Dimitri lifts his pointy chin upholstered in days’ old growth. Though his hair is the same fiery red as Sofiya’s, it’s threaded through with so much white that it appears strawberry-blond.
“Condensed, you say?” He shakes his head but his green eyes glimmer with mirth.
“There goes your inheritance,” Sofiya quips.
Ilya juts his head toward his brother. “Good thing I’m Crown Prince.”
“Not to burst your bubble, but there are two Crown Princesses ahead of you,” Sofiya remarks while I observe their family dynamic.
“Neither wants the job nor the Crown. Something about their heads being too small for all that gold and all those diamonds, and my head being just the right size.” He adds a wink that makes several governors titter.
“Careful my ambitious boy doesn’t steal it off your head, Kostya.” Dimitri’s teasing comment gives me pause.
I’ve never doubted Ilya’s fraternal love, but love doesn’t preclude ambition. How far would he be willing to go to become king? Would he finance terrorism to unsettle his brother’s regime? Would he charm antimorphs with the promise never to marry a shifter? Would he collude with Lev to move weapons around the empire?
What of Alyona and Svyato’s daughter, though? What role does she play in his coup?
A thought slams into me with the force of a three-ton boulder. Mestyla wore her hair down in the prophecy. What if she did so in order to resemble her mother and make Konstantin believe Alyona resurrected? What if her ear points are only decoys to sell her disguise?
If Konstantin had had no prior knowledge of the girl’s existence, seeing an enemy risen from the dead would’ve bowled his world off its axis. Mestyla must be the ace that the enemy plans to use. Which would explain how she’s managed to stay hidden.
Becausesomeoneis hiding her.
Could it be Ilya?
25
ISLA
“Everything all right, Isles?” Ilya frowns. “You look like a specter has just traversed your body.”
To set his mind at ease, I conjure a smile. “Should I be worried? Are there many dead beings walking around Glace?” I cloak my qualms about Ilya in feigned curiosity for urban legends.
Konstantin’s younger brother grins. “Many. The cemeteries are full of them. Right, Yuri?”
He turns toward the West Shevan governor, a man with whom he did his military service and which Ilya commended for the post of governor. Because he’s placing allies in high places?
“Oh my Gods, not that story again.” Yuri coasts his palms down his face. “I just got Tiana to accept my marriage proposal, Ilya.”
Although I remain on my guard, my suspicions begin to melt when Yuri recounts how Ilya and their army buddies spooked him so thoroughly in a cemetery during Samhain one fall that he passed out from fright and knocked out two teeth on a gravestone. His half-blooded fiancée and Ilya both laugh until tears pop on their lash line.
Please don’t be bad, Ilya,I think to myself.It would be so crushing.
With the barest pressure to my waist, Konstantin lures me out of my contemplations. “I know some of you traveled for days to celebrate my providential, Cauldron-ordained union. I thank you for making the trip south to celebrate Glace’s future queen.”
Konstantin speaks as though they had a choice, but I suspect they didn’t. The same way I suspect, from their brisk glances at my outfit or face, that they deem this dinner more punishment than celebration.
“Isla, these are the most loyal consultants of the Crown. Most have been ruling Glace alongside the Korols for centuries. Isn’t that right, Dimitri?”
Pride squares Patchenkov’s shoulders. “That’s right, Kostya. I was given the position before you were even born.”
My fiancé’s fingers inch toward my upper thigh. I frown until I catch the governor of some eastern province I can’t recall the name of—one that’s famed for its timber—staring very steadily at my leg.
Once Konstantin reaches the staggering apex in the black silk, he splays his fingers wide, concealing as much bared skin as he can. At least he’s playing the role of possessive mate well. So well that Sofiya purses her lips and bats her lashes. To rid her eyes of their desperate sheen?
After the introductions conclude, and I’ve learned everyone’s names, Konstantin finally unhands me. “A word before supper, Dimitri?”
As the two men step off to the side, Tiana—Yuri’s betrothed—approaches me so cautiously one would think she were walking on tiptoe.
