Page 3
“How could we not?” Lorelei watched, still smiling, as the Archduchess turned with a sharp flick of her fan and marched into the crowd to attempt a belated reconquest of her party.
Lorelei couldn’t care less about that battle, nor about any of the aristocrats milling in a wide circle around her now, whispering excitedly and visibly debating the risks of swarming the infamous Fae Queen of Balravia while she stood within their midst.
She would leave Katrin and Ilse to find their own personal triumphs in that crowd. Tonight, she had a far more important battle to fight.
“So … the famous Golden Beacon.” She tipped her head back to meet his amber eyes. The impact of that piercing gaze was just as much a shock to her system this time as it had been moments before—but that was the effect of mere physical charisma, to which she’d learned bitter immunity years ago. “We meet at last.”
“Your Majesty.” He nodded respectfully, his features as impassive as if she weren’t casting the delicious scent of just-opening roses from her skin. He should have been leaning closer to subtly breathe it in by now, even if he didn’t want to shatter his dour affect by smiling—but he held his arm as stiffly within her clasp as if he were standing in a military parade. “Would you care to be escorted to the refreshments table?”
“Truly, I would prefer to dance with you.” She leaned in confidingly, adding the first breath of spring to her scent and allowing a gurgle of laughter to enter her voice, as if she were sharing secrets. “Perhaps I should have left a single open clearing in the ballroom, just big enough for the two of us to share.”
“Alas, I do not dance.” His features didn’t even twitch. “However, I would be happy to introduce you to any number of fine dancers in attendance.”
“No dancing at all? Ever?” She made a face, only half theatrically. “Don’t you allow yourself a single pleasure, General?”
“I enjoy serving my empire.”
Sylvana’s tears! Was any man truly so dreary? She tilted her head, lowering her voice into a husky drawl as she trailed one finger across his uniformed sleeve and let her magic tingle through that barrier to tease against his skin. “Perhaps I could teach you a few new pleasures tonight.”
“Your Majesty.” He kept his voice too low for any onlookers to overhear, but his words dropped like heavy stones into the air between them. “You are far too intelligent to waste any more of your time.”
“By spending it with you?” She blinked up at him with innocent, vacuous shock. “General, you must have heard at least some of the stories about me by now.” If nothing else, the latest play based on her scandals was being performed to a sold-out theatre in this very city tonight. “How better could I possibly entertain myself than by conversing with such a delicious military man? Everyone knows I care for nothing but my own selfish pleasures.”
“Forgive me my bluntness,” he said quietly, “but I know nothing of the sort—and regardless of the reason why you’ve sought me out tonight, you will not lure me into any indiscretions that might lessen my position, tonight or ever.” His amber eyes held hers with implacable conviction. “I will never falter in my duty to the Empire, no matter what the provocation. You will never turn me from my path.”
Oh, gods! Sudden insight flashed through Lorelei, and she sucked breath in through her teeth.
No wonder he’d seen through her so clearly.
She’d come prepared for yet another mortal general swept through life by natural charisma, noble birth, and a reasonably muscular build. But in this man’s eyes, she glimpsed the inexorable flames of divine fire that fueled epic, world-shifting victories in his future. In his voice, she heard the unmistakable echo of a destiny being written by the gods of the Imperial pantheon themselves.
Lorelei released his arm as if it had burned her like the magic-repelling iron rails currently being planned by Imperial engineers to crisscross the vast Empire—part of the mortal world’s endless, vicious fight to extinguish the life and color from every corner of the continent. Meanwhile, the god of war and justice who stood at the head of the Imperial pantheon, Divine Jovar, smiled in benevolence upon His chosen few …
Including the man who loomed before her now, certain and protected in his god-touched path of conquest.
Unfortunately for him, Lorelei had her own divine sponsor—and more than enough personal stubbornness to move mountains.
“General de Moireul.” She swept a curtsey so deep, it went beyond respect into the deepest and most blatant public insolence. Then she smiled up at his beautiful, impenetrable face with all of her own goddess-blessed ferocity and brilliance for once unhidden … and she had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes flare wide in sudden, startled acknowledgement. “I hereby accept that challenge.”
2
In a darkened room, in an unknown location
The present
Even the most brutal of tortures could never force Gerard de Moireul to admit it, but it wasn’t unusual for him to dream of Balravia’s queen. After all, the woman had haunted his waking life for seven years.
She was an incorrigible menace.
The rest of the Empire might delight in salacious stories and songs of the countless lovers Queen Lorelei had publicly discarded—or executed—in the course of her scandalous reign, but he could only wish more of her time was spent that way. Instead, she seemed to take delight in tormenting him, specifically and untiringly, for no logical reason that he had ever been able to fathom … and not only when they met face-to-face, which happened far too often for his peace of mind.
If he marched his troops to a carefully planned battle only to find that the other side had somehow mysteriously vanished into thin air, he was certain to find her telltale rose-blossom fragrance taunting him from his pillowcase when he returned to his private quarters afterwards.
Whenever Emperor Otto II held a grand new ceremony to award him with another hard-won medal of achievement, rather than taking pride in the Imperial affirmation, Gerard found himself bracing and holding his breath throughout, just waiting for a new, impossible catastrophe to hit. Once, a sharp-thorned rosebush erupted beneath him just as he was lowering himself onto what had been a plain wooden chair only a moment before. On a different occasion, the sudden stench of rotten fruits overwhelmed his senses just as he was drawing a deep breath to deliver a meticulously crafted, diplomatic speech to an assembled audience of the Empire’s highest nobility. Only the most rigorous, lifelong training in self-control had saved him from collapsing into a sneezing, choking fit that would have made him the laughingstock of every newspaper report.
Of course, there was never any evidence left behind to prove the culprit to any outside observer, much less to provoke the kind of official Imperial reaction that could only too easily crush her small, impudent kingdom …
But most maddeningly of all, Queen Lorelei always made certain to leave a calling card just for him, whether she conveyed it through the lush scent of fresh roses or via a shimmer of dancing, rainbow-colored sparkles that melted as soon as he—and he alone—had spotted them.
