“In that case, we’ll tell you good night,” Catalaya said.
I gave them a mediocre curtsy. As they walked across the room, she dropped her head to his shoulder.
And my moment of joy melted away like so much candle wax.
Twenty-five
“He’s decided to make a day of it,” Orda said the next morning as she helped tie me into a dress nearly as stuffy as the one I’d worn to the dance. “Can’t hold a celebration in the market, as they usually might, for the arrival of a royal, so he decided to give her a bit of entertainment.”
“I was told it would only be dinner,” I said, wincing as my ribs practically collapsed. “I’d like to keep my breasts where they are, Orda.”
“I don’t see why not. They’re good ones.” She tied off the strings, then turned me around to look at me. “A woman has assets, why not use them?”
“I don’t need to use my assets.”
“You think the baron’s daughter won’t?”
“I think what she does or doesn’t do isn’t any business of mine.”
She took a step closer, and there was something hard and a little mean in her eyes. “I don’t know her, but she looks like the type to make the prince’s business her business, if you catch mydrift, so watch your step. We’ve spent too much time cleaning you up to see you pushed into the mud again.”
Those words echoed in my mind like the footsteps in the dome the night before—and the reminder that I’d be in the mud again when I left the palace, with or without a push from the baron’s daughter.
I was directed to the dining room, which was built much like the game room—although the animal bits were meant for eating, rather than hanging from the walls. A long trestle table stretched nearly from one end of the room to the other, but places had been set only at one end. Candles were lit and flowers were placed throughout the room, and a performer with a stringed instrument sat in the corner, smiling blandly as he plucked a soft tune.
I found Wren in a tunic and trousers staring disgruntledly at the table.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“He said I could fight Galen and offered me coin for it. It’s a demonstration for the baron’s daughter. He thought she might enjoy it. And apparently there’s a baron’s daughter.”
I nodded.
“Trustworthy?”
“No. I don’t like her eyes.”
She considered that. “She traveled a long way to see him.”
“Yes, she did. How long would it take to get from the Edgelands to the stronghold with an entourage?”
“If the weather holds, two or three weeks.”
Which meant she’d have had to begin her travels before theprince even arrived, maybe the moment she discovered he’d been Gated. That was…strategic.
Galen and Red were apparently also guests for dinner, as they walked in dressed in very fancy uniforms. Galen and Wren looked at each other and made faces of disgust.
“You must be Wren,” Red said, and offered a hand. They shook. “The prince tells me you have quite a way with a windblade.”
“I’ve learned a few things.”
The prince walked in. He wore black, this time a military-style coat over dark pants and boots that made him look like a young and wicked general.
“You just sighed,” Wren murmured.
I took the coward’s way out. “I also kissed him last night,” I admitted, and walked toward the royals before she could respond. Odds were good she wouldn’t raise a fuss about that in front of them. But she pinched my arm, and I knew I’d hear about it later. Loudly and with verve.
It probably wasn’t an accident that Catalaya waited until we were all assembled before walking into the room. She looked very royal in a gown of pale green and gold, and a gold coronet bearing three raised stars perched in her golden hair.
