by Aimee Moore
He turned Yasmil around and pushed her over to the bed. Yasmil didn’t utter a sound of complaint. On the contrary, her cheeks colored and her breathing hitched as Karne began to lift her dress, pulling at his own breeches.
I shook my head and walked out, closing the door behind me. A good distance down the hall was needed to escape the creaks of the rocking bed, Yasmil’s moans, and Karne’s grunts. Once I found the relief of silence, I sat on the floor of the elaborate hall, pulling my legs up to rest my head on. Time ticked on, and I began to wonder if he was doing it to try and get a reaction out of me. I gave myself a light laugh at the one game I wouldn’t play. The only jealousy here was that Yasmil was being taken by the man she loved. I would never again know Dal’s touch.
In time, Karne emerged, glistening, buoyant, and composed. “I do apologize, I got carried away,” Karne said, adjusting his cufflinks.
“No matter,” I said, rising. Karne gave me a dark look for a flicker of a moment.
We crossed arms, walking down the opulent Elanthian hallways, to the double-doored room where the grand event was to take place. Karne briefed me on what I was to say to Nialae and humans alike. Let them assume. Give as little information as possible. Be completely devoted.
I steeled my spine and nodded, ready to make this event mine.
As the double doors were pushed open, Karne steered me into the room of glittering eyes, dresses, and coats. I held my head high, pulling together everything I’d learned of Nialae over the last six months and remembering to put on a good show. The room quieted for us, and Caelund, short, lanky, and awkward, approached us.
“More honored guests have arrived,” he said, a little slurred. “Good time for everyone. Come. Eat. Drink. All that you see is yours tonight, food or flesh. Then tomorrow we go hunting!”
He laughed with an overdone wink and wandered away with a group of well-dressed young men his age.
“Where are the other realm holders?” I whispered to Karne.
He swept his gaze over the crowd in the large room, then propelled me forward into the crowd. Eyes stopped on my shard now and again, then swept to my foot to find the cause of my limp. Not finding answers, most turned away quickly.
As I navigated the crowd, the back of my neck prickled, and I glanced about for the source, finding nothing unusual. Karne pressed me toward a group of Nialae who were socializing about some nonsense, what color kerchief went best with murder, probably. I took part in their veiled verbal warfare only as much as would serve me.
But as the prickling of my neck swept down my back, adrenaline fluttered through me. My breasts pressed against the flimsy gold of my dress, and soon I couldn’t breathe normally. I glanced around again, but no one was looking at me. No one paid me any mind at all anymore. What manner of magic was causing this? Was it human? Nialae? Was I the only one to experience it? Was it anything to do with the leyline, buried so close to this very room?
“Wouldn’t you say, my love?” Karne was addressing me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, turning toward the group. All of them looked at me as if I were ill. One man was staring at my shard with a slight frown.
“Aelis was suggesting that the presence of the ristulgs near Elanthia indicate Tanebrael is near. It seems to me they could be as lost as the queen herself; wouldn’t you say?” There was a note of command in Karne’s tone. Danger.
“Yes, of course, it’s plausible,” I said.
The Nialae woman in our group let her gaze travel over me with care, eyes glittering as she met my own again. “But what a shame it would be, should Tanebrael be near, if she returned to find so many of her subjects as squabbling betrayers vying for her throne.”
Karne gave a laugh. “You think Tanebrael, our commanding queen, would hide among these… humans? Where, exactly, would a woman as powerful as her hide? Perhaps in the kitchens? The cells below? Maybe your dear queen is scrubbing the chamber pot in your room right now.”
“Or maybe yours,” the woman said with a hint of acid.
Another man said, “There’s no doubt; when Tanebrael rises at last she’ll be the beating heart that breathes Niall’s splendor into this world.”
Another said, “Unless she has abandoned us.”
Karne turned to the man. “You truly wish Tanebrael to be that beating heart, Corinth? Because she has been so kind in bringing you to this dull rock against your will? You forget, all of you, how Tanebrael never once cared how she upheaved our lives by dragging us here. And now she remains hidden, keeping the power to quell this homesickness to herself while we wither and bicker. This world has much to offer in the hands of a competent ruler. Vast unexplored lands and beautiful wives to take, for starters.”
The man named Corinth spoke to Karne. “Only so long as they don’t know where the barbs lie in your roses?”
Karne cast a dark gaze at the man, then spoke in their language.
I glanced about the room again. Everyone mingled, smiling, drinking, and glittering. Completely unaware of me.
“My dear, are you sure you are well?” Karne’s voice pulled me back to our group.
“Yes, I… I think Yasmil pulled this dress too tight,” I said, crossing my arms over myself to hide how the filmy gold fairly dripped off me.
The other Nialae laughed. “Splendid, Karne.”
“Why is she not asking you to remove it?” The woman laughed.
“I have other things on my mind besides the very limited world of tangling fine sheets,” I said.
Someone else clicked his tongue at my fake husband. “We thought you more capable.”
They laughed again, this time their smiles met their eyes.
Karne’s knuckles dug into my back. “She is as funny as she is beautiful,” then his hand made its way up my back, and his fingers hooked into the ring around my neck, tightening. “Aren’t you, love?”
I sucked in a breath. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Tell me,” one man said, “how does a lady come into such an ungainly limp?”
“I was injured in battle.”
“Strange to have a battle without healers to tend such injuries,” the woman said, bringing her glass to her lips as she watched me.
“Strange to assume that there weren’t,” I replied, daring her with my eyes to press further.
“Cheers, gentlemen,” Karne said before anyone else could speak. Then he moved his hand to my lower back and steered me away. “You are not keeping your end of the bargain.”
“I didn’t know my end of the bargain was to be paraded about and degraded. Have they no respect for women of your world?”
“They have enough respect to know that it’s only safe to make such comments when a woman is in bond with a man and their passions are their only concern for a long, long time, Seraphine.”
“Well you failed to mention that,” I hissed.
“I told you to play along. Unless, of course, you need a demonstration.”
“I’ll do better,” I said with an angry huff.
We mingled. I watched every simpering fool we talked with, dissected each conversation for hints of the core keys or an impending attack on Elanthia. I took in every smile that was not sincere, every stray glance, every breath. Still, the hair on the back of my neck raised like an electric current neared my skin, and I was as jumpy as a cat in a pen full of sleeping dogs.
“Splendid woman, Karne.”
“Shame for you that you cannot have her, Kelvhan,” Karne said.
“Few of us find joy in monogamy; your bond is a deprivation to us all.”
“I’ve learned being in bond is not an edict for devotion,” I said, raising my hand to Kelvhan.
Karne stiffened.
Kelvhan smiled, raising my hand to his lips. “What is your name, lovely creature?” The heat of his whisper blossomed through the fabric of my glove.
“Ryelle.”
“You have intelligent eyes, Ryelle. I have watched you this evening. You analyze with skill, taking
from the conversation and giving nothing back. I have had spies in my employ that were much less efficient than you, and from the shadows no less.”
“I have found there is more to listen to that’s not being said.”
“Such bold truth,” he said, still holding my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. “When I claim this kingdom for my own, I’ll have many uses for such observation.”
I pulled my hand free.
“Unless the kingdom is claimed by another,” Karne said to Kelvhan with less warmth than before.
Kelvhan gave me an almost imperceptible smile as he turned to Karne. “I believe my realm rests against yours, Karne.”
“The plains realm. Your city, what was it?”
Kelvhan brought a small glass to his lips. “Meadowbrook.”
After nearly an hour of picking up crumbs of information and planting seeds of my own, I could hardly stand the electric current running through me. Whatever magic was surging through the room, I seemed to be the only one affected. Perhaps it only afflicted Gifted, for I had little doubt I was the only Gifted who could stand to be in this palace among so many Nialae. I’d grown used to having my flame silenced.
When the dancing was finally announced, Karne and I were called up to the dais with the other Nialae to show ourselves to the crowd. The first dance was dedicated with a short speech on brotherhood from one of Caelund’s shriveled advisors.
Karne, looking completely relaxed, put my hand in his and made a show of giving me the sappiest look I’d ever seen.
“Come on, Sera,” he whispered to me, “show these people true Nialae devotion. They need not know you betrayed me by offering yourself to Kelvhan.”
I smiled back, batting my eyelashes. “He said himself that monogamy was distasteful to your people; am I not playing my part well?”
Anger lit Karne’s eyes, simmering under his smile. I turned away and scanned the crowd as the advisor was finishing his diplomatic speech.
That’s when my gaze locked onto hazel eyes that had once held my world, and everything in me lit into icefire.
Chapter 22
Water Break
Dal stared at me from the back of the room, obscured by shadows and far removed from the throng of guests.
No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. But there he was, standing in the back of the crowd, nearly part of the shadows, hazel eyes full of hurt and grief.
Patroma roared up in my head to protect me from my own insanity.
Lies. Illusions. Take up a blade and slaughter to the truth of this deception.
I never took my eyes off his as I sat rigid in my chair, shock quaking through me. Karne said something to me as the old man finished talking and people started clapping. My heart beat in my ribs like a tiny bird seeking freedom.
A tugging on my arm told me to rise, and we descended the dais to the dance floor. Patroma kept me rigid, giving me strength, but she was weakening under the heavy despair threatening to wash through me. I kept my eyes on Dal the whole time, until a tall man obscured my vision, and panic shot through me.
Burn them down, paint the walls in their blood and claim the truth as victory.
I shook from the urge to act. Then I realized we were in a circle as music began to filter into the room, and Karne was holding me close, expecting me to dance.
“Do you know this one?” He asked.
I glanced back in the direction I saw Dal moments ago, but I was too short to see over the crowd.
“Seraphine,” Karne growled.
I returned my attention to the man holding me close.
He looked at me then, frowning. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
“We’ll handle it later. Follow my lead.” And then he started the dance as the right chord struck up.
I followed the best I could with my limp, barely noticing when Karne bent me this way and that, displaying the curve of my neck or the skin of my back to the crowd, twisting us through the other Nialae dancers. Patroma still roared within my mind to hurt them all, keeping my movements strong. I turned my head every chance I got to see the back of the room, where Dal stood moments ago. But more and more, the tall man in my way was making eye contact with me, smiling, as if we shared a secret now.
Frustration boiled up within me. Had my strength ever been in question, then this would suffice as testament; for every grain of my being screamed at me to end this madness and run to the back of the room. I needed to know if I was losing my mind. Oddly, Jacinthe’s words came back to me. Brown husks, green velvet; do they choose? Will the world swallow them up?
Finally, mercifully, the dance ended, and I remembered to pay attention to my partner, who was giving me a smile that did not meet the retribution in his eyes. He lifted my gloved hand and kissed it as I stuffed Patroma away and lowered my lashes in coy submission. I was a better actor than he gave me credit for.
And then, with slow steps that seemed to take an eternity, he led me off the dance floor, as another cord struck up, passing new dancers entering the circle. I tried to walk away from Karne, but his hand was still in mine, and he tugged at me.
“You are distracted,” he said.
“I—Well, yes. I need water.”
“I’ll get you some.”
“No, don’t bother. You’re in your element here. I just want peace and quiet and water for a few minutes. I’m exhausted, Karne.”
Karne opened his mouth to argue, so I kept on.
“Please. The less I talk to people the less chance we have for things to go wrong.”
And with that, he let me slip away.
My heart drummed out of tune with the music as I wound my way through the crowd. People greeted me. Tried to stop and talk to me, but the water lie was too perfect, and they let me pass.
Finally, I made it to the back of the room. And there was no Dal. Panic threatened to undo me there, in the back of the ball room, among hundreds of ladies and gentlemen of the Elanthian court. I bit my lip as my heart pounded pricks of tears to my eyes.
I looked around, frantic.
Please, please please please.
But there were only men and women mingling here. The fine hairs along my back still prickled, coursing adrenaline through my blood. Whatever I was afflicted by this evening was washing hallucinations into me. I collected myself, taking a shaking breath to dispel the grief that threatened to rise, and limped toward the refreshment table.
As I reached the drinks at the end of the room, I would swear I saw a familiar sword, seeming to dance with black flame, disappear behind the door to the kitchens. No, impossible, I’d seen that sword imbedded in a tree over the mutilated corpse of the man I loved.
I put the water down and followed, pushing through the kitchen doors, shutting out the dull roar and music of the celebration. But this was no kitchen, it was another labyrinth of large Elanthian hallways, the floors draped in an elegant white carpet with red blooms stitched into the edges of the fabric. Blooms that reminded me of Jacinthe’s dead flowers.
I swore in Kraw, considering my options. I should return to pluck bits of information from my enemy. But whatever haunted me this evening was stealing my concentration, making me nearly useless in their game. The hallway seemed to narrow in my vision as a new opportunity presented itself to me. I could ferret out Caelund’s library and learn of these core keys for myself. It was a perfect opportunity, as if Dal’s spirit was guiding me to our vengeance.
I started down the hall, steps echoing in the large space as I passed doors to various rooms. Some were empty. Some were decorated with furniture. I would go to the end of the hallway and head to the right, that seemed like the direction Caelund’s quarters would be; behind the throne room. Excitement tingled in my chest, for I could very well find the cure to my shard in there, too. This might be the day.
Then a large, rough hand grasped my right wrist, pulling me into the darkness of an unlit room.
I gasped as I stumbled into the b
lackness of a discarded furniture room. Then I wept. I wept as his scent surrounded me and his arms came around me and the deep rush of his breathing filled my bones. I wept so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“You are safe,” Dal said, pressing me into him.
I clutched him as I choked on my own breath; my lungs constricting under the weight of my own emotions. “You’re not dead,” I wept.
“No, death has not found me yet, Sera.”
I blinked through the wetness and reached to Dal’s face, stopping to tear off my gloves. I pressed my bare, trembling hands over his strong jaw, his soft lips. Those large arms, the beautiful hands capable of so much tender passion and destruction, and yes, missing the tiny finger on his right hand. A tremor ran through him at my exploration, and I could barely choke words through my constricted throat.
“But I thought you were. By the gods, I saw that horrible ristulg.”
“Kraw are hard to kill,” Dal said, a note of humor in his voice.
I cracked a laugh before more sobs wracked me. “How? Dal, stars above, how?”
But Dal didn’t have words for me. He tilted my chin up and claimed my lips with his own. Crippling love and desire washed through me as I tasted my mate at long last. I let my hands travel over the expanse of his muscled front, sliding up to pull him closer. Dal’s grip was possessive, his soft groan of need washing into my very blood. Never in my life have I tasted such a kiss before. Like life itself was being breathed into me, like my body once again knew what it was to have a beating heart.
“I have waited long for this day,” Dal whispered between our lips.
“Every day since I learned of your death was a day that I died anew,” I breathed.
Dal looked over me in the dim lighting of the dark room. “Nothing could keep me from you, Sera.” He brought his hand to my nape and kissed me again, urgently, ending our kiss with a frown when he brushed the collar at my neck. He examined it, then fingered the shard in my shoulder, and I nudged away a little in discomfort.
“What have they done to you?”
I swallowed, looking at my injured shoulder. “The disguise or the shard?”