Sophia's POVThe news reached me through Elara, as most things did — she arrived with my morning tray wearing an expression that occupied the complicated territory between scandal and sympathy, and set the tea down with the particular careful quietness of someone delivering information they weren't sure how to frame.

"My lady," she began. "There is something the court is talking about this morning."

I looked up from the letter I was composing. "Tell me."

"The King has dismissed his consorts." ...