“What do you think, Falcrest?” Bleek turned to the Veiled Hand, too, studying his expression. “Of course she’ll need to ditch the whole Pervaille story and swap it out for an airtight one of a no-name lady of lower status who doesn’t have any attachments to political people in question, but apart from that…” He shared a confirming nod with Khayrivven and Anees. “Not bad at all. Graceful to a degree, even.”
“I’m not sure I’d call that graceful,” Khayrivven responded, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as if in exasperation, while the edges of Lory’s vision turned dark, and she struggled to keep her balance.
“Definitely not graceful,”he said into her head in the brief moment that he’d pulled her into a facsimile of his dreamscape.“Magnificent.”His satin and velvet tone enveloped Lory’s mind, stroking the length of her spine, driving a shiver over her skin.
When her vision focused again, Khayrivven was staring at her with the same stone-like expression, but his eyes hadcome back to life with the burning intensity of the fire she knew slumbered in his veins.
“What will I need to know that makes me require special training in court demeanor?” It was a struggle not to break away from Bleek’s side and step closer to Khayrivven, not to want to touch him, feel that one little word he’d uttered into her mind in the way his fingers would dig into her hips and pull her flush to his front, in the way his mouth would seal over hers in a kiss that could make the world disappear.
Khayrivven cleared his throat, glancing up to the ceiling before straightening away from the desk and prowling the length of the room, bringing more distance between them. “The king is hosting a banquet tomorrow night. You have been put on the guest list.”
Lory’s jaw dropped. “What?Why?”
In a motion so quick, Lory needed to blink to realize it had happened, Khayrivven turned on his heels, facing her with the grimmest of expressions. “That is above Bleek’s and Frier’s pay grade.”
While Hadrian Bleek’s smile turned into a thin line, Anees put on an easy grin, stepping up to Khayrivven’s side. “Doesn’t really matter why, Vednis. You’ll get to wear a pretty dress.” Anees’s teeth flashed dangerously as she exchanged a glance with Khayrivven.
A dress? Lory hadneverworn a dress. A nightgown, yes. The flimsy thing at Lu’Shen’s… But a real dress?
Cold sweat formed on her neck as her hands wandered to her hips. Where would she hide weapons if she were tiedinto a corset the way the noble ladies liked? How would she move in a fight? How would she?—
“Breathe, Miss Vednis.” Surprisingly, it was Hadrian Bleek who put on the most soothing of tones and placed a gentle hand between her shoulder blades, but that didn’t ease the panic building up inside of her at not knowing what Ulder wanted.
Had he summoned her? Had the Triad put her on the list? Was it yet another test, or was this a real mission where she would be required to do what the Triad had told her would be her new purpose in the Brestolyan military: kill?
“You will look stunning in a dress,” Bleek noted, apparently under the impression that the dress part was what had made her fall into shock, when it was actually the dread that tomorrow night would be the night that she’d finally lift her weapons to kill, not to defend herself like in the Amrin Mountains, and to take a life in cold blood.
Ever since she’d returned from the trials, she’d dreaded the moment the Triad would call her on a mission to kill because that was the deal. An assassin. She’d train to kill, not to protect. She’d be assigned names she might have never heard, or names that were dear to her, and nothing would protect her from her duty. Her life for as many others as the Triad claimed. That was the deal.
A part of her wondered who it would be, if she’d be able to look herself in the mirror after she returned, if Khayrivven would look at her the same way, while the rest of her held Bleek’s gaze, willing calm into her veins.
The phantom’s eyes danced with the refined charm of a nobleman, his movements easy and confident as he guided her a few steps to the side to sit down on one of the chairs lined up against the wall. “You would look stunning in rags, Miss Vednis, for your eyes of honey and dreams are the only thing they’ll notice.”
“You’re such a sap, Bleek,” Anees drawled while Lory tried to wrap her head around the compliment the man had just paid her. “Just because the fancy men at court speak like that doesn’t meanyouneed to.”
Bleek shot her a glance. “I’m staying in character, Frier. As we have learned is crucial to any mission to the outside world. You never know who might be observing. Miss Vednis needs to learn that.”
Lory had a faint feeling of the room shrinking around her. Perhaps it was that Anees had sat down on her one side while Bleek was sitting on the other, hand still at her back. And from the other end of the room, Khayrivven prowled closer, his towering form halting mere steps from them, cold gaze leveled on Bleek. “Nothing about yourcharacterindicates you need totouchher.”
Bleek cocked his head, a groomed brow raised. “A true nobleman would give a lady comfort in times of need.” Lory wasn’t sure she imagined the challenge in his tone, but did it matter what a nobleman would have done? This wasn’t the palace.
“You’re not a nobleman, and I’m not a lady. I’m a thornling who needs to get tucked into a dress and learn to fake as best she can to speak, move, and act as if I was,” she clarified,getting to her feet and veering out of Khayrivven’s way as she returned to the center of the room, her breathing slowing under the force of her steel will. Panic wouldn’t help her. Not here, and not when she finally got assigned the death of a fellow human being, be it on a mission or at breakfast. When she faced Bleek again, his flustered expression nearly made her regret her harsh tone. “Sir,” she amended, wishing she could look at Khayrivven instead to read from his eyes if she’d gone too far.
Thank the Guardians, Bleek recovered quickly, pinning a polite smile as he got up from his chair and followed her to the center of the room. “Let’s do that, then.” He offered her an open hand, indicating a bow. “Let’s teach you how to fake nobility. It’s my only task in this endeavor. Dresses and disguises are Frier’s department, and weapons and killing, Falcrest’s.”
Lory didn’t feel Bleek’s touch as she placed her hand in the phantom’s, but as she was led in a small circle to Anees’s counting of the rhythm of a dance, she could feel Khayrivven’s eyes like the graze of the burning star that was going to sleep outside the window.
The hallways wereempty when Lory left the blue room over two hours later, her feet sore from painfully gracious steps and unnatural spins and turns, her arms heavy from holding them over her head for minutes on end, Bleek’s instructionsguiding her across the floor under the scrutiny of Anees and Khayrivven, who both didn’t speak again other than to criticize when she fell out of character, to remind her what would have happened had she done it at court. According to them, she would have died half a dozen times in the last hour alone, and she wasn’t even wearing one of those restricting dresses.
She was halfway to the corner when Khayrivven caught up with her, nearly startling her to death with his silent approach, and pulling her into one of the same alcoves where she had once confronted him about their first kiss, when he’d spread the story that he’d set her on fire with a torch for her supposed improper approaches.
Lory was still catching her breath when he spun her around, back to the wall, and pinned her hand next to her head on the rough stone. “Tell me that this is as hard for you as it is for me,” he whispered, his face half cast in shadows as he studied her face with intent eyes. “Tell me that having him touch you is as torturous to you as watching it is to me.”
This time, Lory’s breath caught for an entirely different reason. “You didn’t need to stay and watch,” she told him with less bravado than she’d hoped, but Khayrivven’s eyes flashed dangerously, the quip clearly hitting a mark, even when spoken as a jest, to eradicate that tormented expression from his face.
“Oh yes I did.” Exasperation snuck into his whisper, desperation even. “I need to get myself acquainted with the idea of another man leading you across the dance floor tomorrow night.”
“For the mission?” Lory prompted, processing that look on his face. She’d seen Khayrivven in many states, had seen a desire so deep it could destroy her and the wrath of the Guardians in his eyes, but jealousy? That was an emotion she hadn’t believed Khayrivven Falcrest capable of.
