Under Balekin's tutelage, Cardan remade himself. He learned to drink a
vast variety and quantity of wines, learned how to take powders that made
him laugh and fall down and feel nothing at all. He visited the weavers and tailors with his brother, choosing garments with cuffs of feathers and
exquisite embroidery, with collars as sharp as the points of his ears, and
fabrics as soft as the tuft of his tail—a tail he tucked away, for it showed too
much of what he schooled his face to hide. A poisonous flower displays its
bright colors, a cobra flares its hood; predators ought not to shrink from
extravagance. And that was what he was being polished and punished into
being.
And when he returned to the palace dressed magnificently, behaving
with perfect deference toward Eldred, shown off by his brother as though he
were a tamed hawk, everyone pretended he was no longer in disgrace.
Balekin relaxed his rules toward Cardan after that, allowing him to do what
he wished so long as he didn't draw the ire of their father.
That spring, Elfhame bustled with preparations for a state visit from
Queen Orlagh and had little time to consider an errant prince anyway There were whispers that if Orlagh, known for her brutal and swift
conquests over her rivals in the Undersea, didn't already control everything
beneath the waves, she soon would. And she had announced that she
wanted to foster her daughter on land. In the High Court of Elfhame.
An honor. And an opportunity, if someone was clever enough to exploit
it.
Orlagh hopes the girl will marry one of Eldred's offspring, Prince
Cardan overheard a courtier say. And then the queen will scheme to make
that child the next ruler of Elfhame, so her daughter, Nicasia, may rule land
and sea.
After which, the spouse will likely meet with an accident, put in another.
But if that was what some thought, others saw only the immediate
benefits of such an alliance. Balekin and two of his sisters determined they would be the ones to befriend Princess Nicasia, imagining that friendship
could change their balance of power in the family.
Cardan thought they were fools. Their father already favored his
second-born child, Princess Elowyn. And if she wasn't chosen as his heir, it
would be Prince Dain, with his machinations. None of the others had the
shadow of a chance.
Not that he cared.
He decided he would be thoroughly unpleasant to the girl from the sea,
no matter how Balekin punished him for it. He would not have anyone
think he was a part of this farce. He would not give her the opportunity to
disdain him.
By the time Queen Orlagh and Princess Nicasia arrived, the great hall
was draped in blue cloth. Dishes of cold, sliced scallops and tiny shrimp
quivered on trays of ice beside honeycomb and oatcakes. Musicians had
taken up playing merfolk songs on their instruments, the music strange to
Cardan's ear.
He wore a doublet of blue velvet. Gold hoops hung from his ears, and
rings covered his fingers. His hair, dark as the sloes of a blackthorn,
tumbled around his cheeks. When courtiers looked at him, he could tell they
saw someone new, someone they were drawn to and a little afraid of. The
feeling was as heady as any wine.
Then the procession arrived, clad like a conquering army. They were
draped in teeth and bone and skins, with Orlagh leading them. She wore a
gown of stingray, and her black hair was threaded with pearls. Around her
throat hung the partial jawbone of a shark.
Cardan watched Queen Orlagh present her daughter to the High King.
The girl had hair the deep aqua of the sea, drawn back with combs of coral.
Her dress was gray sharkskin, and her brief curtsy was that of someone who
had never questioned her own value. Her gaze swept the room with
undisguised contempt.