State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(80)
“You came,” he said. “I didn’t know if you would, after what happened. How are you? You got back to the North Marches all right? There was no more trouble?”
By the time he’d crossed the bridge, the graffiti was gone, Sorrow realized. Should she tell him that the attack hadn’t been a one-off?
He continued before she had chance. “I asked Arta if we should offer to travel with you, safety in numbers and all, but he said it wouldn’t be right. I think he sometimes forgets we’re brother and sister, and not simply rivals.”
The annoyance that usually burned through her veins whenever he called himself her brother was absent, but before she could dwell on it, a fanfare echoed through the room, and everyone rose to greet Queen Melisia and her family.
She entered first, in a flowing gown of silver that clung to the remains of her pregnancy curves, a coronet glittering on her brow. Her consort, Prince Caspar, came next, also in silver, holding an infant swaddled in green in his arms. Then a pretty blonde girl – Sorrow’s heart stuttered – on the arm of Rasmus, and it dawned on Sorrow she must be his cousin, Princess Eirlys, and that’s who had been walking with him earlier.
Vespus brought up the rear, and beside him was Aphora, the woman who’d been at the bridge and the inn, the day they revealed Mael. Sorrow wondered if Vespus was in a relationship with Aphora. From the way the dark-skinned Rhyllian woman gazed at him – part pride, part possession – and how his hand skirted low on her back, caressing the exposed skin, she surmised yes.
Melisia paused to greet her guests as the royal party made its way through the room, her face lit with pleasure as she shook hands and, more often than not, embraced her visitors. Sorrow watched her carefully, noting how she made sure to speak to every single person, and how they glowed a little after she had.
“Mael and Sorrow Ventaxis,” she said in a smooth, melodious voice when she reached them. “Thank you both for coming.”
She held out her hand to Sorrow, who shook it with as much warmth as she could muster, only to feel slighted when Mael stepped forward and hugged her.
“You look radiant, Your Majesty,” he said as he released her, before nodding a greeting at the prince consort.
Melisia laughed, and turned to Sorrow. “Last time your brother saw me I was the size of a house, and itching to have my body back.”
“Not at all. You looked as fierce and lovely as ever,” Mael replied. If anyone else had said it, Sorrow would have sneered at their insincerity, but she suspected Mael’s words were genuine, and from the way Melisia rested a hand on his cheek, before passing along, it seemed she thought so too.
As the queen and prince consort passed, Sorrow braced herself to speak to Rasmus. But at the last moment he turned away, saying something over his shoulder in Rhyllian to Aphora. Sorrow’s skin burned with embarrassment.
He’d ignored her.
“Miss Ventaxis.” Vespus’s voice was silky as he drew level with her. “How good to see you. Colour suits you. And, Mael, how wonderful to have you back within these walls.”
He embraced the boy and lingered with him, speaking in rapid Rhyllian, with Mael replying just as fluently. Back and forth, with Sorrow watching them, the gestures of their hands as they spoke as synchronized as a dance.
“Sickening, isn’t it?” Luvian leant over and whispered in her ear. “Poor Xalys is better off out of it. They look more like father and son than him and his actual son.”
They both looked at where Rasmus stood alone, his fingers flexing and straightening, the silver rings flashing with each motion, as he watched his father and Mael.
“How far exactly could a Rhyllian alter someone’s appearance, if they had the ability?” Luvian asked. “After all, it would technically be manipulating organic matter…”
“What are you getting at?” Sorrow said.
“Well, we just discovered Vespus has a secret daughter. What if I’m wrong, and he didn’t take a child from Rhannon? What if Mael is another of Vespus’s children, made to look Rhannish?”
Sorrow shook her head. “It’s not possible. I told you: it only works within the confines of what already exists. A mole could be increased to look like a birthmark, yes. And maybe, if a Rhyllian had the right complexion, the skin could be darkened so it looked Rhannish. But they couldn’t change the ears. Their shape is too fundamental to alter.”
“How can you be sure?”
Sorrow fell silent. She was sure because she’d asked Rasmus about it once, not long after they’d first slept together. Back then, with her grandmother still alive and strong, she’d been paralysed at the idea of having to give him up, and unconcerned about Rhannon, so she’d tried to hatch a plan where they could be together. No one would accept them as they were, but what if they looked different, she’d told him eagerly. What if they could find someone to make him look Rhannish, or her Rhyllian?
He’d held her very close as he’d explained it didn’t work like that. That someone with an ability in glamour might be able to make hair shinier, plump lips, deepen eye colour, or lighten it. But only in so far as it already existed. They couldn’t make blue eyes brown; they couldn’t make a tall person short. The abilities didn’t allow for changes to something or someone’s fundamental being. That’s why Vespus had such trouble growing Alvus – he couldn’t alter its innate needs to make it adapt to the soil in the north of Rhylla. So, he told her, no one could make his ears rounded, or hers like arrow tips.