The Twelve Kingdoms Read Free Page A

in public view. With a final salute they dispersed. I pretended to oversee their departure, steadying myself, gathering my courage.
    A scuffle of feet inside the shadowed entrance. Derodotur, Uorsin’s aide and closest adviser, emerged and bowed formally. “Your Highness Princess Ursula, welcome home.”
    â€œThank you, Derodotur. It’s good to be home.”
    â€œKing Uorsin requests that you attend him immediately.”
    Not a good sign at all. Sending Derodotur to give his messages? I peeled off my metal-embedded leather gloves. My hands felt cold and I rubbed them together.
    â€œI should change first.”
    Derodotur negated that with a bare shake of his head. “King Uorsin and the court await you, Princess.”
    I managed a smile and nod of acknowledgment, though my bowels turned watery. By all rights Uorsin should have met with me privately, to allow me to give him all my news informally. Once he would have done exactly that and we would have discussed how best to present it to the courtiers. With this, he was forcing me to either prevaricate in public or share sensitive information with potential enemies. At any given time, the court included several ambassadors from the eleven kingdoms outside Mohraya, if not one or more monarchs themselves. At least several sympathized with Erich and should be present, unless tensions had escalated even more than I knew.
    The only one I could count on not being there was Erich of Avonlidgh himself. Danu take it, we were practically at war—what was Uorsin thinking? And how to plan my strategy, not knowing?
    I had no more answer to the questions than I’d had before, and delaying would only exacerbate the King’s uncertain temper. Nothing to be done about it.
    â€œI’ll go straightaway. Shall we, Lady Mailloux?”
    â€œI’m at your disposal, Your Highness.”
    The librarian could be all that form required, when she set her mind to it. She put me in mind of those lizards from the desert reaches of Aerron that changed skin color to match whatever you set them on. She trailed behind, as demure and discreet as any of the ladies assigned to me.
    Court is simply another sort of battlefield or dueling ground. Anyone who implied otherwise was either not paying attention—Andi—or focused entirely on the social whirl—Amelia. Though I had to give my sisters credit for coming a long way in their political understanding of late. Granted, they’d been forced to in the heat of their own particular battles. I, however, had been learning the rules of this sort of conflict since I was five years old.
    When Queen Salena, my mother, failed again to produce a son and Uorsin’s eye fell on me.
    Girding myself appropriately, I cleared my mind of all else but the duel ahead, as Danu taught. No emotion. Nothing but the moment. Defend, parry, attack, retreat, regroup.
    Tension rode thick in the air, the courtiers unusually silent, so that my bootheels audibly echoed on the golden marble as I entered the throne room, the metallic braces of my leather armor clinking. High above and behind me, the rose window of Glorianna cast a pink haze. All faces turned toward me, cautiously bland—neither welcoming nor condemning. Being careful. They didn’t know which way Danu’s breath blew either.
    Uorsin sat on the High Throne at the end of the long center aisle, flanked by the empty thrones that had always belonged to me and my sisters, along with the one to his immediate left, which had remained vacant all these years since Salena died. I’d heard the jibes enough times—both intended for me to overhear and not—that Uorsin had never felt the need to remarry, since I suited him better than any queen might. That was truer than people knew.
    After all, he’d trained me to be exactly what he expected from early on. Danu knew I’d tried my best. Seemed to be unable to stop trying.
    The smooth topaz in the pommel