Page 84
“That was almost poetic.”
“I am frightened enough to become eloquent.”
“That is deeply alarming.”
She releases my coat and smooths the places her grip wrinkled, as if fixing the fabric can fix either of us. “I will stay near the east perimeter. If your glamour fails, look at me before you look at the crowd.”
“If Isolde is in the circle—”
“I know where you will look first,” she says, and her mouth softens despite the sharpness in her voice. “I am asking to be second.”
That hurts worse than if she had shouted.
I nod once. “Second.”
“Good.”
We move again.
The estate courtyard has become theater.
Vaerith has transformed the wide stone square before his gates into something between a civic hearing and an execution that learned etiquette. Temporary rails divide the crowd into sections: dark elf nobles in the front beneath small warded canopies, guild representatives and contract clerks near the west side, armed retainers along the perimeter, and humans pushed toward the back where they can witness legitimacy without being mistaken for part of it. Spell-lamps burn in tall iron stands despite the fading daylight, casting blue-white light over wet paving stones and embroidered sleeves.
A raised dais stands at the far end of the courtyard.
Vaerith occupies its center as if the stone was quarried for the privilege of holding him. He wears deep charcoal robes worked with green and silver thread, elegant enough to flatter the eye before the mind notices the runes stitched along the cuffs. Beside him rests a polished ritual pedestal about waist height, black as still water, covered in carved symbols that catch the spell-lamp light in thin red lines. It looks ceremonial from a distance.
From where I stand, it smells like old blood under perfume.
Sable’s hand brushes my sleeve once, then she lets herself drift toward the east perimeter as planned. I do not like it. I like none of this. My whole body wants to move toward the dais, through the nobles, past the retainers, straight to the woman standing near Vaerith with a ledger satchel at her hip.
Isolde.
The bond strikes.
Gold floods the edges of the courtyard. Every jeweled robe gleams too sharply. Every throat pulse shows too clearly. The hunger rises beneath the bond, awake and focused as my gaze locks on her. She wears the gray formal house dress Vaerith must have chosen, high-collared and severe, with narrow sleeves and a dark belt that makes her look official, restrained, and furious in ways only I may be reckless enough to notice.
She turns her head slightly.
Only enough.
The bond steadies when her eyes find the shadow under my hood.
My teeth press together so hard my temples throb, and I force one slow breath into my lungs. She is alive. She is standing. She knows I am here. The hunger does not get to surge because I want to cross the courtyard and put myself between her and every polished knife in sight.
Vaerith lifts one hand.
The crowd quiets with indecent speed.
“My honored peers, civic representatives, and concerned members of this district,” he begins, his voice carrying through amplification runes worked into the dais. “We gather not in fear, but in responsibility.”
“Always a promising start,” I mutter.
A woman beside me, veiled in violet gauze, gives the smallest sound of amusement. I glance toward her and realize she is no human observer. She is dark elf, though not dressed in Vaerith’s colors. Her bronze-toned skin glows warmly beneath the spell-lamps, and vine tattoos wind up both arms before vanishing beneath sleeves of black-green silk. Emerald eyes slide toward me with too much knowledge in them.
Lady Syrenya Vaelith.
I know her from Isolde’s notes and Sable’s whispered review before we left. Minor noble. Vaerith ally by convenience. Morally flexible, which is a polite way of saying she has not yet decided which knife is most profitable to hold.
