Page 84 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

“Ferris is on your right, Your Highness, and Lady Ollen is to your left at her own request.” Lady Everly seemed faintly annoyed. “She doesn’t usually ask for favors, and of course I owed her for”—her eyes darted to Charis’s and then away—“for her discretion on a small matter last year, so I placed her beside you.”

Which meant that if Charis requested to have Lord Thorsby take Lady Ollen’s place, she would cause deep offense to both the lady in question and her hostess. It would insult the Everlys to ask for Ferris to be moved as well, which left Charis with few options. Fine. The conversation with Thorsby could wait. Lady Ollen had been present for the treaty negotiations. Charis could aim questions at her instead.

Inclining her head to Lady Everly, Charis moved into the dining room. Two tables stretched nearly the entire length of the room, creating a wide corridor between them. Each was blanketed with table linens in snowy white while pale blue wine goblets and silver utensils carved with the Everly family crest gleamed beneath the chandeliers.

The queen was already seated at the head of the table to Charis’s left, flanked by Lord Severin and Lady Whitecross. Charis met her mother’s gaze as she moved toward her own seat at the head of the table to the right. She doubted Lady Everly had placed the Severins beside the queen of her own volition. Not when the spot could have gone to one of the Everlys’ many friends in the capital who would then owe their hostess a debt she could easily call upon. Mother must have requested it, which meant she would complete the work Charis had begun in the drawing room. By the end of the night, the northern title owners would feel confident in their rulers and hopeful for the future of the people who depended on them.

Ferris stood beside Charis’s empty chair, a sly smirk plastered on his face. She would bet the entire contents of her wardrobe that he was the reason Holland and Nalani hadn’t received an invitation to the dinner. If he hadn’t wanted the competition for Charis’s time and attention, he was about to be sorely disappointed.

“Ferris,” Charis said briskly as she stepped past him, appearing not to notice the way he stretched his hand toward her as if to help maneuver her voluminous skirts into her chair. She’d been managing skirts for as long as she could remember. She hardly needed a boy’s help to do so.

Reuben and Elsbet took up their positions a few paces behind her chair, their eyes constantly scanning the room for threats. Charis allowed herself one swift glance back at the hallway she’d left, hoping to see Tal, and then settled into her seat.

To her left, Lady Ollen rose, curtsied, and then plopped back down onto her chair and reached for her wineglass, which was already half empty. Ferris cut a sharp look at Charis as he, too, took his seat, but she wasn’t interested in deciphering its meaning. A bell tinkled from a doorway tucked into the western corner of the room, closest to Charis’s table, and waitstaff dressed in gray uniforms began moving along the tables with small plates of aged brullaise cheese drizzled with plum sauce and surrounded with wafer-thin crackers. As a waiter set a plate in front of Charis, she turned to Lady Ollen and found the woman watching her closely over the rim of her wineglass.

“You are a very busy girl these days, Your Highness.” She spoke casually, though a spark of curiosity burned in her eyes. “So busy it seems your schedule can never be finalized for the council.”

“There is much to be done.” Charis reached for her wine. Ferris snapped his fingers toward a boy in gray stationed against the wall at Charis’s back, and he hurried to the table. “Taste the princess’s food and drink.”

Quickly, the boy pulled a small glass cup from his pocket and poured a swallow of wine out of Charis’s goblet into his own. His fingers trembled slightly, and he pressed them against his cup until the nails turned a faint bluish-white. Raising the cup to his lips, he swallowed the contents and then stood, waiting for any poison to take effect. When nothing happened, he removed a miniature silver knife from the same pocket, cut a small bite of the sauce-drizzled cheese, placed it on a cracker, and then ate it.

Charis flinched inwardly as the boy again stood waiting for any poison to take effect. It was one thing to know her life was always in danger. It was another to ask an innocent Caleran to possibly die in her stead. She had a taster of her own at the palace for those times when anyone other than her personal maids prepared and served her meals, but waiting to see if someone was going to die in her place never got easier.

When the food didn’t affect him either, the boy gave Charis a quick bow and moved back to the wall. Charis took a tiny sip of wine and returned her attention to Lady Ollen as the drink’s sweet, nutty flavor spread across her tongue.

“I understand you were very instrumental in helping Lord Thorsby formulate the exact wording of the treaty,” Charis said, though she knew nothing of the sort. Giving people credit for something without any warning always caused a reaction. If they deserved the praise, they glowed with pride and were quick to respond with open, frank honesty. If they didn’t deserve it, they showed instant confusion. And if they wanted to hide what they’d done, they froze. Dropped eye contact. Fumbled with their hands, their words, until they cautiously found a response they hoped would steer Charis’s attention elsewhere.

Lady Ollen frowned as she pushed a cracker piled high with cheese into the corner of her plump cheek so she could say, “Was I?”

“That’s my understanding.”

The woman shrugged, reaching for her wine and bumping the dark green stone of the large ring she wore against the glass. “If you say so. I was more concerned with the details of what we were demanding in exchange for the marriage. I still think we should’ve asked for more.” Her gaze caught Charis’s, and she tacked on a hasty “I mean no offense, Your Highness.”

“Of course.” Charis nodded regally. “I do appreciate your work on the matter. But I would like to thank those who worked with Lord Thorsby on the exact wording of the treaty. Perhaps you could tell me whom I should speak to?”

“I’m sure Father had much to do with that,” Ferris said smoothly, leaning forward to rest his hand on Charis’s arm. She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to snap at him. She couldn’t allow the conversation to become sidetracked.

“If he did, then he must have done it in private,” Lady Ollen said, reaching for more cheese.

Ferris’s brows lowered as Charis pulled her arm free. “Father had several meetings with Lord Thorsby. Our family is highly invested in the treaty and its outcome.”

“As are we all.” Lady Ollen sounded stung.

“Of course,” Charis said quickly, giving the woman a sincere smile. “Now, in the discussion during council meetings, which members—”

“I don’t mean to contradict you,” Ferris said, his voice dripping with condescension, “but surely you don’t mean to suggest that your family is as affected by this treaty as ours.”

Lady Ollen straightened, though her tiny stature didn’t lend itself well to intimidation. “Every family has been affected by this war, young man.”

“Yes, but every family didn’t just lose what they’d spent their lives working toward,” Ferris said, his eyes hard with anger. “We’ve had to reassess our goals and our future, now that I won’t be marrying Charis. We had to find a path that would still put to good use my years of training to lead Calera at her side. Father found that path, but I would be lying if I said this treaty isn’t going to be hard on us.”

A flash of heat blazed to life in Charis’s chest, spreading fire along her veins as Lady Ollen puffed up like a billy bird whose nest was being threatened.

“Surely you aren’t comparing your situation with losing my son in battle and any chance at revenge against Montevallo once Charis marries their prince.” The woman’s voice trembled.

As Ferris replied, his gaze fixed on Lady Ollen’s face while color rose in his cheeks, and she responded, her ring flashing beneath the light of the chandeliers while she pointed her finger in his face, Charis’s hands slowly curled into fists.

The treaty was going to be hard on them?

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