Page 96 of The Rebel and the Rose
They flickered from gold to blue and back again, as though his own magic could not resist peering out at her. She understood the feeling.
Dimly, Sera noted the prince was classically handsome, reasonably tall with a straight nose and strong cheekbones, a mane of glossy golden hair and a pair of full lips that appeared to be naturally quirked. More Mondragon than Rayere, she decided, for the royals of Urnica were known to look like the old western gods, touched by beauty in construct and savagery at war. Perhaps in another life, the fierce brightness of Andreas’s smile would have knocked her sideways, but even in the thrall of her own magic, she was keenly aware of the Dagger at her back, watching over her like an avenging angel. Watching Andreas with the predatorial instincts he was feared for.
One wrong turn from the prince and this whole meeting would go up in Shade, and blood.
They met in the middle of the dance floor. Among a sea of twirling skirts and bubbling laughter, the People’s Saint flung open his arms in a welcoming embrace, and said, entirely to her surprise, ‘Seraphine Marchant! It took you long enough.’
Sera jerked at her name in his mouth, any impression of her having the upper hand flittering away with the music. ‘You… you know me…?’
‘Knowyou? I’ve been waiting for you all my life! Well. Give or take a decade or two.’ It was a joke, followed by a velveteen laugh more stirring than the music around them. And although the dancers in their midst could not possibly have overheard their conversation – or understood that joke – several of them joined in, guffawing at them like hyenas.
Sera glanced around, uncertainly. ‘What is happening here?’
‘Fate, Seraphine. Fate is what’s happening here.’ As he extended a manicured hand to her, she noted the golden rose embroidered on the sleeve of his fine blue shirt, and thought of the tarot card back in her bedchamber. Fate, indeed.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Sit with me.’
‘I’d like that,’ she said.
Sera followed Prince Andreas to a secluded spot on the far side of the dance floor, where a scattering of velvet seats clustered around a low glass table. A flick of his wrist chased off the group of revellers that had gathered there, allowing them to speak freely.
A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the tell-tale silver glint of Theo’s hair. He was drifting nearby, keeping watch. Though she couldn’t spot the others in the low-lit shadows, Sera could feel Ransom’s attention like a slant of sunlight on the back of her neck. She offered a quick nod to the room at large, knowing he would see it.
All is well.
With a kind of regal grace lacking in the king himself, theyoung prince settled into an armchair, crossing one slender leg over the other. He was dressed impeccably, in a deep blue shirt and matching waistcoat, the lapels embroidered with what looked like thorns. The roses he wore on his sleeves, next to a pair of shiny gold cufflinks that bore his initials. Even at rest, he sat with the ease of a man who had known comfort all his life. And he wore it well – the decadence of this place – unlike Sera, who felt like a doll in her stiff corset and ruffled skirt.
Unsure of where to begin, she perched on the edge of the chair beside him. ‘So, you know me,’ she said again, now that the shock of his greeting had sunk in. ‘How?’
His smile was a wedge of white in the dimness. ‘Saint Oriel’s foretelling is stamped on my very soul, Seraphine. You think the Aurore Tower would fall and I wouldn’t hear about it? That I wouldn’t make it my business to find the woman who fell with it and emerged unscathed from the rubble?’ He leaned across the armrest, his voice low and conspiratorial. ‘We were always meant to find each other, you and I. It is the will of fate.’
His words struck true. ‘I think I’ve been dreaming of you. The night that you fell from the Appoline.’
‘Yes, yes, of course you have.’ He seemed pleased to hear it. And more than that, entirely unsurprised. ‘Oriel has been guiding you to me all along.’
But Sera had been having other dreams too. Glimpses of coffins and bones and soul-rattling panic, the cold wet earth filling her lungs until her screams died inside her. Unease prickled under her skin as she recalled her run-in with the masked saint in the graveyard, likely the same creature that had been trawling through graves across Fantome.
She eyed the prince more closely. In physicality, he did not strike her as that figure, but she knew well enough that senses could be deceiving, and magic, at its best, could be tricky. ‘What is your true power, Prince Andreas?’
His laughter was a warm caress, chasing her disquiet away. ‘Isn’t it as plain as daylight? I am a bringer of joy.’ He gestured to the hall around him, where spirits and merriment flowed in equal measure. Even here, secreted away in a low-lit corner of the room, it was impossible to ignore the rampant trills of laughter, the skirts swishing up on stage and the revellers cavorting around them, behaving like they were in their own private bedchambers. ‘Where I go, paradise blooms.’
Sera’s brows shot up at his confidence. ‘But how do you do it?’ she pressed, craving specifics, hoping they might help her activate her own magic. ‘How do you simplymakepeople happy?’
His smile curled, threads of gold glimmering in the blue of his eyes. Sera’s own magic flickered in answer, like their souls were sharing in some ancient joke. ‘I simply tell them to be so.’
‘That’s it?’ Peering around, she tried to spot the intricate workings of his magic. There was so much laughter. So much dancing. People were constantly moving, flitting about the hall like butterflies. Unwilling to perch for too long, or to welcome even the briefest respite of silence. The room felt alive and strangely dizzying. Whatever magic the prince wielded had seeped into his people.
And they loved it.
They lovedhimfor it.
‘You mean you persuade them?’ She spied a couple in thecorner grinding against each other with wanton abandon. Her cheeks heated and she looked away to find the prince watching her with a look of bemusement.
‘People by their very nature wish to be happy, Seraphine. It does not take much encouraging.’
Truly a silver-tongue, then. A charmer, gifted with a god-like persuasion. And he was damn good at it by the looks of things. But there was more to the prince – more to this – than dancing, surely. Despite her ease in his presence, she would not fall under his spell so easily. She owed it to Ransom – and herself – to be discerning.
‘And what about your rebels? What do you tell them to make them set their villages alight? To string up the nightguards by their bootstraps and carve up their smiles?’
