“Surely, Ilryth, you have taught her some of our most important songs and not just all hymns of the old gods?” Fenny presses.
Ilryth moves to my side. His hand hovers behind me, right at the small of my back. Not quite touching but so,sovery close. “The offering is not your personal performer,” he says firmly and escorts me from the room, out through the roof. Careful not to touch me the entire time their eyes are on us. I work to swim with all the grace I can manage, still awkward with the wrap around my legs.
I can feel him still silently fuming. I don’t say anything. Mostly because it’s not my place, but also because I can relate to him in a strange and unforeseen way.
“Thank you for trying to get us out of there,” he says finally, the words soft in my mind.
“Of course. That was hardly fun for me, either.” We slow. My hand moves of its own accord; my fingers closing around his is surprisingly easy after the past few weeks. Ilryth looks between the contact and my face. I think he’s about to pull away. But he doesn’t. Instead, he gently probes with a stare alone. Thousands of unspoken questions wrapped up in a single look. “I didn’t know that was going to happen. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known the truth. I thought you were the one who organized it.”
Even if I find Fenny’s machinations to be a bit underhanded, she’s still his sister. I’m not going to berate her in front of him.
“Fenny means well.” Ilryth shakes his head and mutters, “At least that’s what I tell myself.”
“Sisters, right?” I tilt my head to the side with a slight shrug.
He shares in my knowing smile. “Unbearable, truly.”
“But we love them anyway.”
“That we do,” he agrees. Ilryth’s attention drops back to our hands. He unlaces his fingers, shifts his grip, and hooks them once more against mine. The smallest gesture has my heart skipping beats. It’s been a painfully long time since someone beyond my family touched me in a way that was gentle and reassuring.
The sirens are right. Touch is dangerous—histouch. It alights a part of me I’ve long thought shriveled and gone. Dead from neglect. Maybe, a part that should stay dead…
“You did wonderfully,” he praises warmly.
“Thank you, I was trying.” I smile slightly. “But I appreciate not having to sing in front of them. I know that I’m not very good at it, still.”
“Don’t say that. I didn’t get you out of there because I didn’t think you could—”
“It’s all right if you had,” I say with a tired smile.
“Victoria…” Ilryth searches my expression, as if in disbelief that’s what I truly think. “You are—”
“Ilryth,” Fenny calls after him, swimming over. Ilryth quickly releases my hand. I don’t think she noticed our linked fingers. “Youmay notleave like that.”
“I am the duke of this manor; I may come and go as I please.”
“And as the duke of this manor you make a fool of your sister?”
“My sister made a fool of herself when she forgot her place and acted without my approval,” Ilryth says curtly. “Victoria is not your pawn and neither am I.”
Fenny halts all movement. But her scowl only deepens. “I was trying to show your court that you actually came through on your promise of acquiring the sacrifice. You wouldn’t know it because you spend so much time tucked away, holed up doing who knows what, but people were beginning to whisper in disbelief that you’d procured an offering at all. I took it upon myself to try and accomplish a few goals at once.Someonemust hold this place together.”
“Watch your tongue,” Ilryth growls. “I have done many things for our duchy.”
“Have you? Name one, other than the offering.”
“Sister, you cross a line.”
“Give a man enough time and he can fulfill any duty.” Fenny shakes her head. “The anointing has been only the past few weeks. Mother died nearly five years ago.”
“Enough—”
“And I know that you never wanted to be the duke, but you had the honor of being born first.”And Fenny can’t stand it, I realize. She would’ve wanted the responsibility to fall to her. Clearly there’s precedent for women leaders in the Eversea, as Ilryth’s mother was a duchess. “If you want to be the duke then act like it, always, not just when it suits you. If you want to be respected then respect your responsibilities.”
“I do,” Ilryth snaps.
“Do you?” Those two words are sharper than a blade edge. I lean back, easing away slightly, as if I could vanish from this conversation that I really don’t feel like I’m meant to hear. But, if she didn’t want me to, she could conceal her words to be for Ilryth only. The fact that she’s not makes them that much harsher. “Because what you just did in there is hardly indicative of ‘knowing your responsibilities.’”
