Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(95)

“That’s very good of you,” I tell her with a smile so broad it’s actually painful. “I know I will certainly feel much more at ease once S?ren is free and I can go back to the matter of selecting a husband. How long will it be before your serum is ready?”

Coltania’s smile wavers for just a second. She’s very good at hiding her emotions, but not quite good enough. Not as good as she would be if she’d been groomed to be watched from childhood, the way Cress was. The way I was as well, in a way.

“These kinds of potions can take time, Your Majesty, and we are far from my usual laboratory. I’m making do as well as I can here,” she says.

“I’m sure you are,” I say, giving her arm a reassuring pat. “Is there any indication of when the potion might be ready?”

Coltania is smart enough to think over her next words very carefully. “A couple more weeks,” she says finally.

“Didn’t you say one week when we last spoke?” I ask her.

She only shrugs her shoulders. “The timing can be so finicky. These are only guesses. However, I do worry that some of the suitors might become impatient if you refuse to meet with them that long, given the money they must pay King Etristo for each day they stay here.”

She says it easily enough, but I hear the challenge there. She wants to know which of us will blink first. It won’t be me.

“I worry about that as well,” I tell her. “Though I suppose anyone so impatient for me to make such a monumental decision isn’t the right choice, don’t you agree?”

“Of course, Your Majesty. Patience is of paramount importance,” she says, turning the words back on me.

I grit my teeth. “It’s unfortunate, though,” I tell her with a loud sigh. “I was just saying to my advisors the other day, before all the nastiness occurred, that I was ready to put an end to all of this. Of course, King Etristo wants to draw it out as long as necessary,” I say, lowering my voice conspiratorially. “You know how he is.”

Coltania nods. “In Oriana, we have a saying—‘greedy as a Sta’Criveran king.’?”

I don’t have to fake a laugh this time, and Coltania laughs as well.

“That is very true,” I say. “And to think I was ready to accept the Chancellor’s offer of marriage.”

Coltania’s back goes ramrod straight.

“Prinz S?ren agreed with the decision,” I add. “In fact, I would argue that he was one of the Chancellor’s strongest advocates.”

“Is that so?” she asks dryly. “I was never under the impression that the Prinz cared for my brother. I would have guessed his favor was with the late Archduke, if he weren’t planning on throwing himself into the mêlée, of course.”

S?ren did say that the Archduke was the best option if I had to pick one, I remember, but I don’t think he ever gave that impression publicly.

“Goodness, I don’t know which idea is more ludicrous,” I tell her with a laugh.

Coltania doesn’t join in laughing this time. “There’s a rumor going around that I feel I ought to alert you to, as a friend,” she tells me, lowering her voice to a whisper. “One of the prison guards says you’ve been visiting Prinz S?ren in the middle of the night and that you stay for hours with him. Most people don’t think that sounds like a strategic meeting.”

“Most people must not realize that with Prinz S?ren in prison, meetings have to take place at night, when the prison isn’t busy and loud, and that since a large part of those meetings is spent making certain he’s being fed and well taken care of, they are of course going to go on longer than they might otherwise,” I snap before catching myself and forcing a smile. “Another reason I am anxious to get him out of that prison—so that we can waste less time and get this suitor business done with. I’m afraid that two weeks is such a long time, so much can change, don’t you think?”

Coltania purses her lips. “You’re saying that if the Prinz’s innocence were to be proven in a more timely manner, you’d choose a husband,” she says. “The right husband.”

There it is, a thinly veiled bribe. But if she can play games, so can I. I look her in the eye and nod.

She pauses for a moment. “I may be able to hurry the potion along so we can settle things officially.”

Before I can respond, we’re interrupted by shouts that shatter the fragile peace of the garden. One voice I recognize immediately as King Etristo’s.

“It is unacceptable,” he roars, louder than I believed possible for him. “We had a deal, Reymer.”

The Sta’Criverans wandering the garden recognize his voice as well and immediately scatter from sight, heading back indoors to give him space. Part of me wants to do the same, but if he’s talking with Czar Reymer, I fear it has something to do with me.

“Here,” Coltania whispers, tugging me into a copse of trees with wide trunks and thick bushes that hide us completely. The bushes poke and scratch and tear at my dress, but my heart is thudding so loudly in my ears that I barely even feel them. When I glance toward Coltania, she’s peering out with alert eyes, her finger raised to her lips to hush me before I can even consider speaking.

I follow her lead and find a space in the bushes where I can see out to the empty clearing in the garden just seconds before Czar Reymer stalks into view, trailed by King Etristo at a much slower speed, bent over a bejeweled cane.