"I do hope you like the dress," Salena went on. "It will go well with your hair."
They helped her into the vile garment, and when they were finished, Devondra affixed a simple band with mauve feathers to the side of Ember's plait. With all the Glamours between her mother and Devondra, they could almost be twins except for the modest hair plaits and dress worn by her mother.
Standing in front of the mirror, Ember felt incredibly exposed. It wasn't just the way Salena looked at her, searching and pleased and knowing all at once, but the way Ember could see her own chest heaving, the way the bodice tightened against every womanly curve she had—a blessing we received from Mother, Devondra always said—and the feel of air brushing the skin between her shoulder blades. She looked older, more refined, and more like Devondra than she could ever remember.
"There. You look stunning," Salena announced.
Stomach churning, Ember lifted her chin to hold her mask of composure.
"Thank you for helping me prepare," was all Ember could manage to say before turning away.
"Devondra, you may go," Salena said. "Your sister and I need to discuss her scores from the Academy."
Despite Salena's tone, Ember knew there was no point in arguing to have the discussion later. Salena's hunger for information was never so easily put aside.
"Don't be late," Devondra said with her cat-like smile pointed at Ember.
Ember shivered. That smile had only ever meant mischief, and not mischief of the childish sort.
Devondra grabbed her handmaid's arm and sauntered out.
Salena shut the door and signed Binding and Silencing spells around it, her fingers pulling and twitching at the air to bind it to her command. No one would enter or listen at the door. The spells took only a moment to cast, and left a residue of silvery filaments that pulsed with cold life.
Silent as an owl, Ember grabbed Gregory's dagger out from under her featherbed, where she had hidden it upon returning in the late morning, and slid it securely into her sleeve. She hoped to return it to him before the feast was over.
Salena's blue gown rustled as she turned back to Ember with folded hands.
"Tell me."
Ember sat on the bed's edge, wincing as the bodice constricted her lungs.
"What would you like to know?"
"Don't play games with me, Ember. I don't want to draw attention by being late for the feast."
"Then perhaps we can discuss this after the feast."
Salena's face tinted pink.
"We discuss it now."
Ember forced her shoulders to relax.
"Lady Ashlin has formed a new garrison. Women only. Lord Wincel is adding three men to his Escort. The new Ekesian king raised taxes, and now immigrants are flooding into the city of Edlen."
"I always thought Richaro was too young to take his father's place," Salena said. "What else?"
"There are eleven patrols out now. Arundel requested to send out one more."
Salena turned away, the silk of her blue gown rippling gold in the evening light as she began to pace.
"Where?"
"He's heard of factions in Ekesia. He doubts Richaro's loyalty to their agreement about shapeshifters."
"What about Orion?"
"There are three patrols in the Orion Mountains already."
Not long ago, there had been rumors about Orion. Ember had heard someone from Merewood mention that he had seen a shifter there, and that he had heard the same thing from other travelers. Ember thought it the likeliest place for shifters to hide, with caves and valleys and few peoples beyond the hunting clans that roved with the seasons.
She had never mentioned these bits to Salena.
"He's arrived," Salena said now from the balcony doors.
"Who?"
"Gregory."
Ember rushed out onto the balcony just in time to see Gregory, dressed in a fine red tunic and cap, disappear into the great hall below, followed by several others. His father, his younger brother, and a young woman wearing a gown of green brocade with hair the color of wheat...
An excellent horse-woman.
Ember spun away from the railing and went back inside, closing the doors behind her. Salena paced, a line creasing her forehead.
There is something else she wants to know. Something about Arundel.
"He mentioned his recent venture," Ember offered.
A flicker of worry in Salena's blue gaze.
"Yes, he was gone for nearly twenty days. It was successful, I've heard." A hand fluttered up to her throat, where a heavy blue sapphire hung from a ribbon of gold. Another gift from Arundel. But Salena will never sway as easily as the Council.
"He offered sunstone to Masonshire."
"A new mining site, then. He's been searching for years." Salena nodded resolutely. "Is that all?"
"He mentioned three deaths at the smelter. A furnace collapsed."
Salena exhaled with closed eyes, and when she opened them, they were heavy with weariness. "I will see that the families receive extra care. Is there anything further?"
"Nothing of import."
Salena stretched her hands toward Ember. "Come, then. Let's not be too late. Your father will note our absence."
They descended the twisted iron steps that led three stories below, edging around a hoard of servants who rubbed goose grease into the balustrade. At the bottom, they entered a corridor that ran behind the great hall.
More servants opened a pair of doors to the great hall dais. Deep, warm laughter rose from the largest of three tables. Arundel. He was in a good mood tonight.
Salena gave Ember's hand a squeeze and glided to the largest table, where the family usually sat. Arundel stood to take Salena's hand and seated her on his right.
Ember's headache throbbed when she spotted Gregory on Arundel's left.
The seat of honor. Of course Gregory was the guest of honor for the feast, and she should've expected him to be there, but the sight of him so close to Arundel chilled her.
She forced her legs to move. One step. Two steps... She heard a throaty giggle that could only be Devondra's, and smoothed her movements. Tonight is Gregory's night. She would be pleasant and confident and refined. She would breathe through the headache that crept down her neck.
Gregory didn't see her approaching the table, but Arundel did. He didn't seem to recognize her at first, but in a moment he was smiling and looked pleased, even prideful. He stood tall and strong, his hair the color of bitter Ekesian chocolate, and offered her his hand, the palm scarred from the heat of an iron rod.
Her heart reached for her throat. She took it.
chapter ten
The great hall had a vast, high ceiling. The eastern wall, filled with leaded windows, usually looked out to Mirror Lake. Now, it stood as a molten black wall, reflecting thousands of candles that burned from twisted iron chandeliers and sconces. The reflection made the hall look larger, with perhaps thousands of people rather than hundreds, a swarm of reds, blues, purples, and greens seated at iron-legged wooden tables. The staff of Silverglen was quite large, and others from Merewood and Kingsbury had come to celebrate.
Ember sat at the head table, which seemed too full by far. The large, rectangular table occupied most of the dais, but with her family, Gregory's guests, and the Council, there was hardly room to breathe.
Not that I could breathe if I did have room, Ember thought as she rubbed the stays that dug into her ribs.
"Did you say something?" the young man next to her asked through a mouthful of sweetbread drizzled with honey, his arm rubbing hers as he prepared another mouthful.
They were on the third course of the feast, and she had spent the time avoiding looking at the young man, whose name was Eawart, and whose relationship to her own family was unclear. Why she had been seated next to Eawart was a puzzle she had as of yet to solve. She wished she had been seated near Finn. She missed his joviality and his inevitable support should she send him a look of misery. But Finn sat near
Gregory, too far to speak to and out of sight behind massive Lord Thurstun.
"No, I said nothing." Ember pressed a finger over her right temple, hoping to squelch a throbbing vein, and tasted the dish in front of her. Sweet currants, cinnamon, and cloves mingled with the delicate fowl-like flavor. They aligned perfectly with the red wine.
"This fish is perfection," Eawart went on. "Just like chicken. I now believe the rumor that your father has the best cook in all of Lach."
"Not fish, but squelkin. A delicacy here," Ember stated, and smiled as Eawart stared down at his plate, a look of disgust curdling his gaiety. She allowed herself a glance down the table to where Gregory sat. He was still preoccupied with re-telling the tale of the race, probably for the third time, to the others at the table. Ember hadn't gotten the entire story, as Eawart showed a propensity for talking in her ear. She didn't think Gregory would speak of a wolf helping him, but then again she wasn't sure he even knew that the wolf had been her. If he mentioned it, the few people who knew they were friends might start looking at her more suspiciously.
"What do you think about the Ekesian boar?" Eawart asked, disgust apparently forgotten as he waved a greasy spoon toward one of the walls.
The painting that covered the wall resembled an Ekesian landscape—a deep green jungle with palm fronds, thorn-covered trees, and jagged leafy shrubs, all depicted in such fine detail that the wall seemed like a window looking out into another world. The boar Eawart spoke of was a Glamour, and it currently rooted its way around a brushy clump of palmaro, probably looking for fallen nuts.
Before Ember could answer, Eawart spoke again.
"Oh look! There's the hunter, behind that strange vine."
"Hook-vine," Ember corrected. Had the man never learned Ekesian botany? "You might not want to watch this part," she added, hazarding a look at Eawart. Thick lips shone in the candlelight as he stared at the mural.
Knowing what would happen to the boar, Ember lost her appetite for the squelkin and focused instead on the sweetbread. Down the table, Gregory's female friend laughed musically at one of Arundel's jokes. The hum of talk from beneath the dais drowned out most of what was said, although it helped that on her other side sat Lord Jeriel of Masonshire, who hadn't said more than four words to her.
Ember had trouble not staring at Gregory and his friend, though when she did the heat rose up her neck and she was sure someone would notice.
Perhaps the Glamours are hiding it. She watched from beneath her lashes as Gregory spoke into the woman's ear, his teeth flashing white in a grin. They certainly look like lovers. Trying not to think about how well they appeared together—him with bronzed skin and a satiny red tunic, her with a head full of spun wheat and a pale, smooth complexion—Ember looked down to her lap, only to be surprised yet again by the sight of her own bosom, looking alarmingly ample in the low-cut gown.
More heat crept up her face.
Eawart gasped at the mural, undoubtedly enjoying the scene of the boar being ruthlessly trapped and gutted. The two other murals in the great hall had more satisfying Glamours at the moment. In Zari, a herd of horned drogons basked in the desert heat, each of their scales melting from cobalt to plum. In Orion, a firebird glided over the mountains like a spark of sun, leaving behind a glittering streak of orange and red and gold that fell like dust through the sky. A magic dust, it was said, that could make any wish come true. Silent song, wishing dust, from the firebird life is thrust...
"...honored if you would dance with me tonight," a voice said. It was Lord Wincel who spoke, seated on the other side of Eawart, and for a moment Ember was afraid he had been speaking to her. She heard Devondra's lilting response.
"I will be occupied elsewhere tonight," Devondra said from Lord Wincel's side, hardly a note of apology in her tone.
It had taken Ember some effort not to laugh aloud when she saw Devondra, perched like an angry green cat next to the hunched, saggy-faced Lord Wincel. The repulsion on Devondra's face at having to be so close to him had made her insides quake with glee.
"There will be dancing?" Eawart asked suddenly.
Ember stared at him.
"There is always dancing after a feast with Lord Arundel," Lord Wincel replied, his white eyebrows raised like two floating feathers.
"Excellent," Eawart replied, sucking the last bit of honey from his fingers.
"I thought you said you had been to my father's feasts before?" Ember asked.
He glanced at her in surprise. "Yes, but it was a long time ago. I was a child, maybe five or ten."
Eawart looked to be about Ember's age, possibly a couple of years older. That long ago, the rebellion was still active, and Lord Arundel never held feasts or celebrations of any sort. He had been in a dark place, Salena had always said, grieving over his parent's deaths and assuaging his need for revenge.
He had never really satiated that need for revenge, Ember thought. Killing shifters only seemed to make it worse, at least for a time. He was forced to stop when all the shifters were gone, and even now he still tried to find them, nearly two decades after the rebellion began.
Ember glanced to where Arundel sat, Salena on one side and Gregory on the other. He seemed bigger than anyone else, taller and stronger and brighter. He looked happy, for the moment, but Ember knew that with a few more drinks, he would begin his descent. Salena, composed and placid, spoke mostly to Lady Ashlin and hardly at all to Arundel. Another piece of the puzzle that will bring him down. Always.
"Will you dance tonight, then?" Eawart said.
Ember found that her wine glass was full again, and she took a long sip.
"I'm not a very good dancer," she tried.
"I don't believe that. I've already noticed the way you move. Very graceful. I am sure we'd make an excellent dancing pair. You should at least promise me one dance."
"Of course," Ember said, resorting to politeness. Her face flamed. One dance with the lying stranger, and perhaps one with Gregory.
She was confident that Gregory knew she was there, and yet she had been unable to catch his eye. He seemed preoccupied with the food, and the wine, and the fine woman seated so close to him that she almost looked to be in his lap.
Sickened, Ember spent the fourth course watching one of the Glamours of a Zarian drogon rise, stretch, and rub one long horn into the ground. A Glamour of dust rose up along the wall, heading toward an endless blue sky. She watched until she spotted the hunters creeping in as rocks, inching their way toward slaughter.
By the fifth and final course, her headache had transformed into fuzziness and the chandelier candles above seemed to be casting their warmth down on her. She was satiated, and was growing accustomed to the pressure of the bodice stays, though the same could not be said about her exposed chest.
Voices, interspersed with clapping and hoots, grew below the dais. There were the usual jugglers and acrobats and singers, along with Arundel's famous hired Zarian dancers who mimicked the way animals moved. Their black skin shone in the candlelight as they told a story of a lion taming a lioness, the furs and teeth and claws they wore spinning and clinking as the smell of anise and jipsom flower floated over the dais.
"I should have dancers like those," Eawart was saying, not noticing Ember's silence for the entire last course. "Five, I think, for my castle."
Ember nearly choked on her wine. "Your castle?"
"Yes, well it's a smaller castle than this one, but a place I can call my own. Have you heard of Witherington? It's in Pemberville, which is quite far from here—"
"Yes, I attended the Academy," Ember replied briskly. She had never heard of a 'Witherington,' though she knew of everyone important in Pemberville and knew that only the Council members were allowed to own castles in Lach.
"Perhaps you've seen it, then," Eawart continued, a pink blush forming on his round cheeks. "A grand thing, beautifully built with four fountains, ten sculptures, and two dozen horses. I've also recently purchased three of the finest gilded carriages in Pembe
rville."
Ember could just picture him riding in one of the Pemberville carriages, peeking out with his slightly up-turned nose, the multitude of Insulating spells forming a sheen of sweat on his bare upper lip.
"Are you a researcher, then?" Ember probed.
"No, but my father was. Hardly ever see him." He took a few loud gulps of wine.
"And what brought you out to Silverglen?"
"Business with Lord Arundel. My father and he were friends a long time ago. Old connections."
Before Salena and Arundel had met, Arundel had been a well-known wizard at the Academy, and a renowned researcher. Unfortunately, the Academy kept their historical documentations under a mass of Binding and Blinding spells, so Ember had never been able to find out what exactly Arundel had researched.
Ember wondered fleetingly if, by seating her next to Eawart, Arundel had been hinting at a marriage prospect.
"So you didn't attend the race?" Ember asked.
"The race? Oh, the Red Morning. No, I wasn't able to see it. Did you?"
"No."
"Do you know the winner? He seems to be having a good time with that lady friend of his. I suppose I would be too, if I'd just won a famous race. I'm willing to bet women will be pouring over him by the end of the night."
Eawart called over more wine with a wave of his hand.
Ember left her filled glass untouched. She was beginning to wonder whether it would be appropriate to leave when Arundel announced that dancing would commence.
The musicians gathered to the side of the dais, and hordes of servants dressed in violet livery cleared and moved the tables. Finn sprang up to join his violin to his fellow musicians, looking about as antsy as Ember felt. She envied his escape into music, but gave a weak smile when he winked and wiggled his brows at her.
As the music began, Ember, like many others in the hall, couldn't help but stare at the sight of Arundel and Salena dancing together. She had seen it at other feasts before, but the sight of them holding one another, of Salena's satiny blue folding into Arundel's deep purple arms stirred an odd feeling in her stomach. They didn't look at one another as they danced, but they swayed and twirled together, the rhythm of one matching that of the other. Salena responded gracefully as Arundel led the way around the floor.
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