Aya smiled faintly. ‘I’m not sure Natali likes me very much.’
Josie waved a hand. ‘They don’t like anyone,’ she said easily. ‘Except Aidon, but everyone likes Aidon.’
Aya was certainly starting to see why.
‘Sit,’ Josie urged, nodding to the chair across from her. Aya hesitated, the heaviness from the day pressing down onher. But Josie smiled at her so earnestly that Aya couldn’t help but sink into the chair, letting out a long breath through her nose. The table was covered with tan paper, each inch of it splattered with paint. In some areas, there were large swaths of color where she had clearly used it as a pallet.
Josie followed her gaze. ‘Theyhateme in the studio because I always make such a mess. But I like to take up space.’
‘What are you working on?’
Josie carefully lifted the canvas, turning it so Aya could see. It was a face, all sharp angles and defined features. And yet the wide blue eyes were soft and inviting, if not a bit mischievous. The figure had close-cropped black hair, their skin a pinky hue that popped on the gray canvas.
‘Her name is Viviane,’ Josie explained. She frowned as she stared at the painting, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. ‘I never can get her eyes right.’
‘Who is she?’
‘My partner. It’s her birthday next week, and she’s always asking me to paint something for her. Vi loves art. She owns a gallery in town.’ Josie let out a sigh and shrugged as she put the canvas back on the small table-top easel. Aya remembered staring at a piece of art like that – she used to finesse a single carving, going over and over the tiny lines with her knife until her fingers cramped, until her back ached from being hunched over for so long.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, her voice a bit hoarse as she said, ‘I think it’s beautiful.’
Josie waved her off, but Aya didn’t miss the flush in her cheeks, or the small smile as she started packing up her supplies.
‘I’m going to the gallery tomorrow. You should come. I know Vi would love to meet you. She’s obsessed with the Mala range. She has at least five different paintings of themin the studio, and honestly, I think she secretly keeps increasing the price so no one will buy them.’
Aya didn’t bother to tell her it was more likely that no one else in Rinnia appreciated the rugged beauty of the north.
‘I can meet you at the Maraciana and we can go together.’
Aya’s fingers twisted in her lap. ‘I won’t be going to the Maraciana tomorrow.’
She couldn’t decide if it was a relief or not.
Josie grinned. ‘Then it’s settled. We’ll go together from here in the afternoon.’ She reached across the table and took Aya’s hand, giving it a tight squeeze. ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ she assured her.
It was strange how comforting it was to feel the pressure of that hand against her own. To have someone look at her and see not a prophecy, but a person.
Aya merely nodded.
Tomorrow will be better.
She wasn’t sure she believed her.
34
The sparring post rattled as Aidon threw another combination at it, the sting on his knuckles the sweetest sort of pain.One two. One two. One two.
A miscommunication. That’s what the City Guard had told him when he presented the possibility of a Diaforaté in their midst. Apparently, the patrol that night had been in disarray. The attack hadn’t just happened in between rotations … a guard had missed his post entirely, and hadn’t come forward until now.
He’d fired the guard. And they were back to square one.
One two. One two. One two.
He’d have to report it to his king – and his father would surely have a lecture waiting as well.
Aidon had long grown used to butting heads with his uncle. Dominic could be pompous, and stubborn, and aloof, and so damn aggravating that Aidon wondered how anyone managed to get through a conversation with him without an unending litany of swear words playing in their mind.
But his father …
