Later that afternoon, I was informed that my parents’ meetings would stretch late into the evening, and they wouldn’t be dining with me. We no longer ate with the Court, except for banquets and other state occasions, and my grandparents and aunt were all away. I didn’t really want to eat alone, so I asked Rialla and Micah if they would join me.

Micah arrived first, brandishing a bouquet almost threateningly at me. ‘It appears I’ve been horribly remiss at showing my great esteem and affection for you during our courtship,’ he said, a smile tugging at his mouth. ‘Please, take these blooms and pretend I’m good enough at poetry to flatter you against them.’

Trying not to laugh, I relieved him of his floral burden.

‘Please,’ a voice said from behind him, ‘spare us from your poetry.’

He stepped aside to reveal Rialla, who raised an eyebrow and held up her empty hands. ‘Are we celebrating something?’ she asked. ‘Or are you finally telling me about the courtship I’ve been hitherto oblivious to?’

I handed her the flowers, succumbing to the laughter bubbling in my throat. ‘Please, accept these as an insufficient token of apology.’ In a more normal voice, I added, ‘There’s no courtship, as you well know.’

Rialla shut the door and, turning back, caught my gaze. ‘Oh, I do, Your Highness. Very much so.’ For a moment, I stood rooted to the spot, my stomach twisting as I flushed. I hadn’t so much as walked into the trap as tripped head-first.

I’d had something close to a courtship with a friend… but not with Micah.

Sensing the atmospheric tipping point, he coughed, then asked what was for dinner. ‘I’m positively famished!’ he declared, too brightly, slipping into the role he’d taken on since Midwinter: trying to dissipate the tension that arose when Rialla and I navigated… whatever we now were to each other.

‘The food is here,’ I said, trying to metaphorically pull myself together by laughing. ‘Come, before it gets cold.’

My rooms were close to my parents’ suite. I’d made them as light and airy as the space allowed, with bright tapestries on the walls, pale furniture, and elegant green and white drapes. We settled around the table, passing dishes and pouring wine, and the awkward moment faded. We’d all known each other for so long that the familiar habits of our friendship always reasserted themselves, no matter the strange new territory between us. And tension could never last long around Micah.

Every day I secretly thanked Diana of Casa High, the Royal Admiral and Micah’s aunt, for all but dumping him into my presence. Micah, seven years old, with his family’s blue eyes and a shock of black curls, had taken my measure and gravely asked if I could climb trees.

I could not, but he’d patiently taught me, and I’d never once fallen out of one.

‘So,’ he said, after swiping the last of the green beans and crunching a mouthful in satisfaction, ‘are you going to explain why I felt obliged to bring you flowers?’

I dragged the last of a sauce-soaked vegetable skin across my plate and resisted a sigh. ‘Politics. I can’t tell you. If it works, you’ll find out.’

When my meetings with Isra had started, she’d stressed that anything we discussed could only be trusted to a handful of people: us, my parents, and Matthias, their advisor and oldest friend. Everyone else, no matter how close they were, should be considered potentially suspect. It was compounded by the fact that I was a princess, but my parents ruled; it was not done for me to play political games without keeping them informed. Everything would gradually change once I gained my majority, and officially took on further responsibilities. But this was the agreement for now.

However: Micah was the nephew of the Royal Admiral, one of the most feared women in the country, and Rialla’s aunt was the Master of Coin’s successor. They both had brains, frequently used them, and recognised a false lure when it was dangled before them.

Micah opened his mouth, whether to argue or otherwise press the issue, but Rialla gently squeezed his arm. She knew all too well the myriad threads of power woven between my parents, their advisors, and me.

Taking the opening, I added glibly, ‘I appreciate the flowers, but must regretfully decline your affections.’

He snorted, choosing humour over irritation.

If there was anyone who’d be an ideal Consort, it was Micah. But we’d never thought of each other that way, even though I knew he was a good choice for a stable marriage. A few others had attempted cautious flirtations, including Lady Cira, who had liked me more than she’d liked being at Court, and Lord Hisham, a budding poet, whose cheerful company I’d enjoyed until his uncertain family arrangement had turned into an all-too-certain betrothal contract. But it was Rialla, tall and sharp-tongued, yet somehow romantic, who’d truly turned my head, a slow process that still seemed to have happened all at once.

And what a disaster it had turned out to be.

No, that was unfair: it had ended as well as it could, under the circumstances. I’d plastered on the regal mask I’d so often scorned Mother for hiding behind, and acted like nothing had changed, while inside my heart had struggled to mend the cracks splintered within.

‘Emri?’

I blinked, suddenly aware I was staring into space, my fork held in mid-air. An uneasy glance flickered between Rialla and Micah; I coughed and dredged up a smile. As always, I hid the upset away, shoved it down so it would only resurface when I was alone, and it was safe.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was… thinking.’

‘A dangerous pastime,’ Micah teased, but with little effort.

I rallied before the sweet course, while Micah gossiped about who his aunt had decided could – and more importantly couldn’t – return to the family estate for the summer gathering. Rialla grumbled about her parents sitting her down, once again, to fret about her lack of ambition. I managed to avoid snorting; Micah did not. Rialla was many things, but not lacking in ambition. She and her parents simply disagreed on the acceptable paths upon which to direct said ambition.

But I couldn’t stop myself from turning the problem of Florette Sigrath and the Mizyr around in my mind, nor ignore my resurgent uneasiness around Rialla. My contributions to the conversation once again petered away, and I only snapped out of my thoughts when Micah tipped the last of the wine into my glass.

‘Apologies,’ I said, as he suggested, ‘If you’d prefer to be alone, we can leave?’

We fell into an awkward silence.

When Rialla pressed her hand against his arm again, he caught her in a hard stare. They engaged in a silent battle of wills, as I focused on chewing a rose cream to nothing.

Three was an awkward number of friends when two fell for each other. Rialla was fond of Micah, but I was closer to him. He was unenthusiastic about any sort of romance, whether because he couldn’t be bothered with the fuss, or was already aware of his place in his family’s marital strategies.

When Rialla and I had succumbed to our year-long tension, we weren’t sure whether to tell him. But the next day after our first kiss, he’d simply known something had changed. He’d tried to accept it good-naturedly, though fear that he would be cast aside clung to his easy smiles. He’d had no reason to worry: I had so few close friends that I wasn’t willing to discard one for romance, and Rialla had agreed.

But now that Rialla’s feelings for me had changed, so had her friendship with Micah. She didn’t exactly pull… rank was the wrong word, but the closest to what it felt like. When she did, I liked it about as much as Micah – not very much. The implication of possessiveness sat sour in my stomach. Micah didn’t know me any less than Rialla now did; she just knew different parts of me.

Yet they must have been more concerned about me than I realised, because Micah acceded the battle of wills with only a little poor grace. Still, he finished his dessert and wine before he left, smiling and bowing with a flourish, reiterating his great esteem and affection for me at the door.

My laughter faded, along with my smile, as I returned to Rialla. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ I said. ‘It’s not fair on him, and it’s not like you had the right to pull… pull – former romantic rank.’

It didn’t matter how well I was taught, how delicately the chains of ruling and duty were impressed upon me. Deep down, I’d convinced myself that it would be different for me, obsessed as I was with Rialla’s kiss, the scent of her hair, the angle of her jaw, the brush of her cool fingers against my neck. I’d have a love match like my parents, who had...