I stiffened. My hands tightened on the reins. My mare abruptly reared, tossing her head and lifting onto her hind legs. Panic shoved me forward. I grabbed at her mane and the pommel of the saddle. My thighs throttled her flanks. There was shouting—hands grabbed at her bridle, my reins. Finally, she settled—Luca stood at her head, whispering words I didn’t understand into her flaring nostrils. I took a shuddering breath, and moved to slide off her heaving back.
“Don’t.” Gavin put a gentling hand on the horse’s neck. “If you get off, you’ll never ride another horse again. Don’t let the fear conquer you.”
I swallowed jags of terror, and slowly nodded. I gathered the reins in my hand and tried not to think about the distance to the ground.
“D’Ars.” Hoofbeats rang up sharp behind us. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
It was Gavin’s godfather—the middle-aged gentleman with greying black hair and a face like hewn granite. He wore the colors associated with Gavin’s household, in an expensive-looking red duster with gleaming kembric buttons.
“Arsenault! You remember Lady Mirage, and this is her friend—”
“I remember,” the man said, brusque. “Apologies, lady, but I’m afraid the duc has business to attend to.”
Gavin frowned. “Félix, honestly. I told you to clear my Prime—”
“It’s an urgent message from Varek Piers, Gavin.”
“Oh. I see.” Gavin bowed over my hand, all good humor and grace once more. “Please excuse us, Mirage. I hope you won’t hold the interruption against me.”
“Please!” I demurred. “Is everything all right?”
“Perfectly.” Gavin flashed an easy grin. “Much as I wish my steward could handle my Aifiri estates in my absence, it never seems to be the case.”
He cut a bow over his horse’s withers, then cantered off toward Jardinier with his godfather and his Husterri. Luca kicked his horse after Gavin. I caught his eye and glared. He wheeled with a sheepish shrug.
“Sorry!” he called. “But the horse belongs to him.”
Leaving me alone with my wolves in a city that loathed me for what I could never be. We rode quickly back up to the palais, Calvet and Karine flanking me with hands on sword hilts. But if any pointed Red Masks stared death at my back from alleyways and dark corners, I was too busy being furious to notice.
Gavin and his godfather might think me a Duskland gamine playing at dauphine, but three spans at court and weeks of near-interminable Congrès meetings had taught me a thing or two about paying attention. And I’d just discovered two very interesting facts.
One—the gentleman in the red coat was Félix Arsenault, one of the men Gavin had said rounded out the wicked quartet that included both our fathers when they were young.
And two—Gavin was lying to me.
I happened to know Varek Piers was an Aifiri high commander. He oversaw most of the ground troops deployed along the Aifir border with Lirias, and commanded several outposts along the southern edge of the Meridian Desert.
There was no chance in the daylight world General Piers was the steward for Gavin’s estate. Which meant my cousin didn’t want me to know that the only other legitimate Sun Heir was friendly with an Aifiri high commander.
My conversation with Gavin about light and darkness, charity and sin swirled in my chest. My fingers curled into fists. But by the time we’d ridden back up to the palais, I’d had an idea. I’d hadseveralideas.
I thought of Gavin’s sun-bright laughter as he lied through his teeth. My twilight gowns concealing my fear of the dark. Every convenient lie I’d ever told myself like a mask I could interchange with my own face.
“Do you know where I might find Oleander de Vere at this hour?” I asked Calvet as he helped me down from my horse. “I need to speak with her.”
“I’m afraid not, dauphine.” Calvet brandished his dimples and took the mare’s reins. Both my wolves had relaxed once we were safely ensconced beyond the palais walls, and it wasn’t hard to see why—the stables neighbored a barracks crawling with fellow Loup-Garou, both on and off duty. “It’s my job to know your schedule, not Lady Oleander’s. Buthemight know.”
He pointed across the courtyard before leading my horse away.
Sunder’s uniform strode dark through bars of honeyed light. He was barking orders I couldn’t make out to a platoon of Belsyre wolves marching behind him. He looked savagely handsome. My heart beat sudden sharp pinions against the inside of my chest.
I smoothed the front of my twilight dress, and strode across the courtyard toward him.
He caught sight of me and turned, sunlight etching his profile and striking green sparks off his signat. For a moment, his eyes looked like glass, reflecting my own careful elation back at me. A charge passed between us, too dull for pain but too sharp for pleasure.
The glass broke. Sunder’s expression shattered with it, vicious fear warping his mouth into a shout—
I heard the whisper of the blade a moment before its edge found my flesh. Agony sliced through the bodice of my dress and buried teeth into my ribs.
