Elsabet
The fire in the brazier has burned low. sits in the darkness of the temple, her hand at her throat.
She can feel the Source-Stone pulsing under her skin, the way it always does. A palace doctor had put the first stone there when she was thirteen and she had nearly fainted from the agony, but now she is used to it. As each stone faded in power, it had been removed, and a new one put in. She’s had the operation three times now, and has come to enjoy the pain, even revel in it. For the stones are the source of her power—a power no one else in Dannemore outside her family could hope to touch—and the pain and the power go hand in hand.
The power in this one is slowly dying, she knows, for all that she has tried to conserve it. The night before, she had woken to find it flickering, as if it were warning her of something, but she had felt nothing out in the city save the dull hum of slight magic that always came from the Sault. She will need to reach out soon for a replacement stone; one that malfunctions is worse than no stone at all.
“My lady.” Bagomer slides into the room like one of the shadows he likes to hide in. “All is in place.”
She flicks her gaze up to him. “The bodies have been found?”
“Yes. We left them in the canal outside the Caravel, as instructed. One of the whores found them.” Bagomer grins. “And more good news. I was just with the privateer, Laurent Aden. I have told him which guard he must speak to in order to be let into Marivent. He will retrieve the Kutani Princess and bring her to his ship. She will no longer be in the way.”
“I thought she was being recalcitrant?” says . “That she no longer wishes to leave her betrothed?”
“Aden said he believes he can convince her. And if he cannot...”
“Then we will kill her at Marivent instead of in the sea caves. It will be messy rather than clean, but she must die either way. As must Laurent Aden. Ridiculous of him to involve himself with royalty in the first place. Men in love are so terribly foolish.” She shakes her head. “And Seven?”
“The meeting is planned for tonight. He will take full advantage, he assures me.”
The stone at ’s throat pulses as if it, too, is pleased. “Everything is in Seven’s hands now,” she says. “If he pulls it all off, I might just let him live.”
She sits back in her chair, feeling—for the first time in some days—pleased with herself. Her mother, she thinks, would be proud. She is pleased enough to be distracted, and distracted enough not to notice the faint sound of footsteps as a cloaked Laurent Aden slips from his hiding place and makes his way out of the temple.