Rhordyn doesn’t bat a lid. “I’m not hungry.”
“Ahh.” Cainon shoves a piece of meat in his mouth, chewing. “How’s the fish, Orlaith?”
I swallow, washing down the mouthful with a numbing swig of wine before letting a smile touch my lips. “Delicious. Caught locally?”
“Correct. Tropical perch. One of our more perishable delicacies we’re unable to ship down the river to Ocruth. It’s a shame you’ve never traveled far enough to taste it.”
His words are flaming arrows aimed to maim the stoic man sitting across from me, but I doubt he realizes they thud intomychest instead.
I had plenty of opportunities to leave the castle grounds before my mind was plagued by the carnage of my past. Opportunities I didn’t take.
And now thisdelicacytastes like ash, much like the air I pull into my lungs.
“Well. Now I can have it often. Along with …” I skim my fork through the green slosh he slopped all over my meal, “this.It smells”—like spew—”delicious.”
“Malaweed. Nutrient rich. Important if we’re to produce an heir.”
My insides clench.
Silence.
Bone-chillingsilence.
My breath comes out like a blow of smoke, and I stuff my lungs full in an effort to kick-start my heart again, letting my gaze drag halfway to Rhordyn before I think better of it, not wanting to feed the beast.
Cainon shoves another bloody strip of meat into his mouth. “What about you, Rhordyn? Are you and Zali planning to conceive?”
The words peck at old wounds I’ve tried to convince myself were healed, and my throat constricts, threatening to return the fish and wine to the table.
Rhordyn leans back, fingers steepled. “I’m seeing a lot of your father in you lately.”
Cainon stops chewing, eyes glazing over. “Is that a threat?”
“An observation,” Rhordyn answers, thumping the word down like a meat cleaver.
Suddenly, the room feels too small, the table between these men too fragile.
That war I’ve been trying so hard to avoid? It’s waging right before my eyes. The chilling prologue to a mass demise. If I don’t intervene, I’m not entirely sure they won’t launch across the table and feast on each other.
Perhaps I should let them have at it. Sit back and watch them bleed each other—like they each want to bleedmein their own twisted ways.
Maybe that’s taking it too far.
Clearing my throat, and with the chilled brand of Rhordyn’s stare attacking my hand, I shovel the fork into the lump of fish most drenched in sauce, encouraging the sharp metal tips to drag across the plate.
I don’t even flinch.
“Orlaith.” Pounded by the full force of his attention, I look him in the eye. “You don’t have to eat that.”
He’s not talking about the food. Precisely why I shove the mouthful past my lips and chew, cheeks bulging, nose blocked, and breath held as I masticate the metallic-tasting crap like I’mfangingfor it. Like I’m desperate for Cainon to give me everything he wants to give. For him to drive past that chaste barrier Rhordyn so bluntly shied away from when I begged him to take me on my balcony in Stony Stem.
He swallows—a crack in his armor.
Cainon chuckles. “Looks like she doesn’t care what you think, Rhordyn. She’s too smart these days.”
“She’s always been smart,” Rhordyn mutters, holding my stare, a spark in his darkening eyes like a single surviving star.
A squire jogs through the door, breathless, bowing at the waist before he speaks. “High Master, forgive the intrusion—”
