Chapter 15
“Tink?”
The Nomad’s voice tethers me to the present. Reminds me that the memory was only a dream, and not even one that came to pass.
In that dream, that was my first time meeting the Nomad. When I’d woken from it, years ago, I’d made sure to get out of bed on a different side than usual.
And when I’d finally met the Nomad, it hadn’t been at a dance, but at Lady’s Whittaker’s mansion.
“You are aware that’s not where your hand is supposed to go.”
I glance down and find my fingers clutching my throat. I clear it, though silently, and place my hand on his shoulder instead. Anyone watching us would assume from the way my fingers are barely brushing his shoulders, my palm domed, that my posture is an attempt to be delicate.
Really, I just want as little of us touching as possible.
The Nomad cocks his head to the side. “Is something wrong?”
I shoot him a glare, then nod pointedly at my hands, both arrested by the posture of this dance.
“Right,” says the Nomad, daring to inflect the slightest hint of disappointment. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to mouth words, would you? I’m rather accomplished at reading lips.”
When I give him a scolding look, he rolls his eyes and says, “No, I don’t mean that in some vulgar attempt at flirting. If I wanted to flirt with you, I’d be more clever than that.”
I shake my head, answering his initial question.
I’ve tried countless times, but any time I attempt to make the shapes of words with my mouth, it’s as if my tongue and lips forget where to go, groping around with no purpose.
The first time I tried it, it was in front of Peter, who had looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust.
I certainly won’t be displaying as much for the Nomad.
“Seems unnecessarily cruel,” muses the Nomad.
I raise a single brow at him, hoping he can read the and taking my voice wasn’t? in my thoughts.
“All I mean is…” The Nomad pauses, then shakes his head. “Never you mind.”
I’m about to punch his shoulder and get him to finish when the song changes, this one slow. The type lovers dance to.
The Nomad pulls me in, and I can’t help it. My breath hitches. The gasp itself is noiseless, but he must feel the hitch in my ribcage, underneath which one of his hands rests, because he whispers in my ear, “Is that from fear or something else?”
Less than eager to answer that question for either of us, I turn my face away from him. Let my cheek rest on his chest.
It’s all part of the plan. The thing about a slow dance is that no one expects you to be looking at your partner. It makes it abundantly less suspicious for me to be staring at anyone else in the room, especially with the practiced far-off look in my eyes. The best opportunity to watch our target.
Still, as I examine Acel, try to home in on his every move, I find myself distracted.
Warm breath taps against my ear in a staccato thrum, the Nomad breathing too shallowly for a slow dance requiring so little physical exertion.
We sway, his chin tucked into my hair, his hand on my waist. I can’t tell if I’m imagining it, or if his thumb is moving up and down, rubbing the divot of my waist.
Fear or something else, indeed.
I home in on Acel, desperate for anything to distract me from that very question. He’s a beautiful man. Beautiful in the way a mountain is beautiful, or an iron gate. Sturdy and intricate and immovable.
When the queen looks at him, it’s with a trust that surpasses that of kinsmen, and for a flicker of a moment, I wonder if she loves him. But when she places her hand on his shoulder, it’s with the touch of a mother, not a lover.
A twinge of guilt pricks at my throat, but I dismiss it. If the queen truly loved this man, she wouldn’t force him to be her cupbearer as well as her personal guard. She might respect him, might care for him, but at the end of the day, she views his life as disposable and hers as not.
The Nomad twirls me around with a flourish, and by the time we’ve turned back around and I glance toward the queen and her bodyguard, Acel has leaned over and is whispering something in her ear.
The two glance slyly across the room, and I follow their gaze.
In the corner is the princess, dancing with a man twice her age.
He’s whispering something in her ear, but the princess’s body has gone rigid.
I glance back at the queen.
“Go,” she mouths toward Acel, and her loyal servant obeys. I’d say he weaves through the crowd, but the reality is that the crowd parts way for him, probably fearful of being trampled by the massive man.
When he reaches the princess’s unsavory suitor, he places his hand on the man’s shoulder. Instantly, relief washes over the princess’s body at the sight of him, her shoulders relaxing, her eyes softening.
I can’t hear the words exchanged between the two men because of the music, but there’s no need.
The older man quickly releases the princess.
Acel nods toward the door, his hands folded in front of him, his arms in a “v.” The older man’s eyes go wide, his lips trembling as he voices what must be a protest or a fumbling apology.
Acel waits.
Eventually, the man’s shoulders slump, and he proceeds toward the door. Acel follows.
I whip my head back to the Nomad, who I expect to be watching our target.
He’s watching me instead.
My heart skips in surprise, in the way hearts do when making eye contact that’s unexpected, uninvited.
“You’re up,” says the Nomad. “Don’t worry about me. I’m certain I can find another dance partner easily enough.”
I nod, and then, dropping his hand, hurry through the crowd.
I slip through the heavy ballroom doors and into the hallway just before the doors come to a close. A footman stationed there glances at me, but his voice is bored when he says, “Powder room is down the hallway to your right.”
Thankfully, that’s just where I need to go. According to the Nomad’s blueprints of the palace—I don’t even want to know how he managed to obtain those—there’s a kitchen annex that acts as a holding room for the food and wine for large events, and it’s in that direction.
When I reach the end of the hall, voices are just around the corner. Quickly, I turn the corner and slip into an alcove and behind a mounted bust of the queen’s rather violent grandfather.
“Please, sir,” says a rather weaselly-sounding man.
“Acel, I mean. May I call you Acel?” I can’t see the exchange from the alcove, but the silence paints all the picture I need.
“Alright, Acel. You must know that a nobleman like me would never intentionally disrespect the princess. I’m sure a man like you knows exactly how these nobly bred women can be, finding treachery in every compliment a man utters.
And to be quite frank…” The man trails off, his comments met by silence.
He clears his throat. “Very well, now that we have that settled—”
“You are to leave,” says Acel. His voice is deep, rumbling, exactly what I would expect from the look of him.
“Oh, no. I doubt very much the queen wants that. You see, tonight I’m to be awarded…”
“Your bones remaining intact,” says Acel.
This time, it’s the other man who is silent.
It’s not long before footsteps pad off. I’m still hiding behind the bust, when another set of footsteps round the corner.
“That has to be a record,” says a smooth feminine voice. “Usually they have to be at least four drinks in before trying something like that.”
“Your Highness,” says Acel, his voice echoing down the hall in the space between the two.
I remain entirely still as the princess passes in front of my alcove, then out of view again. “Your Highness? Last time we spoke, that wasn’t the title you used.”
This Acel character must be fond of silence as a response, because he utilizes it again.
“Then again, the last time we spoke was three weeks ago,” says the princess, “Must I start hiring actors to pretend to disrespect me just to have a conversation with you?”
“You may converse with me anytime you wish, Your Highness.”
Footsteps pad as I imagine the princess drawing closer. “Because I’m ‘Your Highness’? Because it’s your duty to respond to me? Because to ignore me would be disrespectful?”
I don’t miss the tinge of sorrow in her voice, nor the lack of response from him.
“We used to talk for hours,” she whispers, her voice strained. “How many years have you laughed at the jokes no one else knew I was making? How many times have we strolled through the gardens, conversing as friends?”
“Escorted,” says Acel. “I escorted you through the gardens.”
“Right,” says the princess, her voice clipped. “Because my mother asked you to.”
“The gardens lack the security of the rest of the palace—”
“I know why my mother wanted you with me,” seethes the princess. “What I don’t understand is why you stopped ‘escorting’ me.”
“The queen has had me reassigned during those hours.”
“Because you asked her to,” says the princess. “Oh, did you not realize she would tell me?”
Acel doesn’t respond.
“It’s because of what I said, isn’t it? About wishing… Never mind. I won’t mortify myself by uttering it again.”
“Your Highness, the purpose of my life has and always will be to protect you.”
“And when I’m wed? Will that continue to be your purpose?”
“Your Highness—”
“Stop. Calling. Me. That.”
The princess’s voice rings through the hall, its echo the cracking of a bell.
There’s a moment of silence, one in which I can practically feel the princess ache for Acel to respond, but her guard remains silent.
The next sound is the clatter of heels against the marble floor, but the princess must not be returning to the ball, because the footsteps fade without ever passing me.
I wait. For a while, I wonder if Acel is such a skilled bodyguard that he’s learned to move silently. Perhaps he went after the princess. But then, heavier footsteps sound, boots against the floor. Acel shifts across the hall, coming into sight as he passes my alcove.
He stops, and so does my heart. I’d thought I was being silent, but he must have heard me.
Noiselessly, I reach for the dagger hidden in an invisible pocket of my dress, but Acel doesn’t turn in my direction.
Instead, he places his forearm against the wall, resting his forehead against his arm as he takes a stabilizing breath.
The kind you take when you’ve exercised more self-control than you thought your body could muster.
I wait for him to move so that I can make my way down to the kitchen annex. Finally, Acel groans and pushes himself off the wall. He heads back toward the hallway off of which sits the ballroom, and I rock back and forth on my heels, waiting for the opportune moment to scurry from my alcove.
But then, Acel stops at the end of the hallway and breathes a heavy sigh.
And I decide perhaps the Nomad’s plan could use a little improving upon.