Page 121 of Play of Shadows

‘How is this possible, my Lady?’ I asked Ajelaine, but she was shaking her head.

‘Alas, we’ve no time for frivolous musings, Veristor. You’ve come too far back. We must meet elsewhen, you and I.’

‘Elsewhen. . .’

What’s going on?Corbier demanded.She never said any of these things—

‘Off with you now,’ she commanded, dismissing me with a wave. ‘Seek me in the orchard after the ball three years hence, when I am seventeen. Raphan ought to remember it clearly enough; he made a terrible fool of himself that night.’

Still reeling, I tried to push myself forward in time, but with the damned horse jouncing me up and down, my concentration couldn’t hold.

Every other time I’d ventured into Corbier’s recollections, there had been some sort of physical jolt that had shaken me back to my own time. I must have spoken aloud, for Ajelaine had an impish grin on her face.

‘Oh, worry not about such trivialities, Veristor. As I recall, there’s a jolt coming Raphan’s way momentarily.’

What is she talking about?I asked Corbier.

How am I supposed to know? My recollections of this moment are of an idle afternoon’s flirtation, the two of us riding through Ajelaine’s favourite haunts until. . . oh, Hells. . . now I remember!

What—?

‘See you in a few years, Veristor,’ Ajelaine said, winking at me just as Corbier’s horse ran me right into a low-hanging tree branch that smashed into my forehead and sent me tumbling to the ground.

Chapter 61

The Ruffian

I landed on the rocky path so hard I thought I’d cracked every one of my ribs, but at least Corbier found amusement in my discomfort.

I’d forgotten how badly that hurt.

‘You couldn’t have warned me?’ I asked aloud.

The sky had turned dark, with the moon barely a sliver, but the stars cast glittering reflections upon the apple trees surrounding me.

‘Warned you?’ a woman’s voice demanded as she strode out from the shadows. ‘I warned you a thousand times, you reckless idiot!’

A slender hand reached down and I looked up to see Ajelaine in an extravagant ball gown, sun-streaked chestnut hair draped over her face. She bent down, grabbed my wrist and hauled me to my feet.

‘You’re heavy for a boy,’ she groaned.

‘I’m sixteen,’ Corbier protested, ‘and barely a year younger than you.’

While Beretto returned to shielding me, I cued the actors with a flurry of hissed whispers. I caught a glimpse of Teo donning a courtier’s jacket to take up his role in the encounter as Sharizamade a show of upbraiding him, and the two of them spun a comedic interlude pulled from any number of romantic farces, allowing me to return to the starlit orchard.

Ajelaine’s methodical hands dusted off Corbier’s indigo coat. He’d lost one of the big silver buttons now gleaming in the soft light of the intricate lanterns hung from posts along the flagstone path where they stood. It had been ripped off during the scuffle in the ballroom. He weighed up the risks of retrieving it.

‘Don’t youdareeven think it,’ Ajelaine warned, as if she were reading my mind.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ the youthful Corbier said indignantly.

‘You didn’t have to! You wear your clumsy intention like an ill-considered moustache upon your lip!’

Laughter drifted into the misty air between us. Corbier’s reflexes had me reaching for the hilt at my side, but of course the fashionable court sword had been left in the palace. Fortunately, the laughter had come from a hundred years hence, from the audience watching Teo and Shariza.

‘Boys!’ she and Ajelaine exclaimed with feigned surrender at the same moment.

Instead of withering under the embarrassment, I found myself grinning, filled with Corbier’s pride. He usually preferred the sword to fisticuffs, but he’d wiped the smirk off that overstuffed peacock’s face well enough during the scuffle.

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