

  In early June, a week before the court would flee Archeon for the smaller but just as grand summer palace, Tibe brought someone to meet her. They were to rendezvous in East Archeon, in the sculpture garden outside the Hexaprin Theater. Coriane was early, for Jessamine started drinking during breakfast, and she was eager to get away. For once, her relative poverty was an advantage. Her clothes were ordinary, clearly Silver, as they were striped in her house colors of gold and yellow, but nothing remarkable. No gems to denote her as a lady of a High House, as someone worth noticing. Not even a servant in uniform to stand a few paces behind. The other Silvers floating through the collection of carved marble barely saw her, and for once, she liked it that way.

  The green dome of Hexaprin rose above, shading her from the still rising sun. A black swan of smooth, flawless granite perched at the top, its long neck arched and wings spread wide, every feather meticulously sculpted. A beautiful monument to Silver excess. And probably Red made, she knew, glancing around. There were no Reds nearby, but they bustled on the street. A few stopped to glance at the theater, their eyes raised to a place they could never inhabit. Perhaps I’ll bring Eliza and Melanie someday. She wondered if the maids would like that, or be embarrassed by such charity.

  She never found out. Tibe’s arrival erased all thoughts of her Red servants, and most other things along with them.

  He had none of his father’s beauty, but was handsome in his own way. Tibe had a strong jaw, still stubbornly trying to grow a beard, with expressive golden eyes and a mischievous smile. His cheeks flushed when he drank and his laughter intensified, as did his rippling heat, but at the moment he was sober as a judge and twitchy. Nervous, Coriane realized as she moved to meet him and his entourage.

  Today he was dressed plainly—but not as poorly as me. No uniform, medals, nothing official to denote this a royal event. He wore a simple coat, charcoal-gray, over a white shirt, dark red trousers, and black boots polished to a mirror shine. The Sentinels were not so informal. Their masks and flaming robes were mark enough of his birthright.

  “Good morning,” he said, and she noticed his fingers drumming rapidly at his side. “I thought we could see Fall of Winter. It’s new, from Piedmont.”

  Her heart leapt at the prospect. The theater was an extravagance her family could hardly afford and, judging by the glint in Tibe’s eye, he knew that. “Of course, that sounds wonderful.”

  “Good,” he replied, hooking her a
rm in his own. It was second nature to both of them now, but still Coriane’s arm buzzed with the feel of him. She had long decided theirs was only a friendship—he’s a prince, bound to Queenstrial—though she could still enjoy his presence.

  They left the garden, heading for the tiled steps of the theater and the fountained plaza before the entrance. Most stopped to give them room, watching as their prince and a noble lady crossed to the theater. A few snapped photographs, the bright lights blinding Coriane, but Tibe smiled through it. He was used to this sort of thing. She didn’t mind it either, not truly. In fact, she wondered whether or not there was a way to dim the camera bulbs, and prevent them from stunning anyone who came near. The thought of bulbs and wire and shaded glass occupied her until Tibe spoke.

  “Robert will be joining us, by the way,” he blurted as they crossed the threshold, stepping over a mosaic of black swans taking flight. At first, Coriane barely heard him, stunned as she was by the beauty of Hexaprin, with its marbled walls, soaring staircases, explosions of flowers, and mirrored ceiling hung with a dozen gilded chandeliers. But after a second, she clamped her jaw shut and turned back to Tibe to find him blushing furiously, worse than she had ever seen.

  She blinked at him, concerned. In her mind’s eye she saw the king’s paramour, the prince who was not royal. “That’s quite all right with me,” she said, careful to keep her voice low. There was a crowd forming, eager to enter the matinee performance. “Unless it isn’t all right with you?”

  “No, no, I’m very happy he came. I—I asked him to come.” Somehow, the prince was tripping over his words, and Coriane could not understand why. “I wanted him to meet you.”

  “Oh,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Then she glanced down at her dress—ordinary, out of style—and frowned. “I wish I wore something else. It’s not every day you meet a prince,” she added with the shadow of a wink.

  He barked a laugh of humor and relief. “Clever, Coriane, very clever.”