Page 34 of Daughter of the Ninth Line: Part Two

I leaned toward him. I’d missed the sound of his laugh. “Word is that the alcohol percentage of the last batch was too high, and a small spark from the burner set it alight likea fireball. Blew off his eyebrows and his mustache. Well, his former mustache.”

Hayle snorted, until he looked past me and frowned. I spun to see what he was frowning at. Maybe people had stopped trying to hide their fucking in dark corners and were just screwing on the dance floor now?

Instead, it was a man in a uniform walking in our direction. I was so surprised when he stopped in front of me, I didn’t think to do anything but gape. I didn’t recognize him, and he wasn’t in the Boellium guard uniform.

The uniformed man looked me over once. “Avalon Halhed?”

I nodded. “Yes?”

He raised a gun I hadn’t even seen and pointed it at my head. “The Baron sends his regards.”

Twenty-One

Vox

Shay’s whispered, “Stanlus is here”, in my ear had me moving away from Avalon and excusing myself to disappear into the shadows of the party. My stomach soured at the thought of Stanlus here. He was my father’s right-hand man, as brutal and apathetic as his commander.

Him being here, at Boellium and at this party particularly, was bad news.

“Did he say what he was doing here?” I whispered to Shay, and she shook her head. Her jaw was tight, and while her face was neutral, there was fear in her eyes. Few people scared Shay; our fathers, of course, and Stanlus. Not even my brother scared Shay. But Stanlus was… cruel. Needlessly so.

He’d been given a free hand to ensure the kingdom ran smoothly on my father’s behalf, with an army at his disposal, and he’d decided to do it in the most brutal way possible. There were rumors that he kept traitors alive in the dungeons of the Hall of Ebrus, going back periodically to torture them and then disappearing until they’d healed, only to return and start the cycle again.

The man was a monster in a uniform.

I straightened my shoulders, becoming the imperious Heir I was meant to be. He wouldn’t hurt me, of that I was sure, but I didn’t want Shay anywhere close to him. And I wanted him an entire continent from Avalon.

I leaned down closer to Shay, keeping the barrier around us so unwanted ears couldn’t hear. “Leave. Go and keep an eye on Avalon from a distance. Be discreet.”

She hesitated, loath to leave me alone with him, but I shoved her back in the direction of the party. She went, but her shoulders were tense.

I steeled my spine and walked around the rocks to see Stanlus perched on a boulder, cleaning dirt from beneath his nails with his knife. At least, I hoped it was dirt. There were three other soldiers around him, each decked out in the uniform of the Baron’s personal guard.

“Stanlus. This is an unfortunate surprise,” I said coolly. He might have strength, but magically speaking, I walked all over the older man. I was more powerful than him, and my brother too. I suspected I was even more powerful than my father, though I would never suggest that out loud. It would be a death sentence.

Stanlus’s shrewd gaze suggested he knew it, though. “Vox. Your father has sent me down here to investigate rumors of dissension.”

I actually raised my eyebrows at him. “Dissension? Here in Boellium?” The idea was impossible. Boellium War College was a tool of indoctrination. A gentle fist around the throats of the citizens of Ebrus. “I haven’t seen any behavior that would suggest anything but an adherence to the status quo.”

Stanlus snorted, like my opinion meant nothing. He walked toward me. “Haven’t you? No whispers? No little Lower Liners sneaking their way into your bed to infect your mind?”

My body went cold. That was a pointed barb. He knew about Avalon, which meant Father knew about Avalon. I didn’t let any of that show on my face; I had years of practice at this little push-and-pull routine.

I rolled my eyes at him and scoffed. “Please, Stanlus. We both know that if I fuck the Upper Line women, they get big ideas that they’ll be the next Heiress of the First Line. I find it cleaner to fuck among the Lower Lines—they know their place and they’re just so happy to get my dick, they spread their thighs. You need to stop listening to rumors.” I hated speaking of Avalon that way, but the last thing I wanted was for her to be on Stanlus’s radar, let alone my father’s. “Besides, the only thing they could infect me with is the pox, and luckily, the healer gave me medicine to fix that, should the need arise.” I gave him a lecherous wink straight from my brother’s playbook. Fuckboy extraordinaire.

Stanlus eyed me critically, and I kept my face imperious and cocky. It had been my former weapons master who’d told me quietly one day never to let Stanlus see your fear, because once he knew what you feared, he would have you forever. I’d taken that to heart.

The silence stretched on between us, and I knew he was waiting for me to break. Finally, he smiled, and it was the most unnerving expression on his harsh, craggy face. His many battles had left him scarred and ugly, though perhaps it had less to do with his war wounds and more to do with his inner ugliness seeping out onto his skin.

When he smiled, it turned your guts to water.

I almost collapsed with relief when Svenna appeared from the darkness. Her hair was gelled back, and she was wearing tight leather pants and a breastplate, like she was prepared for war. She always dressed like that. Even with one arm, she was one of the fiercest warriors Boellium had. She probably could have still been a Captain in the Dawn Army, even with one arm.But the Dawn Army accepted only perfection, and for the first and probably only time in my life, I was thankful that was the case, because it meant she was here.

She didn’t seem surprised to see Stanlus or the other members of Father’s guard. “Master Praxius is a little miffed you didn’t stop and say hello before joining the party, Stanlus. Poor etiquette,” she quipped, as if a monster such as Stanlus would give a shit about etiquette.

He snarled at Svenna. “Just here to talk to the Heir.”

His tone was dismissive, but Svenna had huge brass balls. If there was anyone in the world who wasn’t scared of Stanlus, it was Svenna. “You mean the conscript from the First Line? All conscripts are the same within the walls of Boellium, Stanlus. You remember that, right?”

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