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“I’m sorry,” said a deep voice by her side. “I fear I have been rather dull company this evening.”
Prince Calix was dashing in his formal military uniform. Other men were dressed similarly—those of the upper nobility of the fighters at least. But none looked as fine or as commanding as their strategos.
His breastplate matched the curves of his enormous muscles. A full helmet covered much of his face, bearing the largest plume that Teigra had seen since Princess Zosime saved them from the harpies, all those months ago.
In comparison, she looked plebeian in her yellow and orange stola, borrowed from Ms. Securia—beautiful quality, but about thirty years out of fashion.
She gave him a guilty look. “Please don’t apologize. I have just been... well, it isn’t important. Your uniform looks wonderful.”
“A necessary burden,” he said. “When I was first initiated, we didn’t have such things. The Brothers and Sisters wore whatever they liked.” He sighed slowly. “More luck to all the Greens here, that they can get away with wearing whatever is in fashion.”
Dashing though the uniform was, Calix had a point. The formal uniform of Ardora was very different to the ramshackle leathers and half-to-full nudity the old scrolls had described of the Brothers and Sisters. It was, if anything, closer to the description of the Rinathi uniform—all glinting metal and sweeping cloaks.
She wondered if that was intentional. Some kind of boast for beating them at Sama? For him beating them at Sama? Or maybe it was just something, anything to knit a society back together?
According to the scrolls, the Ardoran military had transformed into a smaller and more exclusive club in the seventeen years between the Third Dynosian War and the Battle of Sama. It was a luxury of peacetime. Eldest sons and daughters of noble Red families were made captains of small Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods, and were picky about who else they recruited. Whole armies worth of men and women who would previously have been blooded were turned away for not “meeting the captain’s needs and expectations.”
And in one fateful night, at the first test of war in almost two decades, that exclusive club had been wiped out. The fighter nobility had lost an entire generation of eldest sons at Sama. All in a single storm, before a single sword could clash.
Teigra couldn’t imagine the grief and upheaval that must have caused. Not that she needed to imagine. Jaspar had told her all about the last five years. About how the internal power games between the Reds and the Greens had gone into overdrive. How, with the Reds in disarray, some in the Greens had come achingly close to launching their own bloody claim to the throne.
And they might have, too, if not for Calix returning as the glorious Hero of Sama. The man who had single-handedly defeated the invading forces. The man who would one day be their conquering king. How he had spent his first few years back home rebuilding the Brotherhoods from scratch, with Zosime doing the same for the Sisterhoods. And not just rebuilding, but expanding dramatically—back to the size they’d been during the Third.
A necessary burden?
Perhaps the uniforms were part of that rebuilding? Too many new and rough fighters to tolerate a lack of discipline? Too many impertinent ideas to allow the freedoms of old?
Teigra looked at his face, hard beneath the savage lines of his cheek plates.
She still hadn’t asked him about his renowned victory on the island.
She wasn’t sure why.
Perhaps because he didn’t seem to revel in the fame and glory of that day. Perhaps because, without any obvious reason, Calix had famously started to withdraw in recent times, being seen less and less in public. Perhaps because, if she did ask him, she would be reminded that this was a famous champion, someone that she’d read about in codices.
And if she thought about that, it would make it even more difficult to breathe.
“Would you prefer to dance?” she said, changing the subject.
“I think not.”
“Fancy balls not really your thing?”
“They used to be. Not anymore.”
“Well, there are worse things than staying sober. Believe me.”
Calix didn’t laugh. Instead, he sighed again. “A future king of Ardora should be out there. Drinking and dancing and sneaking off into dark little corners. Being the life of the party. Setting an example. But nowadays these events are little more than a ghastly duty.”
“And is that what this is, Your Highness? With me? Just another ghastly duty?”
She hadn’t meant it to be an accusation. She hadn’t meant to say it at all! Yes, the thought had been banging around her head ever since she’d received the invitation, but the words just slipped out before she could stop them.
Calix looked mortified. He rose with a snap. “Ardor, condemn me. I am so sorry, Teigra! I cannot put you through this!”
Her chest tightened. She’d known there must have been some kind of deception. There was no way that a man like him would willingly spend time with someone like her. But there had still been some little part of her that had hoped otherwise.
“It’s all right,” she said, forcing back the hurt. “Please, talk to me.”
