A Telling Dinner

A Telling Dinner

Amval

I stay at the racetrack until every single joust—each of them less and less well-attended after Ingrid and Kaloni leave—are done. Mostly, I stare blindly at the dirt, replaying the moment of Ingrid’s impact in my mind.

Everyone in the crowd knew that was a hard fall. She clearly didn’t know how to land it well, her spine hitting the dirt a heartbeat before her skull. In the moment after, when she just lay there perfectly still, all I could see was Mother and Father’s carriage flipping.

Another body I would have to bury. Another life I didn’t save.

Finally, though, the last bout ends, and the final dregs of the crowd drift away. Mesut and Tek wander over to me.

“I am sorry,” Mesut says.

I shake my head. “No apologies needed. You did everything you could.”

We were all just too late.

Tek claps me on the shoulder. “Well, she survived. I heard from a friend in the palace that there’s some fancy dinner to celebrate tonight, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t hear from her.”

That, and she stumbled off the track looking like Kaloni hit her in the head, rather than the chest. My mark aches. I should go find her, no matter the cost.

Nur appears at the edge of the track, and I remember what happened when she caught me in the crowd.

“I think someone in the palace knows about Ingrid and me, and Nur wants to fire me because of it,” I tell Tek and Mesut as I walk quickly in the opposite direction. “Don’t risk yourselves, but can you buy me a moment to disappear?”

Both of them agree, closing ranks behind me. I murmur a soft prayer to the Goddess that I ended up in the stables rather than the kitchen. It might be warm there, but Tek and Mesut more than make up for it.

I duck away without a plan, hoping the stables are large enough that I can hide from Nur until I come up with one.

In truth, I doubt she’s here to fire me. Or, if she is, I’ll receive an escort out of the palace that no one could come back from. I may have escaped death at the hands of an assassin once, but I’m not cocky enough to count on my ability to do it a second time.

Evade an assassin, though? That, I can hopefully manage for at least long enough to learn exactly what Ingrid wagered on that rigged bet.

The rest of my afternoon is more than hectic. I bounce from stall to stall, row to row, avoiding Nur on the hunt.

As the sun sets, I find myself alone in an enclosed stall, listening to footsteps draw closer. They have to be Nur. I’ve been too lucky for too long. I gather the few things I’ve managed to pack into my bag—a few pieces of metalwork fine enough to sell but small enough that no one will miss, a change of clothes, some food. If I can pull off this feat a second time, I’m not going with nothing. Tek also gave me the dagger he cuts fruit with, and Mesut swore to watch over my naqun until he can return it to me.

Leaving it behind hurts more than I would expect.

The door opens, and I inhale slowly through my nose.

Peaches? And sage?

Joli darts inside and shuts the door behind her, looking rattled. My stomach lurches like I fell off a cliff. Why is she here? What does she know?

“Sash?” she says.

My stomach jolts out of freefall. Whatever she knows, she doesn’t know who I am. Which means I need to get us out of this enclosed room quickly. If I can smell her, I don’t have long.

“Yes. I spent the Festival of First Wind with you.”

“I know that.” She waves my explanation aside frustratedly, and I realize she’s not dressed for dinner yet. “Ingrid sent me.”

And my stomach drops again, fear and relief commingling in dizzying portions. “Why?”

Joli looks around. “I…I don’t know if I believe her, but she says your life is in danger, and I have to get you out of here. You were helping her look into Amval’s murder?”

Hearing the way my name catches in her throat is like a punch to the gut. I can only nod.

“Do you also think my sister is behind all this?” she asks, voice wobbling.

I shake my head. “There isn’t enough proof.”

“Well, Ingrid says she has it.” Joli laughs, bordering on hysterical. I itch to crush her in one of the bear hugs she loves. “She says Kaloni admitted she did everything. That’s what the joust was about—and since Ingrid lost, she has to marry Cirocco.”

“M—Your brother?” Why under the Goddess’ sky would she want that?

Joli shakes her head. “They’ve barely talked.”

“Perhaps she wants Ingrid here,” I say, mostly to myself. “Where Astralis can watch her.”

“Where Kaloni can watch her, Ingrid says.” Joli looks torn in a thousand directions. “That’s why I’m here. You and I are going to watch the dinner. If Kaloni announces the engagement, then Ingrid is telling the truth, and we have to run. If not, you go back to normal. Perhaps… don’t help Ingrid anymore.”

She looks like she’s choking on the words as she says them. My mark rebels at the idea, but what else can I do? I shoulder my bag, thankful I’ve already packed to run, and coax a quieting wind around our feet.

Joli shoots me a look. “I knew you let Cirocco win.”

I shrug. She can think what she wants. I feel as if I can hear the final strains of this song Ingrid and I have been playing starting up, frantic and terrifying.

We creep out of the stables and in through a side door.

An engagement to Cirocco. I’ve always suspected my brother’s tastes run toward men. This will drive him mad—which Kaloni knows because she and I discussed it.

But apparently Kaloni is having all sorts of discussions.

Why would Ingrid claim Kaloni admitted everything? Just to convince Joli? It seems possible, the kind of desperate move I could see myself making if she were the one who might need to evade an assassin.

But there are a dozen other ways she could have found me. Corwyn’s capture proved she has friends in the palace, ones she can count on to go above and beyond for her. She wouldn’t have needed to convince a maid of my sister’s guilt to get a warning to me.

She wouldn’t have risked everything on a wager unless she could hear the same music I am, racing toward a tumultuous crescendo.

Joli leads me to a balcony and then pulls aside a tapestry to reveal a door I didn’t know was hidden there.

“Workers’ access.” She unlocks it with a key on a massive ring and then leads me into a dark, angled space.

Voices echo up through the floor—hundreds of them.

“Sausage again?” a shrill woman complains. “I thought Luna Kaloni promised new prosperity.”

“That’s coming, darling. We need to conquer the north first.”

Joli just crawls over to the one sliver of light. I follow and discover a crack in the floor that stares directly down onto the main dining hall.

I look at her through the gloom. She doesn’t look back at me. She’s too busy studying what’s going on below.

Later, I suppose. I turn my attention downward.

We’re just over the head table. Ingrid sits between Kaloni and a stranger, the only golden head amongst the dark. My heart skips a beat when I spot the bandage around it. Something is oozing through the gauze—but that something is green, not red like blood. Every time someone knocks against a cup or scrapes their fork on their plate, she winces. I pray the green is Tazi’s headache cure. It works miracles, albeit usually on much smaller headaches.

Kaloni should be letting her rest after a fall like that. Frankly, Tazi shouldn’t have let her out.

And yet, she’s here, in a seafoam green gown like she’s trying to match that green stain. My mark aches in sympathy.

On her left, at the head of the table, Kaloni eats without hesitation. “The conscription means there’s more training to be done than I hoped.”

“Well, I am sure we’re up for the task, Your Highness,” the stranger on Ingrid’s other side says.

Who is that? I barely recognize the voice, and this angle doesn’t show me more than a head of dark hair.

Joli frowns. “Recai? He’s a battalion leader, a rising star, but what is he doing at Kaloni’s table?”

“More than up for it, I hope,” Kaloni replies with half a laugh.

His name sounds familiar, but that’s all. Joli is right. He doesn’t belong there.

Whatever his response is, it’s lost in another clatter of dishes that makes Ingrid wince.

The rest of the dinner carries on like that. We catch snippets of conversation. The rest of our siblings share the head table and talk as if they have no idea something might be happening. Perhaps they don’t.

Perhaps nothing is.

Finally, the last of the dessert plates are cleared away, and Kaloni stands. I perk up. Joli straightens from near sleep. Kaloni is either going to announce the engagement, or she is going to dismiss everyone.

My heart patters loud enough that I half expect Ingrid to hear it through the ceiling and look up at us, but she just stares at Kaloni. It’s difficult to tell from this distance, but she almost looks… scared.

I’ve never seen that expression on her face before, and I don’t want to see it again.

“Today is an auspicious day,” Kaloni says. Her voice carries on the wind, even up to us. “It has been nine weeks to the day since we lost my brother, Prince Amval, and gained a ninth sibling in his mate, Princess Ingrid. She has stayed with us these long weeks, first to grieve, and then because she truly became part of our family.” She sets a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder.

Nobles coo over the sweetness of the moment, but all I can see is how Ingrid cringes away from her touch—and how that soldier, Recai, moves in response like he’s reaching for his magic to push her back.

“Today, we welcomed her into one of our traditions.” Soft laughter. “And tonight, we make her entrance into our family official. I am truly, deeply honored to announce that love has touched Som Palace once more. Princess Ingrid and Prince Cirocco are engaged!”

Like the hand of the Goddess Herself is on my chin, I manage to look away from Ingrid in this moment and at my brother. My best friend. After weeks at the Gruesome Pony, I know him better than I ever did.

Shock and dismay flicker across his face, a split-second of discord with the smug pride on Kaloni’s lips.

“By the Goddess,” I whisper.

Ingrid was right. Kaloni…my sister…arranged my murder. Our parents’ murder. Our brother’s and my mate’s misery.

I should have trusted Ingrid.

Joli grabs my hand. “We have to go.”