Page 12 of House of Dusk
“I’m fine,” Yeneris said, uneasy with the way the girl was watching her. And with the weight of other eyes. Most of the audience had fled, but there was still enough of a crowd to cause them trouble, if anyone recognized Sinoe.
Yeneris clambered to her feet, scanning the tomb above. Smoke boiled from the entrance, but there were no more gleams in the darkness. No sign of any remaining ghouls.
Shouts echoed from the far side of the square. A quick tramp of booted feet, and a glitter of bronze helms. Soldiers, finally answering the alarm.
“We need to go, princess. Unless you want your father to learn what you’ve been about this evening.”
For the first time that night, Yeneris saw actual fear—raw, self-preserving terror—flare in Sinoe’s brown eyes. She gave a violent shake of her head.
“Then come,” said Yeneris, gesturing to a smaller side alley. “Let’s get you back to the palace.”
• • •
“This would besomuch easier if you’d just let me climb up the way I came down,” said Sinoe, puffing out her cheeks in frustration. “We’d be back in my chambers by now, eating the milk candy I got last week from Ambassador Opotysi.”
“That vine isn’t strong enough, princess,” said Yeneris, leaning out again to check the hallway. Empty. Finally. She crept out, waving for Sinoe to follow. “I’d be a poor bodyguard if I let you break your neck.”
She tried not to wince at the irony of the statement. Yeneris knew quite well shewasa poor bodyguard. And not only because she’d allowed her charge to cavort around the city alone for half the night. For now, her mission required Sinoe’s health, but that might not always be the case.
“You needn’t worry about my life,” said Sinoe, her tone merry, spearing Yeneris’s thoughts like a shaft of sunlight piercing a dark and shadowed room. “I already know how I’m going to die.”
Yeneris halted abruptly. “What?”
Sinoe hooked a thumb at her chest. “Sibyl, remember?”
Yeneris’s mouth went dry, her heartbeat quickening. She had a sudden urge to bundle Sinoe off across the sea, away from anything that might harm her.
Which was, again, ironic. Because at the current moment, it was Yeneris who probably posed the most immediate threat to Sinoe’s life. Yeneris was the sheathed dagger, hidden in plain sight, waiting to be drawn.
Sinoe tilted her head, plainly watching Yeneris process this skein of emotions. “Oh, dear, and now I’ve upset you.”
“I’m not upset, princess.” Yeneris straightened, swallowing. “I only want to ensure I do my duty. How—” her voice stumbled—“how does it happen?”
Sinoe’s eyes held her, deep with something like resignation, windows into some unfathomable future. One Yeneris did not want to face. Abruptly the princess shivered, and gave a brittle laugh. “It was a joke, Yen.”
Was it? Or was Sinoe trying to protect her from something? Yeneris wasn’t sure which possibility was worse. Only that the princess was a maddening, infuriating creature. “You really think this is a good time for jokes, princess? The dead are walking. And if your father learns you were out in the city, he’ll probably take my head off.”
“Oh, don’t be a grump,” said Sinoe. “You were splendid.”
Even the rime of ice on Yeneris’s spirits could not survive that smile, a glitter of teeth and dark eyes that rivaled the stars above.
“Not that I was surprised,” she added. “You wouldn’t be my bodyguard if you weren’t the very best. Father would never risk anything happening to his pet prophet.”
The starlight dimmed. Pet prophet, Yeneris noted. Not daughter. Was that how Sinoe saw herself?
“If you know how highly your father values you, why sneak out at all?” Yeneris found herself asking. “Why not tell him what you saw? Surely he could have sent his soldiers to stop those ghouls.”
She winced, realizing her slip belatedly. But Sinoe didn’t seem to have noticed the Bassaran word. The question had distracted her, and she was chewing her lip now, brow furrowed.
“It was one of the possibilities. But this one was better.”
“A man died,” Yeneris pointed out, though she regretted it when Sinoe’s expression crumpled.
“I know.” The princess swallowed, pressing herself back against one of the columns separating the walkway from the garden. She stared up into the sky. “I don’t see a single future. That’s not how it works. It’s more like...a handful of threads. All of them slightly different colors. Different shades of possibility. But none of those threads ended with him living. Some things are fluid. Some things are...fixed.”
They were nearly back to Sinoe’s chambers. Just up the steps, along one hall. Yet she lingered, watching Sinoe stare into the night sky, her pale face reminding Yeneris of a moonflower, or some other bloom that opened only to the stars.
“I wish I could have saved him.”
