Page 42 of Thorn Season
“If I’d known it was a race, Your Majesty, I would have let you win.”
Erik’s eyes flared—with surprise, perhaps, but certainly satisfaction; I’d never returned his flirtations before. I ignored every instinct that told me it was a mistake to start now. That told me to run, like Perla, away from the king. This had to be done.
“Look at you two.” Carmen cackled. “Shall I have the wedding bed prepared already?”
Erik sighed. “Forgive my cousin’s crude humor. She has no suitors of her own to occupy her.”
“I won’t settle for less than I deserve.” Carmen swooped red-painted nails down her curves. “The gods themselves would worship these hips.”
“As would an Orrenish royal,” Erik countered.
“You would marry me off to Orren? After that trunk of Rose Season gifts?” Carmen swiveled to me and exclaimed, “The Orrenish sent daggers and jewelry and cutlery sets—all doused in dullroot essence!”
My stomach bottomed out. “How—how did you know it was dullroot?”
“The note, of course! ‘May these protect you from foul guests this season.’”
I cringed. Though the kingdom of Orren had eradicated its Wielders centuries ago, Orrenish royals still bathed in dullroot so specters couldn’t touch their skin. To extend that extremism to Erik...
“They’ve heard about the Ansoran ambassador,” I said.
Erik laughed, low and unconcerned. “The Orrenish have always wanted our backing in the Western War. They’re bound to be disgruntled.”
That was one way to put it. Orren had been launching attacks on Ansora for two decades, claiming that the Wielders would extend their rule to our continent if given the chance. The Orrenish military camps were situated so near our borders that our forces had had several skirmishes with them over the years—skirmishes that, according to the Orrenish, would cease upon a formal alliance. But Daradon had always remained neutral.
Now the Ansorans had come knocking on our door. And Erik had let them in.
The Orrenish were probably a step or two beyonddisgruntled.
“Speaking of our political endeavors...” Carmen looked over my shoulder and excitedly ruffled her curls.
Erik was suddenly beside me—too close, too unexpected—and I went rigid as his hand settled on the small of my back. “I’ll be here,”he whispered, intimate and reassuring. “The creature wouldn’t dare to harm you.”
He drew away, and I was too tense from his nearness to fully understand. He said, “Lady Alissa, meet Ambassador Arcus of Ansora,” and I turned, heart hammering—
Then stopped dead.
And met Keil’s golden eyes.
13
My ears were ringing.
Keil stood apart from the crowd, a gilded monument to contradiction—his strong shoulders set in an easy posture, the hard line of his jaw countered by a soft, full smile. Dressed in tailored trousers and a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up around his forearms, he could’ve been just another courtier.
But he was the Ansoran ambassador. The Wielder who’d journeyed here to improve international relations.
And the man who had held me for ransom.
Carmen’s laughter cracked through my shock. “My goodness—rendered speechless! What an accomplishment, Ambassador. Our Alissa rarely gives so much away.” Her words tinkled with mischief, but she slightly tilted her head—a warning.
Because Erik’s gaze had narrowed on my throat. On the throb of my racing pulse.
I snapped my focus back to Keil and noticed the quiet appeal in his eyes.I pray that you can accept my apology, he’d said on the field, with a heaviness I hadn’t understood.
Suddenly Goren’s warning—she’s a noble—made sense. I was never meant to see Keil’s face because I was likely to encounter him again atcourt. And now my knowledge could ruin him.
Was that what I wanted?
