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Chapter Twenty-One
“Must you keep looking at me like that?” Annika says crisply. She twirls the vibrant pink cosmos between her fingertips before tucking it into her curls to join the others. She looks especially radiant today, in a silk gown of deep fuchsia that matches the shade of the petals precisely, her hair flowing loose down her back.
“Like what?” I feign innocence, which earns me a flat glare.
Like she drinks human blood.
My awareness of this fact comes in ripples—a little voice that speaks up now and then, a strange disquiet along my spine that flares every so often. But then I remember I am safe from those hidden fangs, and besides, these Islorians aren’t anything like the parasitical creatures of fiction.
We’ve ventured to a different section of the royal grounds on our walk today, to where paths amble through endless beds of cutting flowers. Workers are clipping spent blooms and yanking thistles that have wormed their way between the dense foliage while servants fill baskets of freshly cut roses and dahlias and a dozen flowers I do not recognize. Some of those will no doubt find their way into my room before tonight.
After a long and uncomfortable silence, Annika says, “I truly relished the look of misery upon Saoirse’s face.”
“You don’t like her either?”
“I dislike her more than I dislike you, if that says anything.” Her attention skims over the gauzy cream gown Corrin fished from my closet and paired with the capelet Dagny delivered yesterday. I’m beginning to see that lady maid’s insistence on dressing me is a matter of pride rather than chore.
“Wow.” I grimace. “That bad, huh?”
Annika’s unexpectedly deep, husky laughter carries along the stone path, and I could swear the nearby blooms pivot toward her. “Your act with Lord Adley left my brother more conflicted than I have ever seen him.” Her blue eyes twinkle with delight. “He didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. I was waiting for smoke to drift from his ears. Right, Elisaf?”
“The vein in his forehead was pulsating, Your Highness.”
She cackles again.
That they are finding amusement at Zander’s expense is oddly comforting. “I thought he hid it well.” Until we were in private.
“Zander is not used to people ignoring his demands. He was born to be king, after all.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if his efforts are worth it. Though, if this traitor among us was bold enough to betray us once, there is nothing to stop them from betraying us a second time.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“At least no one else seemed to notice my brother’s annoyance. They were all too enthralled by this new, feisty Princess Romeria of Ybaris. That’s all I’ve heard about through the court. Well, that and Lord Quill’s unfortunate departure.” If she’s bothered by the murder, she doesn’t show it. Annika could challenge Sofie in the “impossible to read” department.
“Who do they think did it?”
“The court? No one has outwardly accused anyone yet, but there are plenty of murmurs.” She shoots a knowing look my way, and I know at least some of the murmurs are directed at me. It’s to be expected, I guess.
“What else did you hear?”
“Mostly gossip about you two. That you weren’t as friendly with each other as you once were.”
“We spent the entire time attached.” Whispering about scheming noblemen and setting fire to things, but they wouldn’t know that.
“Yes, but they’re used to seeing you cling to him like a second skin.”
An odd flutter stirs in my chest at the thought of getting even closer to Zander than I already have. “So, they’re not buying his declaration that I’m innocent?”
She shrugs. “Some say you are guilty of every suggested crime against you, but that you’ve somehow conned Zander. Others think he’s forcing you to marry him as punishment. The most prevalent rumor, though, is that he was bewitched by the casters to fall all over himself for you.”
My jaw drops. “Do you mean like some sort of love spell?”
“Consumed by your beauty and blind to your treachery.”
“Can they do that with caster magic?”
“Not with caster magic. Something like that would require a summons, and Neilina collars her fates to ensure that does not happen.”
“Unless she had one of their collars removed and demanded they summon the fates on her behalf.” As Isla and Ailill once did. “Would she do that?”
