Page 6 of The Royal Curse
Oh, by both of the bastard sky gods.
Embarrassing or not, weirdly enamored of my guard or not, Amara was a better sister than I deserved. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her into my side, resting my burning cheek on her soft hair.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
She hugged me hard, squeezing me tightly enough to make my ribs creak.
At least I had the best family in the world. That made me lucky no matter what.
Chapter Three
I was a damned unlucky bastard, and my family could go jump in a lake. Preferably that gorgeous sapphire-blue one a thousand feet up the mountain from Surbino that froze your toes off even at the height of summer.
“Mama’s right,” Philippa said, not even pausing in pouring herself another cup of tea as she joined our mother in shattering my hopes. “Gennaro says it’s going to snow all the way down into the foothills, and then the rain and mudslides will last for weeks. The other side of the mountains will be worse. The journey’s simply too dangerous.”
“Gennaro also said you shouldn’t drink so much tea because it’s bad for your digestion,” I snapped. “But apparently you only listen to him when it’s convenient.”
Gennaro, my mother’s ancient—and in my opinion, doddering—court mage, claimed to have a special connection to the weather, something no human mage, to my knowledge, could affect. If producing hot air counted as being a weather mage, perhaps Gennaro could be classed as such, but otherwise he seemed to be right far less often than the average farmer.
As if reading my mind, my mother put down the letter she’d been frowning at and turned away from her desk to face me, saying, “The agricultural guild’s representative had the same opinion. He believes the rest of the winter, and the spring, will be unusually cold and wet. It’s truly not safe to go over the pass, Niko.”
In this case, apparently the average farmer agreed with Gennaro. Well, fuck me.
I wished I’d chosen a better moment to have this conversation. If I’d waited for supper, I’d have had Amara as my ally, at least, and she had a way of winding Mama around her finger that the rest of us couldn’t begin to equal. But I hadn’t realized it’d be a debate, and I’d innocently mentioned my upcoming journey while having afternoon tea with Phil and our mother in the latter’s private study. Mama had been sipping and reading her correspondence, and had unbent enough to slip off her shoes and rest her toes in the plush carpet under her desk. We had a fire going, and Phil and I had each lounged on one of the comfortable sofas set across from one another with a table laden with sandwiches and cakes in between.
The rather excessive number of each that I’d scarfed down sat like lead in my stomach. Phil primly took another sip of tea, heedless of Gennaro’s dictates. As the crown princess, apparently she didn’t have to listen.
“I won’t be traveling in a hurry,” I said, forcing my voice to remain even and calm. My mother, like a shark, could scent blood in the water. Any sign of weakness and I’d stand no chance at all. “I’ll be on horseback with a small entourage. No carriages or wagons to break down or get stuck. I can spend a few extra days at any inn I stop at and wait out the weather. And you know how important this is. The scholars at the conclave can help me—”
A knock at the door forced me into silence, and my mother called out, “Enter!”
Damn it,damnit, right when I’d seen a little bit of softening in her expression!
Ser Marko, her private secretary, stuck his bespectacled and bewhiskered head around the door. “Your Majesty, forgive me, but Ambassador Garzole returned, and he’s still in a tizzy about those tariffs. Can you see him? He’s departing for home tomorrow morning. We have one more opportunity to calm him down.”
“Of course,” she said, pushing her feet into her shoes and rising, already striding for the door before I’d managed to open my mouth again. “Niko, I’m sorry, but the risk is too great. You can go next time. Your potion is still working well enough, Gennaro says, and there’s plenty of time to discuss alternatives.”
And with that, she rustled out of the room in an elegant sweep of red silk and pearls, leaving me gaping at her retreating back and the coif of her bejeweled hair, graying but the same color as Amara’s beneath.
Phil and I had both inherited our coloring, and more of our features, from our father. My resemblance to him, I realized belatedly, had probably put me in this position. Knowing my mother and her everlasting grief for the man she’d loved, I should’ve seen it coming.
I slumped back into the sofa, stomach now churning with sick fear and misery, temples starting to throb.
Gennaro says. And that was enough for my mother, no matter what I might say about my own magic, my own health, my own life.
Scholars of magic from a dozen kingdoms would be at the conclave in a month: scientists, philosophers, physicians, mages. The greatest assembly of knowledge about magic in general and twilight mages specifically that you could find on the entire continent. Other places had their own ways of helping, or controlling, their dawn and dusk mages, ranging from the gentle and humane to the downright horrific. One city-state island off the eastern coast supposedly had a whole temple dedicated to helping mages find their “harmonious completion,” a silly-sounding term for a legend about each mage having a perfect match, a lover whose natural life-force would complement the mage’s and make them exponentially stronger. Nonsense, of course. But intriguing nonsense.
And to the southeast, far enough that we didn’t even trade with the kingdoms there, they had another version of the potion that created a bond between twilight mages and mundane men who served as anchors for their magic. I’d heard rumors that the bonding process was dreadfully misused and abused—as were the mages subjected to it.
But that didn’t mean there couldn’t be some germ of information that scholars from that part of the world would know that I didn’t, and which could be turned to good. Some of them would be in attendance, too.
Gennaro hadn’t even rated an invitation, and yet he thought he knew everything.
He didn’t. Because on a more practical and less speculative note, no matter what Gennaro said, my potion had slowly but noticeably started to become less efficient at suppressing my symptoms. The time between doses had reduced over the last couple of years—only by an hour total, which didn’t sound like much unless you knew how precisely the dosage was calculated. And I knew in my bones that eventually it’d stop working. Not now. Not soon—probably. Or it could fail tomorrow, a thought that kept me awake in the middle of the night several times a week.
The extensive notes I’d spent years preparing, and the essay I’d been scheduled to present after supper on the second night, all related to my situation, and I hoped to all the gods that one of the physicians or academics in attendance would have some idea of what I ought to do next.
If they didn’t, no one in the world would.
