Page 44 of Thorn Season
But I’d made my point.
“My mistake,” I said lightly. “I assumed a man of your standing would’ve traveled with an entourage.” I swept my eyes over Keil and winced, as if I’d found the span of him awkwardly lacking. “But I must have overestimated.”
The silence dragged.
Then Carmen laughed a little too loudly, breaking the spell. Erik glanced between me and Keil, a dark glimmer in his eyes. Keil looked like he needed a strong drink.
Fortunately, Erik then snapped his fingers to summon a young server. The girl’s tray held four faceted glasses, fizzling with champagne.
“Let us toast,” Erik said, his smile not quite reaching his narrowed gaze. “To new unions.”
“Well put, Cousin!” Carmen grabbed a flute and took a swallow, bubbles sputtering up her nose.
Keil and I reached for opposite glasses, our eyes catching above the tray. “New unions,” he repeated, and I faltered, my heartbeat skipping at the soft meaning in his voice.
So I saw the second his eyes widened. And his hand flinched violently from the glass.
His flute toppled, and the tray with it. Erik thrust an arm in front of me, forcing me back a step before all three glasses shattered where my feet had been. Carmen yelped, lifting her train as champagne effervesced against the marble. Young, shaky hands reached for the shards, and I automatically dived to help the server.
“Leave it.” Erik gripped my elbow, and my stomach clenched. His voice rumbled with dark amusement. “A lady shouldn’t cut her fingers because of one ambassador’s clumsiness.”
I looked toward Keil, and a chill skittered down my back. Becausegone was his easy charm, his glow of good humor. Now he looked exactly as he had at the ransom exchange—posture hard, fists tight, his gaze bearing down fiercely on the king.
Then Carmen gasped softly. She held her unbroken glass aloft, and sunlight shone through the facets. Illuminating the crown-and-anchor emblem—theOrrenishemblem—engraved on one side.
Erik had toasted using the glasses from Orren.
Glasses doused in dullroot.
My specter lurched, rocking me backward out of Erik’s grip. Had he heard my breath catching? Had he felt the goose bumps rising on my skin? All arrogance flooded out of me as the moment looped frantically in my mind.
I’d beeninchesaway from being the first to touch those glasses—and Erik had unwittingly saved me seconds later when he’d held me back from the shards. One breath of difference, and I would’ve flinched as Keil had, exposing myself as vulnerable to the specter poison.
Exposing myself as a Wielder.
And Erik wouldn’t have smirked at me as he now smirked at Keil, with barbed satisfaction.
He would’ve made me tonight’s entertainment.
My specter heaved backward again, and my eyes pricked with the strain of keeping still—of fighting my own instinct to run. Father was right; court was too dangerous, the king too volatile.
My heart galloped as the pressure built between the two men, the nobles looking nervously toward us. But just as Erik’s smile grew full and sharp with victory, Keil released a long breath.
And he returned the king’s smile.
“Quite right, Your Majesty,” he said. I gaped, specter shuddering,as he fetched a handkerchief from his pocket and laid it across his palm. “Nobody should injure themselves on my account.”
Keil crouched and murmured a kind dismissal to the young server. Erik’s jaw tightened.
Then, using his handkerchief as a buffer, Keil gathered the shards of Orrenish glassware and set them on the tray. As if the poison didn’t bother him one bit.
As if Erik had been a fool for thinking it would.
It wasn’t until later, when Carmen left my side, that a spectral thread curled around my hand. I twitched, still shaken from my close encounter with dullroot. But the moment I recognized the contours of Keil’s power—the warm ripples, the steady thrum of strength—my specter flared, bright and tingling, aching to pour free.
I leashed it, wincing at the sudden effort. If the threat of dullroot buried my power, then skin contact with another specter—especially afamiliarspecter—seemed to rouse it dangerously to the surface.
I would have to be more careful.
