He stepped aside, bowed, turned, and walked back the way he came.
Damn it.
Another person appeared at the far end of the hallway, escorted by a different guard. I had to go into the room, or I would cause a traffic jam.
I took a deep breath and strode forward, quiet, unassuming, slipping into the ballroom in anonymous silence, just another noble in a lovely dress. In front of me, bright light spilled onto the crowd from enchanted chandeliers: men in their best doublets, women in gowns of every color, hair ornaments glinting, jewels shining, voices murmuring to the echoes of the fading music. Some people wore their crests in plain view, like me. Others didn’t bother because they were well known.
The last notes of a fast melody faded out. The opening dance had just ended. Perfect.
The who’s who of Rellas mingled around me.The ocean of monsters, Everard murmured in my memory. Truer words had never been spoken. In these stormy waters, I was prey. I needed to get my thirty seconds of spotlight out of the way and then I would fade into the background.
The music had died. The next dance would begin in ten minutes.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward to the front of the gathering loosely ringing the dance floor. The floor didn’t crack under my feet and swallow me up. So far so good.
I scanned people’s faces.Where is he?
A clump of red and silver—Wynand Bors holding court directly across from me. He was easy to spot. He stood five foot five, but he weighed about two hundred pounds, all of it bone, sinew, and muscle. He was enormously strong, and he’d been known to pick up taller opponents in full armor and throw them if they pissed him off enough. His doublet mimicked armor, as if his tailor had tried to reproduce a cuirass with cloth and leather. A bright red cloak dripped from his left pauldron in artful pleats.
To the right of Bors, a group of people in copper, cobalt, and gray watched the crowd with flat expressions. The Yolentas’ faction. Dreantia Yolenta stood with her two sons and her daughter, who sat in a wheelchair. The resemblance between them was unmistakable. All four had the same squarish faces, the same arrogant bend to their eyebrows, and the same rare shade of ash-brown hair. No DNA test needed.
No sign of her niece, though. She was the only blond of the lot.
I looked to the left of the Yolentas. Scarlet, gold, and black. Ulmar Hreban.
I didn’t jerk. I stayed calm.
He had the same look he had worn on his face in the Garden. The pale woman next to him was his wife. Her black and red gown was beautifully tailored, and her dark hair was studded with jewels. She was about ten years younger than Hreban, which put her in her early thirties, but there was something petulant about her expression. She was like the most popular girl at school who was forced to attend someone else’s party, and not being the star was eating at her.
Everybody under the sun was in the damn ballroom except for Everard. Had he been poisoned?
I took a tiny step forward, trying to move past a large man next to me to take a look at the rest of the dance floor to my right.
Rust and cream. Solentine.
Even among all this finery, he stood out, cutting an elegant figure in a tailored doublet that also resembled armor. That must’ve been the formal fashion, and it was perfect for Solentine. Everything my new cousin did, from the tilt of his head to the casual gesture of his hand as he spoke to an older man next to him, was refined and graceful. Solentine dripped sophistication.
Our gazes met. Solentine Dagarra did a double take. And then he looked to the side.
I turned slightly to follow his gaze.
Everard.Alive.
Thank God he was alive.
He wore black from head to toe, leather and cloth with a green inlay on the chest. Black leather pauldrons broadened his shoulders, his green cloak dripping from them in structured folds. He looked like some infernal prince in armor forged of cosmic darkness. Behind him, the retainers of Selva stood shoulder to shoulder, in black and green.
His face was glacial. Cold and unyielding, as if cut from stone.
I never should’ve come. Seeing him like this, in those clothes, was not good for me. I had won my freedom from him, and I had to keep it.
Wait. He was fine. So was Solentine. Both of them were here, in perfect health, and neither of these assholes had thought it was worth their time to let me know that they had arrived safely or that Everard wasn’t dead. I had driven myself up the wall worrying, I had lain awake at night thinking he might have gotten poisoned, and they didn’t even bother to send a note. One word: Alive. That’s all I needed.
It was crystal clear to me now. I was a weapon. A tool, like a dagger. Ramond vi Everard was content to use me when it suited him and to ignore me when it didn’t. That Solentine did it bothered me less, but Everard had lived in my head rent free almost since the moment I came to this wretched city. He’d lied to me, he’d saved me, and then he’d lied again by pretending he cared for me, and I kept deluding myself and buying into his lies.
You know what, screw this.
Shock slapped Everard’s face. He had finally seen me. His eyes flared with green.
