Nesta barely had a chance to compose herself before the host led them through a discreet door and into a private dining room. It seemed that whichever prince had invited them had shelled out for the top treatment.

Inside, dressed, as before, in black and white, was Prince Kirill, but he wasn't alone. With him sat a young woman, perhaps a few years younger than Nesta.

The girl was tiny and slight, with rich, copper hair and the same dark eyes as the prince. She wore a dress nearly identical to Nesta's, except in a soft shade of mauve. There was a stubborn set to her jaw, a spark in her eyes, and yet there was a sadness to her, too, that took Nesta by surprise.

As soon as he caught sight of the girl, Anatoliy stopped dead. "Princess," he said with a deep bow, and Nesta hastily sank into a curtsey. "And Your Highness. How kind of you to invite us."

Kirill looked vaguely puzzled. "Oh, that was all my brother, I'm afraid. Miss Rennell, a pleasure to see you again."

"You as well, Your Highness," Nesta said, trying not to let her confusion show. So, it had been Prince Nicolai who'd invited them? How did he even know who she was?

"This is my sister," Kirill said for Nesta's benefit, indicating the girl at his side. "The Princess Vasilisa. Vassa, this is Anatoliy's cousin, Miss Nesta Rennell."

The princess gave a small smile. "Pleased to meet you."

"And you, princess," Nesta said. Upon closer inspection, there was no mistaking the girl for anyone but Kirill's sister. She had the same high cheekbones, the same fair skin, the same eyes and nose. But, where Kirill was tall and broad, his sister was tiny and delicate. Where Kirill was dark, she was fiery. And yet, that air of sadness, of seriousness... It was something they both shared, Nesta realized.

"Your father let you out of his sight for the day?" Anatoliy asked the princess, taking the seat nest to hers, leaving Nesta with the choice of sitting across from Kirill or beside him. She chose the chair across from him so she wouldn't have to crane her neck to speak with him.

The princess made a face. "For once. And only because we were coming here. I am forbidden from going anywhere vaguely interesting."

Kirill snorted. "My father believes that Vassa is still six and in need of protection from everything that goes bump in the night."

From Vassa's eyeroll, Nesta gathered that she did not feel the same way. "He refuses to realize that I've grown up," she said with a bit of an edge in her voice. "Still, I've decided to be glad he let me off the leash for a day."

As the princess spoke, Nesta remembered what Anatoliy had said about her. The gods were cruel to make her a woman. She'd make a far better heir than her brother.

Nesta wondered if, perhaps, the gods had also been cruel enough to give her a cruel father. Nesta had heard stories about King Ivan, and now, listening to Vassa speak, those stories came filtering back, making Nesta's blood run cold. There had been another king, she remembered before she could stop herself, who had treated his daughter cruelly...

She shook her head to clear it and realized that Kirill was watching her, a vaguely perplexed look on his face. Nesta did her best to compose herself, but, as she settled back into her chair, she realized her hands were shaking. She balled them into fists and hid them in the folds of her frilly skirt.

"Miss Rennell," Vassa said, and Nesta snapped her attention back to the princess. "Are you newly arrived in Zaryevsk? I don't think my brothers have mentioned."

"She is," Anatoliy answered before Nesta could. "Nesta is a distant cousin of mine. I invited her to stay with me for the social Season."

Vassa smiled. "So, we'll be seeing more of you, then, if you're here for the Season. Are you coming to the Equinox Ball next month?"

Nesta glanced at Anatoliy. "I... I have no idea, Your Highness."

"Oh, you must come," Vassa said, and there was something so genuine and open in her manner. "If my brothers haven't invited you yet, then I will. Please, come. It'll be dull–palace balls always are–but it'll probably be the event of the Season." She made a face. "At least, if my mother has anything to do with it."

"We'd be delighted," Anatoliy said firmly, giving Nesta no chance to reply. "We wouldn't think of missing it."

Vassa grinned, tossing a strand of red hair out of her face. "We'll make sure an invitation is delivered for you." She elbowed Kirill in the ribs. Hard. "Won't we, Kirill?"

Kirill winced. "Absolutely."

Vassa opened her mouth, no doubt to say something else to annoy her brother, but they were spared from a family spat when the host reappeared, holding the door open for the last member of their party to enter. 

"Right through here, Your Highness," Nesta heard him say over his shoulder, and a man who could only be Prince Nicolai stepped past him.

And Nesta's heart skipped a beat.

Now she knew why the man she'd danced with at the masquerade had looked so familiar.

He'd looked familiar because he was Kirill's brother.

Because the man who walked through the door was the man who'd danced the night away with her last night, who'd rescued her from the crush of the crowd, who'd so thoroughly distracted her that she'd forgotten that she was there to do a job, who'd looked so deliciously good in black and white...

...was Prince Nicolai.

Nesta's breath caught in her throat as their gazes met.

"Well," he said with a sly, soft smile. "Hello. It's you again."

And Nesta felt herself smile back. She couldn't help it.

Someone–either Kirill or Anatoliy–cleared his throat. Nesta's cheeks heated as she tore her gaze away from the younger prince, who took the chair right beside hers. Oh, Saints. His leg accidentally brushed against hers as he took his seat, and molten heat pooled in the pit of Nesta's stomach.

Saints, she was in so much trouble.

"Tea?" Vassa asked no one in particular, once her brother was seated. "I'll pour."

"Please," Anatoliy said. His gaze was bouncing back and forth between Nesta, Nicolai and Kirill, and was it Nesta's imagination, or did Kirill look less than pleased by the fact that Nesta and Nicolai were seated beside each other?

Vassa picked up the ornate teapot from the center of the table and began to fill everyone's cups. It was not Kirovkan custom to take milk or cream in tea, so she didn't ask if people preferred milk first or tea first–although, technically, there was only one right answer to that question, which varied depending on who was asking it.

"Sugar?" Kirill asked, once Vassa had filled Nesta's cup for her.

"No, thank you," Nesta said. "Just black."

Three sets of eyes turned to her as the three siblings stared in disbelief. Vassa's mouth was actually agape.

"You don't take sugar?" she asked, then caught herself, blinked twice, and righted the teapot, which had very nearly overfilled her brother's cup. "Is that a Kellan custom?"

"No," Nesta said. "Some people take sugar in their tea in Kelmark. And usually milk, as well."

Vassa wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Who would drink milky tea?"

"Most people," Nicolai said, holding a sugar cube above his cup with a pair of silver tongues. He seemed to be trying to decide if dropping it in would finish the job Vassa's distracted pouring had started and make the cup overflow. In the end, he grimaced and dropped the sugar into his cup. A few drops of tea sprayed onto the white tablecloth. Nesta winced.

"In fact, we might be the only kingdom in Noravya that doesn't serve tea with milk," Nicolai continued. "Or at least give the option of taking it with milk."

"In some of the kingdoms in Soravya, they serve tea with honey," Kirill supplied, naming the continent due south of Noravya. "Coffee, too. I can't imagine that coffee would taste good with honey, but..."

"I think coffee and honey might be nice," Vassa said. Nesta couldn't help wondering how they'd fallen down this particular rabbit hole. "So, Nesta, how do you know my brothers? These reprobates never said."

The abrupt about-face left Nesta off-balance. "Anatoliy introduced me to Prince Kirill, and I met Prince Nicolai at a party yesterday," she managed.

"The masquerade?" Vassa asked, her eyes lighting up. "Was it fun? It sounded fun. I love masquerades. I wanted to go, but my father refused."

"It was... certainly entertaining," Nesta said. Nicolai smirked, but said nothing.

"I looked for you last night," Kirill said, and Nesta felt a vague stab of guilt. She couldn't forget that she'd deliberately avoided him–in favor of dancing with his brother. His brother! She didn't know how she'd failed to realize that she'd been dancing with Prince Nicolai last night. Now that she saw them together, they looked so similar. 

"I'm sorry," Nesta said, genuinely meaning it. "I think I didn't recognize you, what with the masks and all."

The lie tasted bad on her tongue, as did the knowing look Nicolai shot her. 

Kirill, however, smiled. "You'll have to save me a dance at the Equinox Ball. To make up for it."

"Of course," Nesta said, trying to match the warmth in his smile with her own, although she didn't know if she succeeded.

Anatoliy nodded approvingly, a gesture intended only for Nesta to see, but, out of the corner of her eye, Nesta saw Nicolai's brow crease as if he'd noticed and wasn't sure what to make of it. When he caught Nesta watching him, he turned away, his expression carefree again.

"So, Kirill," Nicolai said, turning to his brother. "How long until you return to the front?"

"Not long," Kirill said, and his voice was weary. "Mother talked me into staying until the equinox, so I'll leave the next morning."

"Mother talked you into it?" Vassa's tone was ominous. "I'm sorry. I seem to remember that I was the one who convinced you."

"Well, you did beg quite nicely," Kirill said with the sort of cruel smirk that only siblings ever seemed to wear, the pure delight of a brother tormenting his little sister. "I seem to recall you called me your favorite brother."

"Hey!" Nicolai burst out. "What about me? I thought I was your favorite, dear sister."

"No, I said Kirill was one of my favorite brothers," Vassa said, her blue eyes wide and innocent. Nesta didn't believe the act at all. "It's not my fault he misunderstood."

Nicolai and Kirill gave twin snorts. "Sure," Kirill drawled. "I'm convinced. What about you, Nikita?"

"Oh, completely," Nicolai said, deadpan. "Little liar."

Vassa let out an indignant cry. "Hey! Not fair! The two of you aren't allowed to gang up on me."

"Oh, but it's so fun," Nicolai teased. His dark eyes sparkled with mirth, and even Kirill looked like he was having fun, for once.

Vassa balled up her linen napkin and chucked it at her brother's head. Nicolai plucked it neatly out of the air before it could make contact, and delicately dabbed at his mouth.

"Why, thank you. I had something on my face."

Vassa rolled her eyes. "You did not," she snapped, settling back into her chair with a little flounce.

✦————✴————✦

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. Servers brought out platters of dainty sandwiches and fiddly cakes and pastries, and the princes, seemingly by unspoken pact, stopped tormenting their sister.

Conversation turned to more serious subjects as Nicolai asked his brother about the war.

The war, as if Kirovka was already at war with Solniya, as if war was already assured. Maybe it was. Nesta didn't know enough to join in the conversation, so she sat back and listened to the men and Vassa debate.

"When I left, Solniya was massing troops at the border," Kirill said wearily. "They'd have to be fools to attack in winter; they know we'd have the advantage, and they can't hope to sustain supply chains after the first good freeze. But I think we'll see an offensive as soon as spring comes."

Nicolai shuddered. "That's grim. Father's advisors still think we can talk our way out, but Father is all for war. He thinks we should attack now, force Solniya to fight a winter war."

Kirill's expression was grim. "But Father keeps talking about non-aggression and treaties," he protested.

"In public. Behind closed doors... He's looking for any excuse. Any at all."

Kirill's knuckles were white on his cup. "War isn't the solution. As things stand, there's a decent chance we won't win. At the very least, we'd have to cede some territory. Solniya has the advantage of sheer numbers."

Nesta shivered. She'd never lived through a real war before, but she had lived through what scholars might term civil unrest, which had felt an awful lot like war at the time.

"What about our allies?" Vassa asked. Her eyes were huge, although she seemed more... hungry than afraid, as if she liked that she was being allowed to partake in this conversation, as if she usually wasn't allowed.

"What allies?" Kirill's voice was bitter. "Grimmark, sure. They'll come if we ask, if only to give Solniya the finger. But they don't have the numbers we need. Sure, they have a navy, but half the fighting will be on land. Naval support won't be enough. And Kelmark...

"What about Kelmark?" Anatoliy asked, leaning forward, his gaze intent. He'd been quiet for so long that Nesta had nearly forgotten he was there.

"Their army still hasn't recovered since the Risings a decade ago. When they overthrew King Domhnall."

Nesta shuddered as memories that she fought every day to keep buried threatened to resurface.

"Did you live in Kelmark during the Risings?" Vassa asked, picking up on Nesta's discomfort immediately. "What was it like?"

"It was... I don't know. I was... quite sheltered. Both my parents died in the last Rising, though. I left Kelmark after that."

"You didn't have any family in Kelmark?" Kirill asked.

Nesta shook her head. "My only family was here," she lied. In truth, she had no family here, and she didn't want to think about whether she had any family left in Kelmark, or about her mother's distant kin in Grimmark.

"It was a tragedy, what happened in Kelmark," Anatoliy said, a meaningless platitude.

"It was necessary," Kirill corrected flatly. "King Domhnall was a tyrant. And after what happened with his wife and daughter..."

"What did happen to his wife and daughter?" Vassa cut in. "Nobody's ever given me a satisfactory answer."

"Probably because nobody knows," Nicolai said.

Nesta wished they'd change the subject, but she couldn't unstick her jaw to make words come out.

"That's not entirely true," Anatoliy said. "We know some of it."

"Rumors and gossip," Nicolai scoffed.

"Bare bones," Anatoliy corrected. "We know Queen Alexandra died rather suddenly, while she was still quite young. We know the king was driven mad by his grief. And we know that the king developed a sick fascination with his own daughter."

Vassa's blue eyes were huge. "And then the princess vanished," she said, her voice hushed. It was like a fairy tale to them, Nesta realized, the tale of the lost princess, of the mad king's downfall.

It wasn't a fairy tale to her.

"And then the princess vanished," Anatoliy agreed. "And although the king's brother tried to find her, he was unsuccessful. They crowned him in her stead, in the end."

An image of a king man with a pockmarked face rose up in Nesta's mind's eye, but she squashed it back down, consigning it to the depths of her memory where it had been buried for so long. Even so, she could still hear a hoarse voice asking, How's my favorite girl today?

"Did your parents fight for Eamonn or against him?" Vassa asked her, jolting Nesta back out of the depths of her memories.

"Against him," Nesta admitted. It was a half-truth. "My parents were among King Domhnall's loyalists, but I had family members who fought for Eamonn in the Risings. An uncle, I think. He and my father... They never got on. But he was kind to me."

"Is this the uncle you told me about?" Nicolai asked. 

Nesta started. She'd forgotten she'd already told him about her uncle. She tried desperately to recall exactly what she'd told him at the ball, when the subject of their families had come up, but she couldn't remember.

"Yes," Nesta admitted. "But I don't remember him well. Actually, I don't remember much about my life in Kelmark at all."

There. Hopefully, that would take care of some of the future questions that Nesta was sure to receive.

"But won't they support us in the war?" Vassa asked Kirill a bit impatiently, bringing the conversation back around to its original topic. "They're still our ally, aren't they? Even now that King Eamonn is on the throne?"

"Especially now that King Eamonn rules," Kirill gently corrected his sister. "He's more reasonable than his brother. A better king, too. But his armies haven't quite recovered their numbers from the Risings yet. Like Grimmark, their main strength is their navy. And we need armies."

"Comes from being an island kingdom, I suppose," Nicolai mused. "Different priorities."

"Plus, anyone who attacks them has to come by sea, unless the threat is internal," Kirill added.

Nicolai made a face. "Do you ever stop thinking like a soldier?"

"Technically, I'm a sailor, not a soldier," Kirill shot back. It sounded like an old argument.

Nicolai glanced at Nesta and rolled his eyes. "Same thing," he muttered, for her ears only. His little smile made her insides clench and her face heat.

What was wrong with her? She'd seen attractive men before, and none of them had ever made her feel the way Nicolai did, not even his brother, who was objectively the more classically handsome of the two. No, usually, when she met an attractive man, her guard went up automatically. And yet...

Not with Nicolai.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice carrying no further than either of them, and Nesta realized she was sitting frozen in place, her teacup halfway to her lips.

"Of course." She forced a smile and set her cup back down with a clatter.

"As you say, my lady." But his dark eyes were worried. Nesta didn't know why, but that look of concern left her feeling strangely warm and content, as if he'd given her a gift of some sort.

Word Count: 22583