Page 15 of The Queen's Line

"He's made a joke of me, hasn't he?" I asked.

Wendell shook his head and then frowned. "You're just…well, you won't attract too much attention at least. I just didn't realize he had so much talent. Allow me," he said, and I took his hand as he helped me down.

Aric had tweaked Thao's own ornate outfit as well, although not as much as my own, and the prince had tied back his silky black hair. Cosmo and Owen were missing altogether.

"We'll sit in two different groups," Aric said, and he still sounded a little breathless. I wondered if his magic cost him to use. He was registered as a minor magician, but when I checked myself in the reflection of the carriage window, I jumped at the sight of a completely different woman. This wasn'tminormagic at all.

I'd never given a great deal of consideration to my own looks, but one thing was painfully clear—Aric had made meplain. My hair was missing all its shine, my ears were larger, my eyes smaller. He was pale when I spun around again, but smirking.

"How did you do that?" I asked, eyes wide.

"I'm a mage," he said, brow arching. Then he jiggled the bag. It sounded like stones or shells shaking together. "There's power in the charm. I got it before we left the south."

"You're very talented," I said primly, just to watch the smirk falter.

"Stay within reach of one of us, prin—" Aric shook his head and turned his back to me. "I did what I could, but you're still a maid and some men will grab whatever bit of flesh they can."

Wendell tucked me securely between himself and Thao, and together we followed Aric into the inn.

The scent of ale and sausage was stronger inside, and the piss smell blessedly faint—although not altogether lost. The mood of the bar was not exactly energetic, but there was an air of determination about the men drinking and talking loudly throughout the dim space. Lanterns flickered from wooden beams, casting shadows and offering a faint view of the slop on the plates and the weak foam in glasses. I drank in every detail I could, relieved to note that Aric's glamour was doing the trick. Men eyed me, but it was surveying and cursory, and their gazes immediately moved to Thao.

Even with his shine dulled and his hair pulled back, Thao moved and stood and kept his gaze over the heads of the room like a prince. I didn't know if it was because he was uncomfortable or simply naturally haughty, but when I squeezed my fingers around his, he answered back in kind.

Owen and Cosmo were by the front windows with a group of men, and it took me a moment to realize they were our royal guard, their uniforms softened to common clothing by Aric's magic. He led the four of us to a corner table on the opposite end of the room and pulled me out from Thao's grasp, guiding me down into a chair at his side without a glance in my direction.

"So I can keep an eye on the glamour," he said under his breath, brow furrowing and eyes watching the room.

"It isn'tsmallmagic that you work," I murmured back, eyeing the the carved top of the table Aric had placed us at. There were stains and half-finished notes dug out of the wood grain, and a moment later there was a sloshing mug of ale landing in front of me, courtesy of a harried barmaid.

Aric grunted in answer to my questioning tone and I faced him, waiting for him to glance at me. Wendell sat across from us, and Aric had pushed Thao to my other side, keeping his back to the room that was too curious about the prince's foreign looks.

"I know you didn't want to be Chosen," I whispered. Aric blinked at me, and his shoulder jerked in a brief shrug. "If you'd said what kind of magic you could really work, they probably wouldn't even have let you through the front door."

I didn't understand it, but Grandmother said the magical kinds were no good to the Hunger. It was part of why I was glad to take Thao with his tiger shifting, just to spite my grandmother a little. But being honest might've meant Aric didn't even have to go through with my farcical choosing ceremony.

"I'm unregistered," Aric said, his voice dark and gravelly. "I report a little so I can get away with it when I need to, but no more."

I frowned up at him. "What do you mean registered?"

He frowned back and then looked across the table to Wendell. "Your—um, Bryony," Wendell started carefully, dropping my title. Which was nice, actually. I wanted to ask them all to leave it and simply call me by my name instead. "Every Kimmerian citizen skilled in magical arts must be registered."

"I don't—"

"The good magicians go to the army's frontlines in a battle. The great ones go to court," Aric said, cutting off my question. "Shifters have it worse."

When he didn't elaborate with my stare, I turned back to Wendell.

"Those who can shift into animals are generally assigned a position in the army or some kind of labor. Mining or sea faring…" Wendell said, nodding, careful not to look in Thao's direction.

"Assigned?" I asked.

"It means they're not given a choice," Aric bit out. "Their bodies fare better than single-natured humans. They can take more abuse."

I reached for the sticky mug of ale as worry over this round of ugly news hit me, and resisted the urge to spit the liquid right back out of my mouth as the tart and bitter flavor hit my tongue. Aric seemed to shake, but if he was laughing he did me the rare courtesy of not being obvious about it.

"I wonder who is really running this kingdom when the future ruler knows so little about what's going on," Aric muttered, wincing through his own gulp of ale.

He might not have meant that comment as a slight against me. Not like he usually did. But it stung in my chest long after our plates arrived—a strange mess of food that seemed just nearly uniform in texture and color. He was right though. I could imagine my grandmother holding to some of these laws I was learning, but was my mother aware? If the Hunger of the queen's line was not a source of power for Kimmery, then it was clearly a source of distraction for its rulers and I was becoming glad not to possess it.