Page 10 of A Game of Veils

I jab a finger at the desktop. “She had it easy her whole life, off in the outer reaches where Emperor Tarquin barely paid attention. I say we make it as hard as fucking possible for her now. Make her regret whoring herself to the empire every way we possibly can. Throw her off her game. If she trips and falls in Marclinus’s estimation, it’s her own damn fault for asking to come here. At least with one of the local nobles playing wifey, nothing will get worse.”

The door bursts open, and my mouth snaps shut. At the sight of the towheaded teenaged boy pushing inside, I feel only a faint whiff of relief.

Neven shoves the door shut behind him, his brown eyes blazing beneath the tufts of his pale hair. “You’re planning something, aren’t you? You have to be. That cunt of a princess thinks she can march in here and end up ruling over?—”

My stomach twists. I swivel to grasp Neven’s shoulders as if I can steady his temper with my hands.

He scowls at me, but he stops. I’m the only one of us still slightly taller than him after his last growth spurt a couple of years back. The only one who’ll snarl right back at him.

I’ve got just five years on him, but sometimes that feels like a century. He wasn’t here when everything went wrong.

I can’t look at him and not see the gawky seven-year-old kid the imperial guards escorted into our shellshocked midst a few months later.

Although in a lot of ways the consequences were the worst for him. Which is why I can’t criticize his anger even though it scares me.

“We’re not making plans,” I say, which is technically true. Bastien hasn’t deigned to admit that maybe we should, and Lorenzo is probably waiting to follow his lead. “Just venting some steam. It’s a good place to do that—in here where no one else is going to hear us and stab us through the throat for it.”

Neven scoffs as if the suggestion is somehow absurd rather than a fact of our lives. That right there is what really scares me—what scares all three of us, I know.

He’s been teetering on the edge of control for an awfully long time. The drive for vengeance vibrates off every move he makes, every word he speaks.

And if that control ever snaps and he goes for it, it’ll be his broken corpse in a coffin.

His hands ball into fists. “How could she fawn over that pompous asshole as if he’s some kind of hero? How could she have wanted to marry him in the first place? Unless she’s just as bad as him… She walked out of the room cool as anything, like it didn’t matter that he’d had a girl murdered right in front of her.”

I shake my head. “When has the royal family of Accasy ever given a fuck about the rest of us? They barely bother to speak to anyone beyond their border. Tarquin admitted the marriage was their idea—she’s obviously looking to get whatever she can out of it.”

“Why would he agree to that? Why doesn’t he just keep Accasy crushed under his heel?”

We didn’t include Neven in most of our earlier, bitter conversations when we first heard of Marclinus’s engagement to Princess Aurelia. Maybe that was a mistake. If he was going to rage about the injustice, it’d have been easier to cool him off when he had some time before she was right in his view.

Bastien speaks up in the pedantic tone he takes on when he’s being a know-it-all. “Out of the countries the empire still controls, Accasy is the farthest flung. It takes more effort for the emperor to extend his ‘heel’ that far, and it’s the least populated too, so less need to fear rebellion. He simply doesn’t bother with them as much—didn’t even ask them for a foster. I suppose bringing their princess into court was just a convenient way to stop the local nobles from getting overly comfortable.”

“But she has to know—they must hear things from the other realms up there—” Neven sucks a breath through his teeth in a hiss. “Which doesn’t make a difference if she doesn’t care. She’ll try to arrange it so her kingdom is even more favored above all of ours, won’t she?”

It’s the same argument I’ve made, but I like it a lot less hearing it from him in that livid tone.

I squeeze his shoulders. “She’s not arranging anything yet. Chances are she’ll get a blade through the throat. There’s nothing for us to do about it.”

Lorenzo lifts his hand and swivels it in a brisk motion. It’ll be okay. We’re together.

Except if we’re going to make any actual plans, we need to get Neven out of here first. He won’t know where to draw the line.

If we let him careen into motion, we may not ever rein him in.

Bastien aims a slightly wry smile at the prince of Goric. “You know what else is good for letting out steam? A little archery. You haven’t practiced in a while. Go set the targets up, and I’ll meet you down there. I need to bring a couple of books back to my room.”

Neven frowns, but he’s always eager to improve his combat skills, and Bastien doesn’t offer to show off in his area of expertise often. “All right. The rutting princess better not walk in front of my bow, though.”

He storms out of the room, leaving the three of us alone again.

I glance at the two men I consider closer than my brothers by birth. We might not get along the way we once did, but I see the same conviction that’s pealing out inside me mirrored on their faces.

We can’t watch another casket sent back to Goric. Anything that sets Neven off is a threat to the makeshift family of outcasts we’ve struggled to hold together.

And as long as the princess of Accasy is joyfully prostituting herself to our enemies in front of him, she’s a flint that could spark the explosion.

Bastien’s voice comes out even but quiet. “Fine. We’ll all feel better if she’s as miserable as possible. That shouldn’t be hard to accomplish. Shake her nerve, unsettle her, distract her—how much it throws her off in the coming trials isn’t our concern.”

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