“You look beautiful tonight,” he told her.
“You look like a jester,” she told him.
Daegel belly-laughed.
“I found out something about Lesha,” Aurelia said quietly.
Everyone turned to look at her.
She kept her expression neutral and her voice low. “Nali told me she’s being held at a camp just north of Nygard Peak.”
“Do you believe her?” Thorne asked warily.
“Yes,” Aurelia admitted. “Not that it does us any good without a way in.”
“There are reports of a war camp on the northern border,” Slade said. “It’s her base camp for the attacks she’s led on the Autumn villages.”
“What attacks?” Aurelia asked.
“Utter destruction,” Slade said grimly. “She’s locking folks inside their homes and burning whole villages to the ground. No prisoners. No survivors. And then winter spreads to freeze it all over. Like a memory of death—preserved.”
“Seven Hels,” Thorne muttered.
“Gods,” Aurelia breathed. “That’s awful.”
I wondered if she was thinking of what she’d done to Duron. My hand reached for hers before I thought better of it and tucked it away again.
Finally, up on the dais, Patamoi lifted a hand. The music dimmed. “Osphanis welcomes those who travel far to ask and farther still to swallow their pride,” he said. The words were smooth. The current under them was not. Bastard. “Eat. Drink. Tonight, we honor our guests.”
He lifted his own glass and drank.
The crowd did the same.
The king sat, at last taking a bite of his food. The crowd cheered as music resumed and the party officially began.
Servants came in quiet waves. Fish with skin crisped. Fruit jeweled with salt. Bread that cracked open and steamed. I didn’t touch the wine. None of us did.
I watched more than I ate. The guards. The guests. It was all an elaborate distraction for the real risk: we were trapped with nowhere to go and no weapons to defend. None save our magic.
Slade leaned back in his chair, nodding toward a female naiad across the room who hadn’t stopped watching him. “I’d like to state, for the record, that I am happy to do my part in furthering our goodwill with the river people.”
Daegel snorted. “And when she drowns you in your sleep?”
“Worth it,” Slade said, grinning.
Keres snorted her distaste and went back to watching the room. She hadn’t eaten a crumb.
“You should at least pretend to eat,” I told her quietly.
“Why?” she challenged.
“Manners.”
“Was it manners when they executed Brigham six years ago?” she shot back.
I sighed. “Brigham started it, remember?”
“We should have finished it,” she said.
