Malice

smell of ash burns against my throat.
“I didn’t mean that. I just— I thought this was how it worked with the Graces.”
“You can’t just pretend to be a patron.” I’m being harsher than necessary, but I don’t care. “And I don’t know how I feel about you paying to spend time with me. As if I’m some kind of— of pleasure Grace.”
A few beats of strained silence thrum.
“I didn’t think of it like that.” Her voice is small. “I’m sorry. I wanted to see you again and you wouldn’t come to me. You left in such a rush after dinner. I can guess why.”
Swiping my sleeve over the soot on my brow, I set the poker down. But I don’t look at her. Don’t admit what happened.
“I’m not an idiot.” Aurora puts herself in my way when I try to slide past. “I know how my mother can be. Do you think you’re the first friend she’s chased off?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Why do you think I told you to meet me in the servants’ halls? Slipped my guards and came here? I don’t pay to see all my friends, you know.”
Some of the tension between my shoulder blades unspools. Aurora wanted to see me badly enough to plan out the particulars.
“Though, I admit, something to turn my guards into toads would have been most useful.” She notices Prince Markham on a nearby table and sticks her finger through the slats of his cage, rubbing his warty head. He lets out a sound that might be a toad purr.
“I can’t do that with an elixir.” She frowns. “And I can’t go back to the palace. Not to see you. Not even in secret. Your mother was very clear.”
“I’m sure she was,” Aurora grumbles. “When I was little, it was the servants’ children. The second one of us started spending too much time with a kitchen girl or maid’s daughter, my mother would pack that family away to another post. Especially the boys. Once, I pointed out that any one of them might be our true love and I was locked in my rooms for a full day.” She picks up a handful of black toadstools and lets them fall back into their bowl. “Of course, that wasn’t as bad as the time I suggested one of the girls might break our curse. For that I got a week.”
I bristle, but can’t explain why. “But they might have. There would be no shame in it. I’ve never understood why your suitors have to be men. The early queens used to take consorts of both genders.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “The early queens also never married. They would have children with multiple men sometimes, as it suited them. Until Catalina.”
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time, though I know it well. A Briarian marquess broke Catalina’s curse, and she was besotted with him. But he had ambitions beyond that of a consort. If Catalina wanted him, she would have to marry and remain faithful to him. Catalina was so in love that she penned a marriage contract immediately, and even appointed her new husband to be lord commander of the military. It seemed an innocuous title at the time, when the realm knew only peace. But her decision soon proved a dangerous precedent to set. Every other queen followed Catalina’s lead, marrying their curse breakers and carving up the various pieces of sovereignty, until only crumbs remained.
“But Catalina’s actions don’t explain why you’re restricted to kissing men,” I argue, surprised at the force in my own words. “You should be able to marry whomever you choose. Heirs can be conceived in other ways.”
“I need someone like you on my council one day,” she muses, smiling. My cheeks heat. “And you’re right—which is why the early queens never bothered with marriage. Truthfully, I think there have been instances in which a princess’s curse was broken by a woman. But they were quickly covered up. I imagine the poor girls were probably lesser nobles or servants, even. Easily paid off and sent away.”
“But why?”
“Do you know of a Briar King who would willingly give away his title to a woman?” Callow stirs and flaps her wings, as if the idea is preposterous even to her. “And there is…” Aurora pauses, “another story.”
The fire chews away the logs.
“Do you know the island of Cardon? It’s in the Southern Sea.”
“Just below Ryna, yes. That’s the one Leythana liberated. It’s ruled by several families now instead of a monarch.”
“Exactly. A Cardon son came to Briar to try to break the crown princess’s curse. Among his retinue was his sister, Corinne. Well.” A chair creaks as she sits and motions for me to join her. “The son’s kiss did not break the curse. But Corinne and one of the younger Briar princesses—Eva—got along quite well. So well, in fact, that Corinne broke Eva’s curse.”
I shake my head. “That can’t be right. I’ve never read anything about that.”
“You wouldn’t have.” Aurora smiles wryly. “I only know because my mother told me during the week that I was confined to my chambers. It’s rather a family secret.”
A big one, it seems. And I wonder how many others are buried inside the palace walls. Old skeletons packed bone to bone. “What happened to them—Eva and Corinne?”
“The Cardon family was furious. They demanded that the son they sent marry the younger princess immediately—after all, there was a chance that Eva would one day be queen. And they commanded Corinne to return home. Couples of the same gender were not as accepted in that realm.”
“Oh.” I think of the women with the butterfly sashes at Aurora’s birthday. “But Eva didn’t marry him?”
“No.” Aurora picks at the laces of her bodice. “She refused the match. She said she would marry her true love, no matter the consequences. She threatened to stow away in the ships taking Corinne back to Cardon if they tried to keep them apart.”
“Did she?”
It’s a long moment before Aurora