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At least, all of them save Proconsul Miriam Aula, whose letter informed Clare that the western solarium was pleasant in the afternoons, and Miriam hoped she would join her there tomorrow at the fourteenth bell. Since the letter had been sent yesterday, tomorrow was now today, and a glance at the clock revealed she hadn’t yet missed the invitation, though it was a near thing.
She was approaching the solarium entry when a group of people in her periphery vision caught her eye, and she made the mistake of glancing in that direction. Alaric walked with two of the resident proconsuls. His manner was light and charming, in that way people who have no conscience can effortlessly slide into, and it had clearly put his companions at ease.
She didn’t have time to look away before he sighted her. The mask of joviality fell, his stare an empty, assessing thing, like staring into an abyss so deep she doubted it had any end. The pulse of stolen magic and rotted lives roiled off him. How did he stand it, being covered in it every minute of every day? How did the people next to him not feel it?
She forced herself to give his own stare back to him, to hold it for a full second before continuing into the solarium, leaving the Jackal King behind. Tension clung to her as she searched the room for Miriam, finally spotting her on the far wall, near the doors that led to the inner courtyard.
Clare strode directly for the woman. Her back itched, deep between her shoulder blades, as if from outside the room the king’s stare could burn her skin. She walked by Lady Meraland, surprised when the other woman didn’t halt her progress. But Ella only gave her an inscrutable look and let her pass by, and Clare wondered if she even remembered that day in the hallway, when Ella had been so out of sorts.
She took in the quiet chatter of those around her as she progressed, catching Numair’s name more than once. In her brief time here, she’d already determined that discussing him was one of the favorite pastimes within these walls, the comments speculative or derogative, and often both at the same time.
She didn’t know how he stood it. Or why each mention made her want to punch someone.
Clare reached Miriam and the woman’s eyes cooled. It took her a moment to realize the proconsul’s gaze was fixed, not on Clare, but on something over her shoulder. Something that had made a hush fall over the room. That grease-slick of foulness drew close, but Clare refused to turn, to admit she knew who now stood at her back, who had done her no favors by ignoring the rest of the room’s occupants and walking straight to her.
“Take a walk with me,” Alaric said.
Her heart thudded in her chest. She had hoped he would forget her. Had hoped that the white throne and her white room were all he would bother with after getting no outward reaction from her. Had hoped, with Verol gone, that she would not even be useful as something to needle the mage with.
Clearly, she’d wished in vain.
She turned, as if the king of the known world wanting to spend time with her should be the most natural thing in that world. “Of course.”
Several of the women didn’t bother to hide their glares as Clare exited in the king’s wake. Did these foolish women really think they wanted this kind of attention? Nothing good ever came from catching the eye of a powerful man.
The Song, which was as difficult to feel as it always was when she was inside the palace, seemed to remove itself even farther, as if it could somehow inhabit negative space.
Coward, she told it. She had to be here. She had to endure. Why did it get the luxury of escaping whenever it wished?
Either the king desired privacy, or he held her own contempt for whatever temperature the season chose to bestow, because he led her to the outdoor garden paths. He had the absence of guards a man certain of his absolute superiority was bound to exhibit, and they walked in silence for ten minutes before he spoke.
“Do you like my palace, Miss Brighton?”
Indifference, she reminded herself. To anything he might have to say. She shrugged. “It’s very nice, as I suppose any palace is.”
“There are no others.” A slight edge to the words, coolly delivered, looking for the barest flicker of response from her. Because he’d torn down the palaces in every province on the continent after he conquered it. Because there was only one palace he hadn’t managed to claim, and that one lay in the heart of Renault County, built of shining white stone and bleached-white bone, and he was waiting to see if she would flinch.
The throne and her room weren’t a fluke. He knew. So why hadn’t he done anything yet? “Of course not, Your Majesty.”
“I did tell you to call me Alaric, didn’t I?”
“And I did tell you I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
He’d expected the reply, because he had his own ready. “And yet you seem quite comfortable calling my nephew Numair.”
She had only a second to decide how to reply. Derision was the safest avenue for her. Derision, but delivered teasingly enough that his pride couldn’t be pricked too hard. “Why, Your Majesty, are you jealous of a man half your age?”
He wasn’t. She knew jealousy. She knew men. The game he was playing with her wasn’t sexual or romantic—it was mental.
“Isn’t everyone jealous of youth, once they age?”
As if he didn’t look decades younger than his age. As if the foul layers clinging to him didn’t hold that age at bay. As if Numair wasn’t closer to a quarter of his age than the half she’d said.
“I suppose in a few decades, I could let you know.”
He laughed. “You’ve hardly spent any time here, and yet you’re all anyone can talk about. Why is that?”
“People like new and shiny things. They’ll forget about me soon enough, if you don’t keep pulling me away for clandestine walks. You should be careful, Your Majesty. They’ll worry you intend to marry.”
