The Queen's Mage

Chapter 132: Implication

Merrow had been quiet for most of the reception.

That was never comforting.

He stood near the windows with two older lords Serali recognized only vaguely from the noble quarter: one with a hooked nose and silver collar pins, the other with a cane carved in the shape of a sunhawk. They watched Everly make her rounds with polite smiles that did not reach their eyes.

Serali looked at them.

Then at Allandra.

Allandra had seen them too.

Of course.

The privacy ward held, but Serali felt the briefest chill beneath it.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Merrow chose that moment to approach.

“Majesty,” he said, bowing. “Your daughter is in fine form today.”

Allandra smiled with court-perfect calm. “She is enjoying herself.”

“A delightful child.”

“Yes.”

Everly was now showing Marielle a drawing of a gatehouse with a dragon sleeping on it. Marielle appeared to be taking the structural implications seriously.

Merrow’s smile remained pleasant. “And much loved.”

The words slipped into the air too smoothly.

Serali went very still.

Allandra did not.

“She is,” the queen said.

Merrow inclined his head. “The realm is fortunate in its princess.”

“Yes,” Allandra said again.

There was no opening there.

Merrow smiled anyway.

“Let us hope affection and succession remain as simple as they seem today.”

The room did not hear it.

Not most of it.

The music of courtiers and children continued around them. Laughter near the refreshment table. Marielle’s voice explaining why dragons were difficult load-bearing elements. Harrek apologizing to a teacher for stepping on a roll of paper.

But here, in this small pocket of polished malice, the air changed.

Daravan appeared at Allandra’s shoulder.

He had not been there a moment before.

Hagen’s expression sharpened.

Serali felt her hands curl.

Allandra’s voice remained mild. “Careful, Lord Merrow.”

Merrow’s brows rose. “Majesty?”

Daravan said, very quietly, “Her Highness is the heir.”

“Of course,” Merrow said at once. “I imply nothing otherwise.”

“No,” Serali said.

Everyone looked at her.

She had not meant to speak.

Excellent.

A habit.

Merrow’s smile thinned. “Royal Mage?”

“You imply everything otherwise. That is how implication works.”

Hagen’s mouth twitched.

Daravan made a small sound that might have been grief.

Allandra did not look at Serali, which was probably wise.

Merrow flushed. “I meant only that the realm depends upon stability.”

“Then perhaps speak of stability instead of standing near a child and making her existence sound like an unresolved clause.”

That landed.

Merrow’s face went pink.

Hagen’s eyebrows rose.

Allandra’s hand moved once toward her signet ring.

Serali touched her left cuff.

Too late, maybe.

But touched it.

Daravan stepped half a pace forward. “This is not the place.”

Merrow bowed stiffly. “Indeed. I meant no offense.”

“Then take more care with where you leave it,” Allandra said.

Merrow’s mouth closed.

For one wonderful moment, Serali saw him realize that the queen’s mildness had teeth.

Then Everly ran up holding a brass gear in both hands, oblivious to the cold little war she had interrupted.

“Mother! Marielle says this gear is not for eating.”

Allandra turned toward her daughter, and the whole shape of her changed.

Not less queen.

Never that.

But warmer in a way the court kept trying to make dangerous.

“It is not,” Allandra said.

Everly looked disappointed. “It looks like a biscuit.”

“It does not,” Marielle called.

“It does,” Everly insisted.

Yvander examined it from a safe distance. “Poor grain structure.”

Marielle looked betrayed. “It is brass.”

“Then very poor.”

Everly giggled.

The cold passed.

Or rather, it hid.

Serali watched Merrow retreat toward the windows. The two old lords leaned toward him, voices low. Not loud enough to hear.

Not difficult to understand.

Hagen watched them too.

Then he looked at Serali.

“Blunt,” he murmured.

“Accurate.”

“Often a dangerous pairing.”

“You would know.”

His smile deepened. “I would.”

Before Serali could decide whether that was pleasant or irritating, Everly appeared in front of her with the brass gear held out.

“Serali, do you think this looks like a biscuit?”

Serali examined it seriously.

Marielle looked scandalized from across the room.

“It looks,” Serali said, “like a biscuit that made several poor life choices.”

Everly shrieked with laughter.

Marielle threw up both hands.

Verya, passing behind them with a cup of tea, said, “That is not an engineering classification.”

“It is now,” Serali said.

Verya looked at her.

Then, to Serali’s great horror and greater satisfaction, Verya’s mouth twitched.

Everly leaned against Serali’s skirt, laughing, and only remembered a moment later that she was not supposed to touch without asking.

She sprang back. “Sorry.”

Serali looked down at her.

The apology had been immediate. Casual. Not frightened.

A child learning gentleness as naturally as court manners.

Serali’s chest tightened.

“It’s all right,” she said. “You were laughing.”

“May I lean if I am laughing?”

“Briefly.”

Everly leaned again, deliberately, pressing her shoulder against Serali’s leg for exactly three seconds before stepping away.

“Briefly,” she announced.

Daravan, nearby, looked at the ceiling.

Allandra watched from beside the refreshment table, expression soft enough that Serali had to look away.

The bond stirred anyway.

Warmth.

Tenderness.

Fear beneath both.

Because this was the problem.

Everly was beloved. By the queen, by the court, by the servants, by hard men and difficult women and people who softened despite themselves when she entered. Loved enough to make rooms brighter.

But love, Serali was beginning to understand, was not the same as security.

A realm could adore a princess and still doubt a girl.

A council could laugh at her jokes and still murmur about options.

A court could kneel to Allandra and still wait for the moment to ask when she would produce a son.

Everly held up the gear to Daravan next. “Does it look like a biscuit?”

Daravan studied it with grave attention. “No.”

Everly frowned.

He added, “It looks like a wheel pretending to be a biscuit.”

Everly considered this, then nodded. “That is better.”

Hagen laughed softly.

Allandra’s gaze moved toward him.

He looked back at his sister, and for once his smile had little edge in it.

“She is marvelous,” he said.

Allandra’s face gentled despite herself. “Yes.”

A pause.

Then Hagen added, quieter, “And they will use that too.”

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The warmth vanished.

Serali heard because she was close enough.

Allandra’s face changed by almost nothing.

But nothing, with Allandra, could be a scream if one knew where to look.

Serali looked at Hagen.

He met her gaze over the princess’s head.

No mockery now.

Only truth sharpened by a man who loved a child and understood politics well enough to know love could become leverage.

Everly, entirely unaware of the sentence that had just darkened the room, looked up at Serali.

“Will you come see my next drawing?”

Serali swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Good. It has Lord Merrow falling into a fountain.”

Daravan coughed.

Hagen’s smile returned at once. “A promising composition.”

Allandra closed her eyes.

Serali looked across the gallery toward Merrow, who was speaking quietly with the old lords.

Then back at Everly.

A beloved child with honey on her fingers, laughing under a glass ceiling while men near the windows considered the future of her mother’s body and her own claim to power.

“Yes,” Serali said, voice softer than she meant it to be. “Very promising.”

Everly beamed and ran off to show Verya the gear again.

Serali remained where she was, watching the room love its princess.

And fear, quietly, that love would not be enough.

Chapter 133: The Weight of Her Trust

Hagen cornered Serali in the portrait gallery later that evening, which was irritating for several reasons.

First, she had deliberately chosen the portrait gallery because no one useful spent time there. The dead Luinas stared down from the walls in chronological disapproval, which made it an excellent place for solitude. Living courtiers preferred rooms where they could be admired by other living courtiers. The dead required too much competition.

Second, Hagen had clearly known that.

Third, he was already holding two cups of wine.

That meant he had planned this.

Serali stopped beneath a portrait of a red-haired queen wearing armor and the expression of a woman deeply disappointed in the painter.

“No,” Serali said.

Hagen, who had been leaning against the opposite wall as if he had been waiting for a painting to entertain him, lifted one cup. “Good evening to you as well.”

“I am not drinking wine with you in a hallway.”

“Gallery.”

“Worse. There are witnesses.”

He glanced up at the portraits. “Most of them are family.”

“That is worse again.”

His smile appeared. Warm, golden, treacherous. “I begin to see why my sister enjoys you.”

Serali’s eyes narrowed. “Does she?”

“I said begin.”

“You are bad at compliments.”

“I am excellent at compliments. You are bad at receiving them.”

“I receive useful things.”

“Then take the wine.”

“No.”

He looked at the cup in his hand, then back at her. “Do you suspect poison?”

“Yes.”

“Sensible. But inaccurate.”

“That is what someone with poisoned wine would say.”

“It is also what someone with unpoisoned wine would say, which makes the phrase sadly useless.”

Serali considered leaving.

Hagen shifted just enough to make the movement visible but not enough to block her path. That was the trouble with him. He understood power well enough not to use it crudely. He never stood in front of a door if he could make a person notice he had chosen not to.

Serali disliked that.

She accepted the wine.

Not because he had won.

Because refusing it had become the more dramatic option, and she would not give him drama for free.

Hagen looked pleased.

Serali did not drink.

“Still cautious,” he said.

“Still alive.”

“A habit worth preserving.”

“So I have found.”

They stood in silence beneath the painted line of Luinan monarchs.

The gallery was long and narrow, its tall windows darkened to mirrors by the evening beyond. Lamps burned in wall sconces, giving the old faces a flickering half-life. Men and women in gold, white, green, blue. Some crowned. Some armored. Some draped in ceremonial robes. All of them looking as if they had expected history to behave more respectfully.

Serali looked up at the nearest portrait again.

“Who is she?”

Hagen followed her gaze. “Queen Aveline. Broke a northern siege, banned three dueling houses from court, and once threw a ceremonial goblet at a priest.”

Serali’s brows rose. “Why?”

“He objected to her wearing armor before a sacred relic.”

“Did she hit him?”

“No. But she hit the relic stand, which many considered worse.”

“I like her.”

“Yes,” Hagen said. “Most difficult women do.”

Serali looked at him.

He smiled into his wine.

She still did not drink. “What do you want?”

“Must I want something?”

“Yes.”

“Conversation.”

“No one wants conversation. They want information, leverage, confession, amusement, absolution, or someone to stand still long enough to be insulted artfully.”

Hagen laughed.

It seemed genuine.

That annoyed her too.

“All right,” he said. “Information, then. Perhaps amusement. Leverage if you are generous.”

“I’m not.”

“No. I suspected.”

He took a drink from his own cup first, a pointed little display of safety. Serali waited several seconds after he swallowed, mostly out of spite, then took the smallest sip of hers.

Good wine.

Damn him.

Hagen noticed. “Acceptable?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“From that face, I assume worse means anything not stolen from royal cellars.”

“I would never steal from royal cellars.”

“Because you have no opportunity?”

“Because Mara would know.”

“Ah. The true guardian of royal order.”

“Yes.”

Hagen’s smile softened, briefly. “Mara likes you.”

Serali stiffened.

He saw.

Of course he saw.

“Do not look so alarmed,” he said. “It was an observation, not an indictment.”

“In court, those are often the same.”

“True.”

He looked down the gallery, toward a portrait of Allandra’s mother: Queen Maerelle, golden-haired, grave-eyed, one hand resting on a carved chair as if she had never needed to grip anything hard to remain upright.

“My sister has a talent for inspiring loyalty,” Hagen said.

“She is queen.”

“No. That inspires obedience. Loyalty is different.”

Serali looked at him more carefully.

There it was. The reason for the wine. The trap hidden beneath the easy posture and pleasant voice.

Allandra.

Of course.

“Are you asking if I am loyal to her?”

“I am asking whether you know that you are.”

Serali almost smiled.

Almost.

“That is not better.”

“I did not claim it was.”

“My loyalty is defined by oath and office.”

“Verya would be proud.”

“Good. She is difficult to please.”

“Yes.” Hagen looked back at her. “And outside oath and office?”

Serali took another sip of wine, buying time.

Too good. Definitely from royal cellars.

“Outside oath and office,” she said, “there is very little that concerns you.”

“On the contrary. Very little else concerns me more.”

There it was. Not quite threat. Not quite confession.

Serali leaned one shoulder against the wall beneath Queen Aveline’s disapproving gaze. “You dislike that she trusts me.”

“I dislike many things.”

“That was not an answer.”

“No. I learned from my sister.”

“She gives better non-answers.”

“She has more practice.”

“And more authority.”

His smile flickered.

Ah. There.

Serali had not meant to touch the wound so directly, but she saw it the moment she did. The smallest tightening around his eyes. The brief stillness under the charm.

Hagen lifted his cup. “Also true.”

Serali waited for him to cut back.

He did not.

That unsettled her more than if he had.

Instead, he looked at the portraits. “Allandra trusts rarely. More rarely than she knows. She commands easily, delegates reluctantly, forgives strategically, and carries every wound as if it were another office of state.”

Serali’s mouth tightened despite herself.

That was unfairly accurate.

Hagen glanced at her. “You see it too.”

“I see many things.”

“Yes.” His voice gentled. “That is part of why I wanted to speak with you.”

“Because I see things?”

“Because she lets you.”

Serali went still.

The hallway seemed to narrow around them.

The privacy latch Lia had taught her was already closed. Hagen could not feel the bond. He did not know.

Surely.

Probably.

He knew something.

Everyone knew something by now. Not enough. Never the whole shape. But enough to become dangerous.

Serali kept her face bored with effort born of old survival. “Your sister is the queen. She lets everyone see exactly what she wants seen.”

Hagen laughed softly. “An admirable lie.”

Serali said nothing.

He turned toward her more fully. “Do you know what is most dangerous about being near power?”

“Yes.”

His brows lifted.

“That people with power start believing proximity is consent.”

For once, Hagen did not answer immediately.

Good.

Let him chew on that.

When he did speak, the amusement had thinned. “I was going to say that one begins to mistake access for safety.”

“Your version is less bleak.”

“I doubt that.”

“No. Mine has more teeth.”

“Yours usually do.”

Serali looked away first, down the line of portraits.

Queens, kings, heirs, consorts. A whole family wall of people who had been loved, murdered, crowned, traded, mourned, recorded, and arranged into frames after death. In Naerith, portraits had served the same purpose and a different god: bloodline, warning, ownership. Here the colors were warmer. The eyes no less watchful.

“Is this where you warn me not to hurt her?” Serali asked.

Hagen tilted his head. “Would it work?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

That surprised her.

He smiled faintly. “Threats are easiest when one intends to be believed. I am not certain you would believe me.”

“I would believe you might try.”

“Only might?”

“I am being generous.”

“Ah. There it is.”

“What?”

“The compliment you refused to give earlier.”

Serali rolled her eyes.

Hagen’s smile deepened, then faded.

“I do not know what you are to her,” he said.

The words were quiet enough that the portraits seemed to lean closer.

Serali did not move.

“I know what people say,” he continued. “Royal Mage. Foreign adviser. Protected witness. Dangerous asset. Mistake. Miracle. Shadow at the queen’s hand. The city is becoming repetitive, but not without imagination.”

Serali drank again because she needed something to do with her mouth that was not answer.

Hagen watched the movement.

“I also know,” he said, “that Allandra looks less alone when you are in the room.”

The wine went sour on her tongue.

Serali lowered the cup.

That was cruel, though perhaps not intentionally. Worse if not. A deliberate barb could be parried. Truth arrived without blade and still drew blood.

“She is not alone,” Serali said.

“No,” Hagen said. “She has Daravan. Everly. Council. A kingdom. A dead husband. A brother she does not trust.”

Serali looked at him.

He held the gaze.

“Many things can surround a person,” he said. “It does not make them less alone.”

Serali hated him a little for that.

Liked him a little too.

Infuriating man.

“What do you want from me?” she asked again.

This time he answered.

“I want to know whether you understand the weight of being trusted by her.”

Serali’s fingers tightened around the stem of the cup. “I did not ask for it.”

“No. That is often how the heaviest things arrive.”

“I am not responsible for Allandra’s loneliness.”

“I did not say you were.”

“You implied it.”

“I implied that you affect her.”

The privacy latch rattled.

Serali steadied it.

Hagen did not notice the magic, but he noticed her.

His eyes sharpened.

“Does that frighten you?” he asked.

Serali laughed once. “Many things frighten me. I find it tedious to rank them.”

“Where does my sister fall?”

“Higher than she should.”

The honesty slipped out before she could stop it.

Hagen’s expression shifted.

Not triumph.

Interest, yes. Satisfaction, perhaps. But also something like sympathy, which was intolerable.

Serali pushed away from the wall. “Do not look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you have found a wounded animal and are deciding whether it will bite.”

“I assume you will.”

“Good.”

“I was actually deciding whether to say something kind.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

“Too late.”

He looked toward Queen Maerelle’s portrait again, then back.

“I think you are good for her.”

Serali stared.

The words were so unexpected that for a second she could not summon suspicion quickly enough.

Hagen grimaced. “There. You have made me say something earnest. I hope you are ashamed.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You stood there with irritating moral clarity.”

“That is not my fault.”

“It often is.”

Serali searched his face for the hook.

There had to be one.

He saw that too and laughed under his breath. “It was not a trick.”

“Everything you say is at least a little trick.”

“True. But not that part.”

Serali looked away.

Good for her.

That was a dangerous phrase. It wanted to settle somewhere soft.

She did not let it.

“Good for Allandra and safe for Avalusia may not be the same thing,” she said.

Hagen went very still.

Then his smile returned, slower this time. “You see why I wanted this conversation.”

“I see why I should not have accepted the wine.”

“It helped.”

“It did not.”

“It gave your hands something to threaten.”

Serali looked at the cup.

Unfortunately, he was right.

She set it on the narrow table beneath Queen Aveline’s portrait.

“There,” she said. “Now I am unarmed.”

Hagen glanced meaningfully at her sleeves.

“Less armed,” she corrected.

“More accurate.”

The silence that followed was almost comfortable, which was offensive.

Then Hagen said, “Do you miss Lyehira?”

Serali’s body went cold.

Not because the question was cruel.

Because it was not.

She looked at him sharply.

He did not smile.

“Careful,” she said.

“I am.”

“No. You are curious.”

“That too.”

“Curiosity is just hunger with better manners.”

“Sometimes.”

Serali could have left.

He had not blocked her path. The gallery stretched open behind her. One turn would take her toward the residence wing, another toward the servants’ passages, a third toward rooms full of people less golden and irritating.

Instead, she stayed.

“I miss parts of it,” she said.

The admission cost more than expected.

Hagen waited.

Damn him for being good at that too.

“I miss the language when no one is using it as a threat. I miss the old songs, though I only remember pieces. I miss the way the palace smelled after rain, before Vandra decided rain meant the kitchens should be inspected for laziness. I miss my brother.”

Hagen’s expression did not change at the last word, but his attention sharpened.

Serali regretted it instantly.

“My brother helped me escape,” she said, before he could turn it into a question. “That is sealed.”

“Then I did not hear it.”

“Liar.”

“Yes. But I will behave as if I did not.”

“Why?”

Hagen looked mildly offended. “I am capable of discretion.”

“Everyone says that when they want praise for not immediately betraying someone.”

“Fair.” He considered. “Because secrets are more useful when alive.”

Serali’s mouth twisted. “There he is.”

“And because,” Hagen added, quieter, “I know what it is to love someone whose existence complicates the shape of one’s loyalties.”

That was too close to something true.

She did not like it.

“Do you?” she asked.

He looked toward the portrait of Allandra’s mother.

“Yes.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

The gallery felt colder now. Outside the windows, winter dusk had settled over the gardens, turning the glass black. Their reflections stood among the painted dead: a Night Fae shadow mage in dark blue and the Sun prince in amber, both looking at things they did not want named.

Hagen took another sip of wine.

“When I said you are good for her,” he said, “I did not mean harmless.”

“I would hope not.”

“No. You would be insulted.”

“Deeply.”

“I meant she remembers herself differently around you.”

Serali did not answer.

“She has been queen for so long now that even her grief stands at attention. With you, sometimes, she forgets to arrange herself before she speaks.”

Serali’s throat tightened.

Hagen watched her with that unbearable softness again.

“Do not make me regret liking you,” he said.

Her gaze snapped to his.

The line was lightly delivered.

Not light underneath.

“I did not request your liking.”

“No one ever requests the most inconvenient gifts.”

“Are you calling yourself a gift?”

“Frequently.”

“I can see why Allandra distrusts you.”

“So can I.”

That startled a laugh from her.

He smiled, and this time it was almost unguarded.

Almost.

Then he set his cup down beside hers.

“One more thing,” he said.

“There is always one more thing in this palace.”

“Yes. It is how we maintain architectural tension.”

“What?”

His expression sobered.

“The court is beginning to accept you because you are useful, sharp, and difficult to dismiss. That acceptance will hold only so long as your usefulness does not frighten them more than your foreignness does.”

Serali folded her arms. “Too late. My magic frightens them.”

“Yes. And delights Marielle, which is almost as politically dangerous.”

“Marielle is delightful.”

“Marielle is a civic hazard with drafting tools.”

Serali’s mouth twitched.

Hagen stepped closer. Not too close. Never crude.

“If you become necessary to Allandra, the court will ask whether you are necessary to Avalusia or only to her.”

There.

The real warning.

No succession. No Everly. No petition. Nothing so specific.

Only the shape of the danger.

Serali met his eyes. “And what will you ask?”

Hagen smiled faintly. “I already am.”

“Have you decided?”

“No.”

She tilted her head. “That sounded honest.”

“How rude.”

“Did it hurt?”

“A little.”

She almost smiled.

Then he said, “For now, I think you are both.”

Serali went still.

“Necessary to Allandra,” he said. “And, inconveniently, useful to Avalusia.”

“High praise.”

“It is. I will deny giving it.”

“I will deny receiving it.”

“Excellent. We understand one another.”

He gave her a small bow, graceful and infuriating.

Serali picked up her untouched portion of wine again.

“Prince Hagen.”

He paused.

“If this was your attempt to decide whether to like me, how did I do?”

His smile returned.

Not sharp this time.

Worse.

Warm.

“You made the question more difficult.”

She considered that.

Then lifted the cup slightly. “Good.”

He laughed.

As he turned to leave, Serali spoke again.

“And if this was your attempt to warn me away from your sister?”

Hagen looked back.

The lamplight caught his face, gold and shadow in equal measure.

“It wasn’t.”

Serali waited.

His smile thinned. “Not yet.”

Then he left her in the portrait gallery with the dead queens, the cooling wine, and the irritating realization that she hated him and liked him in almost equal measure.

A dangerous ratio.

She looked up at Queen Aveline.

The painted woman stared back, armored and unimpressed.

“Yes,” Serali muttered. “I know.”

Then she took Hagen’s abandoned cup too, because the wine really was excellent, and went to find Mara before she did something foolish, like admit the prince had given useful advice.