Not Alone in Here

  The morning sun in Isrannore penetrated every crevice of the east gallery, rendering the learning parlor less a classroom than a crucible. The windows, trimmed in beveled glass, scattered light across the desks, which stood in regimented rows, each desk scaled for adult elbows, adult spines, not the bony, mismatched children assigned to them. The air bristled with the competing fragrances of beeswax, old vellum, and, beneath it all, the anticipatory acid of fear.

  Nalea Lumear, age eight, perched at the edge of her assigned seat, legs swinging, shoes newly polished but already scuffed at the toe from nervous fidgeting. It was her first week in the Royal Palace. Her parents had decided she would have more opportunities here, under the care of her Great Aunt Carine, than back in the provinces. But the adjustment period had been difficult. Her face, rounder than most, was fixed in the glassy stillness of the freshly traumatized. To her left, just one desk over, Iliyria Sylrendreis sat upright, hands clasped on her skirt, a posture telegraphed to the room as “obedient” but, on closer inspection, so tightly wound that her shoulders looked to be wired directly to her jaw.

  At the front, the instructor, Mistress Iviore, scribbled on a board with a rod of chalk, the tip of her tongue poking out whenever she formed a difficult character. She did not bother to look up as she delivered the day’s lesson: “The importance of comportment for Ladies of standing, and the absolute necessity of a good first impression, both in court and among our peers.” Her accent, pinched and deliberate, turned every word into a correction, as if the room itself were misbehaving.

  Mirella Sylrendreis, the instructor’s favorite and the room’s undisputed queen, did not so much sit as preside from her desk. Her hair, a gold so luminous it seemed to siphon light from the rest of the chamber, fell in glossy ringlets around her shoulders. Her uniform was crisp, a blue sash knotted just so at the breast, and her face wore the practiced mask of one perpetually on the verge of being pleased, until she turned her gaze on someone weaker.

  Nalea had caught that gaze within moments of entering the classroom, and it had not left her since. New girl, shaky hands, country vowels: Mirella never needed more than two of the three.

  Mistress Iviore stopped writing, turned, and said, “Mirella, please demonstrate the proper way to execute the River Salutation.”

  Mirella rose, skirts fluttering, and crossed to the center of the room. Her curtsy was a study in engineering: knees together, weight balanced, eyes lowered with just enough hesitation to convey humility but not so much as to suggest genuine submission. She performed the bow, then straightened, her smile lighting the room.

  “Excellent,” said the instructor. “Note, all, the precise way Lady Mirella’s back remains straight, even as she bends her knees. Iliyrianwe, please attempt the same.”

  Iliyria stood, and the chair scraped the floor with a banshee wail. She executed the River Salutation, but her shoulders refused to relax. She kept her eyes fixed not on the instructor, but on the pattern of shadows at her own feet.

  Mistress Iviore made a small noise in her throat. “Acceptable. Please recall that the greeting is not a threat display. Your arms should rest gently, not as if about to throttle.”

  A titter from the class, but Mirella’s laughter stood out, sharp and clear: “Perhaps her arms are more suited to pulling weeds than pouring tea.” The other girls hid their smiles behind slender hands.

  Iliyria sat, eyes narrowed.

  “Nalearhine Lumear. You are next.”

  The room fell still. Nalea rose, palms slick against the worn wood of her desk. She had practiced this at home, alone in the hall when the estate was empty and the only witnesses were moths circling the sconces. She closed her eyes for a half second, then executed the curtsy. It was not perfect, but it was honest, and in the final moment, she did what she had been told: she smiled.

  Mistress Iviore blinked, as if startled, then said, “A passable attempt, Lady Nalea. Please, next time, remember to tuck your chin, lest you seem impertinent. We must not confuse sincerity with rebellion.”

  Mirella sighed, exaggerated and theatrical. “In the country, I suppose they’re grateful for any attempt at manners.” She did not bother to whisper.

  The lesson moved on. Penmanship: Mirella’s letters spooled across the page like spun sugar, while Iliyria’s were rigid and efficient, the tails of her y’s and g’s stabbing the paper with military precision. Nalea’s handwriting wavered, the neatness vanishing whenever she sensed eyes upon her.

  As the instructor’s back was turned, Mirella flicked a balled scrap of paper at Nalea’s inkwell, hard enough to splash a tiny spray of blue across her white sleeve.

  “Oh, how clumsy,” Mirella said, her voice a parody of concern. “Perhaps in time you’ll learn how to hold a pen properly.”

  Nalea’s cheeks flared red. She dabbed at the sleeve, the blotch only spreading.

  Iliyria glanced at her, then at Mirella, and then bent her head over her own work, jaw clenched tight enough to tremble. She waited for Mistress Iviore to drift down the line of desks, inspecting the day’s work, then, without looking up, slid a folded note onto Nalea’s desk.

  Nalea hesitated, then unfolded it beneath the table.

  It read: We can pour the ink on her if you like.

  For the first time all day, Nalea’s face creased into a grin.

  A moment later, Iliyria’s hand appeared again, palm up, requesting the note back. Nalea moved quickly to write something back: I’m not brave enough.

  (Then, smaller.) Thank you.

  Nalea returned it, only to find a new message written beneath her reply: You’re not alone in here.

  When the lesson adjourned, the instructor dismissed the girls for a recess before needlework. Nalea lingered, unsure whether to bolt for safety or wait and see what happened next.

  Iliyria appeared at her elbow, voice pitched low. “If you wait by the fountain, I can show you the way to the north garden. No one bothers us there.”

  Nalea considered, then nodded, her mouth too shy to say “thank you.” She followed Iliyria down the corridor, neither girl looking back.

  As they rounded the bend, Mirella and her coterie swept past, the golden hair swinging like a banner. Mirella gave the two of them a single, up-and-down glance and said, “Don’t get lost out there. They say the gardeners sometimes mistake country girls for fertilizer.”

  Nalea said nothing. Iliyria, however, paused, fixing Mirella with a stare so cold it could have frosted glass.

  “I’ve seen your history and mathematics grades,” Iliyria said, quietly enough for only Mirella to hear. “Without your mother’s help, you’d be in the tutor’s remedial group.”

  Mirella’s lips parted, but before she could reply, Iliyria turned away, leading Nalea out into the hall.

  In the corridor, Nalea found her tongue. “You didn’t have to say that.”

  Iliyria shrugged. “She’ll find some new insult tomorrow. But if you let her win every day, she never stops.”

  Nalea smiled, slow and hesitant, as if the mechanics of smiling were still unfamiliar.

  The girls stepped outside, past the watchful eyes of the corridor guards, and into the latticework of the north gardens, their path dappled with the shifting gold of morning light.

  For the first time, Nalea felt the air go sweet instead of sharp, the world opening just enough to admit a possibility: that in this grand and terrifying place, she might not have to be alone.

  Triangle Tag

  The palace gardens were a kind of living spell: all the colors that the palace’s marble refused, all the sweetness that the halls denied, gathered in a riot of scent and bloom that left the mind dizzy and the lungs struggling to keep up. Nalea had never seen such a garden; nothing in the farmlands could prepare her for the deliberate excess here, where peonies grew the size of soup bowls, and every trellis dripped with a confusion of blue and white wisteria. Even the bees, drunken on perfume, wobbled as they flew.

  The girls made their way through a hedged corridor, Nalea clutching the newness of her borrowed freedom, Iliyria quick-stepping ahead to show the best paths. Past the sunken lily pond and the moon bridge, they emerged onto an open green, where a set of painted benches had been arranged for adult conversation but now stood empty. At the center of the lawn, a ball, silk and thread, embroidered with patterns that looked like tiny constellations, waited at the base of a squat cherry tree.

  Nalea ran to it, scooping it up and rolling it between her palms. She laughed, surprised at the softness. “It’s lighter than I thought,” she said, tossing it to Iliyria, who caught it one-handed, grinning.

  “It’s stuffed with lamb’s wool,” Iliyria explained. “The others think it’s for babies, but it flies better than the hard ones.”

  “Can we play with it?” she asked, voice tinged with the wariness of someone too used to asking permission.

  Iliyria’s answer was to whip the ball, fast and true, straight over Nalea’s head. Nalea shrieked, spun, and chased it, her shoes digging twin trenches in the grass. The ball rolled under a rosebush, scattering petals, and Nalea dove after it, heedless of the thorns. When she stood, pink blooms tangled in her hair, Iliyria was already doubled over with laughter.

  They settled into a game of keep-away, making up rules as they went; no throwing twice in a row, five points for catching on the fly, minus two for tripping. The ball bobbed between them, sometimes graceful, sometimes wild, and with every pass, Nalea’s laughter grew less hesitant, more certain.

  It was mid-game, breathless and gleaming with sweat, when they noticed the third child watching from the shadow of a topiary.

  He was a prince, just not “The Prince.” His brother, Fephfethriel, wore that capital; Falanthriel wore the expectation of it. Even at this age, Falanthriel Miriel bore the mark: the copper hair, the quick, measuring eyes, the posture that looked accidental but had been drilled into him since birth. He wore the court blue, but the sleeves had been rolled up, and the knees dirtied, as if he’d gotten lost on his way to a diplomatic function and wandered into childhood by mistake.

  He stood a few paces away, staring at them with the hunger of the uninvited. High above, a figure crossed a balcony, the Queen, pausing as if a small, private benediction were in order, then moved on.

  Iliyria was first to break the silence. “If you want to play, you have to ask.”

  Falanthriel blinked, startled. “I didn’t want to intrude,” he said, which was a lie, but a polite one.

  “You’re intruding already,” Iliyria said, then, softer, “but it’s all right if you do.”

  Nalea looked from one to the other, unsure of the script, but after a moment she smiled and offered the ball. Falanthriel took it, weighing it in his hands with the solemnity of an oath.

  “Should I start?” he asked, uncertain.

  “Only if you promise not to cheat,” Iliyria said.

  He nodded, dead serious, then reared back and hurled the ball straight up into the sky. For a second, it looked like it would clear the garden entirely, but then it arced, caught a branch, and tumbled down, landing just beside Nalea’s foot.

  “Nice try,” Iliyria said, unimpressed, but Nalea clapped her hands in delight.

  “My turn!” Nalea announced and sent the ball spinning with surprising force, a perfect line drive to Iliyria.

  They settled into a rhythm. “No throws twice in a row,’ Nalea decreed. ‘And minus two if you brag.’ She said it like she’d been waiting her whole life to make a rule. The game evolved to accommodate three: triangle tag, then over-the-rosebush, then a complicated contest where each child tried to bounce the ball off increasingly distant landmarks. Falanthriel was the first to climb a tree in pursuit, scrambling up the trunk with a speed that made the girls gasp, but Iliyria’s throw was the most accurate. She could pick a flower on a hedge and hit it from twenty feet, every time. Nalea, for her part, cheered the loudest, her voice cutting through the birdsong and the drone of bees.

  As the game wore on, the formality of the palace eroded from Falanthriel’s face. He grinned, showed off, let his hair fall loose and his sleeves get grass-stained. More than once, he and Iliyria locked eyes, a silent competition animating each play. But always, in the end, it was Nalea who decided the rules, who called time-outs and demanded “just one more round.”

  They sprawled on the grass when they tired, flat on their backs, the ball resting between them. Above, the cherry tree’s blossoms loosed a drift of pale pink onto their faces. “Prince Falanthriel!” a distant chamberlain called. He winced, then lay back down anyway. ‘Five more petals,’ he bargained with the sky.”

  Nalea looked at him, then at Iliyria, and smiled. “You can play with us any time,” she said. “If you’re not too busy being prince.”

  He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I’m only prince on Tormsdays and at family dinners.”

  “Lucky you,” Iliyria said. “My father’s a lord every day, and he never lets me forget it.”

  Nalea nodded, grave. “Mine only cares if I don’t break things.”

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  They laughed together, the kind of laughter that shakes loose every sadness in the chest.

  For a while, they said nothing, letting the sun warm them and the garden conceal them from the rest of the world.

  When the bells chimed the hour, they sat up, hair and faces haloed by the petals.

  “Same time tomorrow?” Falanthriel asked, trying and failing to sound casual.

  “Yes,” Nalea said, certain.

  Iliyria nodded, then tossed the ball to Nalea. “You keep it. It’s luckier that way.”

  They parted ways at the edge of the green, but not before Falanthriel offered a formal, if slightly crooked, bow. “Ladies,” he intoned, but the mischief in his eyes ruined the effect.

  As the girls watched him go, Iliyria whispered, “He’s not so bad, for a prince.”

  Nalea giggled, then slipped her hand into Iliyria’s. They walked back to the palace together, past the moon bridge and the sunken pond, the day’s sweetness clinging to them like the perfume of the flowers.

  Behind them, the garden held its breath and glowed, as if the spell had noticed them and approved.

  Blue Fledgling, White Silk

  They called this corner the Menagerie, though no animal larger than a sparrow had ever found a home in the walled garden that snaked along the back edge of the palace, and for three weeks they’d treated it as sovereign ground: rules posted nowhere and obeyed by everyone who mattered. The hedges were cut in animal shapes, and the children had spent the better part of a summer naming them: the boar, the peacock, the many-toothed lion whose mouth always needed trimming. On this day, Nalea sat in the shadow of the lion, her skirts bunched around her, cradling a bird no bigger than a thumb.

  Falanthriel arrived first, shoes abandoned at the edge of the garden. His feet, pale and soft, left a trail through the dew-slick grass. He dropped to a crouch beside Nalea, eyes wide. “Is it alive?” he whispered.

  Nalea nodded, her lips pressed tight. The bird, a fledgling, blue and trembling, had survived the night, but its wing hung limp. Nalea’s thumbs checked for heat along the joint like she’d seen the farrier do back at her family estate; gentle, sure, not guessing. She let Falanthriel peer, but kept her hands cupped around it, unwilling to risk its warmth.

  Iliyria came skidding in behind him, knees streaked with mud, hair already coming unpinned from the morning’s neatness. “I found a worm!” she crowed, holding it aloft. “It’s fat and still wiggling.”

  Nalea brightened. “That’s perfect. It hasn’t eaten since yesterday.”

  Falanthriel wrinkled his nose, but scooted closer, eager to watch. “Can I hold it?” he asked, reaching for the bird.

  Nalea shook her head. “Not yet. It’s scared. Too many hands.”

  Iliyria grinned, pleased at this implied trust, and placed the worm carefully beside Nalea’s knee. “Anything else?” she asked.

  “More bugs,” said Nalea. “It needs protein to grow strong again.”

  Falanthriel was up and running before Iliyria could answer, tearing into the flower beds with the same energy he’d once brought to rehearsed sword drills. Iliyria followed, digging in the loam, turning over stones, and squealing when a beetle scurried free. They made a contest of it; who could find the largest, the most iridescent, the weirdest. Nalea’s laughter, soft at first, soon grew to match their shouts.

  The pile of offerings at Nalea’s knee grew: earthworms, beetles, a snail that Iliyria insisted was a “treat,” even though Nalea declined to test it.

  They were so deep in their task, so loud in their satisfaction, that they did not see the approach of Mirella and her retinue until they were already there, standing in a formation as deliberate as a battle line.

  Mirella wore white silk, the kind of dress made to showcase how little its wearer intended to work for a living. Behind her stood “The Prince,” the crown prince, Fephfethriel, every hair lacquered to precision. The picture of the perfect couple, even while they were still children, Mirella and Fephfethriel had been betrothed since Mirella’s first naming day. They looked, Nalea thought, like a painting come to life: perfect, but brittle, as if any wrong move would shatter them.

  Mirella surveyed the scene with the faintest curl of disgust. “Oh, look. The stable girl has found a pet. How quaint.”

  Iliyria did not look up, intent on her bug hunt.

  Fephfethriel smiled, but his eyes were on Falanthriel. “You always did like mud more than manners,” he said, the words as practiced as the smile.

  Falanthriel straightened, cheeks flushed. “We’re helping Nalea,” he said. “The bird is injured.”

  One of Mirella’s shadows snorted, a soft, calculated sound. “She could just get another. Isn’t that what they do, out in the wilds? One dies, they hatch another?”

  Mirella laughed. “True. It’s not as if anyone expects country stock to have proper attachments.”

  Nalea’s hands tensed around the bird. Iliyria finally looked up, a clod of dirt clinging to her chin.

  Mirella let her gaze rest on Iliyria. “And you, how fitting, for the second-place Sylrendreis to look like she belongs in the dirt.”

  Something in Iliyria’s face changed, anger, yes, but also a kind of relief, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. “Better to be in the dirt than up your own nose,” she shot back.

  The insult landed. Mirella’s eyes flashed. “Mine prefers perfume to compost. And yours? Always sniffing out second place.”

  Fephfethriel, sensing escalation, inserted himself. “Let’s go. Mother wanted us for tea.”

  But Mirella was not done. She had fully fixed her attention on Iliyria, voice syrupy with condescension. “You shouldn’t lower yourself, cousin. A proper Sylrendreis doesn’t wallow in the mud with the country bumpkins and spare heirs.”

  Falanthriel’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He looked at Nalea, then at Iliyria, helpless.

  Mirella smirked, victorious, and turned to leave. The others followed, except for the shadow, who lingered just long enough to flick a petal in Iliyria’s direction, then spun after her prince and princess.

  For a moment, silence.

  Then Iliyria stood, balled her fists, and with a speed that shocked even herself, scooped up a handful of mud and flung it square at Mirella’s retreating back. It hit, a brown starburst against the white silk, and Mirella shrieked, the sound a mix of outrage and disbelief.

  A chorus of sharp little gasps, perfectly in tune, from Mirella’s sycophants. One girl shrieked as if struck herself, then fluttered uselessly around Mirella’s shoulders. “Your dress…your dress—.” One darted forward with a lace kerchief and, finding it inadequate, held it like a flag of surrender. “I’ll inform Lady Laira,” a steward’s daughter announced, already halfway to the path.

  Nalea gasped. Falanthriel howled with laughter, then quickly tried to smother it.

  Mirella spun, face red. “You—” she started, but then stopped, voice trembling. “You’ll regret that.”

  Fephfethriel froze, then smoothed his sleeve as if the stain were his. “That’s enough,” he said, princely and bored, and turned Mirella toward the path. She stormed off, dragging her dress in the dirt, her dignity left behind.

  The garden was quiet again. Nalea looked at Iliyria, eyes wide. “You’ll get in trouble,” she said, but there was awe in her voice.

  Iliyria shrugged, but her hands were shaking. “She deserved it.”

  Falanthriel grinned, and for the first time that day, Iliyria felt a little lighter.

  They returned to the bird. The pile of insects was large enough now, and Nalea gently offered a beetle to the fledgling, which pecked at it with surprising ferocity. As the bird ate, Nalea whispered encouragements, her voice soft and sure. Iliyria watched, torn between pride at her own defiance and the creeping certainty that Mirella’s revenge would not be long in coming.

  In only a few hours, it did.

  A servant in House Sylrendreis livery came for Iliyria, his expression a mask of bureaucratic neutrality, the kind of neutrality a salary buys. “Your father requests your presence. Immediately.”

  Iliyria knew better than to argue. She scrubbed her hands clean, straightened her tunic, and followed the servant through the labyrinth of halls, up the winding stairs, to the study.

  Lord Telemir stood behind his desk, spine rigid, fingers drumming a tattoo against the lacquered wood. Beside him, Selphia sat, hands folded in her lap, eyes downcast.

  Lady Laira’s stewardess already stood by the window, a square of white silk freckled brown pinched between finger and thumb. She did not look at Iliyria. “Her Ladyship bids your lordship note the damage,” she said, and set the cloth on the blotter. “Lady Laira regrets the necessity,” she said softly. “She trusts House Sylrendreis will act to preserve its standards.”

  The servant and stewardess withdrew. Silence fell, heavy as chain mail.

  Telemir spoke first. “Is it true?”

  Iliyria nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  He regarded her as if appraising a failed statue. “Why?”

  “She insulted my friends,” Iliyria said, her voice small but unyielding.

  “Friends,” he echoed, as if the word itself were an affront. “You are a Sylrendreis. You do not make friends with—” He waved his hand, dismissive. “You know what you are. Do not pretend otherwise.”

  Selphia shifted, but said nothing.

  Telemir circled the desk, his anger controlled but gathering force. “You will write an apology. You will present it at dinner. If you ever embarrass this family again, you will not set foot outside these walls until your majority. Is that clear?”

  Iliyria nodded. Selphia’s hands tightened around each other until the knuckles blanched; a breath later, they were smooth again.

  He regarded her for a long moment, then, with a sudden movement, struck her across the cheek. The blow was not savage, but perfectly placed: cheekbone high, where powder could kiss it flat if need be. He glanced at the hand he’d used as if it had acted without instruction; then the mask returned. Selphia flinched but did not speak.

  Iliyria reeled, breath knocked from her. Punishment had always been words and walls; this was new, and the room tilted to make space for it.

  Telemir picked up his ivory-handled cane and pointed it at her. Something in his face shuttered; what the slap began, the cane would codify. “Bend over.”

  “Tele—” Selphia’s mouth made the first syllable, and went still when he turned and glared at her.

  Iliyria hesitated, just a heartbeat, then obeyed, hands braced against the desk.

  The cane lashed her calves. Once, twice, three times. Each stroke precise, leaving a line of fire that pulsed up her spine. The second stroke taught her how to be hit; the first had only taught her that he would. She did not cry out.

  When it was over, Telemir returned the cane to its stand, wiped his hands with a silk handkerchief, reset his collar, and said, “You may go.”

  She counted four in, four out; the room steadied enough to walk. Iliyria straightened, legs shaking, and turned to leave. As she passed, she met her mother’s eyes, pleading, just for a moment, for rescue, for any sign of comfort.

  Selphia’s face was blank, but her knuckles were white around one another, and her eyes—oh, her eyes—shone with a pain older than any bruise.

  Iliyria walked out, down the stairs, through the marble corridors, to the small alcove behind the servants’ wing where she could sit and sob without anyone seeing. She pressed her face into her knees and cried, not for the pain, but for the certainty that no one would ever come to save her.

  She would have to save herself.

  By dusk, the fledgling took three hopping steps and kept its feet. Nalea would tell Iliyria in a note.

  By the Queen’s Leave

  The Royal family’s private palace gardens were a masterpiece of intention, an exercise in control so complete that even the wildest blossoms seemed to bloom only by the Queen’s leave. Boxwood hedges twisted into animal shapes bordered the paths, and the trees had been pruned to arch and interlace, throwing a checkered pattern of light and shade onto the grass below. The scent of jasmine, rose, and some sharp green thing filled the air, and everywhere there was motion: bees, birds, and, on this particular afternoon, three children playing a ferocious game of hide-and-seek.

  The girls ran as if chased by wolves, their laughter spinning ahead of them, Nalea’s dark braid a pennant, and Iliyria’s hair, silver and wild, a gleaming comet trail. Falanthriel trailed behind, slower, but methodical; every time he found them, it was not because he had outpaced them but because he had solved the puzzle of their escape. He was quieter than his brother, less showy, but in the gardens, he was king.

  Today, he’d given himself the title “Lord of the Maze,” and announced that his rule was absolute. Nalea, for her part, had declared herself a “Princess of Birds,” and spent much of the afternoon mimicking the calls of every finch and starling that landed on the latticework. Iliyria had refused a title outright, but it was clear from the set of her jaw and the way she climbed the trellises that she saw herself as the real ruler here.

  The three wove in and out of the hedges, streaking down gravel alleys, then doubling back to the reflecting pool where a marble swan lorded over lesser ducks. The “safe” base was a patch of open lawn behind a giant urn overflowing with petunias, and the children took turns launching themselves onto its broad stone lip, crowing victory.

  “I win again!” Nalea gasped, out of breath, tumbling down to the grass.

  Iliyria, who had skidded in right behind her, grinned fiercely. “You only win because you squeal so loud Falanthriel feels bad and lets you go.”

  “That’s not fair,” Nalea protested, but she was already laughing too hard to mount a defense.

  Falanthriel appeared at the edge of the green, hands on knees, panting. “It’s completely fair,” he said. “I’d take longer to find you if you didn’t scream every time you almost trip.”

  Nalea stuck out her tongue, and Iliyria flopped onto her back, arms flung wide. “We’re terrible at hiding,” she declared. “Let’s do something else.”

  The three lay there for a while, staring at the clouds, until Nalea sat up and pointed to the gazebo overlooking the gardens. “The Queen is watching us.”

  Iliyria squinted, then shaded her eyes. “She’s always watching,” she said. “She likes to see what we do when we think no one’s looking.”

  Falanthriel nodded. “She told me once that children are like plants, you have to let them wander, or they grow crooked.”

  Nalea frowned. “Plants don’t wander. They stay put.”

  “Exactly,” Falanthriel said, and laughed, and the logic was so perfectly circular that the other two joined in without understanding why.

  The Queen, Myantha, once the most brilliant student of the kingdom’s history, now its most effective warden, sat in the shade of a marble gazebo, her embroidery frame resting on her lap, and watched the children with a calm, unwavering gaze. Within the hedges, Myantha liked to joke, she outranked the King: bees, tutors, and small rebellions answered to her alone. The afternoon light slanted through the screens, stippling her gown with spots of gold. She had been sitting for hours, ostensibly working on the latest in a series of commemorative pieces, but in truth, she had only completed three stitches in the last hour.

  Her thoughts wandered far more freely than her hands.

  She watched the children, and in each saw an echo of something she once loved: in Nalea’s shrieks, the reckless abandon of herself as a child; in Iliyria’s stubborn streak, the unbowed pride of Selphia, her “Selphie,” before marriage and fate had so thoroughly sanded down her edges; in Falanthriel, the strange gentleness that she had never seen in her husband, and that she suspected had skipped an entire generation.

  The Queen did not regret her children, or even her life; her path had always been clear, if not always pleasant, but some days, when the sun hit just right and the gardens brimmed with voices, she wondered what might have happened if she had been allowed, just once, to choose.

  She heard the children’s laughter, saw the way they sprawled in the grass with complete disregard for the lessons of comportment or the fate of their stockings, and for a moment she allowed herself to believe that all of this, her reign, her legacy, her careful husbandry of the royal line, might be justified by the simple happiness of a summer day.

  The shriek that followed was sharp enough to snap her out of reverie. Falanthriel, crawling on hands and knees, had snuck up behind Nalea and grabbed her ankle. Nalea shrieked, rolled onto her back, and kicked, catching Falanthriel in the shoulder. Iliyria seized the moment to leap atop both of them, and in an instant the three were a single, writhing tangle of limbs and squeals.

  The Queen smiled. She closed her eyes, recalling a time when she and Selphia had done exactly the same, though in those days the grounds had been less perfectly tended and the punishments for torn hems far more severe.

  She had not seen Selphia in months. Her friend was now the wife of Lord Telemir Sylrendreis, the highest of the noble houses, and even in the rare moments when their paths crossed, Selphia’s eyes were always clouded, her laughter dulled to a ghost of itself. The Queen had tried, at first, to keep her close, to rekindle the old mischief; but marriage had changed Selphia, or perhaps it was Telemir who had done the changing. Either way, the bond had frayed.

  She opened her eyes and found Falanthriel staring directly at her, his face streaked with grass stains but his expression clear. He raised a hand in greeting, and she waved back, her smile gentle but tinged with something sad.

  The children scrambled to their feet, then sprinted toward the gazebo, hair tangled and cheeks flushed. They arrived in a heap, breathless and happy.

  “You’re very loud,” the Queen said, not as a rebuke but as a simple fact.

  Falanthriel puffed out his chest. “We’re having a contest,” he said. “To see who’s best at hiding.”

  Nalea giggled, “Iliyria’s the best, except she always gives herself away.”

  Iliyria flopped onto the gazebo step, legs splayed; the hem slid, and three bars burned faintly along her calf. “That’s because I like to win at the end. Not the beginning.”

  Cane work, not play. Myantha filed it where she kept the things she could not yet say.

  The Queen reached out, and Iliyria crawled over, tucking her head under the Queen’s hand like a cat seeking petting. She obliged, running her fingers through the cool, silvery hair.

  “You remind me of your mother,” the Queen said, softly enough that only Iliyria heard.

  Iliyria looked up, uncertain. “Is that good?”

  “It’s very good,” said the Queen, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  They sat in the gazebo for a while, the sun slanting lower and the shadows stretching across the lawn. The children talked over each other, describing their favorite hiding spots, their plans for the next round, and the best places to find ripe berries in the garden. The Queen listened, half to them, half to her own thoughts.

  She thought of Fephfethriel, her eldest son, who was even now enduring another lesson with his tutor, memorizing genealogies and the finer points of statecraft. The King had insisted that the boy be raised by the old rules: rigor, discipline, no time wasted on childish games. The Queen, after years of negotiation and one very public confrontation, had secured the right to raise the younger son as she wished. The difference in the boys was as stark as summer and winter. Fephfethriel was already a miniature king: precise, shrewd, and, even at twelve, a little frightening in his self-possession. Falanthriel, by contrast, was a dreamer, a builder of forts, and the only person in the palace who could befriend every stray animal that wandered in from the wilds. Fephfethriel carried the capital; Falanthriel carried her hope.

  Myantha wondered which method would produce the better ruler. She suspected neither, or perhaps both; the world had a way of surprising its own designers.

  A draft slipped through the lattice, unseasonably cool, and the jasmine shivered as if someone had opened a far-off door. The Queen stood, gathering her embroidery in one hand. “Come,” she said to the children. “Let’s have some honey cakes before the kitchens close.”

  They trotted after her, Iliyria clinging to her sleeve, Nalea trailing just behind, Falanthriel racing ahead and then doubling back to make sure the others kept up.

  As they walked, the Queen looked down at Iliyria, at the spark in her eyes and the way she seemed always on the edge of laughter or trouble. She thought again of Selphia, of the life her friend now lived, and she resolved, quietly, to keep Iliyria in her gardens as long as she could, to let her play and run and be a child, even if it meant grass stains and torn hems and the occasional misstep in comportment.

  She could not save everyone, but she could save this, for a little while.

  The children reached the kitchens and tumbled inside, demanding sweets and a pitcher of cold milk. “Honey cakes,” Myantha told the steward, which in this wing meant at once. The scullions dusted the honey cakes with crushed jasmine sugar; milk beaded cold on tin. She could not save everyone, but this hedge, these cakes, this hour, that she could keep. Myantha watched the three divide the last one without quarrel and, just for the span of a summer crumb, believed it was enough.