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To her surprise, the censor nodded. “Ahhh, now there was an archon who understood the proper balance of things. He didn’t run off on whichever imprudent plan took his fancy. He understood that the city needed a chamber to instruct, and a leader to enact. An equality of authority. Sparing the Rinathi? Disbanding the Mestibian army? Those were our ideas. And he was wise enough to work alongside the senate to achieve them.”
“Thank you, Censor,” said Mother, with miles of carefully crafted humility. “My father was indeed a great man. And if I might say, proof that while the tree of House Savair may now be struck with twisted branches, some of its fruit still falls on productive soil.”
The censor gave Teigra a long look. “Yes, Senator Cosmin. I think you might be right about that.”
The evening continued without further explanation of the strange conversation. But one day later, all was revealed.
Mother had left early to attend a sudden senate vote. That evening, she burst into Teigra’s room in triumph, wine on her breath. She sat on the edge of the bed, taking her by the hand, something she never did.
“It worked! We’ve won! They’ve elected you as the new low envoy to Ardora!”
Teigra’s whole body went numb. It felt like she was watching herself from a distance.
She... can’t be serious? Me? Leaving the city? Representing the senate?
For five years!
And as the blood drained from her face, Mother’s grip morphed, grabbing her so hard it felt like her knuckles could shatter. And in a voice of cold menace, she gave Teigra the three commandments that she was to abide by in her time abroad.
First, she was not to embarrass House Cosmin in any way.
Second, she was to do everything that the high envoy to Ardora asked of her.
And third, she was to find out why the archon had selected Aurelius as her herald.
14
AURELIUS
The newly appointed herald of Mestibes fiddled with his signet ring and sneered at the stuffy office. It was ghastly, just like the entire Administration of Dynosian Affairs—filled with statues and frescos so old he could practically taste the accumulated dust.
“Darling,” he said with a wry glance, “I know we have always had strangely shared life experiences. And I will admit, it has played wonders for our bond. I get ostracized at fifteen; you get ostracized at fifteen. My little brother takes my place as head child; your little brother takes your place as head child. But really, becoming low envoy to Ardora? Just to remain close to me? You didn’t need to do that.”
Teigra was sitting bolt upright at the desk, looking as terrified as Calix had at the funeral. “It wasn’t me!” she hissed. “It was Tulla! That... busybody! She must have heard your plan and passed it on to Mother! And Mother must have traded the information for my position! I didn’t know any of this was happening!”
“Tiggy, please! There is no need for such invention. After all, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.”
“But it wasn’t my idea!”
It was cruel to tease her so. Of course it wasn’t her idea. Teigra? A million miles from home? For five long years? Surrounded by new people and new places?
It was a miracle she wasn’t passed out in a pool of terrified vomit.
“And you aren’t even supposed to be here,” she said, grasping at the necklace she’d worn for as long as he could remember. “This training is just for envoys, not the herald.”
“Well, if you really want to be left alone?”
He’d barely risen from his desk before she yanked him back down.
From outside the office came a crash, followed by a series of loud footsteps, like a minotaur was running laps in the hallway.
The door was swung open by... a minotaur running laps in the hallway.
The figure was a cameo of dishevelment—late twenties perhaps, although it was hard to tell with minotaurs, with a curly mess of cinnamon-brown fur, horns that weren’t symmetrical in the slightest, and a toga so poorly wrapped it was running along the ground. The tail of the two-hollow-striped material trailed alongside his actual tail and the scrolls that tumbled from his arms.
A patrician, but not a senator.
“Hello there!” he said, in a voice of pure sunshine. “Sorry, I’m late. I swear I used to know my way around here perfectly. But you know how it is, a decade away and it all just disappears, doesn’t it!”
