Chapter
KAELAN CIRCLED THE ROOM, running his fingers along the dark wood furniture, gazing at the bronze sconces and cut-crystal globes, drawing back the shimmery gray curtains to peer out over the balcony and the wall beyond.
His feet fell heavily on the wood floors, polished to a glass-like shine, as he prowled.
Magda dropped onto the silken bed clothes covering the grand four-poster bed, staring into the cold shadows of the fireplace.
“There’s only one bed,” he said. “Maybe you want to tie me to this chair while you sleep.”
He leaned his forearms upon the high-back chair, upholstered in dark purple. The whole room, though well-lit and huge, with high ceilings and pale violet-hued walls, felt too-close, confining.
“Are you ever going to drop it?” she asked, unfastening her greaves and then her boots, kicking them off.
He sank down into the chair. “Now what?”
“Now we get ready for the party,” she said. “Your mother is sending my letter of intent to the Crown. Hopefully, we’ll hear back soon.”
“Can we talk here?” he asked.
She shook her head firmly. Any number of magics could have been performed on the room to eavesdrop on them, but she said, “Of course.”
He slumped back in the chair. “I don’t see anywhere for you to train.”
“I could train in the field,” she said, raising her eyebrows in a way that she hoped he understood. The last thing they needed was the family to see how terribly out-of-practice she was.
He picked listlessly at his fine, fitted trousers. “I’m worried for you.”
She shot him a stern look as she loosened her vambraces. “What’s to worry about? The Crown will see I have the better claim and name me Radiant.”
“Or else you will meet Lavana and kill her, of course,” he said, his tone strong, but his eyes troubled.
“Of course,” she said, sliding off the bronze vambraces from her forearms, over her daggers. She met his gaze, attempting to impart to him that worrying wasn’t going to help.
He slid forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s only that . . . I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
While it would’ve been easy to slough off his remark as part of the play they were being forced to take part in, the expression on his face told her that his concern was genuine.
“I know,” she said, unbuckling her pauldrons. She stood. “Come help me.”
He joined her at the foot of the bed, lifting her pauldrons away and then her breast and back plates. As he placed them on the bed, she stretched her neck.
“Meer told me there’s a bath waiting in there,” she said, pointing towards the other set of dark wood doors. “And she’ll be bringing our clothes for the party. I’ve asked Honey to attend to you throughout. She understands.”
For half a second, his silver eyes glimmered green.
“You should send the nymph home. She doesn’t belong here.”
“She’s a willing servant. And a nymph attendant is quite rare and desirable. You should be glad that she wishes to repay me in this way, to help us.”
“I shall be glad when all of this is over,” he said through tight lips.
“That makes two of us.” She started across the room towards the bath doors. “Try to rest. If you wish to summon Meer, simply call for her. She’ll come.”
He watched her. “I know how to call a brownie.”
She stopped at the doors, hand resting on the silver handle. “I’m sure you do. But the only brownie I want in this room is Meer. Don’t let any of the others in.”
His eyes narrowed, but he inclined his head, just slightly.
Kaelan readied himself in the bathroom as the day waned.
The light seeping around the curtains faded to whispers.
Meer zipped around Magda, readying her for the evening. Magda frowned at the clothes.
A shining silver-leaf scale corset, both delicate and imposing.
Her upper arms left exposed, a sleeveless white cloak trailed down to the ground behind her, fastened across her hip asymmetrically, over skin-tight white silk trousers.
Pixie-cloth boots threaded in silver criss-crossed above her knees.
The Enneahedron was secured in a pocket under her waistband, pressing against the soft spot of her hip.
Meer ceased her near-invisible racing about and stood back from Magda. “What do you think?”
She held out her arms. The elegant vambraces were silver as well. “Who paid?”
“Your Aunt is quite generous.”
She wondered just how much of her mother’s stolen treasure had gone into this ridiculous outfit. But she’d had to trust Flor with the funds, as it would arouse less suspicion.
Kaelan opened the bathroom doors. In a long black coat, black trousers, and silver vest, he was every inch a Prince.
They regarded each other for a moment.
“We certainly look our parts, don’t we?” she said.
“One last thing.” Meer flashed away and then was back in her spot a moment later.
Magda reached up and touched the cool curves of the cornet, which fitted snug to her head, two fine fingers of metal curving over her ears and up to the mid-point of her eyebrows, another interwoven section dipping low to the middle of her forehead.
She plucked the hank of her hair out from under it, allowing it to fall over her cheek.
Meer scowled, folding her arms.
She smiled and then turned to Kaelan. “Ready?”
He joined her, standing at her side.
“Meer?” she said. “The doors?”
The brownie vanished.
She edged slightly before Kaelan, nudging him with her shoulder so he inched back. When he was in the proper place, she raised an eyebrow at him.
“You need not feel obliged to stay by my side the entire night,” she said with an imperious air. “But don’t go too far.”
“I have no wish to be anywhere else,” he said.
Down three flights of stairs, out across the terrace, over the bridge, to the garden gate where they met Honey, Damion, Flor, and Toryn.
In the field beyond, a troupe of troubadours recounted the tales that Flor had fabricated about Magda’s return to the Lands, trading off every other line to whomever would give the sentiment its greatest impact, from the soaring soprano pitched high at the heights of fighting the manticore, to the bass when the mysterious Prince Kaelan died.
Back and forth the voices bandied as precursor to her entrance.
Flor and Toryn stood before her, partially blocking her view. Flickers of fairies flitted above a sea of glittering, noble Pixie faces.
Kaelan’s hand touched the back of her neck.
A soothing wave slipped under her skin, calming the prickles of anxiety and then pulling forth a firm surge of confidence from deep within her.
Unsettled as she’d been by his ability to quell her in this way, as the threat of panicked sweat evaporated, she was grateful.
She gave him a small smile over her shoulder.
His fingers pressed a bit deeper and then slid away.
“And then upon the back of the great lion-semargl she returned,” the female tenor cried, with breathless awe that rang across the field, as though she were witnessing Gur emerging from the river of stars above, “the exiled daughter of our great departed Radiant, Vivanna, the Silver Star of Morning, come home to seize her claim.”
Flor and Toryn stepped aside.
With a deep breath, Magda stepped forward, through the gate to the curious, keen stares and an exuberant applause.
Deep in the heart of the crowd, she sighted Lavana’s flashing aquamarine eyes, framed by coils of black hair trailing over her own silver coronet.
Behind her, Riker, looking guiltily uncomfortable.
Lavana raised a perfectly arched brow and a silver goblet at Magda, a smile playing over her ruby lips.
Magda returned Lavana’s smile with a deadly one of her own and dropped into a low curtsy for the family.
The troubadours stepped into the crowd, breaking into a victory song that brought smiles to everyone’s faces.
The elders came forward to greet her again. Soon, she was in the thick of the game of fanged smiles and slantwise compliments.
Kaelan kept his hand on her waist, though many attempted to pull him away, he refused to be moved.
Old friends broke from the throngs of the crowd, expectant.
When Magda couldn’t murmur their names to him, Honey stood up on her toes and whispered in his ear, as though attempting to woo him.
Yet, because of her and the mystery voice, Kaelan never failed to know a name or recall some minute detail about the old acquaintances who stepped forward to embrace or scrutinize him.
Damion circled through the crowd, never straying too far out of sight, scowling at everyone as a warrior was privileged to do.
“I wouldn’t have believed it unless I was seeing it,” a silken smooth voice slid in as some distant cousins stepped aside.
A tall, sharp-faced young man with gleaming green eyes, like tender spring shoots encased in ice, emerged from the crowd.
The straight width of his shoulders seemed to slice the air around him.
On his fine vest, icy blue, gold threaded, were the twisting vines of the mountain orchid—the symbol of the Spire.
“Zuriel,” she said, forcing his gaze to her. “It’s been a very long time.”
His nose twitched a bit and her smile broadened, showing teeth.
Kaelan reached out and grasped Zuriel’s upper arms in a gesture of friendship.
Zuriel stiffened.
“Ivy-man,” Kaelan said with a charming smile that caught even Magda off-guard.
“I owe you, as much as anyone, a great apology. I wish I could have warned you that day. I can only imagine how distressing it must have been to see me fall, to think me dead.” He clasped Zuriel’s stiff shoulder and leaned in.
“But I had to submit to the wishes of my mistress, I know you understand. I can only hope you will forgive me for whatever tribulation I caused you that day.”
Zuriel’s gaze swept up and down Kaelan’s face—Caden’s face—obviously searching for any sign of deception.
“You appeared very dead,” Zuriel said coolly.