CHAPTER 9
Seven and a Half Years Ago
BRIONY DESPISED STATE DINNERS, especially the ones that fell on the winter solstice. She’d learned by now—the winter between her first and second year —that spending time with the Bomardi students at school was enough for her.
She didn’t need to see them outside the school year as well.
She stood at the entrance to the grand ballroom with Rory and her father, welcoming in state officials from Bomard and Evermore and their families.
The ballroom was decorated with fir trees that were native to Bomard’s mountains, and a new tapestry had been hung, depicting a snowy morning in the Bomardi forest. All of it was so at odds with Biltmore Palace’s open arcades, ornate porticoes, and reflective pools. They would mingle and dance until midnight, and then the feast would begin, going all night until dawn.
It had only been twenty minutes and she had already seen ten people she
didn’t care for.
And her dress was itchy.
“Briony, stop that,” her father admonished when she adjusted her sleeves for the third time. “You are now seventeen. You have to start dressing like it.”
“Are seventeen-year-olds itchy?” she grumbled. The dress was a lace green, the bodice tight from her waist up to her shoulders and laced down to
her wrists. It was so unlike the flowing and loose wear that Eversuns favored, she really thought her father was trying too hard to welcome those frostbitten mutts. There was a place between her shoulder blades that she wanted to ask Rory to scratch for her, but she refrained.
Briony glanced at the Bomardi who had already entered. Was this the work of magic like that cold draft? Was one of them making her itch? No.
Toven wasn’t here yet.
When Finola and Phoebe came in, Briony hugged them tightly.
Finola leaned toward Rory and her. “Did you hear that the Vults brought their familiars?”
Briony glanced to where the Vult family was just now getting into the receiving line.
“Why?” Rory asked. “Do they expect a fight?”
“That’s what I asked,” Finola said with a laugh.
Briony glanced to see who was next: Hap Gains and his daughter, Larissa.
Briony sighed.
It was custom for Evermore’s king and his family to bow first as a sign of respect and welcome. And by the look on Larissa’s face, this was clearly her favorite part of the entire state dinner.
Larissa stood directly in front of Briony with a calculated smile and watched her dip into a low curtsy.
“Welcome, Larissa,” Briony said through clenched teeth. “How have you been since the end of the school year?”
“Fine, thank you, Briony. Absolutely dreading being in Evermore for the second year.” She looked around at the decor—all the trouble Evermore had gone to—and added, “Evermore just isn’t as comfortable. Far too warm and not enough to do.”
Briony bit back a remark, and Larissa turned to Rory, indicating that he should bow next. Rory sighed and did so. Larissa bobbed the smallest, least respectful of curtsies to both in response and waved dismissively as the Gainses moved on.
Gin Pulvey, the Seat of Bomard, was next. He was a hearty man with a large mustache that took up most of his pink face. Seat Pulvey had a good
relationship with King Jacquel, to many Bomardi’s dismay. Behind him were Sammy and his father, Billium Meers, high general of the Eversun armies.
Briony’s father rose from his bow and pulled an exasperated face for General Meers in a rare moment of relaxed camaraderie.
“I think you should give me the first dance tonight, Briony,” Sammy said as she straightened from her curtsy. His voice was bright with mischief.
“What?” She curled her lip. “Why?”
“Because I think it will bother Didion.”
Rory snorted and brought a hand to his mouth to hide his smile. Briony looked between Sammy and Rory with a blush. Then she glanced over at where Didion was standing in the ballroom with Katrina and Cordelia, watching her. His eyes darted away.
“Well, of course I’ll dance with you,” Briony said, “but why first dance?”
First dance was usually reserved for the king and his wife (only in this case, Jacquel refrained as he did not intend to remarry), the Seat and their spouse, and any young couples intending to make a splash in the spring season of courtship.
Sammy placed a dramatic hand on his chest. “I’ll happily take second, third, and fourth as well, but I think they’ll be taken rather quickly.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”
Sammy laughed and grabbed her hand, bringing her knuckles to his lips.
“I love that you don’t know how smashing you look. If you were six years older, we’d be engaged already, love.”
She snatched her hand back and pulled a face at him. Sammy laughed, and Rory made a gagging sound.
“You’ll have to get used to it, Worry,” Sammy said, using Briony’s mispronounced childhood name for her brother. He pontificated, “It will only be a few short years before she’s sold off to a Bomardi boy in the name of peace and unity.”
“Sammy, that’s enough,” General Meers said kindly. He sent an apologetic smile to Jacquel. “Let’s let the next group in the door.”
Sammy saluted his father, winked at Briony, and said, “First dance.” They walked on.
Briony rolled her shoulders back, dress still itching her. Smashing, Sammy had said. That was kind, but nothing more than that. She liked Sammy like a brother, and she was sure his feelings were the same. But she didn’t love the reminder that as the king’s daughter, she might not be able to marry for love. She did envy the Bomardi a little. They didn’t treat their women like pawns in a game. A woman could sit on the Seat of Bomard just as easily as a man.
When Briony turned back to the receiving line, she came face-to-face with the smirking countenance of Toven Hearst. More like face-to-chest. He was even taller than he had been at the end of the school year a month ago.
“First dance already taken?” he said coyly. “My, my, you don’t waste any time, do you?”
Briony pulled herself together and glanced to the left. Orion Hearst stood in front of her father, and Serena Hearst in front of Rory. As one, the Rosewoods bowed and curtsied.
She rose, finding Toven’s eyes glued to her, his teeth gleefully biting down on his bottom lip. “Welcome,” she muttered.
Toven wore a gray suit the pale color of his hair. As her father exchanged stilted pleasantries with Orion, and Serena examined the ballroom with what must have been distaste, Briony stared up into Toven’s face with thinly veiled hatred. He exuded arrogance, and Briony couldn’t believe he had the audacity to look down on her in her own home.
“Meers is right, you know,” Toven said in a jovial tone belied by his look of boredom. “Have you decided which son of Bomard you’ll be attaching yourself to when you come of age? Like a leech.”
She batted her lashes. “Well, I’m aiming for you, of course.”
He smiled brightly. “Ah. Lovely. You’ll make an excellent addition to my line of trophies. I’ll hang you on the wall.”
“Trophies? What for?” she asked innocently. “Couldn’t be elixirs class.
Didn’t Rory take top marks in elixirs this last year?” She smiled simperingly at him.
Toven leveled a stare at her. “Did he?” His tone made it clear that he knew exactly how Rory kept getting top marks.
Briony’s smile slipped, and she looked away toward the ballroom where her friends were gathered. He hadn’t told on her about assisting Rory with his schoolwork and continuing to boost him, but he took opportunities like this to dig at her about it. Only a few more introductions and then she would be able to hide from the Bomardi until dinner at midnight.
“So who will claim the second dance with the princess,” Toven said quietly as his parents continued to converse with Rory and her father. His eyes cast over the crowd. “Didion Winchester, I’d presume?”
“I have no intention of dancing the first or second dance—”
“But of course, all of this is up for debate,” he said, ignoring her. He turned pale-gray eyes on her. “Someone on the line takes precedence in these situations.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. Why would anyone from Bomard ask Sammy to step aside for the first dance?
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m only stating tradition, of course,” he said, melodically. “If someone in the Ten were to ask for the first dance or second dance, Meers and Winchester would have to step aside, wouldn’t they?”
The Ten were the Bomardi in the first ten places in line. It gave them certain feelings of superiority. Among them were Orion Hearst, Canning Trow’s mother, Hap Gains, and Liam Quill’s father.
Briony felt like she was missing a piece to a very large puzzle, but before she could ask, Orion Hearst spoke loudly.
“Ah, here she is. Jacquel, allow me to introduce our guest. Veronika Mallow.”
A tall woman with pale-white skin and straight black hair stepped forward. Her eyes were black as well, like bottomless pits, but they were close together, giving her a foxlike quality. She looked to be in her fifties, but then the light caught her at a different angle, and she could have been twenty
years younger.
“Mrs. Mallow. Welc—”
“Miss Mallow,” she corrected Briony’s father, stopping him in an awkward half bow. “Unlike the Eversuns, Bomardi women don’t need to be
married to be introduced.” Black eyes flicked toward Briony, and a chill crested her shoulders.
“Of course,” King Jacquel said. “My apologies for the presumption.” He continued to bow, and Rory and Briony did the same.
“What a strange tradition,” Mallow said. “Bowing to a stranger in your own palace. Seems so antiquated.” The curtsy she offered in return was much like Larissa’s—barely a dip of her elegant head, and a shocking rudeness to the king.
Briony blinked. She saw Orion’s lips twitch, suppressing a smile.
“I suppose that’s why they call it a tradition,” Rory offered kindly.
Serena smiled at him. No one else did.
Briony glanced at Toven and found his eyes flicking away, turning to the ballroom.
When the Hearsts and Veronika Mallow slipped away, Briony continued to watch Mallow as she took in the ballroom. She seemed deeply displeased.
“Who is that?” Briony asked her father.
“Mallow is the daughter of a soldier. That’s all I know. She’s fortieth in line, I believe.”
Rory snorted. “She certainly acts like she’s in the Ten.”
“Fortieth in line, and she’s invited to a state dinner?” Briony whispered.
“Briony, don’t be elitist.”
Her gaze snapped to her father’s. “I’m not. I...I didn’t mean to be.”
Her face flushed, and she looked down. She pushed back embarrassed tears as the Raquins stepped forward.
Finn winked at her, and she glared at him. “I hope you’ll save me a dance tonight, Miss Rosewood.”
Briony smiled patronizingly. “I’d rather throw myself from the tallest tower.”
“Briony.” Her father’s sharp voice caught her by surprise; the Raquins and her family had heard the exchange. “You forget yourself,” he said cuttingly.
Toven had flustered her. Hot embarrassment rose in her cheeks. She was zero for two with her father tonight.
Finn looked downright giddy. “Your grace, it’s nothing. We play like this at school all the time. Don’t we, Briony?”
She nodded without speaking, not trusting her voice.
Briony and Rory said hello to Finn’s mother, Ember, an Eversun woman with dark-brown skin and green eyes. She had a been a friend to their mother before she and Rory were born and had been married to Finn’s father, a Bomardi, in a peace treaty marriage. Supposedly, Ember had been the first person to hold Rory when he was born, as their mother slowly bled out with Briony still in her belly. They only saw her a few times a year at these state dinners. A similar future awaited Briony, she realized, when she would only return to Evermore for state dinners. Her heart fell.
Ember reached out to touch both Rory and Briony’s cheeks with a kind smile.
“Is my son behaving himself at school?” she asked.
“Barely,” both Rory and Briony said together.
Ember huffed in exasperation and sent a chastising look to her son. He batted his lashes at his mother, innocently. “What can I say? I’m incorrigible.” He offered Ember his arm, and she took it, rolling her eyes at him.
Once the receiving line was done, Briony and Rory finally got to join Didion, Cordelia, and Katrina. Cordelia snuck her a glass of wine, and Briony turned to the wall, drinking almost all of it in one swallow. The herald announced that the dancing would begin in five minutes, and Briony stepped behind Cordelia, hoping Sammy had been offering the first dance in jest.
Didion cleared his throat from next to her, and she glanced at him as she took a final swig from her glass. “Briony, I was wondering if I could dance the first with you.”
She blinked at him, cheeks puffed with wine, and focused on swallowing.
Rory coughed a smile into his hand and turned to speak to someone else.
“I...Sammy asked me,” she blurted. “Sorry, I mean to say, I would love to take the second dance with you, Didion.”
His brows pulled together. “Sammy? He’s six years older than you.”
“As a friend, surely,” Briony jumped to say.
“Not as a friend,” Sammy’s jovial voice boomed from behind her. She turned to him with a scowl. “As an avid admirer.” He swooped into a low bow and winked at Didion.
Briony’s lip curled. “Don’t waste your time flirting with me, Sammy.”
He grinned, but before he could spar with her, a deep baritone voice
sounded from behind her.
“Your grace.”
Briony turned to find Toven standing in front of her. His hands were behind his back in a strange imitation of civility, and Briony stared up at him, praying he wasn’t here to do what she thought he was here to do.
“What?” she said shortly.
“Your first dance,” he said. “As we discussed.” He flashed a bright smile at her.
Every one of her friends was silent behind her.
She lifted her brows. “We didn’t discuss anything. I’m dancing the first with Sammy.”
Looking to Sammy for help, she extended her hand to him, waiting for him to take it. But he just glared at Toven.
“You’re serious, Hearst?” Sammy said.
“Absolutely,” Toven said. “I am accustomed to having the finest thing in the room, after all.”
Briony snapped her eyes to him. He was trailing his gaze down the bodice of her dress, where the lace pulled tightly across her breasts and fitted to her waist.
Didion stepped forward. “All right. That’s enough—”
“The first and the second dance,” Toven said, looking past her shoulder at Didion, then flicking his eyes back to her. “Your grace.”
Behind him, couples were entering the dance floor. They only had moments before the dance started.
“I am dancing the first with Sammy and the second with Didion,” Briony said, voice flat and stony. “I do not accept your hand.”
She started to walk past him, and his arm shot out and caught her elbow, pulling her into his side.
“And I,” he said softly, “am exercising my right as eighth in line to cut in.”
“Your father is eighth in line,” Briony hissed. “Should he ask me, I’d be happy to accept these terms.”
She glanced at Sammy, trying to encourage him to follow her to the dance floor. But he was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking resigned.
“He’s a member of the Ten, Briony,” Sammy said.
“He’s not! He succeeds eighth in line. He’s sixteenth at best!”
Toven turned her to him gently, and horror filled her as he placed a hand on her cheek. His fingers were warm, and his eyes might have looked kind to anyone who didn’t truly know him. Briony heard Katrina gasp.
She blinked rapidly up at him, not daring to move. If he kissed her at a state dinner, it would be as good as a declaration of courtship. But if she danced the first dance with him, was that not just as good an announcement?
“Don’t try to make a fool of me in front of everyone here,” he said.
“You’ll do a fine job of it yourself. Get your hand off me.”
“Or what?” he asked lightly. “Will you cause a scene? Don’t look now, but everyone is watching us.”
Her breath stuttered in her chest. The air in the room thickened, and she knew without looking that he was correct. There were eyes on them.
He smiled then and leaned toward her. She held her breath until he swerved at the last moment, moving his lips to her ear. “You’ll come with me to the dance floor now, or I’ll put in a formal request with your father for courtship. It’s your decision.”
Briony’s eyes were wide. They met Katrina’s over his shoulder. She was frozen still as well. Didion’s jaw was clenched. Across the ballroom, she saw Canning Trow watching them calculatingly.
It didn’t matter, she realized. He’d made a move on her publicly. If she danced with him first after this show, they would be assumed to be courting.
The music began for a waltz. Briony swallowed. She could do two dances and then be done with him until spring.
“Of course,” she said, pulling back from him. “Toven, it would be my honor.”
His grin seemed almost genuine, and for a moment, she remembered how shockingly handsome he was. He extended his hand to her with a flourish, opening his body to the room so it was clear to anyone watching that it was her choice to accept.
The dance floor was filling with couples, and she caught her father’s eye as she took her place across from Toven. He tilted his head at her in question, and she shook hers quickly, hopefully signaling to him not to take this seriously.
She faced Toven on the dance floor, and there was a self-satisfied smirk on his face as the musicians counted them in.
The itching was back between her shoulder blades—and in most parts of her body—as he reached forward for her, slipping one hand around her waist and with the other picking up her hand from where she let it hang limply.
It wasn’t until the moment she placed her other hand on his shoulder that she realized what dancing with Toven Hearst meant. It meant touching him.
Breathing him in. Staring at his face from an arm’s-length distance—or not staring at his face, as she decided to do. She looked past his ear instead.
“You must be excited to be schooled in Evermore for our second year,” he
said.
“We don’t have to talk,” she snapped.
A puff of air crested over her forehead, and she wondered if she possibly could have made him laugh.
As he twirled her, expertly shifting the pressure on her rib cage to guide her around the floor, Briony let her eyes move wildly over all the people who could see them.
Sammy, Katrina, and Didion were watching them from the corner of the dance floor, but Cordelia was missing. When Briony found a mane of auburn hair floating on the dance floor, she couldn’t believe her eyes.
The waltz moved Cordelia and her partner toward them. She gaped at her brother with her best friend in his arms.
“What is this?” she said incredulously to Rory.
“What is this?” he returned, looking at Toven.
Cordelia’s lips opened and closed.
Toven chuckled. “You didn’t know?”
Briony looked up at him as they spun away. He was positively gleeful.
She glanced back at her brother. The king’s heir choosing a partner for the first dance was just as impactful a statement as Briony’s mess of a situation.
“Oh, that’s rich,” Toven sang. “They’ve been making moon eyes at each other for a year, and you didn’t know?”
Briony snapped her mouth shut. He lifted his arm and spun her under it, then drew her back in.
“I’m sure they’ll be sneaking around the school this year, finding all the
private alcoves—”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Do you really think anyone keeps their hands to themselves in year two?” He laughed. “You’ll need protection on the staircases now, Princess.”
“And are you volunteering?” she said dryly. “Is that what this is about?”
His lips twitched as he looked past her. “Perhaps I’ll come knocking on that private suite when your brother is occupied with Miss Hardstark.”
“Perhaps I’ll light you on fire if you try.”
“I should ask your father for your presence at Hearst Hall during the summer solstice holiday, I think,” he said, as if talking to himself. “No point in delaying the inevitable.”
“Shall we get your mother’s ring resized as well?” she snarked, playing along for her own sanity.
“Lovely idea, dearest,” he said, twirling them. “Your hands aren’t quite as dainty, are they?”
In her effort not to look at him, her gaze fell on Finn and Larissa at the edge of the dance floor. They were watching the two of them closely. And she realized— “Something’s gone wrong with you and Larissa, am I right?” She almost sighed in relief. “By the waters!” she swore. “And you’re using me? What an idiot plan!”
He stared down at her, and she couldn’t help but notice the sharp angle of his jaw or the strands of gray that had fallen over his forehead. “What plan is that?”
“I haven’t the faintest clue,” she said. “But you’re trying to make Larissa angry, and it’s working.”
She watched his eyes flick over to where the blonde stood at the edge of the dance floor, as if he hadn’t thought of the idea until that moment.
“I assure you, your grace,” he said, “I’m just trying to pay respect to this outstanding dress you’re in.”
“You don’t have to call me that,” she said, suddenly tired with the game.
“I may be the daughter of the king, but my title doesn’t have a formal address.”
“Oh, but you do,” he said, quickly. The dance slowed, and he twisted them once more. “You are Eversun, and that is formal enough, isn’t it?”
Her brows drew together as the musicians ended and the crowd applauded. She dropped her hands and stepped back. “What do you mean?”
“Pulling magic from the mind,” he said mockingly. “You think you’re so much better than we are. Evolved, isn’t that what you say?”
“It is evolved,” she snapped back. “To pull magic from your own mind, without draining yourself dry—without needing a familiar to boost you, nor going against the laws and draining a heartspring, either.”
The second dance started, and he drew her into his arms again. Closer, she thought.
“And yet blood is still important to you all, isn’t it? One bloodline. One king.”
She gazed up at him, their faces closer than before. This was a distinct misunderstanding between most Eversuns and Bomardi, she knew, but this seemed personal to him.
“You know as well as I do that I don’t get much out of that bloodline. I’ll just be passed on to one of you while my brother becomes king.”
“Which is why I find it so fascinating when Eversun women get up in arms about it all.” He stepped forward and she stepped back, following his lead. “Not all Bomardi drain other magicians for a boost.”
She watched his eyes flicker over her face. “Not all Eversuns can pry into your thoughts.”
His lips twitched. “No?” He lowered his head to come eye-to-eye with
her. “You don’t know what I’m thinking now?”
Her eyes were glued to his as their feet glided over the floor. He had specks of blue in the gray. She could feel his breath on her face.
“I never know what you’re thinking,” she whispered.
His gaze burned as he stared down at her.
There was a tap on her shoulder, and she jumped.
Liam Quill stood behind her, a smarmy grin on his boyish face.
“Toven,” he said. “I thought perhaps I’d take Miss Rosewood for the second dance.” His eyes glinted. “As sixth in line.”
Briony stared at Liam in confusion, until Toven slipped his arms from her, sending daggers to Liam but stepping aside.
He had to defer to him.
Briony hated that she missed his arms and his sure step.
Liam smiled patronizingly down at her. “What a splash you’re making, Briony.”
“Yes, the boys of Bomard certainly are honoring me tonight,” she said, sarcasm in her tone.
She took the opportunity to glance around the dance floor. Rory was still dancing with Cordelia, and her stomach twisted.
“What did Toven talk to you about?” Liam asked.
“I have no clue,” she said. “All sorts of things.”
Liam narrowed his eyes at her. She looked away from him, and her gaze caught on Larissa as she spoke with Toven, her expression harsh. He looked bored.
Briony must have been right. A lovers’ quarrel.
When Liam tried to take the third dance with Briony after making almost no conversation with her, she was about to make an excuse when a thick hand dropped on Liam’s shoulder.
Both of them looked up to see Canning Trow smirking down at her.
“Miss Rosewood.”
His mother was third in line. She couldn’t even beg off about needing to dance with Sammy or Didion.
Liam stepped aside, and Briony accepted Canning’s hand. He pulled her
in too close, and his hand rested about five inches lower on her back than what was appropriate.
Canning was entering his fourth year at school and acted as a bit of a ringleader for the Bomardi boys. He had a wide jaw, wide-set eyes, and a large nose, but he walked around like he was the waters’ gift to women.
“You’re quite lovely tonight,” he said as the steps began.
She said nothing, tired already of this.
“Where on earth have you been hiding this body?”
Her eyes snapped up to him, and she sent him a hard look as he turned her. “Do you have to be so crass? Just dance with me.”
They followed the steps, pulling away from each other and circling.
“I’ll be in year four this spring, beginning my specialization in elixirs.”
She could yawn, but refrained. “Oh?”
“But I’d be happy to escort you to class.”
“I know how to walk down stairs, thank you.”
He laughed and tugged her closer. There were more couples on the floor now, and they were hidden in the center of it. She could feel his hands getting
bolder.
“My mother is third in line, you know.”
“You never let us forget it,” Briony said.
“And it would be a great match between us.”
“You think so?” She gave him a closed-lip smile. “That’s kind.”
She saw Didion on the edge of the dance floor, still waiting to dance with her. She didn’t know if she had the energy after all this.
“You really are so lovely.” He gazed down at her breasts.
“So you’ve said.”
“We’ve all been talking about it. How lovely you are.” Canning shifted
the hand on her low back even lower.
“Can you not?” Briony hissed.
He tugged her closer still. “It’s an honor to be wanted by the third in line.”
“Son of the third in line.” She shoved his hands off her as the music came to a close. “Thank you for the dance.”
She spun on her heel and moved quickly away from the dancers before
anyone else could accost her.
She slipped to the edge of the dance floor, near the exit. She nodded at one of the guards, who slipped out to find Anna to escort her upstairs.
“It’s so strange to me,” said a voice to her left. Veronika Mallow stood in the corner, blending into the darkness.
Briony patted down her dress and smiled thinly. “What is, Miss Mallow?”
“You must have your pick of the boys in Evermore, but you insist on catching the attention of all the eligible Bomardi boys.”
Mallow’s eyes watched her, unblinkingly.
Briony was tired. Too tired for this.
“What can I say? I’m a catch.”
Mallow lifted her chin at her, assessing her. “I find the arranged marriages between the realms so archaic.”
Briony was inclined to agree but had a feeling they were talking about
different things.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Mallow took a sip of her wine, her eyes casting over the dance floor.
“Well, if we were really two realms at peace, why must we hand over women as collateral? Or our young people, for that matter?”
Briony narrowed her eyes at her. “Collateral? You mean the alternating school years?”
Turning her dark gaze on Briony, Mallow replied, “Why, yes, of course.
For what possible reason would we school our young people together if not in an eternal promise not to harm them.” Mallow tilted her head at her.
“Promises are only words after all. They can be broken.”
Briony stared at her until Anna coughed lightly behind her, ready to take her to her rooms. She gave Mallow one last glance over her shoulder.
Three and a half years later, she would remember that conversation when the Bomardi attacked the school, looking for Eversuns to take captive. And she would know exactly whose idea it was.
