Evangeline’s face twists into another biting smile. “I’m hardly idiotic enough to owe you anything. No, I’m talking about a trade.”
I keep my face still, my eyes locked on hers. I channel a little bit of Davidson’s serene, unfathomable blankness. “I thought you might be.”
“Good to know you aren’t as dense as people seem to think.”
“So, what do you have?” I ask, wanting to hurry this along. We’re leaving for Piedmont, and then Montfort, tomorrow. We don’t have the luxury of our usual barbs. “What do you want?”
The words stick in her throat. She drags her teeth across her lips, scraping away a bit of the purple stain. In the unforgiving light of the Corvium street, her makeup seems harsh, more like war paint. I suppose it is. The purple shadows below her cheekbones, meant to sculpt her features into impossible sharpness, seem sickly in the dark. Even the shimmering white powder on her skin, smoothing her moonbeam complexion, has flaws. Tear tracks. She tried to cover them up, but the evidence is still there. Uneven color, a hint of black paint from her lashes still leaving their mark. Her walls of beauty and lethal magnificence have deep cracks.
“But that’s easy, isn’t it?” I answer my own question, taking a step closer. She almost flinches. “All this time, all your scheming. You have Tiberias. You have a third chance to marry a Calore king. Become queen of Norta. Achieve everything you’ve ever worked for.”
Her throat bobs, swallowing a probably rude response. We don’t have much practice being civil each other.
“And you want out,” I whisper. “You don’t want to be what you were born for. Why the sudden revelation? Why throw away what you used to want so much?”
Her restraint breaks. “I don’t have to explain myself or my reasons to you.”
“Your reason has red hair and answers to Elane Haven.”
Evangeline tenses, fists clenching, and the scales of her armor tighten, responding to her sudden emotions. “Don’t talk about her,” she snaps, revealing her weakness, the easy leverage we can use.
She closes the distance between us. Evangeline is several inches taller than me, and she wields this slim advantage well. With her hands on her hips, eyes glaring, her shoulders square against the city lights, I’m entirely in her shadow.
I blink up at her, tilting my head. “So you want to go back to her. And what, you think I can stop Tiberias from marrying you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snaps back, rolling her eyes. “You’re a good distraction for Calore kings, yes. But I’m not delusional. Cal won’t break our betrothal. Maven, maybe. You certainly influenced his decision to cast me aside.”
“As if you were ever really going to marry Maven,” I tell Evangeline slowly. I saw more than she realizes, back in Maven’s court. Her family took the monumental slight too well. The Kingdom of the Rift was planned long before I nudged Maven in any direction.
Evangeline shrugs. “I was never going to be his queen after Elara died. Excuse me, after you killed her,” she says quickly. “She could hold his leash, at least. Keep him in check. I don’t think anyone alive can do that now, not even you.”
I nod in agreement. There is no controlling Maven Calore.
Though I certainly tried. Bile rises in my throat at the memory, my attempts to manipulate the boy king, playing on his weakness for me. And then Maven traded House Samos for peace, for the Lakelands, for a princess just as deadly and probably twice as cunning as Evangeline. I wonder if he met his match in Iris Cygnet, the quiet, calculating nymph.
I try to picture him now, fleeing Corvium for the Lakelands. His white face above a uniform of black and red, blue eyes sparking with quiet fury. Retreating to a strange kingdom and a strange court, without the protection of his Silent Stone. With nothing to show but the corpse of the king of the Lakelands. It comforts me a bit, to know he failed so spectacularly. Perhaps the queen of the Lakelands will kill him outright, to punish him for wasting her husband’s life on the siege.
I couldn’t drown Maven when I had the chance. Maybe she will.
“And you can’t command Cal either. Not in any way that could achieve what I want.” Evangeline pushes on, her words a twisting knife. “He won’t put me aside for you, not if the crown hangs in the balance. Sorry, Barrow. He’s not the abdicating kind.”
“I know what kind he is,” I sneer back, feeling her jab as keenly as she feels mine. If my life continues this way, with almost everything I do poking at this wound, I doubt it will ever have time to heal.
“He’s made his choice,” she says. Both to punish me and to make a point. “When he wins back Norta, and he will, I’ll marry him. Cement an alliance, ensure the Rift survives. Carry on the legacy of Volo Samos and his kings of steel.” Evangeline looks past me, down the dark street. A patrol walks the adjoining avenue ten yards away, their voices low and even as their footsteps. Scarlet Guard, judging by the rust-colored uniforms. Most are repurposed from the Red uniforms of the Nortan army, their insignia ripped off. I doubt Evangeline notices. Her eyes glaze, and she thinks of something far away. Something she doesn’t like at all, judging by her clenching jaw.
“And if you don’t marry him?” I prod, bringing her back.
It’s the easy, obvious thing to ask, but she blanches, perplexed by the suggestion. Her eyes widen, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Impossible,” she scoffs. “There’s no way around it. Short of running away to Tiraxes or Ciron or whatever backwater my father can’t invade,” she adds, laughing darkly at the idea. “Even that won’t work. He’ll find me wherever I go, drag me back, and use me as I was intended to be used. The only course I see, the only option I have, is very simple.”
Of course it is, Evangeline.
Our objectives are the same, though our motivations differ. I let her talk, spooling out exactly what I want to hear. Things will be easier if she thinks this is all her own idea.
“There will be no marriage if Cal fails.” Evangeline stares through me. She forces the words. They’re a betrayal, of her house, of her colors, of her father, of her blood. It cuts her bone-deep. “If he isn’t king of Norta, my father won’t waste me on him. And if he loses his war for the crown, if we lose, Father will be too distracted keeping his own throne to sell me off to someone else. Or at least sell me somewhere far away.”
From Elane. Her meaning is clear.
“So you want me to stop Cal from winning back his kingdom?”
She sneers, taking a step back. “You’ve learned many things in Silver courts, Mare Barrow. You’re smarter than you seem. I won’t underestimate you ever again, and you better not underestimate me.” As she speaks, her armor skitters, re-forming and twisting along her limbs. The scales shrink and crawl. Like the bugs of her mother’s control, each one a gleaming dot of black and silver. She re-forms her clothing into something more substantial, less grand. Real armor, meant for battle and nothing else. “When I say I want you to stop Cal, I mean your little circle. Although I don’t know how ‘little’ both Montfort and the Scarlet Guard can be considered. After all, they can’t really mean to prop up another Silver kingdom. Not without some serious strings attached.”
“Ah.” My heart drops a little. There’s a card shown, one I would have liked to keep hidden.