Then, as if he hadn’t just tortured and killed a man before us at what was supposed to be a celebratory event, he said, “Now, we eat.”
I stared at him as he calmly took a cloth from the table and wiped his hand and dagger clean with practiced movements.
He’d seated me beside him, gave me a crown as if I was his equal, yet maimed and killed a man before me without sharing his true reasons, expecting me to sit here and watch like it was nothing. He’d warned me he would act as he had at the justice hearing. But there, every criminal was guilty of his crime. Jonathan hadn’t been guilty of what Harthon accused him of. And now, I was left to wonder whether there were valid reasons for doing what he did, or if Harthon could simply be a vindictive, brutal man.
* * *
Princeps Ellan from Fifth Territory was the only thing keeping me from replaying Jonathan’s death in my head.
As an ally, Ellan had been invited to the celebration. As a Princeps, he was seated at our table on the platform. And ashimself, he was boisterous and loud and garbed in shades of gold and orange that were as obnoxious as his personality.
Not for the first time, I wondered if there were any standards for becoming Princeps.
“And I told him, ‘You, sir, are nothing but a peasant.’ And then he lobbed his own head offforme!” Ellan could hardly deliver his punchline before he guffawed, his cheeks bright red.
Edmund, his second-in-command, chuckled. Ana offered a polite smile. Callen gave me a flat look from the end of the table, which I returned.
When Ellan finally recovered, he finished off his wine. Lifting his goblet high, he demanded, “More drink!” Then his glazed eyes landed on me and my untouched goblet.
Here we go again.
“Still against both sex and wine, I see!” he commented jovially as a servant filled his cup.
Ana choked on her food. Callen blinked.
“I drank the wine at your party,” I pointed out calmly, though I wished to drive the prongs of my fork through his hand.
He gestured at me with his goblet, wine sloshing over the side. “Ah, you did! And then, if memory serves, you danced the mostbeautifulwaltz with Princeps Harthon.”
I thought he’d been too intoxicated to remember that.
Not helping, Edmund, who until then had been relatively quiet, said, “It was enchanting, indeed.”
I could feel Ana’s eyes on me. Ana, who I still had yet to apologize to, and who might not love to hear how I’d drunkenly fawned over Harthon at that party.
Time to change the course of this conversation. “Do you dance, Ellan?”
“I do not. Perhaps if I was as beautiful as you and had a partner as—” he glanced at Harthon, “don’t take this the wrong way, friend—but as manly and handsome as Harthon, I might.”
Harthon’s face didn’t twitch. In fact, an impassive mask had locked over his features since he’d finished rending Jonathan and returned to his throne.
I’d hoped he’d whisper an explanation to me, allow me to understand why he’d done what he did. But he didn’t.
It irked me, and now Ellan was irking me further. A woman could only take so much.
I eyed the wine, considering it for a brief second. Perhaps being a bumbling, drunken fool was better than staying sober in both Princepes’ company.
“So whatisthe status?” Ellan asked, pulling my thoughts from the wine. When I gave him a questioning look, a hairy hand waved between me and Harthon. “You’re wearing a crown, seated beside your Princeps. That’s something usually reserved for a Princeps’ Lady. So what’s your status?”
Ifonemore person tells me that only a Princeps’ Lady gets to wear a crown…
Harthon chose that moment to enter the conversation. “Etarla is themagvis, not a Princeps’ Lady. She’s more powerful and valuable than any of us.”
Ellan nodded. “Makes perfect sense.” He thoughtfully chewed a piece of meat, then narrowed his eyes, face twisting with mischief. “But what about the status of you two? Together, I mean. She’s powerful. You’re powerful. There’s no superior match, I’d imagine. Think about the heirs. Her abilities, your mind and battle instinct—”
The carrot in my mouth lodged in my throat, and I coughed.Heirs?My mind fast-tracked from babies, to sex, to sex with Harthon, to the way his big hand had snaked beneath my tunic and touched me weeks ago—
He just tortured Jonathan for a crime he did not commit.
