Seraphina(7)

Prince Lucian drew himself up slowly, his face a mask of calm. “So this was some sort of test?”

“It was,” she said dispassionately. “We find your security inadequate, Captain Kiggs. This is the third attack in three weeks, and the second where a saar was injured.”

“An attack you set up shouldn’t count. You know this is atypical. People are on edge. General Comonot arrives in ten days—”

“Precisely why you need to do a better job,” she said coolly.

“—and Prince Rufus was just murdered in a suspiciously draconian manner.”

“There’s no evidence that a dragon did it,” she said.

“His head is missing!” The prince gestured vehemently toward his own head, his clenched teeth and windblown hair lending a mad ferocity to the pose.

Eskar raised an eyebrow. “No human could have accomplished such a thing?”

Prince Lucian turned sharply away from her and paced in a small circle, rubbing a hand down his face. It’s no good getting angry at saarantrai; the hotter your temper, the colder they get. Eskar remained infuriatingly neutral.

His pique under wraps, the prince tried again. “Eskar, please understand: this frightens people. There’s still so much deep-seated distrust. The Sons of St. Ogdo take advantage of that, tap into people’s fears—”

“Forty years,” interrupted Eskar. “We’ve had forty years of peace. You weren’t even born when Comonot’s Treaty was signed. Your own mother—”

“Rest she on Heaven’s hearthstone,” I mumbled, as if it were my job to make up for the social inadequacies of dragons everywhere. The prince flashed me a grateful glance.

“—was but a speck in the queen’s womb,” continued Eskar placidly, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Only your elders remember the war, but it is not the old who join the Sons of St. Ogdo or riot in the streets. How can there be deep-seated distrust in people who’ve never been through the fires of war? My own father fell to your knights and their insidious dracomachia. All saarantrai remember those days; all of us lost family. We’ve let that go, as we had to, for the peace. We hold no grudge.

“Do your people pass emotions through your blood, mother to child, the way we dragons pass memories? Do you inherit your fears? I do not comprehend how this persists in the population—or why you will not crush it,” said Eskar.

“We prefer not to crush our own. Call it one of our irrationalities,” said Prince Lucian, smiling grimly. “Maybe we can’t reason our way out of our feelings the way you can; maybe it takes several generations to calm our fears. Then again, I’m not the one judging an entire species by the actions of a few.”

Eskar was unmoved. “Ardmagar Comonot will have my report. It remains to be seen whether he cancels his upcoming visit.”

Prince Lucian hoisted his smile, like a flag of surrender. “It would save me a lot of difficulty if he stayed home. How kind of you to consider my well-being.”

Eskar cocked her head, birdlike, and then shook off her perplexity. She directed her entourage to collect Basind, who had drifted to the end of the bridge and was rubbing himself against the railing like a cat.

The dull ache behind my eyes had turned into a persistent pounding, as if someone were knocking to be let out. That was bad; my headaches were never just headaches. I didn’t want to leave without learning what the urchin had given Orma, but Eskar had taken Orma aside; they had their heads together, talking quietly.

“He must be an excellent teacher,” said Prince Lucian, his voice so close and sudden that I startled.

I made half courtesy in silence. I could not discuss Orma in detail with anyone, let alone the Captain of the Queen’s Guard.

“He’d have to be,” he said. “We were amazed when Viridius chose a woman as his assistant. Not that a woman couldn’t do the job, but Viridius is old-fashioned. You’d have to be something astonishing to get his attention.”

I made full courtesy this time, but he kept talking. “Your solo was truly moving. I’m sure everyone’s telling you this, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the cathedral.”

Of course. I would never be comfortably anonymous again, it seemed. That’s what I got for disregarding Papa’s advice. “Thank you,” I said. “Excuse me, Highness. I need to see my teacher about my, er, trills.… ”

I turned my back on him. It was the height of rudeness. He hovered behind me for a moment, then walked away. I glanced back. The last rays of the setting sun turned his mourning clothes almost golden. He commandeered a horse from one of his sergeants, leaped up with balletic grace, and directed the corps back into formation.

I permitted myself one small pang for the inevitability of his disdain, then shoved that feeling aside and moved toward Orma and Eskar.

When I reached them, Orma held out an arm without touching me. “I present: Seraphina,” he said.

Undersecretary Eskar looked down her aquiline nose as if checking human features off a list. Two arms: check. Two legs: unconfirmed due to long houppelande. Two eyes, bovine brown: check. Hair the color of strong tea, escaping its plait: check. Breasts: not obviously. Tall, but within normal parameters. Furious or embarrassed redness upon cheeks: check.

“Hmph,” she said. “It’s not nearly as hideous as I always pictured it.”