Chapter 9 #2
“At the palace,” Lory muttered, trying to come up with a smart story when she clearly had no clue about court life or where a lady invited to a palace would have come from and act like.
Throwing a helpless glance at Khayrivven didn’t give her any hints either, for he merely pulled that supple mouth of his into a dangerous curve, winking at her.
Lory’s thoughts stuttered, but she also forgot to worry for a moment and picked the first thing coming to her mind.
“Only a week ago, my lord. I am staying with my cousin, and this is my first visit to the palace, so even if you had walked these halls every day, you wouldn’t have seen me. ”
Bleek raised a brow. “Who, pray tell, is your cousin, my lady?” His lips spread into a smile, evoking a sense of warmth and familiarity in Lory which she hadn’t felt before. “I walk these halls, as you called it, quite regularly, so I surely know him.”
Damnit. Lory had no idea of the nobles roaming the courts of Brestolya.
The only name she could think of was one she’d read in a history book when studying for the ashling exams. “Her,” Lory corrected, putting more effort into her story this time.
If coming up with a persona was part of training, perhaps she could actually enjoy this.
“Anora Pervaille. You might have heard of her.”
The smile on Bleek’s lips faltered for a fraction of a second before he inclined his head. “Of course. Dear Anora. I’ve seen her recently, but she didn’t mention she had such a beautiful cousin.”
A blush fluttered onto Lory’s cheeks at the blunt mention of what Bleek might have thought of her appearance, and her eyes found Khayrivven’s on their own volition.
The Veiled Hand’s face was a mask, impossible to read, but the color had drained from his cheeks, and his hands, now braced beside his hips on the edge of the desk, were clenched in white-knuckled fists.
Bleek gently tugged at her hand, reclaiming her attention. “Where do you usually reside?”
Lory swallowed the sense of foreboding threatening to take her voice. “Criu.” She tilted her head a little bit, meeting Bleek’s eyes in an attempt at reading how she was doing.
“What a beautiful city,” Bleek praised, that smile back on his lips, and warmth filled Lory’s chest once more, rapt fascination for the phantom swirling through her like a foreign thread that had invaded her thoughts.
“Of course, I wouldn’t know the least thing about its state since travel to the Criulian capital has become increasingly difficult with the mountain passes in control of Criulian rebels. ”
Shit—Lory couldn’t have chosen a worse figure to embody. Anora Pervaille’s cousin, when Anora Pervaille was the Duke of Criulias’s wife. The duke who had been exiled from his own province. Ulder’s uncle now sat on Criulias’s throne, executing the king’s every whim.
“It was a horrible journey,” Lory lied. “Took a full month. We had to use the sea road for parts of it, and even the travel on land was quite taxing for an inexperienced young lady such as me.” Lory fluttered her eyelashes in an attempt to flirt away her mistake.
Had this been a real situation, she would have probably already been arrested for being associated with the man who dared stir unrest against the King of Brestolya, but this wasn’t real, so she could try to learn.
Perhaps then she would know how to handle herself when she stood in front of a real noble.
Bleek let his court-expression drop and pulled up a real smile, patting her hand as he released it from his arm. “Not bad, Vednis. I must say, I expected you to bristle at the first question.”
Lory suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. The sense of fascination with Bleek vanished as quickly as it had appeared, now that he was no longer touching her.
Quirking a brow, she turned to Khayrivven, hoping he’d read the question from her face, but the man had turned into stone where he stood.
“What do you think, Falcrest?” Bleek turned to the Veiled Hand, too, studying his expression.
“Of course she’ll need to ditch the whole Pervaille story and swap it out for an airtight one of a no-name lady of lower status who doesn’t have any attachments to political people in question, but apart from that…
” He shared a confirming nod with Khayrivven and Anees.
“Not bad at all. Graceful to a degree, even.”
“I’m not sure I’d call that graceful,” Khayrivven responded, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as if in exasperation, while the edges of Lory’s vision turned dark, and she struggled to keep her balance.
“Definitely not graceful,” he said into her head in the brief moment that he’d pulled her into a facsimile of his dreamscape. “Magnificent.” His satin and velvet tone enveloped Lory’s mind, stroking the length of her spine, driving a shiver over her skin.
When her vision focused again, Khayrivven was staring at her with the same stone-like expression, but his eyes had come back to life with the burning intensity of the fire she knew slumbered in his veins.
“What will I need to know that makes me require special training in court demeanor?” It was a struggle not to break away from Bleek’s side and step closer to Khayrivven, not to want to touch him, feel that one little word he’d uttered into her mind in the way his fingers would dig into her hips and pull her flush to his front, in the way his mouth would seal over hers in a kiss that could make the world disappear.
Khayrivven cleared his throat, glancing up to the ceiling before straightening away from the desk and prowling the length of the room, bringing more distance between them. “The king is hosting a banquet tomorrow night. You have been put on the guest list.”
Lory’s jaw dropped. “What? Why?”
In a motion so quick, Lory needed to blink to realize it had happened, Khayrivven turned on his heels, facing her with the grimmest of expressions. “That is above Bleek’s and Frier’s pay grade.”
While Hadrian Bleek’s smile turned into a thin line, Anees put on an easy grin, stepping up to Khayrivven’s side. “Doesn’t really matter why, Vednis. You’ll get to wear a pretty dress.” Anees’s teeth flashed dangerously as she exchanged a glance with Khayrivven.
A dress? Lory had never worn a dress. A nightgown, yes. The flimsy thing at Lu’Shen’s… But a real dress?
Cold sweat formed on her neck as her hands wandered to her hips. Where would she hide weapons if she were tied into a corset the way the noble ladies liked? How would she move in a fight? How would she—
“Breathe, Miss Vednis.” Surprisingly, it was Hadrian Bleek who put on the most soothing of tones and placed a gentle hand between her shoulder blades, but that didn’t ease the panic building up inside of her at not knowing what Ulder wanted.
Had he summoned her? Had the Triad put her on the list? Was it yet another test, or was this a real mission where she would be required to do what the Triad had told her would be her new purpose in the Brestolyan military: kill?
“You will look stunning in a dress,” Bleek noted, apparently under the impression that the dress part was what had made her fall into shock, when it was actually the dread that tomorrow night would be the night that she’d finally lift her weapons to kill, not to defend herself like in the Amrin Mountains, and to take a life in cold blood.
Ever since she’d returned from the trials, she’d dreaded the moment the Triad would call her on a mission to kill because that was the deal.
An assassin. She’d train to kill, not to protect.
She’d be assigned names she might have never heard, or names that were dear to her, and nothing would protect her from her duty.
Her life for as many others as the Triad claimed. That was the deal.
A part of her wondered who it would be, if she’d be able to look herself in the mirror after she returned, if Khayrivven would look at her the same way, while the rest of her held Bleek’s gaze, willing calm into her veins.
The phantom’s eyes danced with the refined charm of a nobleman, his movements easy and confident as he guided her a few steps to the side to sit down on one of the chairs lined up against the wall.
“You would look stunning in rags, Miss Vednis, for your eyes of honey and dreams are the only thing they’ll notice. ”
“You’re such a sap, Bleek,” Anees drawled while Lory tried to wrap her head around the compliment the man had just paid her. “Just because the fancy men at court speak like that doesn’t mean you need to.”
Bleek shot her a glance. “I’m staying in character, Frier. As we have learned is crucial to any mission to the outside world. You never know who might be observing. Miss Vednis needs to learn that.”