CHAPTER 69
Rosalina
“Kairyn is summoning us both to the Serenus Dusk Chambers.” The door to my room flies open as Dayton rushes in.
I sit up on my bed where I’ve been resting after today’s match. “What are those?”
“They’re suites and halls attached to the Sun Colosseum,” Dayton answers, words clipped and angry. “During long games, my family and other nobles would reside there rather than return to Soltide Keep.”
“Why does he want us there?”
“I don’t know. One of the guards explained we must beprepared.I said I would get you, but I don’t like this.”
My heart lurches in my throat. “Kairyn must be furious after your performance in the games today. The people were enthralled by you.”
“It’s a full moon tonight. He knows that as well, I’m sure,” Dayton says.
“We can’t let him get to us,” I say, pacing my room. “He’s going to try to rile you up. Whatever his bait, we can’t rise to it. Our only goal is to be allowed to continue and enter the final match.”
The muscle in Dayton’s jaw twitches.
“Dayton, are you listening?”
“Yes.” He touches the Summer token on his necklace. “Or I could get close to him tonight and gut him with the trident.”
“Kairyn’s magic isn’t cursed. He’s too strong. We need the support of your people and the bow.”
There’s a banging on my door and a booming voice carries inside: “All right, time to go.”
Quickly, I unfasten Dayton’s seashell necklace. “If they look too closely at you, they might discover the token. Best to take this off.”
“Do you really think it’s safe here?”
I kneel in a corner of my room beside my bed. From the dirt, I summon a tiny bramble of thorns that wraps around the necklace to protect it. “Safer than with Kairyn.”
Dayton gives a long sigh and extends a hand to help me up. “Well then, little siren, let me escort you into the belly of the beast.”
I’ve never felt so exposed and so revered. Like a walking jewel.
Shortly after we were brought to the Dusk Chambers, I was taken into a separate room and attended to by two fae females.
They stripped me down, washed my body and hair, all while remarking on how they’d never seen a siren up close before. Then theypaintedme. Unlike the paint Astrid used before I went to Caspian’s birthday party in the Below, this paint did not form cloth. It stuck to my skin like a second layer until every inch of me was covered in gold.
“To match your hair,” one of them explained.
Very little covers the rest of my body, only a draping of gold-painted shells woven on a thin string that dangles across my chest and hangs off my waist. My feet are left bare. My already golden hair is curled into loose waves.
Now, I walk through the halls, keeping my head high. I will not be embarrassed or ashamed by this. This is just another layer to my disguise. Siren, gladiator … and if Kairyn wants to dress me up as a jewel, then I’ll be that, as well.
“Just through here,” one of the attendants says as we pause before a gauzy curtain. Behind it, I hear the faint murmur of voices and the melodic hum of music.
Footsteps sound behind us, and I turn to see Dayton being led by two attendants of his own.
Breath catches in my throat. If I’m a jewel, he’s a golden sword. Every hard edge of him glitters. His body is painted as well, and only a delicate curtain of shells dangles from his jutting hip bones, showing off the powerful muscles of his legs. They’veleft his hair down as well, brushed with gold powder. The ends graze his broad shoulders, and the shimmer on his face accentuates the square cut of his jaw.
That glimmering face curves into a snarl when he sees me. He breaks away from the attendants and roughly grabs my arm. “You can’t go in there looking likethat.”
“Oh, you think I’m pleased about your get-up?” I shoot back. “That little skirt is hardly enough to cover your, uh …”
