Then the lack of a mourning band had pleased her, for surely it meant he loved her more.

Selfish daughter.

“Marstoks?” Vivia forced herself to repeat, shoulders inching toward her ears. There was the familiar sideways glint in the king’s eyes. Serafin anticipated a specific answer, and he was waiting for Vivia to fail in giving it.

She wet her lips, puffing out her chest as she carefully offered, “We are still in discussions with the Marstoki Sultanate, Your Majesty, but I will inform you the instant an agreement is made—”

“Oh?” With a creaking lurch, he snatched a paper off his bed that had, thus far, been hidden in shadows. “Then why did I learn this morning that you canceled negotiations with them?”

Vivia’s stomach hollowed out. The page he rattled at her was none other than the message she’d sent via Voicewitch to the Marstoki ambassador one week prior. How the hell-waters had Serafin gotten it?

“I did not think it a good bargain,” she rushed to say, summoning a casual grin. When Serafin’s stony expression didn’t change, though, she shifted her tactics. Tried on a new mask—a snippier, angrier one. “A single glance at what the Marstoks proposed was all I needed to see Nubrevna would get the dung end of the shovel. Alliances are meant to serve our interests, not the Empire of Marstok’s. There was also the tiny problem of Marstoki naval forces invading Nubrevna two weeks ago, Your Majesty.”

“I only worry for your sake,” he said, though his face still wasn’t changing. “I would not want the Council to think you weak for not negotiating better.”

Vivia felt sick. Her words tumbled out all the faster. “But Your Majesty, I thought surely you would never wish to treat with those flame eaters. You are much too smart for that, and if you’d only seen what they proposed in this deal! And of course, now with the empress possibly dead, I am certain they would have ended negotiations themselves!”

“But you could not have known the empress would die. Unless…” Some of Serafin’s frost melted. Some of his humor returned. “There is more to her death than I realize.”

Vivia’s responding laughter was far too pinched.

He slouched against the headboard. “I told you, I only worry for your sake. I know you are strong, but the Council does not.”

As the king devolved into more stories of his own prowess, Vivia tried to calm her heart. Tried to pretend she was listening, but the truth was that her hands trembled. She had to sit on them to hide it.

It was always this way with the King Regent. Whenever he was displeased, she would catch herself shivering like a bird—which was ridiculous. Shameful, for her father loved her. Like he’d said: he only ever worried for Vivia’s sake.

Serafin was the good king, the strong leader, and Vivia could be too, if she would only act as he did. If she would only stick by his side. Share the glory, share the blame. So with that reminder—one she gave herself more and more these days—she settled her face and her posture into one of attentive interest. Then for the next two hours, she listened to tales of his feats, his brilliance, and his masterful navigations through Nubrevnan politics.

* * *

Outside the royal wing, Vivia met up with the palace steward and ten stiff soldiers. The soldiers saluted at Vivia’s approach through the quad while the steward—a petite woman Vivia had known her entire life—smiled and bowed.

This was their evening routine: after briefing her father, Vivia and the steward would walk the palace grounds and battlements. Vivia would listen as the steward read all requests, all petitions, all complaints that had gathered during the day, and palace workers were allowed to approach.

Now was the right moment for that gardener to complain about his plum trees.

They set off at a brisk pace, a wind picking up around them. Rifling through the gardens as fresh clouds gathered on the horizon.

Once upon a time, these plants and gravel paths had been private, pruned, and purely for decoration. But eighteen years ago, Queen Jana had given the palace staff free rein. Within a few summers, row upon row of apple and pear trees had taken root beside the central fountain. Zucchini vines with fat yellow blossoms had crawled over the paths and around the rosebushes, while more heads of cabbage had sprouted in the western corner than there were actual heads in the palace.

Vivia’s gaze flicked to the only spot in the royal gardens left untouched: a tiny enclosure on the northeast side, walled in by hedges and with a lily pond at its heart. It had been Jana’s favorite place. Vivia had always assumed it was because the door to the underground lake waited within. Yet she wondered …

“Wait here,” she murmured before cutting away. Moments later, her feet carried her beneath the overgrown archway, through the rusted gate, and into her mother’s garden.

It looked exactly as it always had. Ivy grew wildly across the earth, hindered only by the pond and the cattails fluttering around it. A weeping willow reached long fingers into the water’s edge, while blueberry bushes grew out of control against the farthest wall.

Every day, Vivia hurried down the gravel path—the only place ivy hadn’t invaded—aiming for the trapdoor behind the blueberry bushes. And every day, she made sure there were no other signs of entry in the garden.

A lone bench stood several paces from the pond, and that was where Vivia strode now—for it was there that Jana had always sat. Vivia eased onto the bench, just as her mother used to do. Then she stared, just as her mother used to stare, at a cluster of bearded irises.