Next to him is his friend, Peter, who scowls at me. I ignore him with practised ease. He may be Ruben’s friend, but he’s never been mine. It’s difficult to place a finger on exactly what it is that I don’t like about Peter. Perhaps it’s the way he walks around with his sleeves rolled up, his swirling tattoo of a coil of smoke on display, as if he needs to prove his manhood by unnecessarily exposing himself to the cold. The last thing we need is more people dying of hyperthermia.
‘Hey Ruben.’ Kay beams when he finally squeezes his way across to us.
‘Kay!’ He opens his arms wide, offering a quite literally warming hug.
Rather than respond to him, Kay glances at me, as if she’s asking permission. It’s one hundred percent not necessary, but I nod anyway. A moment later, his arms are wrapped tightly around her, and I watch Kay’s body relax as his warmth seeps into her. The gentleness of Ruben’s ability to crank up his body temperature would have been laughed at in the High Hold. Sure, it would be impressive if he could convert that heat into fireballs that he could throw at the Issen and Torailian when they attack our borders, but down in the slums, his gentle warmth keeps people alive.
Korvane and his generals don’t seem to understand that battles aren’t the only thing that kills people at war. Cold does too.
As Kay steps back from Ruben’s embrace, her face flushed with heat, he looks at me, an eyebrow quirked in question. I go in next. The warmth rushes to my extremities, and the relief from the cold is welcome. I didn’t realise how freezing I was.
Unsurprisingly, Ruben pulls me in far closer than he did with Kay, then lowers his head so it’s next to the shell of my ear, his breath teasing my skin in the way he knows I like. ‘I haven’t seen you for a couple of nights,’ he whispers.
‘I’ve been busy,’ I mutter evasively. The last thing I need is for Kay to overhear our conversation, given that I told her I was spending time with Ruben when I was actually monitoring the guards at the temple.
‘Well, my bed’s been cold.’ His brown eyes look down at me as hespeaks. Soft, warm brown eyes. Friendly. Straightforward. Nothing like the icy-blue gaze that held mine last night.
Not that I was thinking about that asshole again.
I laugh in response. ‘Your bed’s never cold,’ I say, trying to sound casual as I inwardly curse myself for thinking about another man’s eyes when a perfectly good pair is staring right into mine.
‘Okay, you’re right,’ he concedes with a smirk. ‘But it would still be more comfortable with you in it.’
‘Also untrue. Your bed is always tiny and rock hard, regardless of the company.’
His answering laugh is deep and throaty. It’s incredibly tempting to press myself into his heat again and take his offer of spending more nights with him. It’s not as if I don’t like him. He’s a good guy, the kind who puts others first – the way people with nothing always seem to. And I know he likes me – even with my lack of magic – but would I weep for weeks if he suddenly told me he’d found someone else to spend his evenings with? I don’t think so. For all his easy smiles, he has a detachedness to him. Like he’s not ready to let himself reallybein front of me. Like he needs to keep part of himself hidden.
Not that I’m one to talk. For the first six months of us sleeping together, he didn’t even know my surname, and when he finally heard the Kultavaris name – the Queenkiller’s name – I expected it to provoke some sort of reaction. But no, just a slight shrug. Sometimes I think that’s the reason he likes to spend time with me. The lack of commitment. The screw you to the court. And the screw itself.
‘Maybe later in the week,’ I suggest loosely.
‘It would have to be the very end. I’m busy the next couple of nights.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Busy?’
‘Jealous?’ He smirks.
‘No, just intrigued.’ The comment is genuine. Ruben and my get-togethers are normally so late at night that they verge on early morning, and generally speaking, no good deeds are happening at that hour. Not out in the slums, that’s for sure. So yes, I’m definitely intrigued as to what he’s doing.
‘If you two can stop sucking face for one second, I think something’s happening,’ Peter interrupts. He has the manners of a wounded dire wolf.
With my jaw clenched, I draw myself away from Ruben and offer a scowl to the man with the shock of red hair who’s currently smirking at me.
‘We were not sucking face. We were hugging. For warmth,’ I tell him. ‘And who even says “sucking face”?’
‘Oh, I’ve definitely seen you two suck faces before.’
When he grins, it takes more than a fraction of my willpower not to hit him.
The short, stocky illusionist, whose face is painted with a seemingly endless array of freckles, has more powers than anyone else I know in the slums. With magic like his, I’m sure he could have found himself a place inside one of the higher rings. But his powers aren’t the problem. His mouth is. He’s pissed off pretty much everyone at some time or another, except perhaps Ruben. But then again, maybe Ruben’s too laid back to ever get really annoyed. With his attitude, he could be from Dorain.
‘Rose!’ Kay exclaims excitedly as she taps me on the arm and points across the square. ‘I think they’re announcing the Rettlings!’
The noise cranks up around us as stalls are shifted and bartering is cut short. Six guards are approaching the market square, all of them dressed in the deep maroon that signifies King Korvane’s personal soldiers and security. He likes to brag that the enemy starts running the moment they see the colour against the ice, but we all know the truth: it’s so the blood is less visible when the bodies are returned.
‘Why’s the announcement so soon?’ I ask, trying to hide my panic. On the very slim chance that I actually get chosen, I wanted Kay nowhere near me when the announcement happened. ‘I thought they didn’t read out the list of Rettlings until noon?’
In the slums, time is told by stone. The great column of the High Hold towers at the rings’ centre, its shadow marking the hours as it crawls across the dirt. The market lies untouched by it still, which means the day is young – likely not yet even ten.
