Knowing she’d delayed too long, Amryn cleared her throat. “Hello, Berron. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Surprise rippled through him. Then the corner of his mouth rose in a thin smirk. “Ah, what a beautiful liar you are.” He lifted his glass, emptying it of brandy with one long pull before striding out of the shadows.
She tensed instinctively as he moved toward her, though she tried not to show her unease.
“What gave me away, I wonder?” Berron mused. He set the empty glass on the railing beside her with a softclink, then lifted his right arm—the one missing a hand—and gazed at it pointedly. “I really can’t imagine how you recognized me. I blend in so well, after all.”
Now that he was standing close, Amryn could feel a faint stirring of his emotions through the bloodstone’s dampening shield. And what she felt made her gut clench.
Anger, hot and heated. Stinging resentment. Jealousy, anxiety, self-loathing. All of it wrapped in a barbed pain that hurt her own heart. But it was more than that.Darkerthan that. Everything inside Berron felt shadowed and heavy. Overwhelming depression. Loneliness, edged with almost painful desperation. A low pang of despair. Self-consciousness and discomfort, but also a spark of defiance. And a deep-set craving she’d never felt so intensely before.
She’d been around men and women with vices and addictions before. Many in Torin’s court had a near-constant desire for drink, gambling, or pleasure, but all of those past experiences paled in comparison to the need burning in Berron’s veins. His hunger forsonnewent beyond simple longing. It was painful. Gutting. All-consuming, and—if Amryn had to guess—it never truly went away. Merely numbed from time to time by sleep or brandy or whatever distraction he could find.
Berron’s expression gave none of that away, and Amryn had no idea how he didn’t crack under the weight of the constant war raging inside him. Feeling his emotions for a brief second was enough to make her breathing run thin.
Berron Vincetti was a second away from being overwhelmed by the darkness inside him.
“It was my accent, wasn’t it?” he went on, ignorant of the fact that she’d seen more of him than he would have ever wanted her to. His tone was falsely light and lined with subtle mockery. “That was what gave away my identity, surely.” He lifted a dark eyebrow, drawing attention to his eyepatch. His tone was daring her to acknowledge his flaws. But she knew he was only trying to make her uncomfortable becausehefeltuncomfortable.
She resolutely kept her focus on his good eye, ignoring the dark eyepatch that seemed to glare at her. “No,” she said with forced calm. “It was your warm and charming personality.”
He blinked, surprise cutting through him at her sarcastic response. Then he cracked a sardonic smile. “Oh, I do hope you drive my brother mad.” He ran his eye down her body. The study of her was deliberate and bordered on crude, yet it wasn’t crassness she sensed from him as he said, “Saints, the man’s bloody luck never runs out, does it?”
“Perhaps you should withhold judgment on that. Just in case I do drive him mad.”
The corner of Berron’s mouth quirked. “You’re not what I expected.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“It’s the missing hand, isn’t it?” he said wryly.
“Not at all. I was just under the impression you were a recluse.”
Berron snorted. “I was forced to be here.”
“So was I.”
He looked at her bandaged arm. “Carver’s even more heartless than I remember.”
“Actually, he wanted me to stay in and rest.”
“Ah. That sounds more like my saintly brother.”
She ignored his scathing tone, as she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of rising to the obvious bait. “Who forced you to attend?”
“My father was quite insistent that I not embarrass the family in front of the emperor by shunning the evening’s festivities.” He paused, then added, “Saints know why he thought my being here would belessof an embarrassment to the family.” His head tilted to the side as he studied her. “Who forced you, if not Carver?”
“I suppose you could say the emperor. I don’t think he would have wanted any of the Chosen to miss tonight. And I didn’t want to leave Princess Jayveh without a friend.”
“Yet you’re out here.”
“She has duties. And I needed some air.”
He said nothing to that, merely looked to the glass he’d set on the carved railing. Disappointment cut when he rediscovered it was empty. Letting out a sigh, he shifted and leaned one hip against the railing, his body turned toward her. “So, whathappened to you?” He nodded to the bandage that clearly bulged under her sleeve, making his question clear.
“Someone tried to kill Jayveh earlier today,” she said. “I was standing a little too close.”
He slowly lifted an eyebrow. “And yet you wanted to stick close to her tonight? Rather foolish of you.”
