CHAPTER SIX
VACANT SMILES
The Praeceptor’s personal dining room drips opulence.
Walls made of tshira, streaked with bands of red, green, and gold, lined with black pillars.
A six-tiered chandelier hangs over the dining table and its twenty-one seats.
Only one head of the table gets a chair, because only one person is above the rest. It’s made of dark wood and cushioned with soft maroon velvet that I sink into.
During the day, it belongs to Luc. This time of night, with no one around to see, it’s mine.
It’s my favorite place to work. I feel powerful here. Everything—and everyone—feels small.
Tonight, I work on an order that will send more soldiers to the Opheran border. The Honorate has already rejected previous versions of this order twice, which means I’ll need to slip it into something unrelated if I want it to pass without interference from the Shadow Queen.
I’ve only just unpacked my bag when the door rattles.
My head jerks up. It’s nearing ten in the evening—no reason for anyone else to be here.
The double doors swing open, and Kaidren Vale’s deep brown eyes find me, curious and intent.
My heartbeat accelerates. I hate being caught off guard, and this is the second time he’s done so in a single day. I struggle to keep my face still as I stand to greet him.
“Hello there,” he says with a smile that’s as oily and fake as my stepmother’s hair. “I thought I saw you come in here.”
“You were looking for me?” I surreptitiously flip my notes over. Kaidren isn’t close enough to read them, but his stance is leaned forward as though he intends to narrow the space between us.
His stare is unwavering as he closes the gilded door and rests his back against it. On the surface, it’s a casual move, but I want to flee, and he’s blocking my only exit.
“I was hoping to catch a word,” he says. “I’ve seen you. Skulking around in the shadows.”
Does he mean before today?
I fight a frown. “You’ve seen me before?” I sidle around the table. Not because I want to be any closer to him, but to place myself nearer to the door. “Where?”
“Around Widow’s Hall. Hovering near the Praeceptor. And I’m not sure if you’ll remember, but we actually met briefly earlier today.”
Around Widow’s Hall.
Those words echo around my mind, dulling the rest of his sentence. I was certain today was his first time here, but if he’s seen me before, he must’ve walked these halls.
He saw me, but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t have—with a face like his, I’d remember.
My gut stirs with unease. I quiet it. “I think I might remember you. You’re . . .” I pretend to be deep in thought. “Oh! You’re that new Honorate, aren’t you?”
He grins. “Yes. Good memory. You’re welcome to call me ‘New Honorate,’ but most people just call me Kaidren.” He pauses, giving me time to chuckle.
I don’t.
He continues. “As you said, I’m new here. This place is overwhelming.”
“Yes.” My thumb traces the tattoo on my wrist. “Widow’s Hall can be unforgiving to strangers.”
His easygoing smile pairs with a few steps in my direction. Combined with the intensity of his stare, it feels more menacing than friendly. “Then let’s not be strangers.”
Kaidren has such a blithe, familiar way of speaking, as though we’ve known each other for years. He probably thinks he’s being charming, but he’s not subtle, and I’m not a fool.
He saw me with Luc and now he’s seeking me out in the middle of the night. It isn’t hard to guess what he’s after: information on the Praeceptor, hidden behind a guise of kindness.
I have no desire to make friends with this slimy creature, but in a game of who can fake the sweetest smiles, I’ll win.
I tilt my head to the side and grin. “I’d like that.”
He moves even closer. Close enough I have to tilt my head—just a bit—to maintain eye contact. “In that case, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Kaidren Vale. Do you have a name, shadow skulker?”
“Remira.”
“Remira what?”
Interesting. He’s seen me around but doesn’t know I share a surname with the Praeceptor. Either that, or he’s pretending. “Just Remira.”
“Well, Just Remira.” When he smiles, his teeth are perfectly straight. It irks me. “I’d like to get to know you better.”
I’m flooded with heat. Kaidren thinks I’ll lower my guard because he has a handsome face, eerily perfect smile, and eyes that look like laughter.
He expects I’ll be a fool. I expect he’ll be sorely disappointed.
“How perfect.” I keep up my fake smile. “I think I’d like to get to know you too.”
“You think?” His words are light and teasing.
“We’ve only just met.” I match his tone. “How should I know if you’re worth it?”
He throws his head back and laughs. “It’s a relief to finally meet someone so . . . friendly here.”
No one in their right mind has ever called me friendly. I keep smiling.
“I haven’t quite found my footing. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.” His head lowers with his voice, as though we’re conspirators in some joint scheme. “What I really want, more than anything, is a friend.”
Another rush of heat with another obvious lie. No one comes to Widow’s Hall looking for friendship.
I keep on smiling.
“Especially a friend who knows how this place operates.” There’s a huskiness coloring his tone. “I fear I blundered today. Apparently, I accidentally breached a rule of decorum.”
Actually, he broke three.
I keep smiling.
“Perhaps we could help each other? I need help navigating these halls and its rules, and you—well, this doesn’t seem like the sort of place that’s kind to the help.”
The help?
My false smile slips. There he goes, dismissing me again. “Is that what I am?”
“Aren’t you?” Kaidren’s eyes drop to my wrist.
Instinctively, I tug down my sleeve, hiding the sun tattoo. The most rancid kind of bitterness settles within me.
Of course.
We’re both Opheran, but he gets to be an Honorate, and I must be the help.
If he knew anything about Widow’s Hall, he’d know that Opherans don’t work here.
The Honorate often hire them to work in their private homes, but here, in the center of Virdeian politics, I am one of a kind.
I’m not here as the help. I’m here as the Praeceptor’s sister.
Kaidren Vale sees none of that. He just sees the tattoo.
Kaidren’s smile softens. He can sense he’s offended me, but grossly misreads how.
He bends, so that I can more clearly read his pity, and more easily picture what it would feel like to throttle him.
“Would you like to know something?” he says.
“I’m Opheran too. I never got a tattoo, though. Wish I had. Yours is stunning.”
Heat. He’s lying again. Either about wishing he got a tattoo or about liking mine. Probably both.
He means to position himself as my ally. Align himself with me, the poor little Opheran girl, against the rest of Widow’s Hall.
Anger swirls painfully within me, but I don’t have the luxury of unleashing it.
I paint my smile back on. It feels sloppy.
More obviously fake. Not that he notices.
His eyes are fixed on my face, but he’s not seeing me.
All he sees is a means to an end. “You’re Opheran?
” I will myself to sound shocked, not hollow. “Wow. And now you’re an Honorate.”
“I hope my new position is a win for people like us.”
What a fascinating and meaningless phrase. There is no “us.” We have nothing in common.
Kaidren’s father claimed him willingly. My father reluctantly took me in as an irksome pet. Kaidren gets to sit on the council of the most powerful men in the Republic. I will never have any more power than I do now as Luc’s shadow—barely seen, never heard.
Kaidren doesn’t even have a damned tattoo. He can float through life pretending to be whatever he wants. He can toss around that part of himself when it suits him—like when he’s making the acquaintance of pitiful Opheran girls skulking in the shadows of Widow’s Hall.
“What do you plan to do for”—I have to pause, swallowing my indignation, before choking the words out—“people like us?”
“Use my position in the Honorate to make Ophera better. More funding, for a start.”
I’m used to lies, and I’m growing ever used to Kaidren’s. Usually, they don’t make me so incensed, but listening to this, my hands round into fists.
Growing up in Ophera, I found it easy to learn my source. My mother was a compulsive liar, and my magic flared just about every time she spoke.
I let them glide off me. Because no matter how often she lied, those rare moments she told the truth—“I love you, Mira”—made up for it.
We barely had food, our house was drafty, and my clothes were thin as parchment, but it was enough for me. Close enough, anyway. At the time, close to enough was all I needed.
I never told her what fueled my magic. She knew I was aikkari, but it seemed cruel to call my own mother a liar—so I didn’t.
I told her I didn’t know my source, and she believed me.
She always did. Together, Aja and I dreamed of our grand escape from Ophera.
“You’re going to get out of here, Mira. That house on the mountain, more food than you know what to do with .
. . you’re going to have it all,” she used to say.
For eight years, she meant it, and it was almost enough for me.
When I was nine, she told me again of the grand life I was going to live someday, and for the first time, her words filled me with fire. Her expression was the same as always. She was smiling and hugging me and she loved me, she loved me, she loved me—
But she didn’t believe anymore.
Losing her broke my heart. When I left Ophera and arrived at the Kylers’, I swore to myself and the stars that I’d do whatever I could for people like Aja.
Opheran dreamers who deserved better. I think of her when I write orders for the Honorate.
When I look in a mirror and see her features reflected in my own.
When I hug my brother and remember what it felt like to be loved without conditions.
Aja and Ophera are forever tucked in a corner of my heart.
Kaidren might be from Ophera, but he doesn’t give a damn about the people who live there. He has no intention of doing as he says. It isn’t surprising, but for him to dangle my home over my head like this . . .
I hate him so much right now, it burns. “It’s nice to finally have someone in the Honorate who wants to improve things.” The smile I’m faking strains my cheeks and my self-control.
“I hope they accept me enough I can actually make a difference.” Kaidren clears his throat. “You seem to have done well, winning the Praeceptor’s favor. Any advice how I can do the same?”
Here come the questions about Luc now that he thinks he’s softened me up. “Just be yourself. People respect sincerity.” I back away and begin gathering my things. “Is that why you came to Widow’s Hall? To endear yourself to the Praeceptor?”
“I’m here to improve the Honorate.”
“Interesting.” I sling my bag over my shoulder. “I’ve never heard of someone coming here without a hidden agenda.”
He chuckles. “Guess I’m the first.”
It’s rare I meet as skilled a liar as myself, but Kaidren lies without so much as a twitch of the eye. If I didn’t hate him, I might be impressed.
“What about you?” he says with a teasing grin. “Do you have a hidden agenda?”
“Me?” I smile sweetly. “I’m just the help. What you see is what you get.”