Page 12 of Promise of Darkness
“Oh, Iskvien.” Her jeweled claws capture my chin, the heat of her magic banking in her eyes. “Why must you always defy me?”
“Because I want to make my own destiny, Mother.”
“You’ve already made it,” she whispers, the claws biting into my skin. Not quite firmly enough to cut, but I’ll have little pinprick bruises on the morrow. “And now, you can lie in your bed and bear the consequences.”
“Mother,” Andraste murmurs.
They share a look, and I hate the fact they’re clearly communicating something I don’t understand.
“Let Vi wear what she likes,” Andraste says. “There are too many witnesses.”
There’s no time for the queen to punish me for the transgression. Trumpets blare, and a malicious whispering wind suddenly springs through the trees, announcing the arrival of another court.
The queen lets me go, her spine straightening. It’s one thing to punish defiance, quite another to have it witnessed by the enemy. And in her world, even if she calls them allies, the other queens are all the enemy.
I breathe a sigh of relief and glance at my sister. It irks to have to say it but… “Thank you,” I mouth.
Andraste gives me a sad little smile.
Time to throw the dice and play the game of my life.
* * *
I don’t jointhe dancing.
There’s nothing to celebrate.
And I can’t stand to remain with my mother’s delegation, watching as she introduces Andraste to envoys and foreign nobles from other courts.
Instead, I grab two glasses of elderberry wine, drain one, and then sip the other as I weave through the gathering.
There has to be some way to escape this trap, though I’m aware that two of my mother’s guards stalk me circumspectively. Running is clearly not an option.
Perhaps the Queen of Aska will take mercy on me and welcome me into her court in exchange for every little secret I know about my mother? Unlikely, though, and my mother would make it her life’s duty to have me assassinated.
Painfully.
I’m running out of options when a shiver trickles down my spine; a sense of trepidation hovering in the air, like the lingering portent of a lightning strike about to detonate.
I turn.
For a second, there’s nothing there but myriad dancing fae.
Then shadows melt together, forming into a tall, masked figure that stalks through the crowd as if it doesn’t exist. It’s as if Kato, the god of death, walks among us. But this is no god, slumbering now in the memories of the fae. This male is carved out of hard, heated flesh and practically poured into black leather. Despite my anxiety, I can’t help noticing the breadth of those shoulders and the powerful flex of his thighs.
The fae of mother’s court flee before him like deer scattering before an approaching predator.
Because that’s exactly what he is.
Even I feel it.
Piercing eyes meet mine through the eyeholes of the mask he wears; a feathered raven’s beak cascading over his brow. Though no crown graces his temples, power drips from him, leaving me with no doubt of whom I face.
Thiago, Prince of Evernight.
Lord of Whispers and Lies. Master of Darkness.
I hadn’t expected the sheer boiling power contained within him, or the shock of anticipation—the feeling that I’d somehow spent my entire life drifting toward this single moment. The sensation punches the breath out of my lungs and sets my heart racing.
