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Chapter Twenty-Four
Einar
Iam fighting to control my temper from the moment I walk through the doors of the Delmara Estate.
I scoff internally. There never was a Lord Delmara, from what Zaina tells me. Just a mountain of money to buy this property off a floundering lord, and an island small enough that no one questions who hails from it.
Just one more thing she’s fabricated. Like her family. Like her humanity.
Where Palais de Etienne is all light and open and inviting, Ulla’s estate is the opposite.
It’s all sharp columns and detailed mosaic windows that are busier than any other structure I have seen in Corentin, or even Jokith. All of this, coupled with the newer-looking beastly statues on the roof, lend the entire building a gothic feel that is more popular in the southern continents.
Taking a breath, I nod to the servants standing outside to greet Khijha and I, forcing something resembling a smile onto my face. The only person missing from the welcoming party is Ulla herself. No sooner has the thought crossed my mind than one of the servants leads me into the estate and to a room with broad, closed doors.
“She’s right through there, Your Majesty. We were instructed to give you privacy.” The man leaves without opening the door for me.
Odd.
As soon as I enter the room, I see why. It’s been seventeen years since I’ve laid eyes on Ulla, but her deep brown skin, tightly coiled purple curls, and violet eyes are seared into my memory.
The woman sitting before me now has none of those things.
Her skin is lightly tanned under what I suspect is a wig of sleek-black hair, and her eyes are a golden shade eerily similar to Zaina’s. But there’s an emptiness in her gaze that no amount of alchemy can hide, a trace of resistance in the way she inclines her head.
“Your Majesty.” Whatever lingering, unreasonable doubts I have held that Madame and Ulla are one and the same effectively dissipate the moment she speaks.
The accent is different, posher and more refined, but her voice is the same as it was the first time I heard her laughing at the winter festival. I think about that now, the way she was so captivating. Intriguing. Unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Did she poison me then, too, dose me with something to convince me I was in love with her? Or was I truly so naïve?
It’s impossible to imagine feeling anything amorous for her now.
“Lady Delmara.” There is no trace of the ire I feel in my carefully controlled tone. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Of course. I hope you’ll forgive the unusual circumstances.” She gestures around the room with a self-deprecating expression. “I find I’m not much up to company these days, and I imagined you would prefer privacy for this conversation.”
Her golden eyes leave me to land on Khijhana instead, but she doesn’t say a word about her.
And why would she? According to Zaina, even the chalyx doesn’t pose a threat to Ulla’s impenetrable skin.
After a breath, she reaches her hand out for me to take. Forcing a foot forward, I take it, though my skin crawls with every point of contact.
“Do sit down. We are family, after all...” Her tone is clipped as she pauses for me to supply the name she is allowed to call me.
“Please, call me Einar,” I respond, taking my seat across from her.
She sits with unnatural stillness for a moment, until she leans forward to take a steaming cup from the table. It strikes me that she is not hiding her true nature as well as I would expect, as well as she has in the past.
If I didn’t know better, I might even think she was nervous.
Which means it’s more important than ever to convince her that I am nothing more than a grieving widower.
“I would be honored,” she says, the practiced sincerity in her tone almost believable. Her eyes land on my untouched teacup with a touch too much interest. “I hope you like chamomile.”
Maybe she wouldn’t risk killing me by poison when I made a very public affair of coming to see her today, but a truth serum could prove to be just as deadly.
“I find that I can’t stomach tea these days.”
