He laughed, surprising himself with the sound. It rose from some place within him he’d already lost sight of.
“It’sraining.”
Silas glanced over his shoulder at Imogen, who was pressed to the wall like a furious cat on the edge of a bathtub. She took a cautious step, peering out into the watery blur of the courtyard below.
“It doesn’t rain in Eisalaan,” she said faintly.
But she reached into the downpour, and let rivulets of rain coat her slim brown hand like a glove.
She stood that way for a long moment, turning her fingers this way and that, mesmerised by the movement of the water on her skin. It was the sudden fork of silver-white spearing the skythat set her skittering back again. Her eyes were round enough that white ringed the dark brown — and though they were so different in so many ways, it was Adeline that Silas saw in that moment.
Young and frightened.
“Lightning,” Silas said gently. It was easy to forget, in the fog of his own pain and exhaustion. For all her poise and presence, for all her extravagance and sharp wit, Lady Imogen was barely older than his own daughter. Always a girl to him, really, and a child of Eisalaan. It was entirely likely she had never seen lightning before in her life.
“It’s a storm,” he went on. “Next there’ll be—”
A growing rumble underlined his words, then drowned him out with an earth splittingcrackthat made the girl flinch.
“Thunder,” he finished. “It’s just a storm.”
She stared out at the flood, then back at him with those same wide eyes. But she nodded, and drew herself up, slipping easily into her usual grace.
“We need to turn inside,now,Your Grace. Before anyone sees you watching the gates and realises she’s gone.”
“Go then. If I’m found out, you can’t be seen to have helped.”
Imogen did not argue; she curtsied briefly, and was gone. Silas turned back to the downpour and stared through it as though he could will the curtain of rain to part, to show him one last glimpse of the empty white horizon. When it didn’t, he shook off his hand and stepped indoors.
He strode through the echoing marble halls with no particular destination in mind. Just nothere. Not anywhere Edward mightcome across him, with Adeline’s carriage still rolling through the streets of Eisalaan, hours away from the eastern port. In this sudden downpour, Aera only knew how long it might take them to—
“Your Grace.”
Silas halted mid-step, catching himself against the corner wall he’d been rounding. The call of his formal title had not rung particularly loud in the hallway, but the cold rasp that delivered it was all too familiar.
Silas took a beat to compose himself.
Then turned on the spot.
“Captain Doran.”
The Captain gave a shallow bow. Then standing tall, he sneered and said, “It’s been a while.”
And at that grotesque twist of his thin lips, Silas could have lunged. Could have wrapped both his hands around Doran’s tree trunk of a neck andsqueezed, reminding him of the last time they’d seen each other. It had taken three gards to wrestle him back that day at the Tourney; two to grab him round the ribs and another to pry his fingers from their Captain’s throat. Had Selma not appeared behind him, he had no doubt Doran’s cronies would have retaliated in kind, and then some. As it was, they’d only delivered the threat with their venomous stares. Those same stares met his now; two gards appeared, flanking Doran on either side, hands resting casually on the hilts of their sheathed swords.
Silas made himself breathe through the urge.
“It has,” he said, the words scraping out through his teeth. “I wasn’t aware your suspension had been lifted.”
The Captain gave a bob of his head, a poor imitation of humbleness.
“The Commander has been most gracious.”
“And Edward makes the rules now, does he?”
Doran’s grin was sharp and edged with menace. “Well, he is the young Queen’s, ah—closestadvisor, at present.”
Silas froze, and tried not to show it. Cold horror sank through him, frigid and brittle as the shattered ice that split the Laune.
