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Queen Lorelei might be famous for her glamorous lifestyle and endless public stream of lovers, but it was becoming increasingly clear to him that there were few true friends in her inner circle, and perhaps even fewer who were allowed ever to glimpse much of her inner truth behind that sparkling mask.

He’d always known that a dangerous intelligence lurked behind her carefully crafted demeanor, but he had never before allowed himself to wonder what more vulnerable—or even more compellingly admirable—traits might be hidden there, too.

The thought of finding out felt as dangerous as if he were teetering atop a precipice with no safe landing beyond.

“Well?” she prompted after a long moment of silence. “Isn’t there anything more you need to ask in this serious conversation before we can finally go to sleep?”

“… No.” Gerard let out the word on a heavily expelled breath. “No, that’s all for tonight.”

Earlier, he’d been certain that getting answers to his questions would sort his turbulent emotions neatly back into order. Now, though, as he stretched out on the plain cloth floor to spend the rest of the night in the haven she’d created for them, he felt even more perilously unsettled than before.

12

In the grand, sprawling Imperial winter palace in Fiora, there was one particular room into which almost no one was allowed to enter. It was small and octagonal, without any windows but with thick and soundproof walls on every side, and it was reserved for the Emperor’s most private meetings. Not even the most trusted servants were ever allowed to enter, and guards were kept carefully on watch outside at all times to prevent any secretive intrusions.

Even the notorious spymistress Queen Ailana of Nornne had never found any way to slip inside that private chamber. Fortunately, she had her own employees in that palace, including one long-serving, senior palace maid who took care, every time a new council was summoned, to discreetly set a small, transparent shard of ice in just the right position to witness each rare and privileged visitor on their way inside.

Of course, no shard of ice could last forever so far away from Ailana’s magic. Far sooner than she’d like, every one of them did melt. But until they did …

Many hundreds of miles to the north, alone in her office, Ailana leaned over the sheet of ice on a silver tray, her eyes narrowing with focused attention as the first council member came into view.

That inner circle had shifted only subtly in the first five years of Otto II’s reign, as various long-trusted advisors of his father were gradually eased into retirement and replaced by new courtiers eager to make their mark. By the beginning of this year, though, the differences had become impossible to ignore. They’d been reflected in Otto’s shift in public policy to the expansionist agenda he’d always dreamed of—and just this week, both his private council and the Serafin Empire as a whole had been rocked by a politically seismic event.

Soft-spoken but powerful and stubbornly peace-loving, Imperial High Priest Bohdan had wielded a gentle authority in the Empire for decades … until this week, when he’d found himself arrested in the middle of the night by members of Otto’s own private Imperial guard. The charges trumpeted in every newspaper the next morning shouted of high treason and corruption—and that very afternoon, as the continent reacted with shock to that unprecedented news, another announcement had been dispatched from the winter palace.

Apparently, every other recalcitrant member of the previous generation who’d remained in Otto’s council until then had chosen that same day, entirely coincidentally, to submit their regretful resignations. As the Imperial recorder noted with carefully tempered regret, they were “ready to lay down their work at last and enjoy the fruits of their well-earned retirement.”

In other words, Ailana surmised wryly, they were ready to surrender their principles to save their heads.

There would be no such internal battles between principle and survival for most of Otto’s new council members. Unlike his late father, Otto II chose his political favorites based on their abilities to flatter, to fawn, and to slavishly follow his every lead even when he leapt from one extreme stance to another. Today, no doubt, every council member would be eager to prove their fealty to Otto’s aims by agreeing with every aggressive new plan he proposed and seconding every vicious claim he made about his enemies.

But as for what had drawn him to call them all in today …

Damn it, if only they would talk a little louder! Sound filtered so unsatisfactorily through that tiny piece of ice lodged so far away from any of them.

As Ailana leaned even closer, straining to make out any individual words, her breath fogged the ice in her silver tray, blurring her view of the gorgeously dressed sycophants who paraded in all their overblown glory down the small private corridor that led to the council chamber. Pressing her lips together in self-chastisement, she flared her nostrils and sucked back all warmth and moisture from the room, leaving the ice before her cold and clear to showcase all of her most dangerous new enemies.

Dukes with diamond-studded cravats followed counts with foot-high, polished top hats and ruby-topped walking sticks, one by one in colorful procession …

Until the final pair paced their way into view.

Aha. The Emperor, of course, must always be last to arrive as a matter of consequence. Only his sister, the new Imperial high priestess, was allowed the signal honor of sharing that stately journey. Today, she’d laid one fair hand across his arm as they walked step by step together. As she tipped her head attentively to listen to whatever self-aggrandizing nonsense was spouting now from his ever-moving lips, she smiled with perfect, unchanging tranquility.

… And at the edges of the table that held the silver tray, Ailana’s fingers tightened with frustration.

That thick red hair was still every bit as fiery as she’d remembered, but only a few carefully tidied strands were allowed to gleam around the edges of Imperial High Priestess Clothilde’s giant new gold headdress. Beautifully full-figured and utterly confident, the new high priestess was unusually young for the position, still only in her early thirties. However, she projected an air of palpable strength and looked every inch the serene and ultimate holy authority for the Serafin Empire, personally responsible for millions of souls …

And as Otto talked and talked in her ear, she never uttered a single word of protest or discouragement.

Otto, at least, always spoke loudly enough to be heard in fragments, through the ice. “… Said he’d never seen any man handle … so impressively! And … I said … how they all laughed!”

Ailana’s teeth clenched at the inanity, but she couldn’t look away. For the sake of her own people and her allies, she couldn’t afford to miss a single telltale detail.

So she caught the fleeting instant when the Imperial high priestess tilted her head and slipped a swift, sidelong, oddly knowing look at—

Wait! Ailana’s eyes flared with alarm.

Was Clothilde actually looking at her, through her shard of ice?