I start to turn when the crowd, which had hemmed itself together after Xema’s passage, parts anew, this time around two men. One of whom wears a crown and a lipstick smudge on his jaw, and the other, a look of utter revulsion.
“Fallon Rossi!” Marco exclaims, Justus in tow. “I thought I heard your spirited voice.”
Both men skirt my unwelcoming committee, and although the king smiles, my grandfather doesn’t. He stares daggers at me, his hand resting on the pommel of the sword he no doubt wishes to drive through my body.
What a family I’ve been born into . . .
“Where was she hiding?” Marco asks his brother.
“Beside the gates.” Dante shifts as though the amount of attention he’s currently receiving is making him uncomfortable.
“The gates? Which gates?”
“Of Tarespagia.”
Marco’s jaw squares with a grin. “A most terrible place to hide, Signorina Rossi.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“Then what in Luce were you doing at the gates?”
“I was waiting to be let through. I wanted to meet the Rossi women I’ve heard so much about before my upcoming dip in the sea.”
His eyes taper on my face before sliding to Dante’s. I’m tempted to put another step between his brother and me. Many steps. “Thank you for your help, brother. I’ll take it from here. Go enjoy the party and Alyona.”
I clench my jaw at the mention of the Glacin princess.
Dante’s shoulders square and his body grows still. “I’m certain Alyona is quite capable of entertaining herself at the present moment.”
Marco steps close to his brother and whispers something that makes Dante’s spine straighten. If only my hearing were as sharp as Morrgot’s.
Can you hear what they’re saying?
I receive no answer.
Morrgot?
Still nothing.
Dread coalesces beneath my skin and makes it break out in goosebumps.
I stare at the darkness twinkling beyond the open doors, pulse striking my throat. Something’s wrong.
Unless our new means of communication has run its course? I pray to all the gods, including the Crows’, that this is the reason for Morrgot’s sudden muteness.
But my conviction withers when I catch two guards sprinting down the walkway.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Your Majesties,” one of them pants, “but we have a problem.”
Sixty-Two
The king raises his blazing gaze to the two perspiring guards. “Well, speak up!”
Dante turns toward the messengers. “What’s the problem, Roberto?”
Roberto’s gaze pinwheels around the room, lingering a beat too long on me.
Morrgot?I screech inside my mind. I’m about to sprint to the grove, even though I haven’t the faintest clue where it might be, when I make out a series of disjointed words through the adrenaline-induced trilling inside my eardrums:Isolacuori. Attacked. Sprites just arrived with the news.
