Page 24 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
“Waste of time.” Raza crosses her legs. “A skilled whisperer can spoon-feed you magic through a healing crystal. And you can draw magic from stim crystals. A fact that, incidentally, you know thanks to me.”
“You want credit for trying to kill me?” I take Jasmine’s crystal, bracing myself for the stinging bees.“Stim crystals take months to make and they kill the crystals. Which I realize matters as little to you as—” I cut off with a gasp.
Jasmine and Alexa lean forward.
My hand is on fire, the magic scorching into the cut wherecrystal meets blood.Breathe,I tell myself, struggling to absorb the magic instead of fighting it.Breathe.The crystal in my hand pulsates in time with my heartbeat. “The blood,” I say when I can find my voice again. “The bleeding cut, that’s what’s different this time, what makes it work.”
Jasmine’s and Alexa’s excited grins are almost as satisfying as Raza’s deep scowl.
Despite the late hour,I expect a flurry of activity to mark our arrival at River Manor, a colorful mansion with wide archways to welcome the breeze and plastered walls painted in pastel hues. It is a summer type of place, ill-suited for the day’s chill. Finding only a small group of plainly dressed servants makes my skin crawl. Where is the livery, the pomp and circumstance, the courtiers who follow royalty? Even if this is meant as a calculated message to Wil, King Owain’s personal stature—and that of his children—should warrant more crowds. A footman separates from the group, heading for our wagon. Raza’s hands tighten on the seat’s edge, her rapid breaths filling the small space.
I snap my wrist to drop a throwing knife into my palm, only to remember that my weapons are gone and the dress I’m wearing, however glorious, is not equipped to conceal vambraces anyway. “Who is he?” I demand of Raza.
“No one,” the princess whispers. Her back shrinks against the seat.
I grab the front of her dress. “If you don’t tell me who that man is rightnow, and explain exactly what threat he poses, I swear I will break you into tiny little pieces. Slowly. Understood?”
Raza shoves me away. “There is no threat,” she hisses. “Not to you.” A trickle of blood spills from her lip where her teeth bit skin.
The man’s hand reaches for the door and I growl.
“Oh, stand down, wildcat. He’s just a footman.” Raza finally meets my gaze. Silver lines her one remaining eye as she struggles to cover her face with her hood. “What do you think is wrong? Or have you gone blind?”
Oh, stars. Reaching past Raza and her vanity, I unlock the door myself.
“I know you want to kill me,” Raza hisses at my back. “You think I’d mind? You think Iwantto face my parents as I am? You think there is anything for me in Everett now?”
“I don’t think about you much, one way or the other,” I say over my shoulder as the door opens and hands reach out to help me to the ground. I hold my skirts up as I descend, the hard-packed ground for once kind to my silver slippers. Wil finds me at once, the way he’s done each evening when the caravan stopped for the night. Tonight, however, he offers me his arm.
I raise a brow and Wil blushes. “Seemed like a princely thing to do,” he murmurs, his gaze pinned on the man and woman standing on the manor steps. “I think that’sthem.”
I think Wil’s right, though the king and queen are difficult to make out from this distance. Rune, on the other hand, is impossible to miss.
Still in his Everett uniform, his silhouette stands tall in the setting sun. The red sky beyond him frames the deadly grace of his movements, the gentle swing of his sword as he takes slow, deliberate steps toward the man and woman standing on the River Manor steps. The parents he left five years ago. The king and queen of a kingdom that called him a martyr.
Raza hurries to fall in step beside Rune.
They are ten paces from the steps when the man and woman turn their backs and walk inside.
“Might we escort Your Highness and his guests to their rooms?” A pair of servants has appeared beside Wil and me. “We’ve arranged a set of suites for the Dansil delegation.”
My gaze skids between the servants and Rune, still standing tall before the now-empty steps. In spite of everything, I want to go to him, to put a hand on his shoulder. I’m no longer angry that the gesture would be unwelcome—just sad. I think that if there were no Prince Rune, if the man standing there were still Trace, things would be different between us.
Reality, however, is as inconsiderate as ever. He is Rune. And he is taking his rightful place as heir to Everett’s throne.
Turning to the servants, I force a smile to my face. “A room sounds most lovely. Please, lead on.”
The open-air corridors are as empty as the courtyard was, the servants few. A maid scurries about to place fresh-cut pine branches into vases plainly designed for summer flowers, and the fireplace in our sitting room has clearly been dormant for some time. “I’ll have your dinner brought up,” the maid says, showing herself out.
“No welcoming banquet, it seems,” says Wil dryly, sitting down on a woven chair.
I sweep the rooms, a set of three bedrooms adjoining a common room that the six of us—the extent of the Dansil royal court, with the exception of Violet—now occupy. More woven furniture stares back at me, dusty with disuse and bearing thin flower-embroidered cushions. Plainly, we’ve not traveled to where King Owain happened to be when he received word of our presence, but rather to a place he specifically relocated to.
“Why are we here, do you think?” I ask, walking back into the common room.
Calvin moves closer to the fire, holding his weathered hands near the flames. “A more accurate question is: Why are we not elsewhere?” he says, rubbing his lip. “What does this River Manor offer that is not available at, say, the royal palace?”
A knock at the door heralds a servant with a tray of bread, cheese, fruit, and mulled wine. She sets it on the table and departs with a bow. Somewhere along the road to Everett, I painted our arrival as a loud, energetic achievement. A solution. I might as well have dreamt of touching clouds.
