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He wondered how much it cost her to ask it—to admit she didn’t know what to do. She clearly hadn’t admitted it to anyone else, as someone could have told her how these things went.
“Mingle. Eat. Drink. Be charming. We have to let the royal minstrels open with the traditional nameday song or else they feel unloved, after which you’ll be called to the stage.” Not that the evening would progress that far, but…well, at least she would know for her next event.
She nodded and walked through.
“It was nice to meet you,” he said softly.
She turned and gave him a sharp look. “You say that as if we will never speak again.”
She saw too much by half, so he gave her the answer that would be true if this were any ordinary night. “Once the night is through, I doubt you should ever desire to speak to me again. Smart women never do.”
A whisper of his magic drew the wall of foliage closed on any response. He walked away before he could change his mind. Before that brilliant defiance burning in her eyes could make him think that maybe, just maybe, what he’d decided to do tonight wasn’t the right answer after all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Court Jester
Clare wasn’t in the mood to mingle after her conversation with Numair—his melancholy was infectious—but as it turned out, she didn’t have to talk to very many people. As soon as Verol and Marquin arrived, merely being in their company put an invisible boundary around the three of them. It wasn’t that no one approached them, it was that everyone who did so performed the act with the resolve of someone who had an unpleasant task before them that needed carrying out.
They approached, they made polite noises, and then they left. Even if she’d been inclined to throw money into the betting pool that was indeed accumulating, she wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near it with the Arrendons at her side. She was going to have to find a tactful way to ask them about those monikers Cynthia had called them by.
Beneath the inane chatter of the crowd and the increasingly less-good-natured betting, she caught snippets of conversation.
“—how long does the prince intend we wait for him?”
“Honestly, I know the king dotes on him, but?—”
“—gives him far too much leeway, if you ask me.”
“—probably passed out drunk.”
“More likely in his bedchamber entertaining the newest thing to catch his fancy.”
Irritation built in Clare’s chest for no valid reason. It was only chatter, only rumors, both of which were good social currency. She knew better than to take people’s speculations to heart. The truth of a thing was often of less value to her than how it could be used.
Abruptly the mood in the space shifted. Clare felt the change, felt the thing that had caused it—like a swarm of locusts had at once darkened the horizon—as the announcer at the archway straightened and said, “His Majesty Alaric Tolvannen, Commander of the Four Armies, Uniter of the Realms, Lord of the Southern Reaches, and King of the Faelhorn Provinces.” At this exhaustive list of titles, Clare half-expected a carpet to magically unfurl in front of the king so his boots would not have to touch the bare ground.
Power rippled through the space and the knees of everyone present hit the ground. Heads bowed, eyes lowered, and Clare barely managed to mimic it all in time, grateful she and the Arrendons stood at the very back of the crowd. Because while the magic rippling off Alaric Tolvannen forced obedience from everyone it touched, it washed over her as if she wasn’t there.
In its wake, the Song’s rage boiled. The phantom taste of blood, hot and coppery, hit the back of her throat. Her world swam in pain and fear, screams demanding release, and for a moment she was not Clare Brighton, but someone else. Someone much smaller and younger and deeply, deeply terrified, before terror became nothingness.
It took her a moment to understand that she was not that person. She was not dead. But she knew that whoever that person had been, the man—the king—who stood before her, had killed them.
The sheer wealth of power that radiated off him was staggering. Magic soaked into every thread of his clothing, thrummed in the jewelry anointing him, hid in the lotion rubbed into his skin. As if a dozen mages had poured the wealth of their power into him. Or as if he simply had that much of his own.
And that was only what coated the surface. Beneath it, something foul and oily lingered, as if hundreds of souls clung to his skin, the residual energy of their lives feeding into him.
Instinct screamed at her to run. Run far and run fast, and never come within a thousand miles of this man again.
“Uncle!” Numair’s voice rang out, overly loud and boisterous. “You made it.” He appeared at the far end by the stage, stumbling a little as he made for the king, to all appearances delighted to see him.
Alaric moved toward his nephew, far enough away and with his back to Clare that she lifted her head enough to see them. Enough to see that every other form in the room had their heads tipped so far down they wouldn’t see past their own laps. Even Verol and Marquin to either side of her were immobile.
King and prince embraced. Numair’s left hand thumped the king hard on the back, disguising the quick jerk of his right hand that had a flash of silver catching Clare’s eye as a knife appeared in it.
Everything came together in her mind in an instant—Numair’s assertion, as Taius, that he only had two days to help her. His earlier melancholy and the sense that when he’d said it was nice to meet her, what he’d really been saying was goodbye.
Numair wasn’t trying to kill the king—that much magic around Alaric meant a knife had no chance at all of accomplishing the deed—he was committing public suicide. And if Clare was smart, she would remain kneeling and let him do it.
