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A dark chuckle came from the back of the room, and Clare knew who’d entered even before Numair said, “It’s ‘lady’, but your confusion’s easily understood.” He wandered to the front of the room, and—he was wearing that damn scarf.
The king’s gaze narrowed on his nephew, but he said, “Indeed. Lady Meraland, it seems as if you owe Miss Brighton an apology.”
Lady Meraland had already turned bright red at Numair’s words, and her eyes now took on a slight sheen. It wasn’t embarrassment that made her flush and tear, but anger. It was a testament to her resolve that her voice was just as pretty as before when she lowered her eyes demurely and said, “Forgive me. I only meant for a bit of fun.”
Clare knew when to be gracious. She also knew when to make a battlefield line and draw it—because she suspected that having this woman retaliate head-on was vastly preferable to having her do it in subterfuge. “Try harder, next time.”
The crowd that had giggled for Lady Meraland’s first cutting comment now laughed for Clare’s. It irritated Clare as much to have them laugh with her as it had to have them laugh at her. She had no use for them or their games. The king, it seemed, had no use for any of them either. Including her.
“You may all go.” He flicked his hand dismissively. “Except you, Numair.”
Numair flinched. It was a small movement, something she wouldn’t have seen if she hadn’t been looking. But she did see it, and Alaric did, too. Because he smiled, and in that smile were things Clare had never wanted to see again. She didn’t want to leave Numair here, alone, with whatever lurked beneath the king’s skin.
But she had no power to stay, and before she could come up with a reason to, Marquin and Verol were herding her out the door as doggedly as they’d herded her in it earlier. They were silent as they led her back through the anteroom and out into the inner courtyard with its latticework of floating walkways over curated ponds, bright orange and white fish swimming lazily in the clear depths.
She followed their example of silence, but in the absence of words, her mind latched onto images. One image, in particular, that would not cease haunting her.
A white throne, pale and gleaming, and the merciless king upon it.
Chapter Thirty
How Long Will You Be Gone?
It took everything Marquin had to keep Verol calm. The heartstone in his staff poured Verol’s anxiety into him, an anxiety that was a direct result of Clare’s own.
One would never know her unsettled to look at her. She walked calmly, almost serenely, as if simply drifting from one place to another while she contemplated some happy ideal. He had seen many a person who was capable of reflecting an outer emotion opposite of the inner one they were feeling. But he’d never seen anyone do it as completely, as perfectly, as she did. Because watching her now, even knowing that only the Kinthing’s magic could put Verol in his current state, he almost couldn’t believe anything was the matter with her.
They reached the suite of rooms assigned to them in the palace, and the force with which he threw open the door nearly knocked the servant within over. There shouldn’t have been any servants in their suite. They’d forbidden even the cleaning staff from their rooms, and only one person in all of Faelhorn could override those orders.
The girl—for she was hardly old enough to be called anything more—shook like a leaf in the wind, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped together. “I’m sorry, milord. His Majesty ordered a room readied for Lord Verol’s apprentice.”
Marquin wanted to say something kind to her. But even if he hadn’t had a reputation that necessitated maintaining, that very reputation meant that anything he said to her would not be taken in the comforting manner intended. So he held the door open for her without a single word spoken and pointed at the hall.
She ran out, tripping on the rug that lined the hallway floor, and he winced internally at the force with which her knees and palms hit the ground. She scrambled to her feet with the haste of a tripped gazelle fleeing a lion, and disappeared around a bend in the hall a moment later.
Clare watched all this, the false serenity of her previous expression cracking a little to show the cool intelligence that lurked beneath. “You have such an…energizing effect on the staff, my lord.”
A snort sounded as Fitz—carrying Clare’s two luggage trunks—appeared in the hallway. “Energizing is one word for it.” He preceded them into the room, dropped the trunks on the living area floor, and disappeared into his room. For Fitz, it was practically civil.
Marquin gestured Clare and Verol inside, motioning them both—though mostly Clare—to silence with an upheld hand. His magic spilled from him in a cloud. It pervaded the suite, first the common room and then sliding through cracks beneath doors to fill the bedrooms. It searched, hunting, and where it found little tangles and knots of magic that should not be there, it snuffed them out.
Most had been placed in Clare’s room, though Alaric had left a token thread or two in his and Verol’s. Sometimes, Marquin wondered why they still played this game. Why Alaric bothered when he knew his little traps and listening spells would be found and extinguished.
Except he knew why. They were a reminder, ever-present, that Alaric was watching. Not only here and now, but everywhere and always. And that one day, whether in a room or out on the road, Marquin would slip and miss one of those threads, and that would be the end.
He drew his magic back, found Clare watching him with the intensity of someone convinced that if they only stared at a thing long enough, they could take it apart and see how it worked. It was eerie, considering it was him she looked at like she wanted to disassemble, but it had distracted her from whatever she’d found so upsetting, if the commensurate lessening of Verol’s anxiety was any indication.
It was Verol who spoke first, and to Clare. “Lady Meraland can be catty and tiresome, but while she is quite popular, she holds no real sway with those of influence. You need not fear her remarks.”
Clare blinked, slow and deliberate, as if certain she had misheard.
It was in moments like these that Marquin found his husband utterly adorable. That, after all the minds Verol had walked through, he could so thoroughly misinterpret a situation—that his first instinct was to be worried Clare might have gotten her feelings hurt because someone was rude to her—amused Quin to no end. Marquin might not know what had unsettled Clare so, but he did know it hadn’t been Lady Meraland.
She responded to Verol’s assurances with all the cold clarity of a woman grievously offended. “You cannot honestly believe I would be bothered by the vapid declarations of a silly little chit whose brains wouldn’t fill a teaspoon.”
It was Verol’s turn to blink, brows drawing together in puzzlement. “But…you were upset. Extremely so.”
“Did your Kinthing tell you that?” There was a warning in her voice and Verol hesitated, looking to Marquin.
