I couldn’t deny any of it. But that didn’t mean I needed to confirm anything, either. I drew myself to my full height.
Thaan smiled. “Who is she?”
I didn’t speak. The air grew even colder, and I fought against the shiver in my chin, the chatter of my teeth.
The Naiads shifted on their feet, watching. Taking a collective step closer.
“Not sure?” he continued, releasing the lilac. “It seems odd to walk someone you don’t know down to the water in the dark. Odd that she’d dress for a party and not attend it. Odd that she joined my office after you began this mission, that you’ve spent only four days here at the palace sincethen, separated by lengths of time away, that your paths shouldn’t have crossed.”
Thaan waited for an explanation I didn’t have. Or at least, wasn’t willing to give. He pressed his fingers together again, and I stared at them. Those fingers. Long, thin, cruel. I’d never known why, but I’d always hated when he did that. I knew he was deep in thought, and I hated the places his mind took him. That, and I just didn’t harbor enough patience to stand and let someone join their fingertips just to stare at me.
Or maybe because the gesture was so markedlyhim.
I flexed my own hands, trying to draw heat back to them. Trying to call to the nearby water, to press against the eclipse of the drones standing around us. There was plenty of water around, between the sea and the mist and the pelting rain. But none of it answered my call.
Thaan’s eyes dropped, watching my hands in something like bored pity. “Cold, Cebrinne?”
Cold was an understatement. I couldn’t feel my lips. Couldn’t wring the water from my dress or hair. The skin under my nails dimmed to cyan, and the ability to keep my chin still failed me. I trembled from the cold. It leeched into my blood, freezing me to the marrow. I wasn’t even sure if I could take a step.
Thaan’s eyes flicked back to me. “Forgotten how to speak?”
He waited. So patiently. The kind of patience only a man with burning intolerance could have. Every shape of his figure exuded calm, his eyes claimed haughty disinterest, but I knew that under his skin, every pretense of his composure was counterfeit, a mask as pointless as the one I’d thrown down to the grass. I hoped someday he would combust from all the pressure of it.
Jaw quaking, I forced my mouth open. He leaned forward, only an inch.
“Go to Darkness,” I said.
His gaze cut through mine. The cold began to burn. Not just over my flesh. In my lungs and through my heart, the burn of theeclipse frosting my veins. I wondered, briefly, if it could kill me. The cold of the drones. If itcould, not whether he’d let them. That, I knew.
Thaan would never let me go.
“If you don’t care to speak,” he said slowly, stepping toward me, “if you’d rather not hear the sound of your voice, I have a remedy. A way for you to never speak again.”
I saw the words for what they were. A simple threat. A means of manipulation. That’s how he did everything, controlled everyone. Threats and duress and smooth exploitation. I’d never seen him grow violent, though I knew he sometimes did. He preferred to let others use violence for him.
He sighed, drumming the pads of his fingertips together. “Last chance,” he whispered.
I merely waited for it. I knew what was coming.
“Cebrinne Euwen Naeva Evanthe of Cypria. I call to your blood.”
36
Selena
Emilius wrapped my outer thigh around the back of his waist, then grabbed my hands and swept me across his back, catching me on the other side. Soft applause followed. My gaze strayed as he spun me back down to the floor, searching for rusty hair and a lace blindfold. Then snapped my thoughts back, caging them away.
I had a job to do.
Get Emilius to his room. Incapacitate him. Find any letters written by the Queen. Get out.
I pressed my body into the King’s, letting him run his hands up my sides, my hips, and ribs. He leaned into my neck, mouth open as he grazed my collarbone. I turned my head, thrusting my throat into his wandering mouth, letting him taste me. Even while the entire court watched.
I knew what rumors would be circulating in the morning.
His fingers circled my wrist as the musicians beat the last loud note, ending the song. We froze in place, and he smirked at me as the nobles around us clapped. I sent him a simpering one back.
“I need a drink,” he said, roaming away from the dance floor before the next number began. His hand left mine, but an invisible tug remained. A silent demand to follow. We landed where Pheolix had found me, musing over the sparkling options of liquor and wine. Not too far from us, leaning against the wall with a knife dancing in his hand, the Naiad I’d been searching for watched something over his shoulder in the opposite direction. I slanted my eyes away.
