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Except everything in her rebelled and she was already on her feet. Numair caught her movement, looking at her over Alaric’s shoulder, and his eyes flared wide. Everything else happened in the blink of an eye. The knife in Numair’s hand vanished, so smoothly she didn’t see what he’d done with it. Vines thrust from the ground to either side of her, ensnaring her wrists and ankles, pulling her down.
She went easily as Numair’s now-empty hand thumped Alaric’s back. In the jostle of the movement he mouthed a single word at her: Bow. She held his gaze for a defiant second before lowering her head as deeply as everyone else’s. The vines let her go, disappearing into the earth as if they’d never been.
Numair and Alaric broke apart, the king releasing them all with a lazy, “Rise.” His magic came back to him like tentacles curling inward, and in its absence his courtiers gained their feet.
She ignored the heightened energy pouring off Verol and Marquin. Maybe everyone’s eyes had been too downcast to see that brief moment she’d been vertical when no one else could manage the feat, but the Arrendons had been right next to her. They’d felt her stand.
The chatter of hundreds of voices resumed, the laughter a little more brittle, the easiness a little more forced. And Clare was the only one who noticed how rattled their prince looked before he shuttered it behind the appearance of a man drunk off his ass.
The king laughed off Numair’s antics as his nephew stumbled away, as if he did indeed find him amusing rather than embarrassing. Then he turned and walked straight for Clare. Verol and Marquin tensed, a readying she felt rather than saw. Twenty feet away, Numair’s gaze found her again. For a moment the four of them—Clare, Marquin, Verol, and Numair—waited in suspended collection to see if the Jackal King had noticed Clare’s earlier defiance. That his magic hadn’t held her.
She cataloged him as he approached, the familiar routine of doing so easing the flight response in her body. He didn’t look as old as she had expected. The title of king always made her think of an old, wrinkled man grown fat off privilege and luxury, but this man bore no semblance to such a caricature. He was large, broad but fit, with tanned skin and brown hair lightly peppered with gray. He appeared to be in the early half of forty winters, though that didn’t feel right. Perhaps it was only the power wrapped around him, but he felt far, far older than he looked.
He smiled as he approached. It had the effect of making Clare’s skin crawl and the Song vanish. The power that was always a steady annoyance inside her buried itself so deep in the cage she’d built for it, she couldn’t feel it at all.
“Is this your new apprentice, Verol? Do introduce us.” The voice was deep and resonant.
Verol put a hand on her shoulder, the gesture unmistakably protective. She allowed it where normally she would have brushed it away, because she understood the reason for it in this moment.
“My king, this is Miss Clare Brighton. Clare, His Majesty King Alaric.” Verol’s voice floated between them, crisp and perfectly polite, in the same way a venomous snake might be perfectly beautiful if one paid attention only to the colors of its scales.
“A pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.”
The king’s face broke into an amused smile. “Please, all of this Your Majesty business grows tiresome.”
Says the man who just forced all of his subjects to their knees, she thought.
“I have been Alaric to Verol and Marquin for some time. I see no reason their ward should not call me the same.” He smiled wider, his teeth glinting between red lips.
Ah yes, Your Majesty, I see your jackal teeth. Verol’s grip on her shoulder tightened, but she did not need his warning to know the invitation to familiarity was one she shouldn’t take. “That is…a very kind offer, Lord Tolvannen.”
“But you must refuse me?”
“I must acquiesce to the customs of the country, lest they fall apart in our failure to observe them.”
“I see.”
Clare could not discern if he was amused or annoyed, nor which of the two would be more dangerous for her.
“You are a Songweaver, yes?” She barely had time to nod before he continued. “Verol does seem to have an affection for them. I think his last girl was a Songweaver. Odd, when it is not a particularly useful talent, wouldn’t you say?”
Tension sparked between Verol and the king. For whatever reason, the king was trying to rile Verol by goading her—and doing a damn good job of it, if the way Verol’s fingers dug into her shoulder was any indication.
Clare smiled and answered eagerly, as if she thought he’d meant the question as a serious, philosophical one. Just like a hopeful, naive girl might in the presence of the king. “I do not find it odd at all, Your Majesty. After all, useless talents are often the most enjoyable.”
“Oh?” he said, his tone bored now that she hadn’t played into his hand as he’d intended. “Do enlighten me.”
“If a thing is useful, it must be practiced and honed only for the purpose of what it can produce. As such, it becomes tiresome, if for no other reason than it must be done. One grows to resent it, over time, for its necessity. For instance, if one is a skilled carpenter and makes a living in such a fashion, the joy of crafting eventually becomes lost in the drudgery of being required to craft in order to make a living. If, however, one possesses a less useful skill, something as silly as an ability to arrange a drawing room, or a dinner setting, in an aesthetically pleasing fashion, well, no one expects a person to make a living from such a skill. It is not a necessary one, and therefore it never becomes a required one. For that reason, the person retains the joy of doing it, and it brings joy to others who benefit from its performance. In such a way, the latter skill is inherently more enjoyable than the former.”
The king stared. She wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t expected her to be able to string an intelligent sentence together, or if it was because she’d really just given him an articulate argument on an arguably pointless subject.
“A Songweaver and a philosopher, I see,” he said finally. “I’ll have to bow to your wisdom in this matter. If your talent is so enjoyable, will you be Songweaving this evening?”
“Clare has only just been apprenticed, Alaric.” Warning limned Verol’s voice.
“Oh come now, we have already discussed the trivial nature of the talent, surely you do not mean to tell me it requires such skill of practice that she should be incapable of performing it this evening? Especially when she came out a black diamond?” He put his thumb and forefinger together and flicked the gemstone hanging from her ear.
She didn’t give him the satisfaction of flinching. Could she hear Verol’s teeth grinding together, or was it her imagination?
