Page 83 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire
“Senator Janvi’s niece!” Lady Romula said.
“Yes, and Naria’s best friend. Isn’t that right, cousin?”
Naria’s eyebrows narrowed. I took Tristan’s hand on the table, entwining our fingers.
Lady Romula clapped. “Forget such unpleasant things. Let us retire for dessert and wine in the sitting room.”
I put my fork down. I’d barely touched my food, not that there was much to begin with. Despite Lady Romula’s exorbitant tastes in luxury and wine, she was cheap when it came to meals, serving bird food at dinners.
Naria sat with her mother, engaged in conversation with Lord Trajan. The smoke of moonleaves wafted from his long pipe as he reclined on a velvet couch. His feet lay over an oversized pillow, and the laces of his sandals came further undone with each exhale. Tristan and I had cornered Lady Romula on the other side of the room.
“I know how wonderful it is. I paid for it.” Lady Romula cut off my compliments on the newest painting in the sitting room.
I smiled. “Of course.”
She waved me off. “You’ll need to brush up on your skills, my dear. Flattery, while effective, is too obvious for someone of your status. I’m older than I look, so let’s get to it. You want my blessing.”
I sat up straighter, ignoring the aches in my legs and back, and affected my most genuine expression. “Lady Romula, I believed we’d always had it. I came to reassure you that despite any changes in my life, one thing remains constant. My love for Tristan.” Something twisted inside of me. Rhyan’s green eyes flashed in my mind. Emerald, sparkling, roving up and down my body, settling on my hips and then higher to my eyes, seeing into me.
“Unfortunately, it is those changes in your life which have left me without assurance.”
Tristan bit his lip. “Grandmother, I love her. More than anything.” He squeezed my hand.
“Lucky when need and desire marry,” Lady Romula said. “I’ve known Lady Lyriana since she was in the Arkasva’s belly. But sometimes love is not enough to keep a person safe.” She smiled sweetly. “Tristan, my love, the silver snaps bloomed last night. Lady Arianna has a liking for them. Would you show her and Naria to the garden?”
My heart sank. She was not going to give her blessing. Not tonight. This entire dinner was an exhausting waste of time, time I should have spent recovering from training or going to combat clinic like I’d promised Rhyan. Guilt at missing it and lying to him gnawed at my insides. And there was no doubt Naria would use it against me.
I began to stand and take Tristan’s arm, but Lady Romula pulled me back onto the couch. “We shall talk some more, you and I.”
“I would like that,” I said sweetly, watching warily as Tristan walked over to Arianna and Naria. I didn’t like the idea of him going anywhere with her, now that I knew what a true backstabber she was.
The moment they left the room, Lady Romula drew closer. “Listen here, your grace. You are too sheltered to know, but I spoke true earlier. There is unrest in Bamaria. I know you love your father, but a man ruling Ka Batavia has broken one thousand years of tradition. I was not there when her grace, High Lady Marianna, her soul freed, wrote her will.”
“Ha Ka Mokan,” I said.
“Who am I to judge what she wished. Perhaps it was her best option, maybe she had some reason to choose her husband over sister despite tradition. Maybe the sickness went to her mind. But now we have a viable, legal, and traditional alternative to rule in place of your father, an Heir Apparent who has been of age for two years, a woman, and the direct descendent of Marianna.”
“Ha Ka Mo—” I started, but Lady Romula waved me off.
“Yes, yes, her soul freed. No one doubts your piety, my dear. You should know at the time of your mother’s death that many believed your aunt Arianna would take the seat or be regent to the Lady Meera. Many thought your father should have stepped down for her to take over and restore order, especially after her grace’s nineteenth birthday, but he has not, and two years later he seemingly has no plans to do so.”
I clasped my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. This was everything I’d feared. Meera was the Heir Apparent, but she would never become Arkasva, not with her vorakh. The moment her visions had come, any possibility of my father stepping down had died. How many others were thinking this? How long before they realized why she couldn’t rule? Or why Morgana couldn’t?
“What’s more, Lady Lyriana, we’re coming close to two decades of allowing a foreign soturi inside our borders. Do you understand how insulting it is to know Ka Kormac’s soldiers are stationed in Bamaria? To hear that there’s been even a seed of doubt regarding our ability to protect our borders or to protect from within when Ka Grey has been removing vorakh filth for years? And now you have no power.” Her expression darkened, and she lowered her voice. “You must be careful now. Your father’s Shadows won’t want me speaking, but I will since you concern my grandson, and what affects you, unfortunately affects him. A threat is brewing in the pits of Bamaria, one that will come to pass soon. Your life is in danger.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THEOLDWOMAN’Seyeswere cunning as she watched me. Whatever she thought threatened me, it made her nervous, too. “The Emartis’s calls for a female Arkasva only grow louder,” she said.
“The Emartis?” I asked. “Who are they?”
Lady Romula’s eyes narrowed. “Does the black seraphim mean anything to you?”
My whole body turned cold. Meera’s vision.
Lady Romula snapped her bony fingers. A small scroll floated through the door, gliding into her outstretched hand before she gave it to me, a note of disgust on her face. She pulled out a handkerchief to clean her hands.
I unrolled the parchment. Painted into the center was the altered sigil of Ka Batavia I’d seen that day at the festival, both in the crowd and on the pin that vendor had tried to sell to me. It hadn’t been a coincidence, that pin hadn’t been a mistake. Beneath the odd sigil of the black seraphim beneath a silver moon, someone had written:
