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She might be your sister too.

Fuck. He sighed. A pity his father was such a whore.

The carriage stopped.

The low lamp was still burning when he entered the room.

She was awake.

Her hair spilled over one shoulder in deep teal waves. Eyes the same impossible color followed him across the room. Every part of her looked as though it did not belong here, because it did not. She looked almost human until she smiled.

“You’re late.”

He shut the door behind him.

“There was a ball.”

“I know.”

He crossed the room and sat at the edge of the bed.

“Is it time?”

She took her time before answering.

“I wish to feed first.”

He’d expected as much.

Her coloring had gone slightly wrong again, too pale at the throat, the teal of her eyes a fraction too bright.

Hungry.

He nodded once, then pulled off his jacket and draped it over the chair before loosening his collar.

“Your brother was mentioned tonight,” he said. “Junis answered with something about the eastern border needing provisions, I believe.”

A faint smile touched her mouth. "Eravic does as Eravic does.”

He suppressed a smirk. They both knew the eastern border hadn’t needed provisions in months. The undead had left nothing alive there.

Nothing, of course, except what Eravic was searching for.

The only people foolish enough to believe the eastern border needed supplies were the men in Veynar convinced they could still win this war.

And Junis Rathmor. He could not quite tell whether Junis knew the truth. He likely did not. Junis had the discernment of a well-dressed rock. He certainly seemed to grow stupider with each passing year.

Then again, Vaelors cannot lie. Not Eravic’s kind, anyway. So if he was not lying himself, someone else must have told Junis⁠—

Background noise. Tamal filed it away under things that were not his problem.

He looked at her instead. "I met Asharin tonight," he said. "The golden-eyed princess."

Dali reached up and touched his face, fingertips tracing his jaw, his cheekbone, the line of his mouth. Unhurried. "And?"

"I want her tonight."

Her smile was not warm. It was the smile of someone watching everything unfold exactly as expected.