“Sacrilege? And from the God-King himself?”
He smiles mischievously. “All day, every day.”
The aspects of the schools of magic are written in the Codex. They’re sacred. The crime of sacrilege has rarely been punished in the last one hundred years, but at a minimum, it will get you a good talking to from a priest, which is reason enough to avoid it.
I want to ask him more about that—how does someone manage to lead the national religion, a religion that holds him to be the reincarnation of a literal god on earth, and also speak against it? But a pair of servants arrives then, one holding a tray and the other a tablecloth and utensils, and I realize I missed how he summoned them and where they came from.
Maybe Ronan is right. I may be a shadow-born, but I’m also the world’s worst spy.
“Just against the railing there,” he directs them as they set a small table and move it onto the balcony. “Perfect.”
“I’m sorry to make you wait,” says Ronan as he takes the seat across from me. “But you can never be too careful.” He gestures, and one of the servants lifts a cover and takes a bite from something that smells like perfectly fried fish as another lights a candle.
My mouth waters, and my stomach growls angrily. I’m starving.
“I’ll take my chances,” I say, reaching for one of the covers, but he smacks it back down.
“I have to insist that you don’t. It won’t be long.”
I don’t see why I should have to wait for the royal taster. It’s not like someone is going to poison me.
“Finally, a feeling I can read loud and clear. No, I don’t think someone is going to poison you, but they could certainly poison us both.”
“Have you ever eaten anything warm in your life?” I don’t know how he can stand eating cold food. I always made Seth heat my dishes if they took too long coming from the kitchens.
He lifts the cover off the fish and holds his hands over it. In just a few seconds, it begins to sizzle. “I manage.”
“Cover it back up. It smells too good.”
After an agonizing wait, the servant appears to be very much not dead, and Ronan finally lets me gorge myself, which I do with great enthusiasm after he reheats my food for me.
“Tell her servants to make sure she has food to take with her to the arena on tournament days. She’s starving.”
I open my mouth to protest, but I really am starving, and it’s a nice gesture.
There’s a slight pause after we’re both done, and it reminds me a bit of Larus waiting for me to talk. I take a sip of wine—damn, it’s delicious; Nithyrian for sure—and fire away. “So what do you want to know, Ronan? You asked me to dinner. You want to know what I’m thinking. Ask me.”
“Are you liking it here?”
Here? “In the palace? Or Faros?”
“I take it you don’t like one of those. Which is it?”
“The palace,” I admit. “I don’t mind your chambers—”
“Good. You’ll be back here,” he says, wiping his mouth and then freezing, napkin still in hand, as he realizes what he said. “For dinner. I meant you’ll be back here again for dinner—”
“I like the décor here,” I explain, ignoring the way my pulse races at that little slip-up. “The rest…”
He leans over the table, moving the candle to the side and dropping his voice low. “I’ll tell you a secret: I hate the palace too. I had these rooms redone to my own taste.”
After the war. These rooms had once belonged to his parents. For once, I’m grateful that we lost our home. I never had to see the rooms my parents slept in pass to my sister. I couldn’t imagine using them myself, feeling their presence every time I was in them. I don’t blame him for changing things.
His parents. My parents. Gods, we’d all lost so much. I wonder what they would say if they could see us sitting at this table together.
His brows furrow. “You’re doing it again. Feeling things at me that I don’t understand.”
“I was thinking of our parents.”
