I reach out with my powers, looking through a dozen sets of eyes at once.I am the mice in the grain store, the birds flying overhead.There isn’t the same sense of them avoiding the area I’ve had around Ironhold when Selene is there, but that may just mean she’s elsewhere for now, only planning to show up for the meeting.
“Perhaps a dozen in total,” I say.
“Plus whatever the guests bring with them, but I wouldn’t expect more than one bodyguard a piece,” Alaric muses.“There’s a chance Selene brings more with her, of course.”
“And the guests will have magic of their own, and maybe experience in violence,” I point out.Selene wants to create a version of Aetheria where those with the most magic rule.It makes sense most of those attending her gathering will possess powerful magic.
Is that why Marcus is attending?His control over the weather is impressive, enough to guide a merchant fleet safely to a foreign shore or summon lightning ready to fling at his foes.That power makes him exactly the kind of person Selene might want to recruit to her cause.Is this going to be like when she invited me to her gathering in Ironhold, an invitation to join the new order backed by the threat of violence?Will Marcus be in danger?
I’m still pondering that when I hear approaching footsteps and the sight of the birds above lets me see a couple of the Salis family’s guards approaching.
“Guards,” I whisper to Alaric, but he doesn’t respond by readying himself to fight.Instead, he kisses me, pressing me back against the stone I’m sitting against, his hand just starting to reach up for the strap of my dress.Under any other circumstances, I would melt into his touch, but here?Now?
“What are you doing here?”a rough voice demands.
Alaric breaks off his kiss with obvious reluctance, spinning around with a look of annoyed embarrassment spreading across the illusory features of his disguise.
“What does itlooklike I’m doing, you common born idiot?”Alaric snaps, his arrogance as sharp as any blade.I guess the point of it is to keep the other man off balance, not giving him any time to look at me properly.“Can a man not enjoy himself in the open air without interruptions?”
I don’t have illusions to hide me, so I keep my head down in what I hope is a look of embarrassment, pulling my dress carefully back into place in what I hope is exactly the kind of gesture the noble I’m pretending to be would make.
“You’re on the Salis family’s lands,” the other guard says.
“Well, I was hardly going to do this on myownfamily’s lands, where anyone could see, was I?”Alaric demands.
He glances at me, obviously hoping I’ll play my part.
“Wait,” I say, trying to make my voice sound like the clipped tones of the nobles.“Isthatwhy you brought me here?You said it would be a nice ride out, but we’re here because you’reembarrassedabout me?”
“It’s not that,” Alaric says.I swear he’s enjoying this far too much.“It’s just that my father thinks you’re not suitable, andyourfather thinksI’mnot suitable, so-”
I stand up, stalking back to my horse with such a display of pique neither guard thinks to stop me.
“If you’re not even prepared to stand up to your father, I’m going home,” I say, mounting my horse and kicking it back towards the city.I glance back to see Alaric running for his own horse, riding after me as if he really is some love struck noble youth, interrupted at just the wrong moment.I make a point of keeping ahead of him until we’re out of sight of the guards.
He laughs as he catches up to me, leaning over to kiss me in the saddle.
“You were brilliant,” Alaric says.
“And you were… surprisingly restrained,” I reply.I was half expecting him to fight.
“Hurting the guards would have just put the others on alert,” Alaric replies.“This way, they just go back to their friends with an amusing story.Oh, the tale of love they’ll tell their fellows!”
He laughs again, but there’s seriousness underneath it.Tonight, we’ll be returning to the Salis villa.If the guards catch usthen, we’ll have to fight for our lives.
CHAPTER TWELVE
We slip through the night under the light of a crescent moon, barely enough for most of those with me to see by.I have reached out to take a fragment of night vision from an owl flitting through the trees, and so the world is rendered starkly beautiful to me, every hint of movement picked out in perfect clarity.
“Remember, when we get inside, we watch first,” Alaric whispers to the others.“We establish where Selene Ravenscroft is and take up positions where we’ll have the advantage.”
There are close to a dozen of us in total, the most Alaric feels we can move through the darkness without being spotted.Thalia is there, dressed in dark armor.Other resistance fighters have weapons dipped in lampblack or soot, so they won’t shine in the moonlight.
“What if she isn’t there?”Thalia asks.
“You’re the one who said shewouldbe there,” Alaric points out.
“But if I’m wrong?If she doesn’t come?”
