15. The Color of Murder, Delighted, Amused, and Entirely Wicked
15. THE COLOR OF MURDER, DELIGHTED, AMUSED, AND ENTIRELY WICKED
The thin reed of a man whose job was to announce the arrivals in the Hall of Mirrors, decked out in gray coattails that skimmed his calves and, in place of a bowtie, a pert orange flower with swaying tentacles for petals, crooned, “The Lady Elowyn Ashira of the Forzantos clan.”
I noticed how he’d omitted the “Xiomara” from my name as the crowd’s steady, humming chatter transformed into excited murmuring.
Perhaps it was because most of them hadn’t seen me since the Gladius Probatio, when I’d once more proven females could indeed fight by stabbing Selwin Hewett in the eye and throat. Maybe it was because they already knew I’d escaped the dungeon and morbidly anticipated my punishment. Or they now realized I was high up enough in the royal bloodline for the land’s magic to take note, even if the lie that I was part of the Forzantos clan persisted. Or it could also have been that they sensed the queen’s wrath and how it was, more often than not, focused specifically on me.
Whatever the reason for it, the busybodies’ attention made my nerves taut like rubber bands about to snap. All at once, the importance of tonight’s outcome pressed down on me—an unbearable weight.
While Coattails announced the appearance of Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West, with their long titles, I scanned the crowd that milled with drinks in hand for potential weapons I might swipe.
I couldn’t discern the theme of the festivities. Most everything but the people were silver—globes floated everywhere casting silver light. Plates, platters, and goblets were made of the reflective metal, and even the decanters, which had been a clear crystal before, were the same. Even the jewelry the nobles wore was silver, though their otherwise gaudy, colorful dress continued.
Through her hair bun pinned at her nape, a young woman about my age, with astonishingly bright pink hair, sported two sharp-looking sticks made of silver. Not ideal, but a possible weapon. A plump man wore a knife at his side, and his constitution implied he might not notice it missing until he went to remove what amounted to a decorative piece later that night. An ice sculpture of two pairs of crowns, their tips spiky and painted silver—an icicle had worked to murder the Lady Aleeza, and if necessary I’d make it work again. Evidently, the queen had no true intentions of making her court a safer place. Besides her lack of follow-through at banning ice sculptures, I’d heard no recent mention of the person among us murdering her guests.
Tonight, gray-furred sneakles and quasi-foxes—called feethles in reference to their spindly, sharp teeth, I’d learned—wove amongst the revelers, rubbing against their legs. The sneakles and feethles were changelings, and I couldn’t help but wonder what purpose they had for cavorting with this crowd. Were the changelings part of the aristos or something else? Another question to add to my ever-expanding list of them.
Once more, dozens of snakes, some as thick as my arm, slithered beneath a transparent floor. It didn’t matter that the glass kept the undulating serpents at bay; their purpose must have been to cause unease—an effective measure. To match the evening’s decor, their scales varied only in tones of silver—except for a single viper, the thickest and longest of them all: a black so saturated as to conjure up the finality of death. Their relative uniformity made them appear more ethereal, more magical, and infinitely more dangerous.
I’d made it scarcely thirty feet into the vast room and already I desperately wanted to put it far behind me.
Fat chance of that.
Eyes trailed me from every direction, and as the guys caught up, their heat warming my bare back, I noticed Roan. The dwarf stood atop a stool with shiny silver legs and a plush gray cushion, conversing with a gaggle of preening women who didn’t appear to mind his stature the way the queen did .
In recognition of our connection, he met my waiting gaze for a full three seconds, but then that was it. He didn’t smile, acknowledge what perhaps was a burgeoning friendship, or how much was at stake. He merely stroked his thick beard and pretended to be engrossed by whatever a woman with hair colored in the vivid gradients of sunset was saying.
It was as the men had planned. Rush, Ryder, Hiroshi, and West had become friends before puberty, when their stations brought them together across territories regularly enough that they struck a bond in their shared circumstances strong enough to last all these years. But Roan was a count, not a drake, and as much as was reasonable, in public, the four drakes kept him at arm’s length—a future secret weapon, a stalwart rook to deploy on the chess board that was the court.
Next, I spotted Lennox. With his creamy brown skin and starkly contrasting copper hair, he was easy to find. He wore a ridiculous shirt with an array of colors checkered across it that didn’t usually go together. But despite his ludicrous attire, the glower he cut me couldn’t have been more serious. If I had to name the hue of his eyes, I’d call it murder .
Scanning his body, and noticing the way he cradled an arm, I smiled at the lingering evidence that Rush had kicked his ass. Even though Lennox no doubt availed himself of fae healing enchantments and salves, he hadn’t finished recovering. I hoped he never did.
Two women and one man surrounded him in a cluster: his mother, Jolanda, with matching copper hair, his half-brother, Conroy—and Millicent, no longer in bully buttercream or relegated to the stables. Her smile was both pretty and hideous at once. Again, the foul nature of her insides tainted the rest of her.
“This is whom I was telling you about,” Jolanda announced to the huddle loudly enough that I would hear.
From behind me, Rush pressed a hand to my waist. But I didn’t need the reminder of what we were here to do. Even with all the distractions, I felt the pull of the queen’s judgment from where she sat on her fancy throne atop a dais, currently concealed by throngs of eager gawkers.
I gave Millicent and Lennox and family a smile and finger wave that made the four of them grimace.
I walked on, still hoping for an easy weapon to swipe, and whispered over my shoulder to Rush, “What’d Millicent do to be set free of the stables?”
“Surely nothing good,” he grumbled, and the proximity of his lips to the shell of my ear caused a clench of my insides.
As if he sensed my reaction to him, he pressed to my side, guiding my arm across the crook of his elbow. Ryder, West, and Hiroshi formed a wall behind us as we advanced, each step drawing us closer to what had every chance of being my final doom.
Rush nodded at the aristos we passed as we meandered between small groupings of them. His eyes continually scanning the crowd, softly enough that his friends wouldn’t hear above the mounting din, he said, “ I … we…” He sighed, his breath tickling my bare neck; a shiver raced down my spine. “We were interrupted at the worst possible time.”
He didn’t need to clarify. My thoughts had barely strayed from the vision of me on top of him, my hands pressed to his muscular chest, the feel of him penetrating not just my body but my emotions and defenses.
I should have been curled up in his arms in a lover’s embrace now, not plotting how to survive the next hour.
“No argument there,” I answered, returning an authentic smile to a pair of nearly identical faces, a young man and woman, with long, curly hair the color of a blush rose. To comply with the queen’s orders, the female wore a braided updo that erupted in a riot of curled puffs all over her head, like pockets of pale pink flames blasting heat from underground.
“Who are they?” I whispered to Rush, who glanced over his shoulder with a nod at them as we walked.
“Twins. Octavia Lily Rose and Octavio Linden Oak, scaless and scale of Potesantos. New to court. They remain untainted by it, but they stand to inherit the titles of visdrakess and visdrake, so moves will be made to influence them before long. Roan does his best to look out for them.”
“That’s nice of him,” I whispered back, still searching amid the garish clothing for a weapon that would be both easily concealed and wielded.
Rush barked a hoarse laugh. “I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, describe Roan as ‘nice.’ But back to what I was saying. We don’t have long, and I want to make sure I get to say it before…”
Before he turned me in for my traitorous escape and condemned me to the queen’s bloody whims.
He slowed his pace, drawing out the time left to us by a fraction. “I … fuck, Elowyn, there’s so much I want to still say to you … to do with you … to you. I don’t think I can turn you in.”
An ear that had been floating above a nearby group of fae abandoned them to bob two feet from my face. My fingers clenched as I warred with the instinct to bat it out of my way.
Jaw hard, I elbowed Rush in the ribs, cleared my throat, then tugged on my earlobe. The earring of crystal and pearl Pru had selected for me jangled while I hoped he got my meaning.
His attention skimmed my ear, my neck, my collarbones, and then around to my lips, where it remained.
Again, I cleared my throat, tugged on my ear, then jerked my chin in the direction of the severed organ that kept pace with us.
His eyes widened before anger flared in the moonlight of his irises.
“I know,” I told him softly. It wasn’t fair that we should have so little privacy … so little time together. That we should be pitted against each other from the start by an evil woman with more power than was good for anyone.
“I don’t care,” he whispered harshly, glaring toward the ear that was invisible to him .
“You should.”
“Well, I don’t.” But he pulled me beside a loud, boisterous group of older men and women who, based on the rosiness of their cheeks and raucous laughter, had been downing with abandon whatever their goblets held.
He stationed me so close to the bunch that two men turned to greet Rush, who nodded a hello , then gestured them to turn back around. He leaned into me as Hiroshi, Ryder, and West lingered, casting nervous looks toward the end of the room that held the thrones.
The small, bloody spy of an appendage had followed us. Rush breathed against the curve of my neck. “We have seconds before everyone will notice us here.”
“Then maybe you should tone down the fierce beastly man vibe and stop looking like you’re two quick seconds from hiking up my skirt and plowing into me, our audience be damned.”
Based on the heat that ignited in his eyes as he pulled back to study my face, it was the wrong thing to say—or perhaps the precise thing. After taking in the feral nature of his wicked grin, I was an instant from hitching up my dress for him and giving the entire court a show before I completed my march toward condemnation.
Guards in the sky-blue colors of the queen popped up behind Ryder, Hiroshi, and West, pinning meaningful looks on us. Rush hadn’t yet seen them.
“If you still want to say something, you’d better be quick about it,” I said.
“We can never be together,” he grunted, the sound like a rough thrust to my inflamed thoughts, “but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to show you what we could be like together. To prove to you what taking your maidenhood means to me. What I want”—he nipped at my neck; I yipped—“to do to your entire body.”
My mind growing rapidly hazy, I said, “You didn’t take anything.” I glanced at the ear, wondering if we were being quiet and the crowd beside us loud enough. “I was the one who gave, and nothing I gave was all that important.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s very important.”
“Well, doesn’t matter much now anyhow. We’re out of time. And like you’ve said a hundred times, it can never happen between us.” I stared at him until his eyes traveled from my mouth up to mine. “If you’re going to turn me in, you’d better do it now.”
The ear rose toward the cathedral ceiling and zipped away, dodging the orbs of silver light, so abundant they mimicked starlight.
“I don’t want to,” Rush growled softly. Goosebumps swept across my skin.
“Sure you do,” I said uncharitably, already shielding myself from what was to come, from more of him. “You follow Her Majesty’s orders, don’t you?”
He hesitated, looking toward his friends though it didn’t look as if he properly registered their impatience. “I also follow the king’s to protect you. ”
My smile was sad, defeated, tired, accepting … and that frightened me more than anything I’d seen so far tonight.
Abruptly, I stepped away from Rush’s touch. “Since I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, I’m going to get something to drink. But I’ll be quick, and then we’ll do what we came here to do. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Rush stared at me without reply. I didn’t wait for one. I stalked toward the nearest refreshment table, eyed an ice sculpture of a felled dragon—shocker—the overflowing silver platters of glistening fruit and cheeses carved into bouquets of flowers, and then an array of opaque decanters.
“What’s in them?” I asked of the hummingbird-sized fairy who sat atop the pale silver tablecloth, twirling a long strand of her hair—loose and a near-blinding violet—while flicking her slipper on and off.
She went completely still. “So it’s true. You can see us!”
“Sure can.”
“I thought Morwenna was pulling my skirt.”
Morwenna had been the fairy with the white hair, I recalled, assigned the supervisory task of making Russet Sterling’s death as gruesome as possible.
“Nope,” I said. “But I don’t have time to chat.”
“Oh, I know. We all do. The queen’s waiting for you.”
Quickly, I glanced behind me, noticed too many sets of eyes on me, and turned back around. “Everyone knows?” I hissed.
“For sure. The queen ordered extra entertainment for tonight to … celebrate.”
“Celebrate what, exactly? And what kind of entertainment?”
The tiny fairy stood to stare up at me. “If I were you, which I’m glad I’m not, I wouldn’t want to know.”
I scowled. “Fine. What’s to drink?”
Her translucent wings fluttered as she flew over to the farthest carafe. “This one’s got heavy duty fairy wine. It’s the best for numbing pain.”
I pressed my lips together to make sure I didn’t ask why she recommended that one. She was probably right. Better not to know. I had idea enough since it was the queen who’d mete out my punishment.
“That one, then,” I said somberly, taking advantage of her momentary distraction to swipe a cheese knife. It was too small and too blunt, but it was better than nothing. With it tucked behind my palm, I pretended to scratch my neck, preparing to slip it down my cleavage.
Busying herself with mopping up a splash of golden wine I’d spilled on the table, she mumbled, “There’s a really sharp icepick under the tablecloth beneath the dragon’s tail, but you didn’t hear that from me.”
I jerked still with the concealed cheese knife flat against my chest, immediately realized that was suspect, then trailed my hand as casually as I could along my dress .
“I put it there when a servant forgot it,” the fairy added, still busying herself with tidying the table’s offerings, which didn’t need ordering. “No one knows it’s there but me.”
Clutching my goblet, I sipped at the fizzy, tangy wine, and when I set it back down on the table, also left the knife behind. I picked up my glass again, pretending to be impressed by the ice sculpture.
“Lady Elowyn,” Rush said from behind me, loud enough for others to hear. “We must go before Her Majesty grows impatient.”
“Just one more sip,” I trilled without looking at him; he’d realize I was up to something if I did.
With a pop that mixed with the cacophony of conversation and a haunting yet somehow still jaunty tune taken up by what I presumed was another orchestra, the diminutive fairy vanished only to appear across the table at the dragon’s tail just as I blocked it with the flare of my periwinkle skirt. She lifted the tablecloth while I swiped the slender pick. The cloth was already back in place when I wedged the blade beneath the belt of my gown.
The belt was three fingers wide and constructed of a thick fold of fabric. The icepick was slender enough to fit, and I just managed to snag its handle on the back of the belt’s modest bow when Rush tapped me on the shoulder.
“Now, Elowyn,” he said, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of his sword.
This was for our eager audience, then.
Unable to thank the fairy for her assistance, I chugged the rest of my goblet’s contents, slammed it onto the table, and narrowed my eyes in abject hatred at Rush.
Based on how many people turned our way to watch, I guessed I was successful in conveying that this man was my enemy, I knew it, and I hated his very existence for it.
Only one of those things wasn’t the truth.
I allowed Rush to grip my arm harder than necessary, and to push me into the crowd and toward the queen. Hiroshi, Ryder, and West prowled behind us, trailed by some of the queen’s guards, and after by the pitter-patter of nosy guests in heeled shoes, hurrying so as not to miss a thing.
“Stop the music,” the queen called out before she even came into sight.
At her command, the song ceased mid-note and her guests parted like a sea, leaving her fully visible atop her dais. My father sat beside her, eyes already jittery as they swept from me to his wife and back.
“What do you have for me, Rush?” she asked as he shoved me into the opening so that I stumbled and tripped, catching myself on the queen’s portly alchemist.
Braque whined as if I were a foul carcass while he pushed me away from him. Once more I tottered, but this time caught myself, sucking in a steady breath, hoping the icepick hadn’t tumbled from my gown.
That had been close .
The queen wagged two fingers in a loop in the air, and immediately I felt a tug that pulled my body downward into a subservient bow.
Obediently, I dipped low into it. But only so she wouldn’t notice I could have resisted it. Before, when she’d snapped her fingers at me and held me immobile, she could have sliced the skin from my body and I wouldn’t have been able to move.
Was this magic of hers different? Or had something changed?
Rush dipped his head reverently at her, and next Hiroshi, West, and Ryder did the same.
“We bring you the lady Elowyn Ashira, Your Majesty,” Rush announced in a loud, clear voice. “We caught her escaping, had her cleaned up so she’d be presentable for the magnificence of your court, then brought her directly to you.”
The queen, dressed from head to toe in gold, all the more noticeable for all the silver that surrounded her, including the king’s garb, leaned back in her throne, her grin that of a satisfied sneakle.
“Perfect timing. I’ve just decided on my judgment.”
My insides quivered, and even Rush’s presence beside me felt as cold as Nightguard’s icy rivers.
“No one plots an escape in my palace without paying an appropriate price for the betrayal.” The queen stared out at her audience with those sky-blue eyes, twinkling as she relished whatever else she was about to say.
Another loop of her fingers and I rose from the bow to stand ramrod straight. Only, if I fought her hold, I suspected I might break free of it. For now, I didn’t attempt it.
“Guards, bring out Sandor,” the queen cried.
I fought every single one of my instincts not to turn to Rush and ask him, What in dragonfire does Sandor have to do with any of this?
Moments later, royal guards shoved Sandor to his knees beside me. Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West took a step back.
Sandor had been the one to cast the potion at me in Nightguard. The last time I saw him, he was a strong, somewhat arrogant man with vivid gray eyes. He was now pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his brocaded tunic splattered with blood.
“Tell me how you betrayed me, Sandor,” the queen said, her command worming across him like one of the many continually slinking serpents beneath us. “How I gave you my trust and you released Elowyn from where I’d ordered her locked up so that she could defy me and my rightful reign.”
She stared at Sandor expectantly. So did everyone else. I wanted to, but felt a subtle tug that told me to remain unmoving, and hurried to obey.
“Sandor,” the queen pressed as my heart decided to begin beating in my throat. Her patent vehemence faded, replaced by a petulant playfulness that was perhaps worse. “Confess your sins and perhaps I’ll let you live. ”
“Answer her, man,” Hiroshi whispered to Sandor, who only grunted in response.
“You heard our queen,” Ryder added. “Don’t make her wait.”
Sandor croaked some more, something odd about the sound. I wrestled with the desire to study him while unease caressed the patches of my bare skin.
“I don’t think he can answer,” Rush offered gently.
The queen smiled—delighted, amused … wicked. “Ever the smart one, aren’t you, Rush? So observant.” At that, she looked meaningfully at me—as if I needed the reminder that I’d become too friendly with a man with one task: to please his queen by keeping tabs on me.
She waved a hand nonchalantly, and whatever hold she’d had on me vanished. My body went to sag but I didn’t allow a muscle to so much as twitch. The queen was a spider clicking her pincers, closing in on the prey in her web.
Her stare fully on Sandor, I dared a look at him. His clammy skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, and the gray of his eyes was fevered. Blood crusted the corners of his dried, cracked lips.
The queen crossed one ankle over the other and tsked as if bored. “Oh, that’s right. Sandor is no longer possessed of his tongue.”
She tossed her head back and laughed.
Not a single other person there, not even Braque or Ivar, immediately followed her lead.
I barely breathed as Sandor let out a soft whimper.