The Festival Announced
The palace had dressed itself for romance.
Ribbons hung from the balconies in long, bright spills of silk, gold and green and soft rose-pink trembling whenever the high windows admitted a draft. Servants moved beneath them with arms full of flowers, their sleeves dusted with pollen, their steps quick and careful over carpets only half-unrolled across the marble. Everywhere Riyah looked, someone was polishing glass or arranging fruit or setting out ceremonial bowls of carved ivory and silver as though love required a table of proper instruments before it could be permitted to enter a room.
It should have been beautiful.
It was beautiful.
That was rather the problem.
A pair of maids passed carrying a tray of sugared pears, each fruit brushed with a shine so perfect it looked unreal. Behind them, a footman climbed a narrow ladder to fasten another ribbon around the neck of a marble saint. The saint gazed down upon the preparations with an expression of pale suffering Riyah privately thought suited the occasion.
“You are staring,” Halvard said.
Riyah straightened at once. “I am observing.”
“You are frowning at fruit.”
“It looks too polished.”
“That is not yet a crime.”
“At court, I assume it might become one under the correct circumstances.”
Halvard’s mouth moved in the faintest possible suggestion of approval, which from him was nearly a standing ovation.
They walked side by side through the west gallery, where morning light poured through tall arched windows and caught in every polished surface. The palace had seemed golden during the masque. It had seemed watchful during the missing servants’ records. Today it seemed something else entirely: expectant, as if every corridor were holding its breath beneath the perfume of lilies and beeswax.
Riyah tried not to be nervous.
This was proving difficult, mostly because she had been summoned by the queen.
Not invited. Not requested. Summoned.
The distinction had lived beneath her skin since Halvard had informed her over breakfast in the same voice he might have used to say the sky had become inconveniently blue.
Her Majesty wishes to speak with the Royal Watcher regarding the betrothal games. You will attend me.
Riyah had nearly dropped her spoon into her porridge.
Now, walking beside him, she kept her hands clasped before her so she would not lift one to her mouth and worry at a nail. Her fingers already felt too aware of themselves. Her dress felt too simple. Her hair, which she had thought decently pinned that morning, now seemed likely to betray her at any moment by sliding loose in front of the queen.
Halvard, naturally, looked as if being summoned by queens before luncheon was merely a dull part of a reasonable profession.
“Why does Her Majesty need you for a festival?” Riyah asked softly.
A servant passed close enough that Halvard did not answer until they had moved beyond the open archway and into a narrower stretch of corridor lined with old portraits.
“Because it is not only a festival.”
Riyah glanced at him.
Halvard kept walking, his dark robe whispering faintly over the polished floor. “The betrothal games are old court tradition. Old traditions are rarely innocent. People preserve them because they are useful.”
“Useful for whom?”
“Usually for whoever insists they are innocent.”
That did not comfort her.
Beyond the corridor, the palace opened into a broad receiving hall where noble families had already begun to arrive. Ladies stood in clusters beneath hanging garlands while servants accepted cloaks, trunks, boxes, hat cases, ribboned parcels, and one alarming cage of white doves that looked deeply dissatisfied with their role in romance. Men greeted one another with clasped hands and careful smiles. Women kissed cheeks without warmth. Young daughters stood between them in gowns too lovely for the hour, their necks and wrists bare in ways that made every jewel they did wear seem deliberate.
Riyah slowed without meaning to.
Near one of the windows, a young woman stood perfectly still while an older woman adjusted the angle of a pearl pin in her hair. The girl’s gown was pale gold, the color of butter warmed in sunlight, and her posture was flawless. She did not shift when the older woman touched her chin and turned her face slightly toward the light.
“Not so high,” the woman murmured. “You must not appear proud.”
The girl lowered her chin.
Immediately.
Perfectly.
Riyah felt the movement somewhere uncomfortable in her chest.
Her own mother’s voice rose, uninvited, from a childhood room that smelled of lavender water and dust.
Not like that, Riyah. If you are going to be helpful, at least be helpful properly.
Riyah pressed her thumb against the side of her finger until the old memory loosened.
The girl by the window smiled when another lady approached. The smile was beautiful. It arrived exactly when called and stayed exactly where it had been placed.
“Lady Elowen Marst,” Halvard said quietly.
Riyah blinked. “Who?”
“The young woman having her face arranged.”
Riyah looked back before she could stop herself.
Lady Elowen Marst. The name fit her, somehow. Elegant. Smooth. Slightly distant. She looked like the sort of girl who had never stumbled over a rug, never spoken too loudly, never forgotten the correct title in front of a prince and then lain awake later wishing the earth had shown mercy and swallowed her.
“Her family is important?” Riyah asked.
“Most families think so.”
“That was not an answer.”
“It was an honest one.” Halvard’s gaze moved over the room, taking in the mothers, the daughters, the watchful men by the windows. “But yes. The Marsts are old, wealthy, and very skilled at remaining useful.”
Useful.
The word caught.
Riyah watched Lady Elowen’s mother smooth a nonexistent wrinkle from her daughter’s sleeve. Elowen’s hands remained folded before her, long fingers still around a little ivory fan.
“She looks…” Riyah paused, searching for a word that was not foolish. “Composed.”
“She has likely been trained to look composed since she could stand.”
That should not have sounded sad.
It did.
A burst of laughter rose near the far doors, where a group of young lords had entered too loudly. One of the mothers glanced toward them with displeasure, then immediately softened her face when one of the lords proved to be titled enough to forgive. On the other side of the hall, two men stood close to a window, speaking in low voices.
“Marst land touches the eastern road,” one said.
“Good dowry if the old uncle dies.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Still good blood.”
Riyah’s stomach turned faintly.
No one spoke of love.
Not really.
They spoke of land, blood, roads, dowries, old houses, old debts, daughters who were graceful, sons who were available, alliances that could be made palatable if wrapped in silk.
She looked at the ribbons again.
They no longer seemed quite so harmless.
“What does the queen want you to do?” she asked.
“Attach the office of the Royal Watcher to the games.”
Riyah looked at him sharply. “Can she do that?”
“She can ask.”
“Can you refuse?”
Halvard gave her a glance.
She sighed. “You can refuse in theory.”
“In theory is where most courage looks easiest.”
They resumed walking, passing beneath an archway where servants were tying sprays of white flowers to the carved stone. The flowers were fresh enough that droplets of water clung to the petals. One brushed Riyah’s shoulder as she passed, cool and soft as a whisper.
“The final ritual will require formal witnessing,” Halvard said. “Several politically significant houses will participate. Her Majesty does not want anyone claiming favoritism, manipulation, insult, or improper influence afterward.”
Riyah frowned. “Does she expect any of those things?”
“Her Majesty expects everything useful.”
“That is not comforting either.”
“No.”
They turned toward the royal wing, where the corridors widened and the air changed.
Riyah had felt it before. The strange, nearly invisible adjustment in the palace when one neared the rooms where power lived most comfortably. The marble seemed colder here, the servants quieter, the flowers more expensive and less fragrant. Even the light appeared to know better than to spill too freely.
“You said the games are symbolic,” Riyah said. “Do they truly matter so much?”
Halvard’s steps did not slow. “Symbolic things matter most in palaces. They let people pretend no one has made a decision yet.”
Riyah looked at him.
He did not look back.
Ahead, beyond a pair of open doors, voices carried from a balcony gallery overlooking one of the inner courtyards.
One voice was warm, controlled, and familiar enough that Riyah straightened before she chose to.
Eryndor.
The other was lower, lazier, and impossible not to recognize.
“Ah, yes,” Soren was saying, in tones of profound suffering. “Nothing says romance like being herded through silk while half the court calculates bloodlines over sugared pears.”
Riyah’s mouth betrayed her by twitching.
Halvard saw. Of course he saw. He had an appalling habit of seeing.
They entered the gallery.
The space looked down over a courtyard where servants were arranging tables beneath orange trees in painted pots. The trees had been threaded with small gold ribbons, and the fountain at the center had been filled with floating blossoms. It looked like something from a romantic tapestry, if one ignored the steward scolding a page for placing the rosewater pitchers too close to the sun.
Eryndor stood near the stone railing in dark green, his golden hair neat, his posture almost painfully proper. He looked every inch the Crown Prince — calm, gracious, and already tired. Beside him, Soren leaned against the railing as if gravity were a suggestion he found personally uninspiring.
He was dressed in black, or nearly black, the deep formal fabric threaded with subtle silver that caught whenever he moved. His hair, too long and too dark for courtly neatness, had been tied back loosely at the nape, though a few strands had already escaped to fall around his face. He looked beautiful in a way Riyah found increasingly inconvenient.
Worse, he looked bored.
Worse than that, he looked like he wanted everyone to know it.
Eryndor saw them first. His expression shifted into a courteous smile that softened slightly when it landed on Riyah.
“Master Halvard. Lady Riyah.”
Soren turned.
And there it was.
Not anything dramatic. Nothing a courtier would note. Nothing to enter into a Watcher’s record.
Only a change.
The sharp line of Soren’s mouth curved. The boredom in his eyes warmed into alert interest. His shoulder remained against the railing, his body still arranged in that careless sprawl, but something in him leaned toward her anyway.
Riyah felt the attention like fingers at the back of her neck.
Ridiculous.
She was becoming ridiculous.
“Royal Watcher,” Soren said gravely, giving Halvard a bow so elaborate it bordered on offensive. “Have you come to rescue us from matrimonial slaughter?”
Halvard regarded him. “I had hoped to avoid slaughter before noon.”
“Ambitious.”
“And unlikely, if you continue.”
Soren’s smile flashed.
Then his gaze moved to Riyah.
“Little Watcher.”
The words were light. Teasing. Perfectly harmless, if one knew nothing at all about the way his voice could make a title feel like a touch.
Riyah clasped her hands a little tighter. “Prince Soren.”
His eyebrows lifted, the pleasure in his expression sharpening. “Prince Soren? How formal. Have I done something to deserve punishment?”
“Not yet today.”
“Encouraging. The morning is young.”
Eryndor exhaled as if he had been doing that very thing for most of his life.
Soren looked between Halvard and Riyah. “You have been summoned too, then?”
“Master Halvard has been summoned,” Riyah said. “I am attending him.”
“Ah.” Soren nodded solemnly. “Then the trap has paperwork.”
Riyah tried not to smile.
Failed.
Only slightly.
He noticed anyway.
Of course he noticed. His eyes warmed in that infuriating way, as if her small failure had given him something he intended to keep.
Eryndor turned to Halvard. “My mother has asked for the Watcher’s office to observe the games?”
“So I understand.”
“She is wise to do so.” Eryndor’s voice was calm. Too calm, perhaps. “There are enough houses attending this year that any misunderstanding could become troublesome.”
“Troublesome,” Soren repeated. “Royal word for bloodless war.”
Eryndor gave him a look.
Soren ignored it beautifully.
“What exactly are the games?” Riyah asked before she could think better of showing ignorance.
Eryndor answered kindly. “A series of old court rituals. Dances, ribbon draws, favor exchanges, symbolic pairings. The official purpose is to invite fortune into noble marriages.”
“Fortune,” Soren said, “is what people call politics when musicians are playing.”
This time Riyah could not help it. She smiled.
Soren’s eyes flicked to her mouth.
Only for a breath.
Quick enough that perhaps she had imagined it.
Her face warmed anyway.
Eryndor saw something. Not the look, perhaps. But enough to make his own mouth soften with a private amusement Riyah did not appreciate.
“It is only a few days,” he said.
Soren turned to him with grave pity. “That is what people say before sieges.”
“You are determined to be impossible.”
“I am determined to be accurate.”
“You are determined to enjoy yourself by making everyone else regret having invited you.”
“Also accurate.”
Eryndor’s expression, though still patient, carried a fatigue Riyah had not noticed at first. It lived beneath the princely polish, just at the corners of his eyes and in the steadiness of his shoulders. He did not look afraid of the games. That would have been too simple. He looked prepared to endure them.
That was worse somehow.
Riyah thought of all those young women in the receiving hall, standing straight while mothers adjusted them into better versions of obedience.
Then she looked at Eryndor and realized he was being arranged too.
Not with pins or pearls.
With expectation.
“Your Highness?”
A woman’s voice entered the gallery like a blade wrapped in silk.
All four of them turned.
A lady-in-waiting stood at the far archway, dressed in pale blue with the queen’s silver clasp at her shoulder. She curtsied deeply.
“Master Halvard. Lady Riyah. Her Majesty is ready to receive you.”
The air changed.
It did not grow colder, exactly. The windows were still open. The courtyard below still smelled of orange leaves and damp stone. Somewhere a servant still muttered about rosewater.
But Eryndor straightened.
Halvard’s face became unreadable.
Soren’s smile did not disappear.
That was how Riyah knew something had happened to it.
The warmth left first. Then the mischief tightened into brightness. His mouth remained curved, but the expression became decorative, polished and fixed in place as if an unseen hand had reached out and arranged him.
Riyah stared before she remembered not to.
Soren caught her looking.
For one heartbeat, something almost real moved behind his eyes.
Then he looked toward the lady-in-waiting and gave her a bow graceful enough to be meaningless.
“Do try not to let her draft you into matchmaking,” he said lightly, turning the words toward Riyah and Halvard. “The crown has enough victims.”
Eryndor’s jaw tightened. Barely.
Riyah did not understand the line.
Not fully.
But she heard the thing beneath it that was not a joke.
The lady-in-waiting waited with the composed patience of someone who had been trained never to notice discomfort unless instructed.
Halvard inclined his head. “Come, Riyah.”
Riyah followed.
As they left the gallery, she felt Soren’s gaze on her back. She did not turn around. She wanted to. That was exactly why she did not.
The queen’s receiving chamber waited beyond two sets of doors.
The first room was beautiful in the way a winter lake was beautiful: pale, still, and capable of killing anyone foolish enough to mistake surface for safety. Silver-blue draperies hung in perfect folds. White flowers stood in tall porcelain vases, each stem cut to the same height. The floor had been polished until the marble reflected light in cold strips. Even the fire burning beneath the carved mantel seemed subdued, as if flame itself had been instructed not to behave too passionately.
Queen Seraphine sat near the windows in a high-backed chair upholstered in white silk.
She did not rise.
She did not need to.
Riyah had seen the queen several times now, always at a distance or in public ceremony, where beauty could blur into rank. Up close, Seraphine’s elegance was almost severe. Her pale hair had been braided and coiled beneath a delicate net of pearls. Her gown was white and silver, the bodice shaped so precisely it seemed less sewn than engineered. Rings flashed on her hands when she lifted one slightly.
Halvard bowed.
Riyah curtsied, careful not to overbalance, careful not to look nervous, careful not to be too much of anything.
“Master Halvard,” Seraphine said. “Thank you for attending me.”
“Your Majesty.”
Her gaze moved to Riyah.
It was not unkind.
That was the unsettling part.
“Lady Riyah Valour.”
Riyah curtsied a little deeper. “Your Majesty.”
“Lord Valour’s daughter, and Master Halvard’s apprentice.”
The order pricked softly.
Daughter first. Apprentice second. Blood, then usefulness. Riyah felt both weighed and placed.
“I trust your studies continue well.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“A brief answer,” Seraphine said. “Either a disciplined one, or a frightened one.”
Heat rose into Riyah’s face.
Halvard did not move.
Riyah forced herself to lift her eyes. “Perhaps both, Your Majesty.”
For half a breath, silence held.
Then Seraphine smiled.
It was very small.
“Honesty,” she said. “How refreshing in someone young enough to still mistake it for safety.”
Riyah did not know what to say to that.
Fortunately, the queen had already turned back to Halvard.
“You understand why I have sent for you.”
“I understand the betrothal games are to be formally witnessed this year.”
“They are formally witnessed every year, in some fashion. Noble families do love a record when they think it may serve them later.” Seraphine rested her hands lightly in her lap. “This year, however, several houses of particular importance will participate. The court is eager. Eagerness creates interpretation. Interpretation creates grievances. I would prefer those grievances to have no fertile ground.”
Riyah listened carefully.
The words were reasonable.
That did not make them warm.
“You wish the Watcher’s office attached to the ceremonial outcomes,” Halvard said.
“I wish the realm to trust what it sees.”
There.
Riyah felt the sentence settle in the chamber.
Not trust what is true.
Trust what it sees.
Seraphine’s gaze moved briefly to the windows, beyond which the palace gardens were being trimmed into perfect readiness. “A festival is most successful when everyone understands the shape of what has occurred.”
“And if what has occurred has no single shape?” Halvard asked.
“Then the court will choose one.” Seraphine looked back at him. “Better that the chosen shape be orderly.”
Riyah’s fingers tightened in her skirts before she realized. She forced them still.
Halvard inclined his head. “The Royal Watcher’s office can observe the principal rituals. We can record the ceremonial pairings, disputes, withdrawals, and final outcomes.”
“Good.” Seraphine’s attention slid to Riyah. “And your apprentice?”
Riyah’s spine straightened by instinct.
“She will observe under my direction,” Halvard said.
“I am aware of your authority over your apprentice, Master Halvard. I am asking whether she has eyes of her own.”
Halvard paused.
Riyah felt suddenly as if all the white flowers in the room had turned toward her.
“She does,” Halvard said.
Seraphine considered Riyah.
“Young women often notice what men dismiss,” the queen said. “Small things. Unkind things. The moment a girl looks down before she has been instructed to do so. The moment a man believes no one will remember where his hand has rested.”
Riyah’s mouth went dry.
“Such attention may be valuable,” Seraphine continued, “provided it has been taught not to confuse feeling with judgment.”
The words sounded almost like praise.
Almost.
Riyah curtsied her head. “I will do my best, Your Majesty.”
“I hope you will do better than that. Best is so often what people offer when they have not yet been trained to be useful.”
Useful.
Again.
The room seemed to hold the word after Seraphine released it.
Riyah thought of Lady Elowen Marst standing beneath the receiving hall window while her chin was lowered by another woman’s hand.
Seraphine turned to Halvard again. “The games matter this year.”
“More than usual?”
“The king has carried many burdens for many years.” Her voice did not change. That was what made the statement so strange. She might have been discussing weather, or harvest schedules, or the placement of white roses in a vase. “A prudent court does not wait for uncertainty before preparing continuity.”
Something in Halvard’s expression shifted.
Only slightly.
Only because Riyah had learned to watch him.
The king’s health was not often discussed openly. In public, King Theron was still broad-shouldered and laughing, still capable of filling rooms with warmth and noise when he chose to appear. But he appeared less often than he once had. Riyah had noticed that. Most people had.
Noticed, but not said.
The queen had almost said it.
Almost.
“The Crown Prince understands what is owed to the realm,” Seraphine said.
Riyah thought of Eryndor in the gallery, shoulders straight, patience drawn over tiredness like a cloak.
What is owed.
Not what he wants.
Not who he loves.
What is owed.
“And Prince Soren?” Halvard asked.
Riyah looked at him, startled by the directness.
Seraphine’s expression did not alter, but the room seemed to sharpen around the name.
“Prince Soren,” she said, “naturally treats all ceremony as if it exists to entertain him.”
Riyah’s stomach tightened.
“Still,” the queen continued, “even a restless son of the crown may serve a stabilizing purpose when properly guided.”
A restless son of the crown.
Not my son.
Not Eryndor’s brother.
Not even King Theron’s son.
A function. A fact. A piece of royal furniture that had not learned to stand neatly where placed.
Riyah saw Soren’s smile in the gallery, the way it had turned bright and empty before the queen’s lady even reached them.
Her discomfort grew teeth.
Halvard’s voice remained calm. “And if either prince resists being used as a symbol?”
Seraphine smiled again, more beautifully this time.
“Then I trust the Royal Watcher to observe accurately.”
The words should not have felt like a threat.
They did.
The conversation continued after that, though Riyah heard it through a strange thinness. Dates. Ritual order. The first ribbon draw. The favor exchange. The final ceremony. Halvard asked precise questions. Seraphine answered with elegant sufficiency. A secretary near the wall made notes in a clean, quick hand.
Riyah tried to attend.
She did.
But beneath every word, another understanding was slowly taking shape.
The queen was not discussing games.
She was discussing futures.
Eryndor’s future. Soren’s usefulness. Noble daughters’ value. House alliances. Public perception. The Watcher’s authority. Truth bound to ceremony until it could be made to stand where power required it.
Everything outside the chamber — the ribbons, the flowers, the sugared fruit, the girls being polished beneath their mothers’ hands — had been part of this before Riyah had known what she was seeing.
“Lady Riyah.”
She blinked.
Seraphine was looking at her.
Riyah’s heart gave one hard, embarrassing beat.
“What do you think of the preparations?” the queen asked.
Halvard did not turn his head, but Riyah could feel him become still beside her.
There were many answers.
Most of them were unsafe.
Riyah folded her hands before her and chose one with care. “They are very beautiful, Your Majesty.”
Seraphine’s gaze held hers.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Beauty is useful. That is why every court teaches it discipline.”
The words entered Riyah like cold water.
She thought of her mother again, of being turned toward mirrors, corrected before guests, taught to make herself pleasing when all she had wanted was to be helpful enough to be loved without being improved first.
Beauty is useful.
Discipline.
The white flowers did not move.
Neither did the queen.
At last, Halvard bowed. “We will attend the first ceremony.”
“See that you do.” Seraphine’s eyes moved once more to Riyah. “And Lady Riyah?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Do try to remember that seeing clearly is only the beginning of wisdom. Knowing when to speak of what one sees is much rarer.”
Riyah curtsied.
Her knees did not tremble.
She was very proud of that.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Seraphine dismissed them with a small movement of her hand.
The doors closed behind Riyah and Halvard with a hush so soft it somehow sounded final.
They walked in silence until they had passed through the second antechamber, down the pale corridor, and back beneath a painted archway where the flowers smelled like real flowers again.
Only then did Riyah breathe properly.
Halvard glanced at her. “You held yourself well.”
“I feel as though I swallowed a pin.”
“That is not uncommon in royal audiences.”
“She is very…” Riyah stopped.
Halvard waited.
“Careful,” Riyah finished.
“A useful word.”
“What does she truly want?”
Halvard did not answer at once.
They walked past a narrow window overlooking the same courtyard where orange trees stood in painted pots. Below, servants were laying white cloth over the tables. One cloth wrinkled at the edge, and a maid immediately smoothed it flat.
“The queen wants legitimacy,” Halvard said at last. “Stability. Silence. Obedience. Witnesses.”
Riyah looked at him. “Witnesses to truth?”
“Witnesses to what the court will be told is true.”
A chill moved through her despite the warmth of the corridor.
“But the games are always like this?” she asked. “Political?”
“Yes.”
“Then why call them games?”
“Because people are less ashamed to enjoy a game.”
That was horrible.
That was probably true.
Riyah looked down at her hands. One thumbnail had caught at the edge, a small uneven place she had worried earlier without noticing. She pressed it against her palm.
“Does politics make the feelings false?” she asked.
Halvard slowed.
It took her a moment to realize what she had said and how young it sounded.
Her face warmed. “I only mean—if people marry for houses, or alliances, or crowns, does anything else matter?”
Halvard looked out over the courtyard.
“Feelings matter,” he said. “That is what makes the rituals dangerous.”
Riyah followed his gaze.
Below, a servant girl stood on a stool to fasten ribbon around one of the orange trees. The silk fluttered from her hands, bright as trapped sunlight.
“The mistake,” Halvard said, “is thinking a cage is less a cage because flowers grow over it.”
Riyah watched the ribbon tighten around the branch.
For a strange moment, she saw Lady Elowen’s lowered chin. Eryndor’s straight shoulders. Soren’s decorative smile. Seraphine’s white hands, folded neatly over one another as she spoke of sons of the crown and useful beauty.
Then the servant tied the bow.
Perfect.
They returned through the gold-draped hall by a different route.
In the time they had been with the queen, the palace had grown busier. More families had arrived. More ribbons had been hung. Musicians were testing soft runs of melody from the upper gallery, harp notes falling through the air like water over stones. A pair of young women stood near the center of the hall while an older lady corrected the fall of their skirts. One girl laughed too loudly and was immediately silenced by a look.
Riyah had thought the decorations beautiful that morning.
Now the ribbons looked like bindings.
The flowers looked staged.
The girls looked like offerings set carefully before an altar.
Across the hall, Eryndor stood beside a carved pillar, speaking with a silver-haired lord and a woman whose daughter hovered half a step behind her. The daughter was pretty, frightened, and trying desperately not to appear either. Eryndor listened with flawless courtesy. He smiled when the girl was introduced. The girl blushed. Her mother’s eyes sharpened.
Soren stood several paces away, near the edge of the gathering, one shoulder against the wall. He had gathered a small court around himself already — two young lords laughing, one lady hiding a smile behind her fan, another watching him with open admiration. He looked entirely at ease. Beautiful. Lazy. Untouched.
Then, as if he felt Riyah’s gaze, he glanced across the hall.
Their eyes met.
His smile changed.
Not much.
Enough.
For one heartbeat, the noise of the hall thinned. Riyah saw the boy from the gallery beneath the prince in black silk. The one who had joked before the queen’s summons and gone still when her shadow touched the room. The one who made light of cages because perhaps he knew too well how they closed.
Then a courtier spoke to him, and the careless brightness returned.
Riyah looked away before he could catch whatever had shifted in her face.
Above them, from the upper gallery, a flicker of white drew her eye.
Queen Seraphine stood behind the carved balustrade with one hand resting lightly on the rail. She was speaking to one of her ladies, her expression composed, her pale gown almost luminous against the darker stone.
She was not looking at Riyah.
Not precisely.
She was looking at the hall.
At Eryndor with the lord and the blushing daughter. At Soren smiling near the wall. At mothers and daughters, ribbons and flowers, alliances not yet named.
At the board as it arranged itself.
A draft moved through the hall, stirring the silk lengths overhead. One ribbon slipped loose from its perfect loop and brushed across the shoulder of a young woman as her mother turned her gently toward the light.
The girl smiled because she had been taught to.
The ribbon slid against her throat.
A ribbon, Riyah thought, could look very pretty while it tightened.
And somewhere behind them, beyond the polished doors and the cold white flowers of the queen’s chamber, the betrothal games had already begun.
