Page 181 of Daughter of No Worlds

“And what about now?” I purred.

Look at me,I commanded, just as I had when I had stood in this very room, hundreds of times before.Look at me like I’m the last thing you’ll ever see.

And just as they had then, they all obeyed.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Max

No one was looking at anything but her. Even I struggled to tear my eyes away.

I had never seen her like this before. It was incredible, the way she summoned their attention and refused to let it stray. Tisaanah unleashed spectacle after spectacle, body writhing, feet bare against the smooth stone floor, a smear of color in a world of white.

“Now,” I whispered to Nura, who nodded. Slowly, we fell to the outskirts of the ballroom. Easy. No one so much as glanced at us. They were all too enraptured byher.

I pressed myself against the doorframe and kept one eye on Tisaanah as I watched Eslyn and Ariadnea inch along the back of the room and out the door. In the back hallway of the servants’ entrance, slaves were lined up against the opposite wall.

As planned, the two Syrizen began to take hold of slaves, one by one, and flicker away into nothingness. There were wards surrounding the Mikovs’ city that prevented the use of Stratagram travel — basic security, after all. But the Syrizen moved through layers of magic much deeper than Stratagrams… making Eslyn and Ariadnea two of very, very few people in the entire world who were capable of slipping those locks.

Now, they were silently taking slaves and depositing them at a rendezvous point outside the city gates. All while the most powerful people in Threll stood mere feet away, utterly entranced by Tisaanah’s performance. The perfect distraction.

Unease still stirred in my stomach, leaving me slightly dizzy. But I’d be honest: I didn’t think we could get this far.

I watched Tisaanah unleash wave upon wave of translucent butterflies, climbing onto Ahzeen’s table as the room grew darker and darker, eliciting gasps from the audience.

If I hadn’t been so nervous that she would get killed at any moment, I would have laughed at her exaggerated dramatics. But then, they were no surprise. Tisaanah never did anything halfway. And if she was going to create a distraction, she was going to create the most distracting distraction ever to distract.

In the servants’ hallway, slave after slave disappeared.

Ascended above,I thought,this might actually work.

I found the guard boy across the room who had taken our weapons. Made eye contact, preparing for the signal.

Any minute now.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Tisaanah

Iwas drunk. Drunk on the glass of wine that I had gulped down, yes, but also drunk on the attention of the crowd. A buzzing headache throbbed behind my temples, but I didn’t have to fake my grin as I rolled off of Ahzeen’s table and twirled to the center of the room.

“And what of these?” I said, gesturing to my scars. “Do you know how I got them?”

I didn’t dare chance even a glance at the servants’ door, or what happened beyond it. But I did catch Max’s eye, just once. I loved the way he looked at me.

Reshaye’s delight had begun to sour, hissing and spitting like a cat at the back of my skull. Still, it ignored me, refusing to speak.

That was fine. I was doing quite well without it.

I smiled at Ahzeen, even though my headache spiked. “Your father gave them to me. The night that I killed him.”

Ahzeen’s one visible eye widened.

A shocked wave of whispers rippled through the crowd.

I didn’t stop dancing, basking in the scale of what I had just said.

Ahzeen leapt to his feet, his furious recognition rolling over me all at once. Oddly enough, it didn’t hit me quite as hard as I would have expected it to, considering the fierceness of his reaction.

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