All fall for the hybrid queen

CHAPTER 5: THE GARDEN OF LIES

---

Dawn comes too fast and not fast enough.

I don't sleep. I've stopped pretending I will. Instead I lie in the gray sheets and watch the window lighten from black to charcoal to pale silver, and I think about Soren Vallis. About his winter-sky eyes and his wine-stained robes and the way he said my name like a prayer he hadn't earned the right to speak.

I swear to you — on the Book and Star, on my mother's memory, on anything you want — I did not summon you here.

Either he's innocent or he's the best liar I've ever met.

I intend to find out which.

---

The eastern gardens are a ruin of roses.

I push through a wrought-iron gate gone orange with rust and step into a world that someone forgot to maintain. Rosebushes run wild, their blooms overripe and dropping petals into the gravel paths. Stone benches sit half-swallowed by ivy. A fountain stands dry at the center, its basin cracked, a statue of some forgotten queen gazing down at empty air. The Summit Hall looms behind me, white stone against a pinkening sky. No one else is awake. Or if they are, they're clever enough to stay hidden.

Soren is already there.

He sits on the edge of the dry fountain, shoulders hunched against the morning chill, a leather satchel clutched in his lap like a shield. He's dressed more practically than last night — simple trousers, a wool coat, no spectacles. Without them, his face looks older. Sharper. More capable of deception.

He stands when he sees me. Too quickly. Almost stumbling.

"You came," he says.

"I said I would."

"People say things at feasts. They don't always mean them in the morning."

I stop a few feet away, close enough to read his expression, far enough to run if I need to. "I'm not people."

"No." A ghost of a smile. "You're really not." He gestures to the satchel. "I brought something. Proof. Or — what I hope will be proof. I was up all night gathering it."

"Show me."

He opens the satchel and pulls out a bundle of letters, some yellowed with age, others crisp and new. His hands tremble slightly as he sorts through them. From nerves or exhaustion, I can't tell.

"Three months ago," he begins, "I received this."

He hands me a letter. The paper is thick and expensive, the script elegant and looping. I know that handwriting. I've spent the night staring at it.

To His Highness Prince Soren Vallis of the West,

Certain matters regarding the hybrid known as Varenya have come to our attention. Her existence represents both a threat and an opportunity to the stability of Eryndral. A Summit has been proposed to discuss her future. We trust the Scholar Prince will lend his voice to this most urgent of gatherings.

— A Friend of the Realm

No signature. No seal. Just the same elegant script that named him in the letter Kael gave me.

"This is the same handwriting," I say slowly, "as the letter that claims you summoned me."

Soren nods. "I know. I realized that immediately when you confronted me last night. Someone is using my name. Someone wants us at odds." He hands me another letter. "This one arrived two weeks later."

This one is shorter.

Prince Soren,

Forgive the subterfuge, but discretion is paramount. The hybrid must attend the Summit. If she does not, certain parties will move against her without the protection of the gathered crowns. You are the only ruler who will advocate for her genuinely. The others will see her as a tool or a threat. You will see her as a person. That is why your voice is essential. Trust no one — especially not the Wolf King. He has his own plans for her.

— A

"A." I look up. "That's all?"

"That's all." Soren runs a hand through his already-messy hair. "I thought — I thought maybe it was Evander. The Ashford sigil is a serpent. Serpents have venom. A for asp, perhaps. But Evander doesn't hide his schemes. He's proud of them. This is someone else."

"Or Evander wants you to think it's someone else."

"Maybe." He looks at me with those pale blue eyes, and in the growing light they're not winter at all. They're spring melt. Thawing. Hopeful. "But whoever it is, they were right about one thing. I did advocate for you. Not because I want to use you. Because I read everything I could find about hybrids after that first letter arrived, and do you know what I discovered?"

"Enlighten me."

"There are fewer than two hundred hybrids left in all of Eryndral. Most live in hiding. Most die young. The pure-blood families consider them abominations. The human villages consider them cursed. And yet — " He steps closer, and I don't step back. "And yet every major prophecy in every ancient text mentions a hybrid. A bridge between peoples. Someone who belongs to both worlds and neither. Someone who will either unite the continent or break it apart."

"I don't believe in prophecies."

"I don't either." His smile is sad. "But the people who want you dead do. And the people who want to use you do. That's why I wanted you here. Not to control you. To protect you. The Summit gives you visibility. It gives you witnesses. If something happens to you now, the continent will know. You're harder to kill when everyone is watching."

The logic is sound. Cold, even. Not the idealism I expected from the Scholar Prince.

"You've thought about this," I say.

"I've thought about almost nothing else for three months." He gestures at the letters scattered on the fountain's edge. "Someone wanted me to care about you. Someone fed me information, guided my decisions, manipulated me into becoming your advocate. And now someone is trying to convince you that I'm your enemy." He meets my eyes. "The question is — who benefits from us destroying each other?"

I think of Kael. Gruff and direct, handing me a letter that condemned Soren. I don't like anonymous. I don't like being maneuvered. But what if Kael is the one maneuvering?

I think of Evander. Useful things get owned. What if he wants me isolated, distrustful, easy to collect?

I think of Risha, watching from across the feast hall, calculating fleet movements.

I think of the fifth ruler. The one I haven't met. The broken crown on a field of black. The one Serith said belongs to no one.

"Tell me about the fifth throne," I say.

Soren's expression shifts. Wariness. Fear. "The Exiled Heir."

"Darian."

"You know the name."

"I know there's a banner with a broken crown hanging in the Summit Hall. I know no one talks about him. I know he's the only ruler who hasn't arrived." I fold my arms. "What don't I know?"

Soren hesitates. Then he sinks back onto the fountain's edge, suddenly looking every year of his twenty-five years and then some.

"Darian was the heir to the central throne. The Heartlands. The seat that's supposed to bind all five territories together. Ten years ago, his family was overthrown. His father executed. His mother — " He stops. Swallows. "His mother was a hybrid. The only hybrid ever to sit on a throne."

The world tilts.

"His mother was like me."

"She was executed too," Soren says quietly. "Publicly. For the crime of polluting the royal bloodline. Darian was twelve. He watched them kill her. Then he disappeared. The throne has been empty ever since. No one claims it. No one dares. The broken crown on the black field — it's not a sigil. It's a memorial."

"And a warning."

"Yes."

I sit down on the fountain beside him. Not because I'm tired, though I am. Because my legs won't hold me anymore. Because everything I thought I understood about this Summit, about my place here, about the forces moving around me — it's all shifting. Rearranging. A hybrid queen on a throne is not unprecedented. It has happened before. And she was murdered for it.

"Darian," I say. "He's still alive."

"So the rumors say. Living in the wilds. Gathering followers. Waiting." Soren looks at me. "If he knows about you — if he's been following your story — he might see you as an ally. Or a threat. Or a replacement for the mother he lost. With Darian, no one knows. He's been in the shadows for a decade. He could be the one sending those letters. He could be the one who wants us at each other's throats. He has every reason to hate the five crowns. Every reason to want the Summit to fail."

"And every reason to want me on his side."

"Or in his control." Soren's voice drops. "Varenya, I don't know who's behind this. I wish I did. But I know I'm not your enemy. I know I never have been. And I know — " He reaches out, hesitates, then gently takes my hand. His fingers are cold. "I know I don't want to be."

I look at our joined hands. Then at his face. The morning light catches his eyes and for a moment, just a moment, I see past the awkward scholar. I see someone who has been just as alone as I have. Just as isolated. Just as hungry for someone to see him and not flinch.

Is it real? Or is it the performance of a lifetime?

I don't pull my hand away.

"Help me find out who's behind this," I say. "Not by protecting me. By standing beside me. Equals. Partners. No more letters from anonymous friends. No more secrets."

His grip tightens. "Partners."

"Don't make me regret it."

"I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you don't." He says it without irony, without hesitation, and the terrifying thing is — I almost believe him.

---

We stay in the garden until the sun fully rises, sorting through letters, comparing handwriting, building a fragile alliance out of suspicion and shared danger. By the time the servants begin moving through the halls, I know two things for certain.

First: Soren Vallis did not summon me here.

Second: Someone else did. Someone who knows about Darian's mother. Someone who has been watching me for months, maybe years. Someone who wants the hybrid queen and the exiled prince to collide — and doesn't care who burns when they do.

The formal Summit session begins in three hours.

And I am walking into it with a new ally, a new enemy somewhere in the shadows, and a name I can't stop thinking about.

Darian.

The Exiled Heir.

The boy who watched his hybrid mother die.

The man who might want to save me — or destroy me.

---