The Dragon's Path

it.
    “I don’t know what to do any longer,” Phelia said, sitting on the divan. She was leaning forward with her hands clasped between her knees like a child. “I tell myself things aren’t so terribly bad, but then I wake up in the dark of thenight and I can’t get back to sleep. Feldin’s never there. He comes to bed with me, but as soon as I’m asleep he goes back to his letters and his meetings.”
    “These are hard times,” Clara said. She lit the pipe from a thin silver candle set there for the purpose and drew in the smoke.
    “Curtin was going to take the prince on as his ward, you know. But now that he’s gone, everyone’s been scrambling. I think… I think Feldin may be named. I may be helping to raise a prince.” Phelia giggled. “Can you imagine me raising a prince?”
    “Aster’s a boy,” Clara said. “I’ve had three of them. One doesn’t raise boys so much as try to keep fragile things out of their reach.”
    “Men aren’t any different,” Phelia said. “They never think about what might break.”
    Clara sucked on the stem of the pipe and blew out a cloud of sweet grey smoke before she spoke.
    “That is the issue, isn’t it? We have a problem, and it’s spilled over from our court into Northcoast and Asterilhold. Sarakal and Hallskar are likely taking notice as well.”
    “I know it.”
    “Well then, dear,” Clara said, keeping her voice light, “how shall we solve it?”
    “I don’t know why it’s all such a concern. There were ages when Asterilhold, Antea, and Northcoast all answered to the High Kings. Everyone’s intermarried with everyone else. We’re practically a single kingdom already. When you think about it.”
    “That is so utterly true,” Clara said, sitting beside her cousin. Phelia was plucking at her dress with her fingertips now, picking away threads and lint that weren’t there.
    “I just don’t see why there should be any fuss about swordsand bows and such. Nobody can possibly want that, can they? What would fighting gain anyone? It isn’t as if we aren’t already practically one kingdom.”
    “Yes, but as long as there’s one throne in Camnipol and another in Kaltfel, they’ll rattle their swords at one another,” Clara said. “It’s what they do, isn’t it?”
    Phelia started. Her eyes were wider than they should have been, and her hands gripped her knees until the blood was all gone from her knuckles. Now
that
was interesting. Clara cleared her throat and went on, pretending not to notice.
    “The problem is how to give everyone a way to keep their honor intact without asking very much of them. I know Dawson won’t bring himself to see reason unless we can find a path to it that doesn’t involve stooping under something. I assume your Feldin’s very much the same.”
    “But he’s won. Feldin feels he’s won, and if the prince does come to live with us…”
    Clara waited.
    “You know I admire Dawson,” Phelia said. “He’s always been so staunch. Even when he was being rude to Feldin, it was more from the way Dawson lives in the world as he would like it to be. I never thought it was out of anger or spite.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call my darling husband a man without spite, but I take your meaning, yes.”
    Phelia giggled nervously. Her shoulders were hunched like someone braced against a blow.
    “Did you hear that Rania Hiren’s pregnant?” Phelia asked. Clara debated for less than a heartbeat, and decided to let her cousin change the subject.
    “Not again. How many times is this?”
    “Eight, if you count the live births. There were three stillborn.”
    “I’m amazed she has the stamina,” Clara said. “And her husband must be a man of some quality. Rania’s the dearest soul under the sky, but after the twins, she did start to look a bit like a mop’s head. It isn’t her fault, of course. It’s just her skin.”
    “I have the same sort, though,” Phelia said. “I dread to think what I’ll look like after my first child.”
    “You’re young, dear. I’m sure you’ll be able to get your figure back. I suppose it’s rude for me to ask how work has been on that particular project?”
    Phelia blushed, but she also relaxed. Bed gossip and the intricacies of the female flesh might be indelicate, but they were safer than politics and the rumors of war. Throughout the hour, Clara let them talk of nothing in particular, always leaving opportunities for Phelia to return them to the topic of