Page 31 of Sharpest Court

As Valeria took another melon cube, I realized she’d avoided talking about Goren. It was a courtier’s misdirection—a clever offering of extraneous information to compensate for that which was absent—and it made me wonder how she’d held up under the prying of another young woman.

“You worked with Carmen,” I said. “Locating vulnerable Wielders back in Daradon.”

“I did.” She smiled and rolled her eyes, as though Carmen was a source of both exasperation and amusement. “But I was also there to observe her. To determine whether she truly would make a fairer ruler than her cousin.”

“What did you determine?”

“That Princess Carmen is brave, honorable, and kind. But she can also be stubborn. And petty when affronted. And as extravagant in her conquests as she is sullen in her losses.”

I nodded, impressed at the assessment. “And do you think she’s ready? To launch a coup against Erik?”

Valeria hesitated—and I knew it wasn’t because she didn’t possess the answer, but because she was too considerate to voice it. “No,” she finally admitted, and something within me shriveled at her certainty. “I don’t think Erik will fall unless he experiences a personal defeat, leaving him distracted or vulnerable.”

A personal defeat. I had to stop myself from looking toward the vanity drawer, where I’d stored the compass. The compass I’d once mistakenly believed that Carmen and her mother were using for ill.

“How did you find the Wielders?” I asked, the question having lingered with me since Rose Season.

“Actually,” Valeria said, a little puzzled, “they often had a way of finding each other. But they kept that secret to themselves.”

The information startled me. I wished I’d been in on that secret.

As Valeria started on the milk pudding, I braced myself for her inevitable questions about the compass she’d hidden for me during the search.

But those questions never came.

So I said, quietly, “Thank you.” She looked up, the amber sunset gilding her figure. “For defending me since my arrival. For trying to invoke your sanctuary law.”

She smiled faintly. “The Law of Sanctuary,” she corrected. “It’s an extension of our own royal immunity. It dictates that no one to whom we’ve given refuge can be tried or punished as a criminal in Ansora.”

My breath caught. Rheya wouldn’t have hurt me, Keil had said in the carriage. Because the law itself prevented it.

Now it hit me once again—how I’d stormed into danger to protect someone who had always been safe. All because the idea of him not being safe had been too much to bear.

Valeria gave me a look of sympathy. “It was very brave, what you tried to do for him.”

“Very foolish, you mean.” I exhaled a dull laugh, trying to lighten the weight on my chest. “So you or Keil could commit a crime, and the empress couldn’t punish you for it?”

Valeria’s fingers trailed to her necklace again. “Royalty has its perks,” she said vaguely, and I realized that must’ve been why Valeria and Arun had seemed equally matched at the compound. Because the Arcus siblings resided on the hazy outskirts of Ansoran authority.

“Although,” Valeria continued, “our titles won’t win you any favor on Banarrat. Their annual fete celebrates the three days it took to defeat the First Emperor Saxon.”

I blinked, surprised. As far as I knew, Saxon was responsible for forging this empire in the Great War.

“Though the monarchy has evolved since his reign,” Valeria explained, “Saxon himself was a tyrant, and the Banarrati were the primary victims of his rampage. You see, Banarrat possesses . . . a unique population of Wholeborns. They call themselves Hollows, and they carry the dominant trait. Which means specters do not manifest in their bloodlines.”

My eyes widened. “Ever?”

“Ever,” she confirmed. “To reproduce with a Hollow would be to permanently wipe specters from future generations.”

I gulped, imagining if that quality had existed in the Capewell family. The power that had flowed down from my mother’s ancestors would have withered in my veins, never to reemerge. “I didn’t know that was possible,” I said, unsettled.

“I expect many people don’t. The Banarrati generals limited free travel long ago. They haven’t forgotten that Ansoran monarchs weren’t always welcoming to Hollows; it was believed that introducing the Hollow trait into the mainland population would essentially wipe out specters within a few generations. Our great-grandmother was the first to broker goodwill and create the military treaty.”

Our great-grandmother, she’d said, who would have been the empress. There was as much history in the Arcus family as my own.

“Now the Banarrati forces make up the frontline defense in the war the Orrenish wage on Wielders,” Valeria said grimly. “So you can imagine how often the Orrenish have tried to sway them. And with General Holden’s unwillingness to renew the treaty . . .”

“The island is more likely than ever to leave the mainland to fend for itself,” I finished. “And Ansora could fall.”