Six Goblets #3
“When you’re king, you can do anything you wish, especially when it comes to us,” Esme said with a thread of sadness in her voice. “I’m going to go—”
“To save Daphna?” Bal cut her off. “I’ll come, too. Those bastards look greasier than pig fat.”
Esme was stunned. Bal looked truly bothered by the fact that Daphna was being flashed around. He didn’t like that they were uncomfortable. He cared about them at all. Esme wondered if he might even be able to understand Daphna how other Micreans refused to.
It made her heart squeeze. She was definitely doing the right thing.
Esme pressed her grin flat and placed a quick hand to his chest. “Thank you,” she said. If she could have gotten away with kissing his cheek, she would have, but instead she grabbed his hand and pulled him over to where Daphna was itching out of their skin.
Esme broke through the wall of sweaty men and wrapped a protective arm around Daphna before pushing them towards Bal. “Daphna, Balthazar—Heir of Iron—wishes to meet you.”
Daphna, knowing exactly what was happening, glided to him and curtsied. “General,” they said, sweetening their voice.
“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” Bal replied, then performed the noble charade of bowing and kissing their hand. The lords behind him scoffed.
“What I wouldn’t give to be you, Bally-boy,” said one lord with his three strands of hair combed over the barren expanse of his head.
Oh, Bal hated that, Esme saw; his hand twitched for his sword as if uttering the nickname was a crime deserving death.
The lord looked Esme and Daphna up and down, and Esme’s skin crawled.
“It is an honor to be here,” Bal said exhaustedly, holding his hand out to Esme. “Come now, let us be off.” He practically pulled her back to him before leading them away from the worst semicircle ever.
“Thank you, General,” Daphna sighed, leaning their head on Esme’s left shoulder while Bal clung to her right.
“You looked like you would have rather eaten a knife than spend one more second with them,” Bal said, smiling across at Daphna, but there was no charm in it.
“I would have. Two knives, even,” they said. “Valos and Virya, I am throwing these shoes into the Wyvern when this is over.”
Esme slipped an arm up and under them, taking on half their weight easily. “No, you will not. They are cute. Give them to me.”
“They’re too small even for me. You’d have to remove your toes.”
Esme lifted Daphna’s skirt to look at the ruby-and-gold shoes. “Might be worth it.”
Daphna rolled their eyes but looked at Bal past Esme’s shoulder. Their eyes started at the top of his head and worked down to the tips of his boots. “It was your father, wasn’t it?” they asked, squinting at him.
“What do you mean?” he asked. His voice was different when he spoke to them. Where was the richness with which he spoke to Esme, or the sweet smile?
“You’re not entirely Micrean,” Daphna said. “I’m surprised some lady hasn’t thrown herself on you, asking you to call her beautiful in your native tongue.”
Bal stood up a bit straighter. “You’re right. My father was a sailor. He was probably from Uhmer.”
“Probably?” Esme asked.
Bal shrugged. “I never met the man,” he said, wearing that tiny, intoxicating smile again, just for her.
“I only ever had a mother, but she didn’t get to tell me about him.
It’s just a guess, based on my skin and hair.
Besides, it is good not to be so pale in my line of work.
The sun bites, but the darker I am, the shallower its teeth. ”
Esme smiled at his floweriness. He just didn’t like sunburn. “What about your mother?” she asked.
Bal paled and blinked rapidly before swallowing whatever deluge of emotions threatened him just then. “Micrean. I remember her being blonde, but she died when I was young. I don’t know much else.” He shook his head. “I hope I look like her a little bit, too.”
“What was her name?” Esme asked, leaning a little closer. Daphna pinched her back, likely making fun of her for the dreamy look in her eyes, but Esme didn’t care.
“Miranda.” He said the name with such love.
“We have the same birthmark.” He steered them to the side and pulled down his shirt to reveal a small brown splotch on his right collarbone.
“I only remember because when I’d hug her, that’s where my face would always be.
” His smile was a ghost, half fond, half haunted.
“I’m sorry she died so young,” Esme said, squeezing his arm again.
“It’s all right. I had Darius and Maranna, practically a father and a sister.
I barely went a day unloved.” He squeezed her back, but his answer was quick, practiced, and he moved the conversation on.
“Darius even found us in the same village. The Scourge was marching to the Lake and he found us in the rain and just decided to take us. Didn’t even bother telling anyone.
Mar seemed about a year older, so she got sword training before me.
I was so jealous, I hated her for the whole year until I started, too. ”
“Did you fight in that coup?” Esme asked.
“Of course not,” Bal scoffed, shoulders tight. “Darius never let us see battle. None of the kids fight.” His face dropped the second he realized he’d let it slip.
Esme snatched the bait. “How many kids is that?”
“Just the few orphans left from the coup. He took many of them into the army. Some still live with us,” he lied easily.
Silence dripped between them, and Bal made no move to suggest he’d give up any more than he already had.
Esme wondered whether he understood that she saw through him and simply refused to budge or if he truly thought she hadn’t found out yet.
Either way, she wasn’t going to tip her hand, and he most certainly wasn’t tipping his.
Esme glanced across the room again. Mak’kon sulked in the corner, but now his shirt was open. He clenched his fists like he was battling the Bond, and Esme’s eyes fell to his throat.
Her blood ran cold. There was something scrawled into his skin.
Another spell.
Esme pulled away from Bal to investigate, but the shifting crowd pushed her back. Then the doors to the banquet hall swept open, revealing Janos and Urias standing at the mouth of the room. And both had a new spell carved into their throats.
Janos had never been read the original one, but a quartet of lines in Micrean bled fresh on his skin.
Urias’s new wounds spilled blood down his already red shirt.
His eyes found hers immediately, then flicked behind her, up to Isobel, who was pinning her collar closed around her chin.
Esme was fairly certain Janos knew nothing about Magic.
Urias was well versed in it, but very rightly feared it.
Mak’kon may have been a lovesick idiot, but he was no fool.
That left only one fearless dumbass.
Isobel had unleashed a new spell.
“Is that the will on his throat?” Daphna hissed.
Esme shook her head. “Too short.” She let go of Daphna and disappeared through the crowd. She could practically hear her plans shattering over the curious chatter of the crowd. She needed to know what that spell said right now.
Esme pushed up to Urias, staring him straight in the throat. “How?” she demanded. The wound was too inflamed to read, even from a foot away.
“Not now,” Urias said almost silently. His eyes were ringed with red and he squeezed her arms like he could will her into silence. “Tonight.”
Esme gritted her teeth. They didn’t have until tonight. Janos would hopefully be dead in less than an hour, and she needed to know what that spell said now. It could undo every bit of planning she’d already done. “We don’t—”
“Hello, Janos.”
Esme and Urias snapped from their conversation to where Bal and Janos were standing but three feet from each other. The air was thick and acrid between them, despite the smiles on their faces.
“General,” Janos said, eyes low. “Lovely night.”
Bal’s lips curled. It wasn’t a smile, more a twisting clamp to keep the hatred from spewing out of his mouth. “It is, Your Highness,” he replied. His voice was deep, almost sultry, yet it ran down Esme’s spine like the tip of a knife. He offered Janos his hand.
“Prince Janos.” The prince slapped his hand on Bal’s, and the second he did, Bal yanked them together. Esme gasped, half expecting Bal to bury a blade in Janos’s chest.
But Bal patted the stunned Prince’s back, chuckling warmly. Anyone else would think him an uncultured but well-meaning southerner. Only Esme and Urias were close enough to notice how he tucked his mouth into Janos’s shoulder and said, “I know what you are.”
The voice was far from sounding like Bal.
Far from the kind general with his army of children.
Far from the man with his mother’s birthmark who hoped he had her eyes.
This man was vile and slippery and begging for blood.
His arms flexed around Janos like he might crush his ribcage, and surely he had the strength for it.
Every muscle in his arms tensed—a threat.
No, the man who looked like he’d take no higher pleasure than garroting Janos right here on the floor was Balthazar.
Bal pulled back, giving Janos a grin and stepping away from him. “I look forward to our competition, Janos. Sorry about the…” He gestured to the mess of smeared blood and seared skin on Janos’s neck with a smarmy pout. “You know.”
The prince’s eyes darted around Bal’s face, searching for the feral beast who’d just growled in his ear. “It’s n-nothing,” Janos stuttered over whatever he couldn’t say. Bal’s hands still clamped him in place, and he looked like he didn’t have the strength to move.
“That’s a good way to think of it,” Bal said, slapping Janos’s arm. “Looks so short on you.” So Bal noticed it, too.
Janos finally snapped out of Bal’s trance to look over his shoulder to the podium where Isobel sat, watching the scene with icy eyes, Mak’kon standing by her feet. All that panic fell from the prince’s face in an instant, and he rolled his shoulders back.