Page 99 of Prince of Night and Storm
I touch my forehead with the back of my hand, feel the sheen of moisture. “What did you think I would be? Tripping over my feet onto your?—”
“Lady Aerinne,” my father says. “Your broth is cooling, Wakia Maitu.”
Fine. I pick up the broth.
After several minutes of watching me sip, the Prince speaksagain. “You told me about when you were sixteen. Tell me about when you were eighteen.”
Baba sighs, and signals a servant for another bottle of wine. I resent that.
“Do you have a kink for even numbers?” I ask, the bleating of hunted rabbits in my mind. The forest around us rustles, and a slight chill comes with the evening air. Golden lamps are lit and cast a warm glow over the white and black stone palace walkways just beyond this clearing.
He strokes a finger down the back of my hand. “It seems balanced.”
Is the caress a taunt? Or does he think it harmless, just a simple touchin front of every House Lord in Everenne?
I stare into my soup bowl. “Balance would be paying the same gilt to us for our dead warriors that we pay to you, Renaud.”
“You think so?”
I look up. His eyes once again sparkle with shards of amusement. For the nth time, I’m glad no High Court has been called in my lifetime, and the High Lords forbidden true rule while the Prince slept. I don't know if I would have survived the acting.
Actually, scratch that. I wouldn't have survived. The Low Court maintained in the Prince's absence is dangerous enough, and we’re confined only to ruling our Houses and maintaining our Districts.
“Eighteen?” he prompts. “You are so young though, we'll soon run out of years and then I'll have to think of a different way to amuse myself with you.”
I’m amusing the Prince. It pleases him to extend that amusement.
Don't kill him yet. Not yet. Not in front of Baba, who will be cut down.
You can try,Darkan says, voice searing.It will be more entertaining than watching you make yourself ill with anxiety and compound it by drinking your weight in wine. Because, of course, that makes everything better.
You've never said anything about my drinking before.
You must learn to handle Court games, Aerinne. You must learn to handle the Prince. I am displeased with Nora. She knows better.
Knowing better is no good if your head is in the clouds most of the time.
Any advice?
He pauses.Show strength, but do not overtly challenge him. If you behave like prey, you will be taken down like one but it would also be foolish to force him to punish you.
“You mean draw and quarter,” I mutter.
“Eighteen?” Renaud says again, fooling no one with the even tone, not with the ice crystals forming in his eyes. This is the voice he uses right before he kills.
Those ice crystals prick at my temples, grow in the pit of my stomach. He doesn't like repeating himself.
I force myself to relax. Even numbers mean skipping year twenty-one. A small favor.
I can't lie, I suck at omission, and revealing the events of my twenty-first birthday will earn me a slow execution.
1 Mukimo with ugali and grilled meat.
Chapter
Thirty
SILVER BLADES AND COURTLY GAMES
