One of them, a slender man younger than Jesstin, leaned in and whispered in Elloven’s ear. Her eyes lit up seconds before her entire face creased in dread. “I’m honored, but no. It’s been so many years...” She stared at the arena, looking past the performer who’d spoken to her. Her fingers moved as though she were playing the piano, but after their last conversation in the Night Soul, he knew what she was really doing. “So long ago. I wouldn’t even know...”
Jesstin caught Taven hovering several boxes away with a man and a woman Jesstin hadn’t met yet. They weren’t even looking toward the box with Elloven and the others, which was strange.
“It’s in your blood,” the other performer, a woman with hair the color of her uniform, said. “You were born knowing. Practice made you stronger. No one forgets.”
Elloven nervously switched her gaze to Ryquin. “I don’t even know the routines.”
Jesstin leaned forward. He had to have misheard. “You want Elloven to go out there and throw herself in the air, drunk as she is?”
“Don’t overcomplicate what is simple,” the woman said with a dismissive wave. “The aerialists commune intuitively. They feel the routine as one. There are no mistakes. No falls. No problems. Anyone with aerialism in their blood could do this.”
“There’s an entire village. Ask one of them,” Jesstin retorted. How was no one else concerned? “Someone who isn’t sloshed beyond sense.”
“She’s not drunk,” Ryquin said.
Elloven gripped the arms of her chair and pushed up with a wobble. She batted Jesstin away. “I came here because this is my home, and if I can’t be myself at home, then I should never have come.”
“Elloven, bloody hell.” Jesstin hissed, shooting to his feet. “Have you even been watching them? You really think you can do this? Right now? As you are?”
Elloven swept him in pure contempt. “You have no idea what I can do,” she said and followed the gold-clad acrobats down the stairs.
“Are you not going to do anything?” Jesstin demanded of Estelar, Ryquin, and Lexsea, who exchanged stoic glances like he was the unreasonable one.
Then it hit him. This was planned, like everything else so far, right down to the unfortunate but all-too-convenient “accident” that had placed Elloven in the unique position to save the show. If they hadn’t gotten her drunk out of her mind, she might have seen through it as well.
Or not. She’d left her sense at the Rivenholde border.
“If you won’t stop her, I will,” Jesstin said, but both Estelar and Ryquin stood and blocked him. “Is this supposed to scare me?”
“It would be easier for you if you simply trusted us,” Ryquin said lightly. “And her.”
Estelar was less diplomatic. “Your assessment of what you’ve seen here, what you’ve been allowed to see, is irrelevant. You’re here because Aelloven needs you to be, but that can change at any time. You are our guest, but that, too, can change.”
The implication could only be clearer if they’d come right out and said they’d kill him if he didn’t fall in line.
Jesstin looked around. There were esguards everywhere, at attention, staring their way. He might take a few of them, but not all of them.
He sat back down and thought about an alternative plan.
With a punch of dark irony, he realized there was only one other person who would care about her well-being as he did, and it was the same person he’d been trying to protect her from.
But when Jesstin searched for Taven a second time, he was gone.
Acheron reminded Taven more of Gennady than Ellie. The strawberry-haired half brother had a calmness he saw could so easily become rage, and he maintained it with impressive control. His consort, Dasha, was more discernibly chaotic, either unwilling or unable to hide her disdain for everything and everyone except Acheron.
The man had been ranting about how no one appreciated their magic anymore or cared where it had come from. How children played in blissful ignorance of the histories that had shaped their abilities, or the war being fought daily to preserve them.
“Ellie has to be wondering where I’ve been all these hours,” Taven said when he finally found an opening to speak. He watched her stumble into the pretor’s box—intoxicated. Jesstin was the only one who reacted with any concern. “And the show is starting soon.”
“Yes, wouldn’t want you to miss that,” said Dasha, her words drenched with condescension. “Why delay, Acha? He isn’t a market flea you need to haggle with. Tell him. He already knows.”
“Knows what?” The vague statement shifted Taven’s gaze back to the couple.
Acheron’s sharp look at his consort was too quick to interpret. He fluttered his long eyelashes toward Taven. “You’ve been hearing a voice in your head for years. I know you have, because it was mine.”
Taven cocked his head. Well, that was an interesting proclamation. Two different Rivenholde men had now claimed to be responsible for his clairsight. “An easy thing to say but harder to prove.”
“There is no such thing as clairsight, Taven. There are visions. There’s telepathy. Your magic affords you neither, not without assistance.” Acheron leaned onto the wall of the box, his feet crossed. “I’ve been sending you messages for years. I could recite them back, if you really require convincing, or you could simply believe what you already know to be true.”
