Serill leaned back and sighed. “Enough of this. Tell me more about the woman you should have bedded.”
Cason rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you everything.”
“Yes, but then youlet her sneak out the window.That’s not very Cason-like, to let a woman walk home on her own.”
“She can take care of herself,” he replied, repeating the phrase he kept telling himself to avoid the guilt that he felt about letting her sneak out. “She had a knife sheathed against her belt and leg.”
Serill choked on his drink, eyes wide. “Your hands were on her enough to feel that? I’m tempted to stop in Averlyn on the way home so we can find this woman. I’ll propose to herforyou.”
Cason grumbled that he’d tie Serill to his horse before they left so he couldn’t, which only made the prince laugh harder. But once that laughter died down, his friend saw the real look.
“That girl from the market,” he whispered. Cason nodded. “Case, do you really think she’d give you that information about the brothers if she couldn’t protect herself?”
“You didn’t see those scars. The bruises.” And her voice. The rasp was almost more haunting than the blue and purple splotches that lined her throat.
Serill patted his arm. “My always chivalrous friend, there’s a side of this world that we don’t see, and she made it abundantly clear that we can’t fully understand what they have to do to survive nor that she wants your help. She’s made her choices.”
Did she really have a choice?
Cason spoke the other thought that crossed his mind. “And if she ends up dead because of it? Because she risked her life to give me the information about Warley and Ripley?”
“We may never know. It does no good to worry about it,” Serill replied. He hesitated and gave a pointed look at Cason. “That’s not an invitation to go out anddosomething about it, either.”
“Not our city, not our kingdom, not in our control,” Cason repeated through his teeth. The same order he was given from Serill the first time he shared the story about that woman—not a suggestion from a friend, but an order from the prince he served.
“Correct,” Serill replied. The prince’s face softened. “I do want my friend to still have fun tomorrow night. My father might be coming, but you and I aren’t here for business anymore. If it helps, find a woman to dance with and imagine it’s Maeve instead.”
Cason pushed a laugh out of his nose. Serill knew damn well that he wouldn’t dance. And even if he did find a woman to talk to, it wouldn’t be Maeve he’d be imagining.
And now he couldn’t get that white-blonde hair out of his thoughts.
12
A Part to Play
Brela stared up at the black stone walls of Ovir’s home in Rooke. Her old home. It had been over a year since she had visited the house in the quiet streets of Dredon’s outskirts—a year of pretending she wasn’t still tied to this structure in some way.
A year of not remembering the haunting fury of Dernian’s voice echoing off the stone. A year of not seeing that giant stone statue of the earth god Euota and her missing raised arm. A year of not feeling the ache and sting of every scar on her body inflicted by the men of this household.
She would never show those feelings. Not when she was being watched so closely by Ovir’s guards from the trees and walkways, lest she find herself chained to the spires again or locked in the cellar with some other form of torture.
Her eyes darted to Pierce as he watched her from the balcony—he hadn’t taken his gaze off her since she made it to the gate, that golden glare following her every move, studying every twitch of muscle. The prick would probably volunteer to be the earth-kind strength that held her in place while Ovir dealt her punishment. She was lucky her owner hadn’t dragged her to Dredon by her hair after he visited her the other morning.
Pierce probably volunteered to do that, too.
No, tonight would be her punishment. Walking into the final Earth Festival celebration, walking into the castle without a disguise, was punishment. An auction of Veil artifacts that had been pried from the dead hands of her family and friends. In the kingdom of her enemies who would carve her worse than Ovir or Dernian had ever done.
Her foot had barely hit the gravel of the walkway when the front doors opened, Trellis swaying out with a breeze of green skirts. The woman was barely in her forties, and perhaps could have been beautiful if her personality wasn’t so sharp. If Dernian and Ovir were the cruel masters of the guild, Trellis was the cold-hearted housekeeper that kept the place clean of the blood they spilled. Brela couldn’t think of a time when the woman had a single thread or hair out of place, and she ran the home in the same manner.
Trellis looked every bit like her heritage in Aelstow, the capital city of Severina. Tan skin, dark eyes, and even darker hair—though after a year, Brela could see a few more gray hairs dusting the long brown that curled into a crown braid over her temples.
The woman looked Brela up and down, her jaw set in disgust at the knives strapped to her skin-tight black pants, loose blouse, and corset belt.
“Stand up straight,” Trellis snapped.
“You’re not my mother,” Brela hissed back.
Trellis reached up and snagged Brela’s chin with force, pulling her down to meet her fiery gaze. “Careful, girl. Don’t think I won’t interrupt Ovir’s meeting so he can cut out your tongue.”
