"Exquisite," Lord Wincel uttered.
"I'm envious, too, Lord Wincel," Eawart said. "But I'm certain that Lady Ember and myself would make just as riveting a pair. My lady?"
Eawart stood and held out his hand. His fingers trembled. Ember noticed Devondra watching her over Lord Wincel's stooped shoulder, challenge and delight flaring in her gaze.
Trying not to scowl, Ember accepted Eawart's clammy hand and let him lead her down from the dais.
He held her close, or at least as close as he could given the voluminous mound of taffeta she wore. Bodily heat swallowed the air between them. She found herself looking over his shoulder rather than at his face, and his heavy breath spread over her nape.
The music began and he led her into the rhythm. He kept a steady hand on her back, his steps sure and practiced. He swung her in a twirl, gliding with her around and around the floor, his confidence boosting her own careful step.
Perhaps he does own a castle. A smaller, more comfortable castle than this one.
He guided them past the glass-paned wall, astonishing Ember with her own reflection. She hardly recognized herself—a young, radiant woman looking refined and confident and self-possessed, a small smile curling her lips.
We look as though we've done this a hundred times before.
And it was easy. All the training she had as a child had been difficult; it wasn't the steps she found challenging but aligning the steps with musical rhythm. But with Eawart leading her, moving with the music was effortless, even enjoyable.
Gregory's eyes met hers in the reflection.
"Steady, now," Eawart breathed, as she started turning the wrong way. He guided her back into step. "You're doing beautifully."
She forced herself to retain her mask of composure, knowing everyone watched. Hundreds of people gathered along the walls waiting to dance their turns.
So he does see me. He knows I'm here. Does he know I was the wolf?
She tried to find him again, and did, and saw with disappointment that he danced with the woman in green brocade, and that he held her close. Too close.
Her mind spun with each turn, her gown tugging out with each swirl. I'm unraveling. How many more spins?
Eawart's hand on her back kept her going.
They finished the dance, and she let Eawart guide her back to the dais for another glass of wine. She let him talk at her, a constant stream of noise about his castle and his dogs and how beautifully she danced.
They danced again, and had sumbac, the orange liquor sharp on her tongue. She tried desperately not to think of Gregory, or where he was, or who he danced with. She tried not to feel like she waited.
By the third dance with Eawart she began to feel carefree, and did a better job at trampling the pain in her chest. She wouldn't let it overcome her. She wouldn't let it ruin her dance with this strange man.
They wove between other couples, past the murals of plants and mountains and desert, past the gazing faces and through scents of roses and spices and jipsom flower. Eawart's hands were hot on her, and his clothes dampened with sweat. He spoke loudly in her ear as they danced, and she could smell cinnamon and orange on his breath. They danced by the murals again, and this time Ember didn't miss the Glamour of the boar writhing on the trap, red running in rivulets down its side.
Her stomach flipped. She focused on Eawart's shoulder, the fine pattern of stitched gold filaments there, and breathed.
When she looked at Eawart—really looked at him for the first time while they danced—she found him staring at her chest, heat in his eyes and a flush darkening his face.
"Eawart!" she snapped, nearly tripping in her haste to put more distance between them.
Somehow his dance steps remained adept and smooth, even as he stumbled through an apology.
"You are just so beautiful," he said. The dance was finishing, and he hesitated before speaking again. "I just wish, or rather, I'd be honored, if you let me show you how beautiful I think you are. The way a man shows a woman—"
She pushed away from him and brushed her hands down her gown.
"No, thank you." An insufferable heat clawed up her neck. "I would like to sit and drink some water."
He bobbed his head, compliant, and she turned on her heel, repressing the urge to run up to the dais.
She wasn't sure what she felt more about his blatant request—mortification or pleasure. Mortified because she didn't know him, pleased because it felt good to be wanted. But she could only imagine sharing such intimacy with one person.
Ember sat at the table, where Arundel and Salena and the rest of the Council sat, and called for water. The liquid cooled and refreshed her mouth. Relief washed over her when she saw Eawart dancing with someone else.
The scent of rosewater weighted the air as Salena sank gracefully into Eawart's empty seat.
"Who was that man?"
"He called himself Eawart," Ember said, straightening in her chair. "I thought you would have known him. He said he was here on business."
"With your father? How odd. Eawart, you said?" Salena raised a pomander to her nose, thinking. Her eyes lit with understanding. "Ah, yes he is a friend of Devondra's, I believe. From the Academy."
Ember's heart sank. More than likely, he wasn't from the Academy at all. He was likely some stable boy hired on by Devondra to fool Ember into doing something stupid. It wouldn't be the first time Devondra did such a thing. All those words, lies. There is no castle, and there might not even be an Eawart. She had half-known it though, after hearing him talk of Arundel's non-existent feasts when they were children, and she had found the castle story to be a bit far-fetched.
And he had said he wanted her. Had that been a lie, too?
She shuddered.
"You two looked quite the pair down there," Salena said. "He seems to be a very skilled dancer. Half the hall watched, saying how beautiful you were. How grown up."
All that attention, Ember thought with alarm. All those eyes watching her, witnesses to any wrong move she made. She hadn't even thought of the danger. The skin on her neck prickled.
"Did I draw too much attention tonight?"
Salena looked at her in surprise, a slight raising of her delicate brows that hardly altered her mask of composed calm.
"No, I think you did perfectly well. This attention is good. The attention you don't want is the kind you receive from sitting here not speaking or dancing."
"Those two things happen to be very conducive to eavesdropping."
Eavesdropping during feasts was one of the most efficient ways of figuring out anything useful regarding her parents. As hosts, they were always the talk of the guests, and their words had been her gateway to discovering Silverglen's past.
Salena was about to reply, but winced as Arundel's voice suddenly boomed across the great hall.
"Guests," he said. "I would like to present to you my latest find, a treasure I discovered on my journey north."
He sat back in his seat, saying nothing else, and took a deep drink from his chalice.
An ornate piece of ironwork, Ember guessed, or perhaps a sunstone statue. At the last feast, Ember recalled that Arundel had presented Salena with a replica of the rare gold-slippered orchid, bent, curled, and welded to form a fountain that she had then placed in one of her garden nooks. Ember had heard only compliments about Lord Arundel for weeks after that.
But tonight, Arundel's mouth formed a grim line beneath his steady, brooding gaze.
Her chest suddenly heavy, Ember looked to the double iron-clad doors that stood beneath a painted Ekesian tulepo tree. The loud talk of the hall had subsided to an excited murmur, a sound that made the tips of her fingers tingle.
The great doors began to open, and she felt the cold of a spell touch her mind. Many spells, she realized.
Six Escorts in violet marched in wielding heavy spears. Wizards, all of them, trained and tested until they were deemed of high enough skill to protect a Council member, or anyone of a Council-member's
choosing. They were different from patrols. Quieter, more observant. An iron loyalty to those who paid them. They pushed back the crowd using only a tilt of their spears and stern expressions.
She saw the shadows first: great, bulky things cast by the torches just outside the hall. She heard scuffling and the clink of chains, and slowly, the dark form of a bear emerged.
Cold flushed down her sides.
The crowd gasped and whispered, but the noise quickly grew to shouts and whistles of excitement as the animal came into the hall, followed closely by six more Escorts.
The bear's ribs and hips stuck out unnaturally from his patchy cinnamon coat. Small black eyes looked around as he swayed in, dragging iron chains with links as thick as Ember's fist. Iron cuffs had chafed the fur from his skin. He didn't seem to mind the people, or where he went, or the fact that he dragged chains behind him. All the notorious aggression of the bear, all the strength and energy Ember knew every bear claimed, had been stripped from him. How many men had it taken to pull him down? How many spears to repress his fury at being captured? He must have been enormous once, with his large frame and giant paws. How many days of starvation had it taken to cow him?
A flicker of candlelight illuminated the spreading marks the bear left in his wake, like carmine sponge prints over the smooth pale stone of the hall floor. Looking more closely at the cuffs, she saw that there were spikes on the inside that had been tightened against the skin.
Ember stood and pressed trembling hands against the table.
"Sit down," a voice ordered. Salena, stiff and tight-lipped.
"No, I..."
When an Escort jabbed him to move, the bear moaned and sagged his head, revealing an iridescent spelled collar around his neck. Ember couldn't tell what the spells were, not from such a distance, but they felt complicated. Perhaps if she went closer—
The key.
Her mind recognized the spell pattern first, nearly buried by the spells of the collar, and when she glimpsed it hanging from a man's neck, she found Fletch's handsome, dark eyes watching her.
A shiver slid down her spine.
She calmed her expression and lifted her chin, pressing the sides of her gown as though to smooth them.
"Where are you going?" Salena asked, impatience edging her tone.
"To take a closer look at the bear." And the spell.
"You'll do no such thing," Salena said, just low enough for Ember to hear. Her face had gone pale, and her eyes shone like polished granite. Juice from the fresh pomander dripped through her white-knuckled fingers. "Don't make me use a Freeze on you, Ember. You're behaving like a child. Compose yourself."
Grinding her teeth, Ember sat. She hoped those at the table were far too distracted by the bear's appearance to notice that she had stood. She couldn't be sure about others in the great hall. Certainly Fletch had noticed. She kept a demure mask as the bear was prodded to move forward, moaning from weariness, or hunger, or the weight and agony of the chains. She could see cuts on the bear where the spears had prodded too forcefully. Dark blood, dried and matted, some likely festering. Indeed, many of the women had pomanders to their noses while he passed, as though the stench of him was unbearable.
He won't live much longer.
The key that Fletch wore, the one she had found in Arundel’s study, more than likely opened the door behind which the bear was kept. She would find the door, and somehow get it open, even if it meant stealing the key.
She searched the hall for Gregory, and was surprised to see him laughing, surrounded by a flock of ladies looking much finer than she.
chapter eleven
They've all drunk enough that the hall should be spinning, Ember thought as she pushed herself through a narrow hallway leading to a sitting room.
Once the bear had been prodded away, the Zarian dancers had returned with platters of sumbac, the orange liquor glistening in their small crystal cups as seductively as the gleam of the Zarian's dark skin, if Ember went by the looks of rapture on the Council member's faces. Only Arundel had seemed removed, from the dancers and from the others in the hall, a quiet drinker beneath a somber frown. Ember knew he had slipped into his darker mood, and that he would probably retire to his study sooner than later. With him being distracted, the others drunk, and Gregory fully involved in dancing with every other woman in the hall, Ember had decided she was safe to leave.
No shifting though. Salena had made her promise not to tonight, although now Ember was beginning to regret that move.
"How am I supposed to get around quietly in this ridiculous dress?" she whispered. She tugged the taffeta through a tight doorway, and swore at the sound of tearing fabric.
She brought the dress up to the light of a torch, careful not to bring it too close to the hungry flame, and examined the small rip. Hardly noticeable, she decided. She might even be able to put some stitches in it later, though as she dropped the dress back down, the thought melted away, already forgotten.
She had searched all four floors of the keep, though she knew it was unlikely she'd find the bear there. More than likely, he was kept below, or in a separate holding entirely.
The only things beneath the great hall were the cellar and the dungeons.
She wiped moist palms on the smooth, red gown, and headed toward the stairway leading to the dungeon. Smooth flames from pillar candles lit the quiet halls. Strands of music and laughter from the great hall whispered through the thick stone walls, barely audible.
It was a good thing, with the dungeons being so close. As far as Ember knew, they were mostly empty now, but for a good part of Ember's childhood they had been full. Shifters, mostly, imprisoned for their disobedience. Others, too, who were accused of helping shifters. Ember had one jolting memory when she had disobeyed Salena and went below as a mouse. She hadn't gotten past the first cell when she decided to unlock it to free a miserable man with no teeth and long, dirty nails who had been moaning and rocking in a corner. She had been swamped by the scents and sounds of despair and pain and death, and hadn't thought about her actions.
The man had run out screaming and tried to stomp her to death.
Salena had been livid, but Ember was shaken enough to never return.
She pushed the memories away as she reached the dungeon stairway. Yellow stone made up the steps and walls, which were stained black from torches lining either side. The warmth from the torches didn't dispel the cold air that stretched its fingers around the seams of an ancient iron door and seeped up the stairs. There was no way to get through the door as an animal or a human, unless one knew how to undue a Binding.
She crept down the steps in her doeskin slippers, her breath causing the torches to spit and waver.
The door was as she remembered. Iron spikes, steeped in a Glamour to make them appear sharp as needles, studded the immense door. A slab of iron as wide as the length of her hand and nearly as long as her arm served as a bolt. The end of the bolt narrowed to a spearhead, which slid through a thick band of iron forged into a snarling lion, so that when the door bolted, the spear drove through the lion's snarling jaws. Faint silvery lines crawled across the bolt.
An old Binding. Someone had either forgotten to re-set the spell upon leaving, or hadn't yet left. The door bolted from the inside as well, making just as an effective barrier at keeping prisoners in as it did at keeping unwanted eyes out. Ember had already considered the possibility of someone being with the bear, and had gone over her plan half a dozen times.
She grabbed the handle of the bolt and pulled. It slid out smoothly, and the heavy door swung silently toward her with a breath of chill, clammy air. Beyond, torchlight flickered in a vast, dark hall.
Ember squeezed through the opening, the mounds of taffeta pulling at her tight bodice, and looked for a guard. A simple wooden chair mantled by cobwebs sat by the door, next to a small table on which was left a forgotten hunk of bread, covered in a green fuzz.
Ember swallowed and walked deeper into the hall. The torches
illuminated rows of bars along either side but left the shadows beyond them untouched. Her slippers and dress whispered against the stone floor and echoed back from the dark caverns of the prison cells. The hall ended at a narrow corridor, and as she stepped toward it, the shadows stirred out of the corner of her eye.
Two pale limbs slid through the iron bars. Handless arms, she realized, attached to a man whose mouth moved silently. A Silencing spell. The scarred stubs waved at her, beckoning, and the man's eyes looked feverish and old and lost.
Hand removal was a punishment doled out by the Council for wizards who misused spells. One hand for spells used to steal or harm another person, two for killing or forcing someone against their will. The Council's definition of 'person' hadn't included shifters during the rebellion, however. Shifters had been property, to be dealt with as the owners saw fit. Ten years after the rebellion started, new Council-members had altered the laws, declaring shifters only be punished for injuring or killing another, and only if found guilty by trial. But by then, most of the shifters in Lach had been killed already.
Ember turned away and pressed into the corridor. Small wooden doors presented themselves on either side every twenty paces. All unlocked, each held the same thing behind them: a small room with a chair and a set of iron rings set into a corner of the stone floor with a pile of heavy chains next to it.
As she went silently from room to room, the cold sense of spells crept into her mind. The spells felt further away, but the corridor ahead ended at a stone wall. Surely there's more to the dungeon than this. Another door, perhaps, in one of the rooms.
But the rest of the rooms were the same as before, and that left her at the stone wall.
The spells were closer, pulsing in her mind so that she could almost identify them—but it was like trying to pick out a buttercup in a field of wildflowers. Too many spells wound together, some in odd configurations that left her puzzled.
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