A few nobles nearby exchange glances, choking on their own stifled laughs.
“In Caeloria,” Marin continues, circling them with lazy confidence, “that color is usually reserved for laborers. Dockhands. Stable boys.” Her eyes lift again, glittering. “Slum rats who can’t afford dyes that don’t stain their skin.”
The insult hangs in the air.
Elyssara doesn’t flinch. Her blood buzzes with aliveness at the exchange.
Marin tilts her head, smile sharpening.
“But perhaps that was the intention,” she muses. “A gesture of solidarity with the peasants.”
Her gaze drops briefly to the floor, then back to Elyssara.
“How charming.”
Kael’s hand tightens almost imperceptibly around Elyssara’s wrist.
But Elyssara lifts her chin.
“My blood might be royal,” she says coolly, letting the lanternlight catch the rust silk of her gown, “but my heart beats for the Outsiders.”
Her gaze sweeps the hall.
“The slum rats. The discarded. The ones your empire pretends don’t exist.”
She takes a small step closer.
“And unlike the courts of Caeloria, we don’t dispatch soldiers to do our dirty work—us outsiders do it our fucking selves.”
For the first time, Marin stills.
Not offended.
Not scared.
Interested. Like Elyssara just stopped being prey and became worthy of hunting.
Elyssara closes the gap between them. “We know the exact amount of pressure to apply around the throat to claim a life.The precise feeling of a snapped neck. The warm temperature of blood spilling across the palm of our hands when we slide a blade home. How about you, Marin? Or do you prefer selecting the perfect dyes for your elaborate dresses?” Elyssara’s voice is smooth and soft. The kind that precedes violence.
Marin stills.
For one heartbeat.
Two.
And a smile breaks free on her face, wicked and sinful. Her voice drops into a whisper. “Can a woman not love dressesandbloodshed?”
From across the room, Maireth’s smile deepens by a fraction from behind her wolf mask.
“Marin,” the queen calls softly but clearly.
A single word.
A command.
The princess inclines her head, all silk and obedience—but not before giving Elyssara one final look. A look that says the game has just become far more entertaining.
Then the sword dancers clash again, steel ringing through the hall like struck bells.
