She also wasn’t certain how well the Persuasion she’d used on Dilys would hold up against rumors that Princess Summer had been kissing someone tonight.
Her maternal grandmother, Seahaven’s Queen Rosemary, with whom she’d corresponded over the years had warned her that the Persuasive gifts she’d inherited from her mother weren’t without limits. The gift worked best when trying to Persuade people to believe something they were inclined to want to believe anyway. In such cases, even a mild push could cement a person’s views so strongly nothing short of an apocalyptic cataclysm would shake their belief in whatever they’d been Persuaded to believe.
A strong push of Persuasion, like the one she’d used on Dilys, could erase blocks of time or entire tracts of memories, but depending on the strength of the memory or emotional significance of what was being erased, sometimes even the strongest push could only cloud the mind with a surreal haziness. In such cases, the person being Persuaded might remember everything, but believe it to be no more than a dream or a figment of his imagination. Unfortunately, those hazy figments could easily begin to feel a lot more real if everyone around him started speculating about the reasons a certain princess had been spotted with mussed hair, flushed cheeks, and bee-stung lips.
That she couldn’t allow. No matter what, Dilys Merimydion must not ever remember what had passed between the two of them tonight.
That she would never forget was her burden to bear.
It already hurt, of course. She had no doubt it would hurt even worse over the next weeks and months as she was forced to watch the man she now knew to be her own court her sisters—and worse, fall in love with one of them. Marry one of them. It would burn her soul like fire to think of him kissing one of her sisters the way he’d kissed her, to think of him lying his warm, heavy body atop Spring or Autumn, gazing into her eyes with the wonder and tenderness and devotion that should have been Summer’s. To think of him sharing that body with her sister, giving her the children that should have been Gabriella’s own.
The Rose on Summer’s right wrist began to burn.
She clamped a hand over the hot, red birthmark, turned her thoughts away from their dangerous, angry, jealous path and hurried down the hall to the safety of her room.
She didn’t bother calling her maid to help her undress. Her temper was too close to the surface to risk having another person nearby. Removing her evening gown and layers of undergarments was no simple task, but she managed, and when she was done, she threw the pile of clothes onto a nearby chaise and donned her favorite nightgown, a lightweight linen that felt cool and soft and soothing on her skin. She then sat down at her vanity, closed her eyes and brushed her hair well over the usual hundred strokes. The soothing tug and pull of the brush helped settle her nerves, so she kept brushing while she meditated on peaceful, happy things.
When she was calm again, Summer rose from the vanity and walked around the room, blowing out the lamps her maid had left burning. Despite the late hour, Wintercraig’s summer-night sky was still light on the horizon, the sun not far enough below the horizon for full dark. And already it was growing lighter again. Dawn would be breaking soon. As she went to the windows to pull the night blinds, she saw Dilys Merimydion walking up the steps to the brightly lit terrace below.
Just that quick, all her meditation-reinforced calm, all her determination to block him from her heart and mind, went up in a puff of smoke. She couldn’t tear her gaze from him. He was so beautiful. It was as if the gods had created him to be her personal Halla, the walking, talking, breathing embodiment of everything she’d ever wanted, everything she would ever need or wish for.
Everything she could never have. Which made him, she supposed, more her personal Hel than Halla.
She’d deliberately misled him earlier, when she’d implied no suitor had ever come for her. They had. Scores of them—and not only suitors who knew they’d have no chance with Autumn and Spring. There’d even been at least a dozen of them she’d thought she could love. She’d sent each one of them away with a push of Persuasion. It always hurt. Sometimes more than others. But never had sending them away felt like this—like a white-hot knife to the chest—as if by turning away from Dilys Merimydion she was cutting out her own heart.
Below, he stopped in the middle of the terrace and pressed a palm to his chest. He glanced up, frowning. With a gasp she sank back into the shadows of the night drapes. His gaze searched the windows and balconies, coming back to her balcony several times, then fixing upon it as if he knew she was there, watching him. As if some invisible thread tied them together, linking them with some innate awareness of the other.
Her fingers tightened on the drapes until her knuckles turned white.
“Nothing,” she whispered, her voice the barest thread of sound. “I am nothing to you, and you will not pursue me.” And she kept whispering it again and again, until one of his men standing nearby called his name and finally pulled Dilys’s attention away. Before he could turn back in her direction, she yanked the night drapes closed and hurried to her bed.
Sweet Halla, if just the sight of him weakened her will and unraveled her calm this badly, then she would have to make it her mission to stay as far from him as possible. It would be difficult. Konumarr wasn’t exactly an enormous place. But she would succeed.
She’d spent a lifetime learning how to walk away from people and situations that threatened her self-control. Always before, even when it hurt terribly to turn from what she wanted, she simply remembered the time she had not, and then, walking away was easy.
It wasn’t easy this time. Not by a long shot. But walk away, she would.
Because when Gabriella ran from her desires, she wasn’t tucking tail.
She was saving lives.
Chapter 5
“Dilys! Thank Numahao, there you are!” Ari hurried across the garden terrace, Ryll close on his heels. As soon as they drew near, Ari grabbed Dilys’s arm and hauled him into the shadows of the garden, out of sight of the terrace where the welcoming party was still in full swing. “Did you find her?”
Dilys regarded his cousin in bewilderment. “Did I find who?”
“You know who. The woman who was usingsusirena.”
“Susirena?” Bewilderment changed to shock. “One of these women was usingsusirena? Are you sure? Who was it?”
“We don’t know. She Spoke just for an instant, and her Voice was gone too quickly for any of us to get a lock on the origin. But all of us heard it.” Ari tilted his head to one side, his golden eyes narrowing. “I’m surprised you didn’t. Where were you?”
“Taking a walk down by the fjord.” Dilys absently rubbed the golden trident on his left wrist. “Any possibility thesusirenacould have come from one of us? Maybe someone decided to show off, hoping to impress a female?”
Ari snorted. “It wasn’t one of us. I know a woman’s Voice when I hear it, Dilys.”
“Ari’s right,” Ryll concurred. “It was a definitely a woman. And considering how quiet it was and how quickly it was gone, it still packed quite a punch. I’m really surprised you didn’t hear it.”
