He reaches up to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’m never leaving you again.”
I lean over and kiss him deeply. He pulls me close and returns my kiss, rougher this time, demanding, and I love it. I will never have enough of him.
Someone pounds on the door.
Hector swears, and I stifle a giggle.
I grab my dressing robe and move to answer the door, but Hector jumps out of bed and intercepts me, grabbing my forearm. “Let me,” he says. He tugs on his pants, pulls my dagger from my pack, and holds it just out of sight as he cracks open the door.
It’s Cosmé’s mayordomo. Hector lowers the knife.
He is young for the position, with a roundness to cheek and chin and a slender frame that promises further growth. But then almost everyone in Cosmé’s court is young. Basajuan lost an entire generation in the last war with Invierne. “Apologies, Your Majesty,” he says. “But the Inviernos are up and awake and making demands, and I have no idea what to do with them. Her Majesty Queen Cosmé said you had claimed responsibility.”
I grimace, knowing our guests are probably being as arrogant and difficult as possible. “I’ll take care of it,” I tell him, and he abases himself with such relieved gratitude that it’s hard not to smile.
After the door closes I grab Hector’s hands. Someday soon—I hope—I will have days and days alone with him. I’ll make it an imperial edict, maybe. Threaten beheading if anyone bothers us.
But not today.
“Let’s get dressed and go put some self-important Deciregi in their places, shall we?”
After I tell the Deciregi to shut up and eat the “inedible pig slop” the palace kitchen so painstakingly prepared, and assure them that no, their bathwater is not poisoned, and yes, it is a regular practice here for servants to enter quarters unasked to get a fire going in the early morning, we all convene in the audience hall to discuss terms. Everyone is there: all my companions, Alodia and her advisers, Cosmé and her council, the two Deciregi.
I reveal that the zafira lies beneath a mountain of rubble. But I confer total mining and exploring rights on Isla Oscura to the nation of Invierne.
The Deciregi fear—and rightly so—that Joya’s citizens will not allow them to travel safely. I promise an edict declaring harsh penalties for any kind of harassment.
I have two stipulations: one, that Invierne must agree to an immediate and total cessation of hostilities. Any hostile act will be met with severe reprisal and the rescinding of all mining rights. And two, that Invierne may never purchase or build its own ships. They must pay Joyan or Orovalleño captains for passage and cargo transport. If there is even a hint that they are building a navy, I will blast their ships out of the water with the fire of my Godstone—and rescind all mining rights.
Cosmé continues to demand reparations, and I don’t blame her. Her territory has always suffered the brunt of our conflict. I try to talk her down from it, but her black eyes flash at me, with a desperate, grief-stricken rage that reminds me how much she has lost. Parents, friends, a dear brother.
After a while, something sly flits across the Invierno woman’s face, and she suddenly capitulates, saying, “We’ll do it. In reparation, we’ll pay the first two years’ tithes to the Joyan Empire on behalf of Basajuan and Orovalle.”
Cosmé gasps. Alodia is too composed to react much, but I know her well enough to recognize the interest sparking in her eyes.
There’s a catch. I know there is. “With what currency will you pay?” I ask.
“Glass,” she says. “We have the finest glassmakers in all the world, and I’d love to introduce your people to it. Also, we had a surplus of maize this harvest. It’s going to rot in the bins when the weather warms, so we might as well send it along. We’ll throw in a few tapestry samples too.”
I can’t help my smile of triumph. I don’t imagine there’s a huge market for glass baubles in my country—at least not until my people have extra coin for luxuries—but if she thinks she’s trapping me into opening a trade opportunity for Invierne, then she truly considers peace as a long-term solution.
One of Alodia’s advisers, a man I recognize as one who rules a remote territory along her border, bends forward and whispers something in her ear. She nods.
“Conde Paxón is good to remind me,” Alodia says to us. She places her elbows on the table and leans forward. “The Inviernos must agree to stop supplying the Perditos with food and weapons. In fact, they must sever the alliance completely.”
Cosmé mutters agreement. The Perditos have been harassing the southern border of Orovalle for years, ever since Joya’s prisons overflowed and their inmates were dumped into the jungle-choked Hinder Mountains between our countries. Once Invierne began supporting them, they banded together and became very powerful, making trade by land nearly impossible.
“Agreed,” the Deciregus says. “They will be as dead to us.”
That’s a more dramatic statement than we required, but our secretary adds it to the formal accord.
“One last thing,” I say. Everyone regards me expectantly as I take a deep breath. This will be the hardest part. It might also be the most important. “The Deciregus of Crooked Sequoia House has agreed to a marriage alliance between a son of his house and a titled person of my choosing, to further cement goodwill between us.”
Cosmé’s face blanches. “Out of the question!” says one of Cosmé’s advisers, a pudgy man with a thick beard that manages to defy the obvious, oily attempt at grooming. “We will not mingle, we will not breed, with those animals.”
“We already have.”
Everyone stares at me.
“Come here, Red,” I say gently, and she pads over, her golden eyes regarding me with perfect trust. I stand and drape an arm down across her slight shoulders. “This is Red Sparkle Stone, my handmaiden. She is diligent and loyal, intelligent and warmhearted.” I look down to find her beaming as bright as the stone she named herself for. She doesn’t realize I’ve just made her a national symbol. Poor child. I’ll have to make it up to her. “Red is one of my most trusted companions. She is also half Invierno.”
“A mule!” says the adviser. “Surely you don’t propose that one of our esteemed titled persons produce a mule. Of all the insulting—”
“You have Invierno blood inside you,” I tell him. “We all do.”
I might as well have told everyone in the room that camels can fly, for the way they gape at me.
“It’s true, isn’t it, Storm?” I say.
“Of course. Your ancestors, the First Families as you call them, used their strange machines to mix some of our blood with yours so that they could survive better on this world. And they mixed some of yours with ours, to limit our power and make us easier to control. We believe they intended for our two races to meld and become one.”
“But something went wrong.”
He nods. “Records in our archive indicate there was a schism. One of the Families disagreed with the others. They sabotaged the machines and fled east with the remaining Inviernos. They taught us the ways of God. They saved us from the others. If your ancestors had completed their work, we would have been able to interbreed easily and produce fertile children. And all Joyans would be like you today—bearing a living Godstone.”
Which means some of us might be a little more Invierno than others. Like me, who can bear a living Godstone. Like Alodia, who—if she were a little taller, a little fairer—could be the sister of this foreign woman we are negotiating with.
This is why God could raise me up as a champion for the Inviernos. Because I am one.
“We have struggled along for millennia,” Storm adds. “Growing weaker and more desperate, because of what your people did to ours.”
“I don’t believe it,” says the adviser.