Page 30 of A Court of Masks and Roses
Instead of flesh, Trace’s fingers close around the cape of my ruined gown, and the sudden ripping sound makes us both jump.
My feet stutter and I stumble over a branch, the air nipping my exposed back as I fall to my knees. I’m up with the next heartbeat, my stomach in knots as I twist about to find Trace holding a fistful of black satin, his moonlit face frozen in shock. I swallow, summoning indignation. “How dare you, sir?”
Trace stares at the cloth in his hand. At my face. At my shoulders, as though he can see right through me to the skin of my back and the telltale switch marks he left on Kal not longenough ago. His intelligent face shifts with calculation and memory, his body stiffening.
I wait, every muscle in my body tensed.
“Who are you?” Trace whispers, his eyes wide. “Who the bloody hells are you?”
17
KALI
My chest is tight, my heart beating so hard that my body shutters with each pump. Never. I have never been compromised. Never been caught between personas. Even when Samuels and his Viva Sylthia bastards caught me near that barn, they never suspected I was anyone but the boy I pretended to be. This moment was never supposed to happen.
Except it did. With Trace.
“Who are you?” Trace repeats, his voice growing harder. Interrogation, not curiosity. “Why are you in Delta?”
I swallow. “Might I borrow your cloak?”
Trace’s gaze remains on me even as he tugs loose the knots at his neck. Swinging the cloth off his shoulders, Trace holds the cloak open, ready to lay it over my shoulders, the way one does for a lady.
I snatch the cloak from his hands and wrap it tightly around me. The blue wool still smells of Trace, his lavender soap mixed with a male musk of sweat and leather. Who am I?Who should I be? I try for the truth first. “I am exactly who I was an hour ago. Lady Lianna.”
“Aye.” Trace crosses his arms. “That’s who you were an hour ago. How about this morning, when I crossed swords with a trainee namedKal?”
I pull the cloak tighter still, stepping away from Trace without knowing where the hells I think I’m going. Lady Lianna won’t be outrunning a troupe of guardsmen, and Trace need only raise his voice to summon help. My hands tremble and the shadows call with their sweet illusion of safety, even as the wound at the base of my neck trickles blood.The blood is nothing compared to the damage a few words from Trace would cause. If he exposes me, I’ll be useless to Firehorn. And Leaf will die.
My pulse flutters. “Can we talk somewhere else,” I whisper. “Please.”
Trace’s jaw tightens, but after a moment’s hesitation, he offers me his arm. I pause, my fingers hovering a heartbeat too long above the curve of his wrist, where the muscles curl around the forearm. It feels odd to touch him now that I’ve seen him hold Raza. Now that he holds Leaf’s life in his hands.
Raza. Yes. I should be grateful for Raza, whose existence in Trace’s life gives me leverage. Yet I find little comfort in the thought.
Starting us toward the palace, Trace lowers his voice. “How did you know about the ambush?”
My face jerks toward him, anger shoving away the shock. “I didn’t know about the ambush. Raza’s exit from dinner was suspicious and I followed.”
“With weapons?” Trace counters. “How convenient.”
I bare my teeth. “First, there isnothingconvenient about this evening. And second, I’m always armed.”
“Does the king know?”
I stop, pulling my hand from his arm. My heart pounds, each beat deafening. No more dancing. No more defense. Raising my face, I meet Trace’s gaze. “King Firehorn is the one who summoned me here,” I say with a flat coolness that I don’t feel. “Royal scout, at your service.” I sketch a bow, smiling without humor. “What of you, Trace?”I step forward, making him retreat to keep our bodies from colliding. “Does the king know of you?”
It’s Trace’s turn to swallow, the apple of his neck bobbing. “Of course not.”
“And why are you with her?”
“I love her,” Trace whispers, meeting my eyes, letting me see the plain truth in his dark gaze.
I love her.Such simple, short words. I’ve nothing to say to that.
Silence and the forest’s shadows wrap us in their cocoon as Trace and I face each other, neither uttering a sound. One heartbeat. Five. Ten. Finally, Trace clears his throat and reaches up to touch the side of my neck, his fingers coming away slick with blood. “You are hurt,” he says, “and we... Have you a place we could go?”
Trace pushesafter me into Lianna’s suite and closes the door behind him, having the decency to color lightly at Leaf’s gasp. He raises his palms toward her. “Lady Lianna is injured. I thought she might prefer to come here before the infirmary, given...” he trails off, frowning. “Youarefemale, right? Not a boy dressed—”
