My shock has Aodhan grappling for air and Lachlano balking.
“Yes.” The Ice King works his rigid jaw from side to side as though frost had gelled his mandibles. “Me.”
16
ISLA
I’m uncertain for how long I lapse into silence, but it must last quite some time because Lachlano is waving his hand in front of my face, repeating my name on a loop. When sound finally penetrates my ringing ears, I snap my lids. But then I see the ring again.
“Can you hear his thoughts?” my friend murmurs in Serpent, while Aodhan—who’s somewhat calmed—swivels his head as though trying to snag a passing brainwave.
“No.”
“It took the bond between me and Izzy a few years to form,” the Glacin Crow explains. “Could’ve had something to do with her age, seeing as she was fifteen when we met.”
As the cabin and the men come into sharp focus, so does a thought. I press Lachlano aside for an unobstructed view of Konstantin’s fingers. Though he wears a few platinum rings, none of them bear a stone.
“Ilya’s a Korol too.” I assume my conclusion will be met with relief on Konstantin’s behalf, but it only whittles his scowl.
“The ring you described belonged to my mother. Not to Milana.”
I lick my lips. “You share a mother with Alyona.”
“You’d rather marry my dead sister?” he asks.
My head rears back. “Obviously not. I was just calling attention to the possibility that I wear the ring because I retrieve it during my assassination of her daughter—or yours.”
“I don’t have a bloody daughter!” he growls.
When his face takes on the hue of a beinnfrhal, I decide to return to the theory that the daughter is Alyona’s—if only to avoid accidentally committing regicide.
“Perhaps my victim has your mother’s ring, and I retrieve it, and it only fits my ring finger?” I realize how ludicrous this all sounds, but no more than marrying the Glacin monarch.
“The ring’s in my desk drawer.” Konstantin’s eyebrows are slung so low, his silver irises are in full shadow.
“Not exactly the safest place for a keepsake of such value, now, is it?” I didn’t think his features could become any sharper.
They can.
Along with his tone. “In alockeddrawer.”
“Perhaps your—myvictimunlocksit.”
He cradles his cheek on the tips of his fingers as though settling in for a long and tedious conversation. “Strangers cannot penetrate my private quarters without an invitation.”
“I entered.”
“Because you’re of Meriam’s bloodline.”
I take it he checked with the maker of the sigil. “Maybe you’ve inadvertently invited her in? Or maybe youadvertentlyinvited her in! Maybe she’s a woman you’ve lain with?”
“First off, I’d never fucking lay with a woman who resembled my dead sister.Anysister.” His grimace is rivaled by his glower. “Secondly, the ring’s still in my drawer.”
“Do you take it out and polish it on the regular?”
That causes his pupils to retract and his head, to drift away from his fingers.
“Fine. It was just a theory anyway.” With a shrug, I say, “Maybe she’ll steal it from you in the near future…”
