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We had finally questioned guards at North Gate, walked among Gateways warehouses, and visited the night market, where I led him to the stands accepting stolen goods as payment. I had betrayed everythief’s and rebel’s rule and found I did not care. I wanted neither of those roles.
Walking through Tal and feeling the magic around me, I had noticed he, Lumi, and Morovara were not the only ones who could block me out. Most of the walled minds were nobles, but sometimes a merchant or laborer would turn my way, our eyes meet, and we would both know. Magic was not as dead in Tal as Inessa and the Book of Bloodlines believed. Somehow others like me had survived, perhaps trained by family or having figured it out themselves.
Each afternoon before meeting the prince, I had spied on von Lemerch and only learned she had no guests, rarely left the house, and if so only on official business, such as visiting the courthouse. Stakeouts were never fun, but observing the potentially undead last divine ruler of Tal was the most boring one I could remember. I thought about steering Dimitri’s and my path past 9thStreet and von Lemerch’s manor, but the chance of recognition combined with being unable to explain myself, stopped me each time.
As the sun finally set outside, anticipation hurried my steps. Dimitri and I met at the Drunken Dead to share what we knew and plan the night. Sometimes, he only had a few bells to spare, but every night, he came. Two days ago, the patrons chased away from our hidden nook had forgotten to return their game pieces, and while talking we continued the game the old drunks started.
I played white, Dimitri black, but I no longer saw myself as the hunted one. Instead, I saw von Lemerch—No.Ealhswip—stand against Herebov, and knew the game played for Tal had never ended. The dead walked our streets in more ways than one.
My magic whispered of dark walls, and I knew the prince had entered through the back door. Since the barge, the possibility oftouch hovered between us, the tension snapping into place as soon as he came close. But more than that, a sense of safety settled around me in his presence. A stupid feeling. None of this was safe. Still. There it was, the tension I always carried inside eased.
This man had defended me, in words and action. He knew who I was, and still he came. Listened to my thoughts.
Our eyes locked. The corner of his lips lifted. Head tilted, as if he could not resist considering every inch of me. Not that I could do any differently when his pants were molded to his calves and the coat, two shades darker than his blue eye, hung open to show a shirt identical to the one I had slipped my hands under in his rooms. The royal tailor did a very fine job indeed.
Tonight, light glinted against Dimitri’s onyx buttons, so like the game pieces and the oldest parts of Tal, and I realized we, more than anyone, were the latest rendition of our ancestors’ game. His had stolen the city from mine, and I had been sent to steal from him. Had Ealhswip known Lumi and I were her many times removed granddaughters?
Neither of us looked it and nothing in her demeanor had revealed it. And who could have planned for us, her last descendants, to also be related to Helia? Too improbable for a coincidence, too complicated for a plan—even for an immortal. But perhaps it was proof the gods were not as lost as we thought, and the balance Morovara spoke of was more than a metaphor.
Dimitri, the smile already gone, slipped into the seat next to me. I did not need magic to read the tiredness on his schooled face. He had not told me what was happening in the palace, and I had not pried. Were he and Helia laughing and fighting? Sharing his bed? I only knew the nights he spent with me, alone or shadowed byYahontov.
“No luck?” I asked as I moved a priestess to challenge his rider.
“The Roja left at the North Gate confirmed that while a lot is smuggled into Tal, there’s no trace of the missing herds. Come the Day of the Dead, there might be a very disappointing festival.” He studied the board and satisfaction too genuine to hide rose. “Oh Tempest, I’m not falling for it.”
He moved another rider forward, forcing me to retreat. Two more moves and he took the priestess, reducing me to my final three. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth wooden figurine and leaned back before meeting my eyes.
“Now you owe me again. Tell me something true.”
That was the real game, one of trust and questions, and while I valued the pieces of himself he gave me, I did not mind that he was winning.
Each answer tested Ealhswip’s curse, pushing it a hair further as if the edges frayed when my mind wandered, and I focused on my memories instead of what they might reveal.
The figurine spun between Dimitri’s dexterous fingers, and I remembered them undressing me. Them sliding down, slowing until I wanted to scream. Blushing, I turned away and focused on his question.
“I wanted to be a dancer since I was eight.” Instead of the dingy hall, I imagined the warm wood boards below me. “Mother paid for me to join the rich merchants’ daughters’ classes, for despite her selling her affections, being a bastard, and not even knowing the name of my father, she knew I wasn’t less than anyone—no matter what they might have said.”
Anger at my long-ago troubles flashed in Dimitri’s eyes. “I can’t imagine that was easy.”
I smiled ruefully. “Children aren’t nice. Neither are adults when they don’t know what box to put you in. The writing and reading were torture, the embroidery worse. I love music but you wouldn’t ever want to hear me play it. But dancing…”
“It was different?”
Somehow, we had moved closer, and the drinks emptied. We should be on our way. Usually, I offered a short answer but I saw my own childhood longing reflected in Dimitri’s eyes and wanted to keep it there, amazed that my memories could bring the crown prince to life.
“I was always short and slight, ‘barely there’ the others would say, then Sky—she was our third teacher—took one look at me and declared I was made to fly. I had always loved moving, but she allowed me to stay late, showed me the spins and how to extend my limbs, how movement could be art and my body could do more than I had ever thought. She made me beautiful.”
“She didn’t.” His voice lowered. “The beauty is all yours.”
Dimitri was somehow even closer, our sides pressing against each other, the careful distance we’d kept disappearing. His knuckle brushed an errant lock from my cheek, our skin barely touching.
He snatched his hand back, like a child who reached for a sweet he knew he could not have, and I wished I’d caught it before the distance returned. But I did not. Instead, his words spun inside me, awakening each part.
He thought me beautiful.
Not that he had hid his attraction in the palace, but then he had thought me a princess, had seen me in the finest dresses and jewels. My cheeks heated, remembering creasing the dresses inhis bed.
“You really do look remarkably similar to her,” he said, throwing ice water onto my longing. There was only one woman he could mean.
