Thankfully, the Sealord didn’t insist on pressing further. With a final, deep bow and a promise to collect Autumn and Spring at eight o’clock, he excused himself.
Summer didn’t breathe easy again until he disappeared from view.
“Well,” Spring said, “You have to give him credit. He doesn’t beat around the bush. What do you think, Autumn?”
“Hmm?” Autumn murmured absently. “What?” She dragged her appreciative gaze off Dilys’s departing backside, paused to admire a group of Calbernans who were lifting heavy objects for the delight of several other female onlookers, and wiped a hand over her lips as she turned to Spring. “I have to say, Storm wasn’t exaggerating when she warned us these Calbernans were walking erotic dreams. Check my face. Did I miss any drool?”
Spring rolled her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
Autumn gave a small laugh. “At least now I feel a little more sympathy for those poor sods who walk into lampposts around me.” Not that any of the Calbernans would know how sincerely and appreciatively Autumn was ogling them. To those who didn’t know her well, she would appear every inch the haughty princess. She’d perfected that mask years ago and wearing it had become second nature.
Their oldest sister huffed a long-suffering sigh and directed her attention to Summer. “And you, Gabriella. What was with the flinching and cowering just then? Are you really that upset about his stupid remarks earlier, or did something happen between you and Sealord Merimydion last night that you haven’t told us?”
Summer stifled a wince. Spring had a habit of seeing much more than most people wanted her too, including Gabriella. “No, it’s not that,” she lied. “But he made his preference clear, so I thought I might as well use that to my advantage. I truly am busy with the school, so since he already thinks I’m no bolder than a cup of milked tea, I might as well live down to his expectations. That way, he won’t feel compelled to waste his time or mine with a courtship doomed to go nowhere.”
Autumn’s pansy-purple eyes widened. “That’s really good thinking, Gabi.” The wide-eyed look of admiration turned to narrow-eyed accusation. “What a shame it’s also a total pile of horseshoto.”
Summer’s cheeks went hot.
“Aleta!” Spring hissed.
“What?” All humor fled Autumn’s face. “It’s true and you know it. Gabi runs away from every man there’s even the slightest chance she might feel more than friendship towards. And she does it for the same reason you try to find the deep, dark secret they’re all supposedly hiding.”
“Like we’re the only ones? What about you and the way you’ve been objectifying these men?”
“Yes! I do it, too! I admit it! We may have different methods, but we all do the same thing. For all the same reasons. Because we’re all afraid of falling in love and ending up likehim.”
The three of them shared haunted looks.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m tired of being afraid,” Autumn continued. “We all have dangerous gifts. Some more dangerous than others.” She held her palm over a lit candle on the table, close enough that the heat from the flame should have scorched her flesh, but she didn’t flinch. She closed her hand slowly, and the flame died. Then she opened her fist with a sharp flick, and all the candles in the room flared to sudden life. She met her sisters’ gazes. Her purple eyes were flickering with fiery lights. “But Storm and Wynter have gifts every bit as dangerous as ours, and that hasn’t stopped them from finding love.”
“That’s different,” Spring said.
“Why? Because she didn’t have a choice and we do?” Autumn stood up and gave her skirts a shake to smooth out the wrinkles. “This is our chance, sisters. Everything we know, everything we’ve read, everything we’ve learned says Dilys Merimydion is an honorable, noble man who comes from a country famous for how well they treat women.”
“He’s a mercenary,” Spring reminded her.
“And an obscenely wealthy merchant, and a landowner, and a prince,” Autumn shot back. “And a freer of slaves. And as handsome as any woman could ever want. And charming, too, with a surprisingly excellent sense of humor. Your objections, Viviana, are just obstacles you keep throwing in your own path out of fear. Khamsin likes him. That goes a long way with me. So, you two can keep making excuses to avoid him and not let yourselves like him, but barring any dreadful revelations once the information from Uncle Clarence gets here, I intend to welcome his courtship and see what comes of it.”
It took Summer hours alone in her room, focusing all her attention on planning the children’s costume project, before she finally managed to extinguish the fires of possessive fury that Autumn’s parting declaration roused. Even then, when the threat of a deadly loss of control had passed, she knew it was only a temporary reprieve. Her defenses were shaky at best, and when it came to anyone else laying claim to Dilys Merimydion’s attentions, they were virtually nonexistent.
Worse, that ferocious desire to have and keep him for her own was no false desire manufactured by the Persuasions he’d tried to manipulate her with earlier. No, that craving was entirely hers. In Dilys Merimydion, it seemed, her deepest lifelong desire had found its focus. She could not shift nor sway it, no matter how she tried.
As for Autumn’s brave claim that Wynter and Khamsin had found and embraced love despite their dangerous mutual gifts, she was right, but Summer’s parents had been happy too—blissfully so—until Queen Rosalind’s death.
Dangerous power and deep emotion did not go well together. Period. As happy as Khamsin and Wynter were today, that love skated on the crumbling edges of disaster.
So, while Autumn was right that Dilys Merimydion was potentially the best husband any woman could hope for, that was the problem. With him, marriage would lead to love, and love would leave the door open for disaster.
The only reason Autumn thought she could love without putting herself or others at risk was because, although her gifts could be quite dangerous, she’d never killed innocent people with them.
Summer had.
Chapter 7
Dead Man’s Cove, Crow Island
In the tattered sewer of a town called Dead Man’s Cove—home to pirates and landless scum from all walks of Mystral—the Drowned Maiden pub was an infamous watering hole, frequented by those from whom light itself quailed in terror.
