Someone Needs To
Pharis
There wasn’t enough busywork in the world to keep my mind off of Raewyn and the fact that she was here under my roof.
Every minute of every day.
Close enough to touch, if I were to let myself.
Which I wouldn’t.
After the close call we’d had in my chambers, I started living like a recluse, avoiding areas of my home where I might encounter her.
Whenever it couldn’t be avoided and we passed in the halls, she looked at me with a knowing expression.
It made me feel exposed, naked.
And that wasn’t a good way to feel where Raewyn was concerned.
A few days after finding her in my room, I had no choice but to see her again—not if I was going to actually utilize her glamour gift to stay ahead of the rapidly crumbling leadership situation in the kingdom.
During the days I’d been away from home, I’d traveled to different regions, cloaking myself in shadows as I observedprivate conversations about—and some outright planning of—mutiny against the Crown.
Apparently many of the lords who’d been unhappy under my father’s tyrannical rule had decided they’d rather not submit to his far less terrifying son and heir, Stellon.
They saw my brother as soft, vulnerable. But none of them was powerful enough to challenge the King’s vast military resources on his own.
They hadn’t formed a coalition against himyet, but I feared it was coming.
Which was why my castle would be seeing a steady stream of visitors, starting today. I’d summoned each of them secretly, hoping to dissuade them from embarking on civil war.
Though Stellon was all wrong for Raewyn, he was the rightful King of Avrandar and would make a good one, if given the chance. I certainly didn’t want him to be assassinated or killed in battle.
And infighting among the Elven lords would only make the kingdom a more dangerous place than it already was.
The problem was, I wasn’t sure which of them I could persuade, if any. And in the case that they refused to listen to reason, I needed to know what scared them most.
Knowledge was power, and Raewyn could give me the kind of knowledge that just might keep the kingdom from ripping apart and devolving into chaos.
“You sent for me?”
I turned to see her standing just inside the library doors.
Flattening my expression, I steeled my voice.
“Yes. It’s time to use your glamour gift and earn your keep.”
“You mean earn myfreedom,” she corrected.
I chose to ignore that and went on.
“I’ll be receiving a visitor soon. He’ll come in and speak with me here on the first level of the library.”
Pointing to the second-story balcony, I said, “You’ll be up there, out of sight. I want you to read his fears. The distance shouldn’t be too great—you did it repeatedly in training with the staff.”
“And this helps you how?” she asked.
“That is my concern. Yours is to do what’s asked of you… without questions.”
