As Khayrivven held out his hand for his sister, Ulder shot him a look promising punishment. “Onedance, Khayrivven.”
Khayrivven could sense Lory’s gaze as Ulder drew her back into a spin, and he could have sworn her presence lingered, even when Ulder led her away, across the dance floor and out of earshot, leaving three guards closely to monitor Khayrivven’s every move.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you…” Khayrivven searched for an appropriate way to address his sister and settled for, “Elina.”
“Captain.” Elina placed her hand in his—her small, soft hand. A hand that had probably never held a weapon. Fingers so elegant and perfectly manicured that he couldn’t spot a single callus. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
Are you all right, Elina? Has he hurt you? Has he made my worst nightmares come true and harmed you?
The questions sat right there, on his tongue, yet not a single one of them left his mouth, throat closing up at the sight of the last piece of family he had left.
Family who didn’t recognize him.
For lack of words, Khayrivven inclined his head, lowering his gaze to the polished floor as he pulled her close enough to slip a hand under her shoulder blade.
Remembering dancing steps was a challenge in itself in the face of being reunited with his sister, but Elina’s inquisitive eyes waiting for him as he dared look up again were unbearable. The genuine obliviousness.
“Ulder has mentioned you a few times, Captain,” she said in a voice too melodious, too cheerful for a girl who’d been held hostage her whole life.
Khayrivven didn’t dare ask in what context, rather trying to remind himself not to pull Elina into his arms and sob into her hair. Almost two decades…
“He’s spoken highly of you,” she amended as if to clarify. “He’s mentioned your achievements in the Amrin Mountains.”
Not flinching was an exercise in self-restraint. The Amrin Mountains. The Criu blood he’d spilled there to protect Elina from Ulder’s wrath?—
“I’ve only done my duty to this kingdom,” he finally found his voice.
Elina’s eyelashes fluttered as she took in his face, the crease that he felt had formed between his brows, so similar to that he’d observed on Elina’s face not three minutes ago.
“So you say, Captain, but I’ve met plenty of soldiers, and not all of them stand behind our king’s cause with the same dedication you do.”
Not reading into her words was a thing of near-impossibility. “Whatever do you mean?”
The slightest hint that she wasn’t genuinely impressed but repulsed by a captain of Criu origin killing his own people in the mountains, and he’d fall to his knees in gratitude that Ulder hadn’t brainwashed her.
Elina shrugged. “Are you going to start dancing, Captain, or will we just stand here for the next two minutes and talk?”
Khayrivven couldn’t remember the last time his feet hadn’t done his bidding, but with his sister in his arms, he could barely think of anything other than to grab her and run. Haul her over his shoulder and take the closest exit, consequences be damned.
Then he spotted Lory halfway across the dance floor, and his body locked up so he wouldn’t draw the knife sheathed in his boot and fight his way across the dance floor first to grab Lory, too, before he made a run for it.
“Are you quite all right, Captain?”
When he met her gaze once more, Elina’s expression mirrored his own, the line between her brows reappearing.
Dance. One foot in front of the other.
It wasn’t the dondura when he managed to start moving, but it was decent, his composure returning and his mask piecing itself together, even when he wanted nothing more than to tell her who he was.
Perhaps he should. Perhaps this would be the only chance he’d get to speak with Elina before Ulder locked her away again, forcing him to guess whether she was all right.
She appearedall right, but if anyone knew how a well-crafted mask could fool people, it was Khayrivven. He’dperfected the art, making an entire kingdom believe he’d become the bane of his own people. That he took pride in killing the Criu, in torturing the Flame-born, while in the background, he’d been weaving a web to undermine Ulder’s rule over the southern province.
It was slow progress, and probably half of the ashlings he saved from Ashthorn didn’t survive the escape, but it was the best he could do for now, and one day, those he’d saved would tip the scales of history.
One day, if he ever broke free of the cage Ashthorn had become.
If he managed to save the person right in front of him.
