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“And the ones in the navy and silver silks sailed in from Ondocis yesterday. The Satrap of Torante and her retinue. And those three hooded figures must be some of the mid or low oracles of Vaticily!”
“They sent lesser priests?”
“Well, yes. They have to. Because the high oracles are... you know.”
“What?”
She cupped her hands. “Gorgons.”
Aurelius rolled his eyes, as he did whenever Teigra mentioned something even slightly divine or mythical. “Oh, please, Tiggy. You read far too many children’s stories.”
She said nothing in response, just smiling innocently and humming to herself.
“Really?” said Aurelius after a time. “So you’ll tell me about warlords and soothsayers, but you won’t tell me who the beardy square-jaw is?”
“Who?” she said, as if only noticing the most handsome man in the entire temple for the first time. “Oh, him? Come now, you surely must know who he is?”
“No. Why would I?”
That is so typical, Teigra thought, marveling not for the first time at the incredible contradiction that was her cousin. Aurelius was far better educated than her. Far better educated than almost anyone else in the city, in fact. While she’d been knee-deep in soiled hay, struggling to learn anything in predawn lamplight, he’d received the finest tuition on philosophy and mathematics and music and poetry; on the history of the Five and their heroes and monsters—even if he’d made it abundantly clear he didn’t believe in half of those things; on famous beasts and even more famous battles. And it was true that he knew every noble house in Greater Mestibes—and probably all their secrets as well.
But of matters outside the polity? Of the movement of royal families across the hundreds of low and mid polities across Dynosia? Of trade deals and religious revelations and weather patterns and shifts in the political calculus? Of all the things a young Mestibian patrician should know about? Of that, he was blissfully unaware, as ignorant as the lowest pleb.
“Well, if you insist,” she said, pausing for effect. “That... is the Crown Prince of Ardora.”
“No!” said Aurelius, shoving aside some anonymous mercator. “That is Prince Calix Viralis? The Hero of Sama?”
Teigra nodded. The twenty-something man was what the scrolls might call, “formed by the Five”—square-jawed, square-shouldered, and a foot taller than anyone else around him. His raven-black hair fell to his shoulders, framing an imposing face and thick beard. Wrapped in a beautiful uniform of red wool and brown leather, he carried himself with the focused confidence of a proper military officer. The sort that Mestibes didn’t really have anymore—with its commitment to diplomacy, pacifism, and its small domestic peace corps, far more used to fighting rogue wolves than other humans.
“Gods,” said Aurelius, with a surprising grimace, “he looks intolerable. Stiff as an old sandal. Like he’d sooner piss himself than crack a smile.”
“Yes,” said Teigra quickly. “Just... just the worst, isn’t he!”
She felt foolish. Though she’d only glanced briefly at him though the ceremony, she’d taken Prince Calix to be rather handsome, in a brooding sort of way. But Aurelius certainly had more experience with men than she did. Practically everyone had more experience with men than she did. “But still, you should have heard the girls titter over him. Oh, he is so dreamy. Oh, he is so mysterious.”
“I bet they did. Though I don’t think there is much mystery there. A lifetime of six-word conversations and three-pump missionary, if I am any judge. And I assume Aunt Beeta is trying to throw you tits-first into his loincloth?”
“Not yet. Even Mother knows the patrician daughters get the first try,” she said, her voice laced with undisguised acid at the flirtation her mother had forced on her. “Instead, she’s thrusting me toward the jealous young men. Although, who knows. I expect her displays at the feast will be shameless. I don’t suppose you’d like to try and grab the prince for yourself?”
“There is straight-acting, darling, and then there is that. I seriously doubt he and I would be saluting the same banner.”
“Are you sure? It’d be quite the conquest.”
“Tiggy, you may think I’m an outrageous flirt.”
“I do, yes.”
“But it may shock you to know that I prefer my men to want to fuck me. There is a big and rather important difference between a man who is charmingly coy, and a man who is actually unwilling. I trick my men into giving me their secrets. I don’t trick them into giving me their cocks.”
Teigra flinched at the frank language, remembered herself, and sighed.
Shameless displays it will have to be.
The congregation began to slowly circle toward the body, lining up to lay a hand on the shawl of the deceased, ensuring that Vakaris understood just how well-regarded she had been in life. Making sure he delivered her to the golden paradise of Evdonia, rather than the endless gray of Sriopi or the fiery torture of Dimethan.
Just as they were about to join the flow, something awful caught her eye. She shook Aurelius, who was still glancing over at the prince.
“Aurie! Quick!”
