Page 58 of A Game of Veils

“You… when you were small… when you first came to the palace?”

He forms an anguished expression and streaks his fingers down his cheek like tears.

My gut twists. “You were awfully homesick too, were you?”

I can interpret his next gestures clearly enough. More than the others. A long time.

“Eventually you’ll get to go back to your kingdom, won’t you?”

Lorenzo makes a face as if to say, Who knows? With another swipe of his foot, he scrawls his stick across the cleared earth. What do you miss?

“Gods. Everything?” My laugh snags in my throat.

Images of home swim up through my mind. “People aren’t totally wrong in the way they talk about Accasy. There’s so much that feels free and wild—vast forests with ancient trees, fierce rivers, perilous cliffs. It’s not the easiest place to survive, but that means we celebrate the surviving together instead of fighting about who’s doing a little better than anyone else. I haven’t gone this long without talking with my parents or my sister in my whole life. And silly things, like the fresh sap syrup we’d have on our pancakes…”

Just talking about it makes the lump of loss expand. I will my grief down and focus on Lorenzo. I’ve only overheard a little talk about where he came from. “What do you miss most about Rione?”

He considers, a current of emotions rippling across his face, and sketches out a list.

Ocean close by

Family

Other music

Exploring cities and hills

Coconut jam

I have to smile at the last one. “I’ve never tried any kind of coconut. Not something we have in large supply up north.”

Lorenzo lets out a sound of disbelieving horror and makes a gesture I can understand well enough. Not okay.

My amusement at his hyperbolic response is bittersweet. “Maybe I’ll have the chance to fix that oversight before much longer.”

The prince lowers his head, the shadows shifting across it with the flickering lantern light. I think of the pain knotted deep inside me after just a few weeks away from home. Of him arriving here at age seven, just a kid who hadn’t had time to come to terms with the role he needed to play to ensure his family’s safety.

My next words come out quiet but vehement. “I know I’m lucky that I got to have a life of my own for as long as I did. I promise you, if I can make it through these trials and marry Marclinus, any way I can help you—or Raul or Bastien or Neven—I’ll do whatever I can.”

Lorenzo jerks his gaze up to stare at me. There’s nothing playful about his shock now. His stick wobbles for a second before he draws one word. Why?

Is it really that hard to understand?

I swallow thickly. “We came from the same place, in a way. We’re not the heirs, just the extras who had to accept whatever bargain was offered, let ourselves be traded away for our country’s security. You all deserve more of your own lives than you’ve gotten. And I came here… I came here because I wanted to help everyone who deserves it.”

I can’t tell if he believes me. An odd sadness comes over his face even though I was trying to offer hope.

Abruptly, he picks up his lute with one hand and catches my elbow with the other. At his tug, I follow him through the woods toward the gardens. “What…?”

He lets go of me long enough to make a simple message clear. Wait and see.

We skirt the edge of the gardens and approach the orchard. Toward the back of the rows of hunched trees, one stands in a secluded plot, its silvery leaves quivering in the breeze.

The moonlight glints off not just the leaves but the pure white fruit nestled between them, like the palest of apples. My lips part in awe.

“Twilight pumellos. I didn’t realize?—”

But of course the emperor would have the rarest of all edible fruits growing on his grounds.

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