“Please accept my apologies,” Asher said, pressing two fingers to his temple as if he were born Tritan. “Impropriety was not my intention.”
Although she didn’t bother to acknowledge the gesture of respect, a tiny, forgiving smile touched the corner of her lips. “Of course not.”
“If you’re on your way to the Senate meeting,” Asher said, thumb stroking the back of my wrist, “I’d be happy to escort the lady wherever she’d like to go. I’d hate for you to be late on my account.”
A single, perfect brow rose as her gaze flicked back to his face. “I have no illusions about what you’d be happy to do, but I’m quite sure we can handle it from here. That will be all, soldier,” she said, dismissing him without the courtesy of her full attention.
She didn’t know.
Shecouldn’t. For if she had any suspicions whatsoever about the man standing at my side, she’d never behave with such disrespect. No, if she could sense the power we possessed behind the Glaith, she’d bend the knee andbegforgiveness…
Smothering a grin, I straightened my spine, holding ground as the Priestesses closed the gap. “I don’t require an escort, thank you. I’m staying.”
The High Priestess said nothing. Merely pressed forward with eyes narrowed, cornering us in the dark.
But I hadn’t finished here. Hadn’t had my fill of the impossible Elite ki singing at the back of my mind… On my lips…
No one—not evenshe—would take what belonged to me. Not without a fight.
Asher pulled his fingers from mine, taking the Glaith with him. Ki pulsed through my veins once more, enough to stop the High Priestess in her tracks. Enough to know there was a secret in my blood, but Asher’s Glaith-laced hand settled on my elbow before that spike of ki overflowed. The weight of his ring dropped into my right pocket, out of sight. Glaith the only backup plan I’d ever trusted. His fingers found purchase on my nape a moment later, keeping me hidden. Ready for whatever came next.
I smiled, slow and sure. Skin flushing with a fresh surge of ki.
Mirroring me, the High Priestess gathered herself, pulling strength from the afternoon breeze—I could smell it. Could feel it thickening the air all around us. Waiting for her call.
The fool.
“This is your only warning,” the High Priestess murmured, shaking her hands loose at her sides. Her frosty gaze fixed to mine, and mine alone. “Send your toy away before it gets broken.”
Hands flying to her lips, wide blue eyes snapping between us, the second Priestess stepped back. “Mistress…”
I sneered. Thought she could take what was mine, did she? Thought she could break him so easily? That I’dlether?
No. Alone, I might’ve had cause to cower before her. But now? With him? Knees flexed, I braced, held back by Asher’s hand on my nape. Buoyed by the Elite arsenal waiting just out of sight, in the shadows at my back.
With cold fire blazing in her eyes, the High Priestess pressed closer, still. Lips set in a tight, thin line, she extended her hand, palm up. “Come, child. Don’t make things worse for yourself.”
Saying nothing, I watched her fingers. Watched as she closed the gap, walking blind and arrogant into my Elite trap. Only a few millimeters left, before the might of the High Priestess herself wasmine…
I reached for my ki mixed with his, trying to push through the Glaith and immerse myself in that bottomless well of strength and power.
But an instant before the cool weight of her palm settled on my forearm, he stepped back. Giving me a tiny push toward certain doom in the High Priestess’ arms, he left me without the protection of his Glaith, the aid of his strength, or the confidence inspired by his control.
Head snapping to the side as I stumbled, I gaped.“What—”
The High Priestess’ gasp cut me short, her grip tightening with strength enough to bruise as my secret was revealed once more. As the market lit up around me and my entire life burned away in a single puff of tri-colored smoke, she mastered me. Swallowing the defiant flames beneath my skin with teeth bared, she hardly bothered to break a sweat. Taking everything and nothing. All of it gone, leashed and buried beneath a delicate wisp of probing ki-sense wielded by atruemaster of the art.
This was no fledgling, impossible Elite toying with power he shouldn’t have and didn’t understand, but the head of the Tritan faith. A fully trained Priestess of the highest order, touched by the Goddess herself! Her power outstripped my own by several orders of magnitude—and her control?
Absolute.
She needed no such crutch as the Glaith, forshewas the most powerful Priestess in living memory.
A Trila-Glís.
And me?
Nothing. Nothing but a cursed idiot of the worst kind.
