“Is it scared or turned on?” he asks.
“Dominik,” my mistress warns.
“I think both.”
The metallic smell of fear leaks from my pores. He plays with my hair, exposing my neck, his thumb rubbing over a tendon.
“You’re disgusting,” she seethes. “Touching one of them.”
“I sense jealousy,” he sings. “But of me or her?”
“Dom!”
A mouth descends onto my throat. I cry out in shock, but aphantom hand holds me still. Slowly, he licks up my neck, incisors scraping against my throbbing pulse.
Kassandra leaps forward.
“Sit,” Dominik murmurs against my skin. A force shoves her back, the chair rocking. For a moment, no one moves. Not even Briar. Then my mistress takes a swig of wine. Tears threaten to spill from my eyes. I squeeze them shut, breathing.
“Good,” the heir says. “Now, tell me of your lessons with Eli.”
“They’re fine.”
“Elaborate.”
Something bites my ear.
I jerk, eyes flying open, but it’s not his mouth that did it.
The side of my face drips with sticky wine as every liquid in the room—water, alcohol, broth, cream—flies out of cups and bowls and hovers above the table. They burst outward into tiny snowflakes of white, crimson, brown, and blue. A dazzling display of colorful crystals glimmers across the entire room.
The snowflakes float back down into their respective dishware, the liquid in Dominik’s cup rising with each bloody drop. In a moment, the entire room falls back in order.
It was the most impressive display of root magic I have seen from Kassandra. My mistress dabs her napkin against her flushed cheek. “Elaborate enough for you?”
“No,” Dominik rumbles at my back.
“Did you not just see—”
“Isawthat every snowflake was the same. You did not create a storm where each crystal is unique, as in nature. You came up with a simple design and then repeated it.”
“It was as powerful as one of my Illusions.”
“Then you clearly misunderstand our House magic,” he snaps. “An Illusion is the truth in another light. Our task is to change the light. This is why you cannot capture the king’s attention.”
Get up!I think, and yet I cannot move, the phantom hands holding me still.
She leans back in her chair. “He’s not the king yet.”
“Nor you the queen. You had one job as Heart of Illusion.One.The coronation is in two days, and you have yet to convince the male who will fuck anything to fuck you.”
For a moment, I am weightless. Airborne.
Then I crash into the hard floor. My ears ring, vision spinning. Someone shrieks. My blood oath feels like it’s burrowing deeper into my skin—a venomous parasite that will eat me from the inside out. I hear it then. The sound of choking.
Lifting my head, I stare in horror.
Dominik—the Heir of Illusion—thrashes in the air as something unseen strangles him. Energy swirls around Kassandra like a snowstorm, her trembling arm raised. His body slams against the far wall, legs kicking, neck straining. His hand grips the invisible force around his neck.
