Chapter 28
XXVIII.
DANTE
He had been monitoring the evening's conversations with half his attention while conducting his own inventory of loyalties and potential threats.
From the head table, he'd caught subtle exchanges between senior courtiers.
Glances when certain topics arose, shifts in body language that suggested pre-arranged signals.
Someone was organizing dissent. The question was whether it was connected to the ward sabotage or represented separate political maneuvering.
Lady Morwyn's words carried across the hall, rising to ensure everyone could hear. The attack was public, meant to put the mortal in her place. To remind everyone, especially him, of the vast distance between a temporary tribute and someone who belonged.
Unacceptable.
The temperature had dropped before he decided to act. His shadows responded to the fury behind his control, spreading across the floor.
Tool. Replaceable. Doesn't belong among your betters.
He'd seen the thief's hands clench beneath the table, seen the flash of humiliation quickly masked. Seen her hold her ground against someone far older. The intelligence that had immediately grasped the stakes, the control that had kept her responses even.
He saw far too clearly how those words had cut deeper than a simple insult warranted.
He rose from his chair, the movement creating a ripple of awareness throughout the hall. Conversations stopped entirely as every person present became hyperaware of his displeasure.
They should be afraid.
"Lady Morwyn." He didn't raise his tone. Didn't need to. The shadows carried his words with clarity. "How fascinating to hear your theories on competence."
She turned toward him, confidence melting into a respectful bow of her head. But he caught the flash of satisfaction in her eyes. She'd succeeded in drawing his public attention, forcing his hand. Even if not in the way she'd intended, she'd made him react.
Clever. Foolish, but clever.
"Lord Reaper," she said, violet eyes downcast in a performance of submission. "I was merely expressing concern for the realm's stability."
The lie was elegantly delivered. She cared nothing for realm stability. This was about influence, the ages-old game she'd been playing since long before the thief arrived.
He moved from the head table. His shadows flowed ahead of him, parting the space between the seating, making courtiers lean back instinctively. He walked directly to where Lady Morwyn stood beside the thief's chair—standing over her, claiming that space.
Claiming what she'd tried to dismiss.
"Your concern," he said, "is noted. As is your complete lack of contribution to resolving the crisis you claim to care about so deeply."
Lady Morwyn's composure cracked slightly at the edges. The faintest tightening around her eyes, the minute stiffening of her spine. She hadn't expected him to turn her assault back on her so directly.
She should have.
"In fact, your primary qualification appears to be an impressive catalog of failures disguised as experience.
" He let that verdict settle over them like frost. Other courtiers shifted uncomfortably, recognizing the implicit threat.
If he could dismiss decades of service this easily, none of them were safe.
"Tell me, in your centuries of theoretical expertise, how many ward-locks have you personally prevented from collapsing? "
The trap was set and sprung simultaneously. Every person in the hall understood what he'd done. Forced her to admit her uselessness in front of everyone.
Her face went blank as she processed the reversal. "My experience has been more advisory in nature," she managed, strained.
"Advisory." He let the word hang in the air like a death sentence. Let them all hear the contempt in it. "How fortunate, then, that we have someone present who deals in results rather than advice."
The thief had remained still throughout the exchange, unreadable, but her posture suggested readiness. Poised to move if necessary. She grasped the game being played—when to hold, and when to let him handle the threat.
Smart girl. Knows when to let the Reaper defend his territory.
"You look tired." The dismissal was calculated, giving her an excuse to leave with dignity intact. Removing her from the line of fire while showing he'd chosen to do so.
She rose immediately, reading both the dismissal and the protection it offered—her quick intelligence reading between his words.
"Thank you for the enlightening conversation, Lady Morwyn," the thief said with a politeness that somehow sounded condescending.
He caught the flash of rage in Morwyn's eyes before she masked it. Let her be angry. Let her understand what happened when someone targeted what was under his protection.
The territorial claim in that thought surprised him less than it should have.
As the thief moved to stand beside him, close enough that he could feel her warmth, Dante let his gaze sweep the hall once more. The message was clear to everyone present: those who targeted her would be treated as if they had targeted him.
"Master Magnus," he said, addressing his examiner without breaking eye contact with the assembled gathering. "Ensure our court remembers their manners."
The dismissal was unmistakable. The entertainment was over. Anyone who continued this line of challenge would face him directly.
It was done.
As they moved toward the hall's exit, he noted that the thief matched his pace without hurrying, never rushing, never fleeing. She grasped the importance of maintaining a composed facade.
She learns fast. Too fast, maybe.
The corridor offered relative privacy, though ears could still be listening.
Servants had excellent hearing when gossip was valuable.
Without speaking, he guided her toward the west alcove with a subtle gesture.
There were fewer potential eavesdroppers, and the architecture provided natural sound dampening.
Once they reached the alcove's shadows, she began to pace within the space, arms crossed tightly across her chest. Holding herself together through sheer will.
Her frustration was evident as she glanced out at the courtyard through the tall windows.
Beyond the glass, dark stone pathways and silver fountains intertwined beneath the eternal twilight, a stark contrast to the storm clearly brewing inside her.
He recognized the signs. Adrenaline crash after confrontation, rage, and humiliation held in check until privacy allowed release.
She was quiet for a long moment before finally speaking, and when she did, her words were controlled but laced with anger. "That was more than just politics."
"Yes." No point in pretending otherwise. She was too intelligent for comfortable lies.
"She wasn't just questioning my competence. She was questioning whether you're compromised by working with me." Her analysis cut straight to the point, her eyes narrowing as she stopped to face him. "Personal."
He studied her, noting the way her jaw clenched with suppressed emotion. "Your assessment?"
"She sees me as a threat. Not just professionally, but personally as well." Her arms dropped to her sides, hands forming fists, then flexing as if trying to release the frustration bottled inside her. "The question is how far she'll escalate."
Correct analysis. Morwyn had been circling for decades, building her claim through proximity and expectation. The thief's arrival and his clear favor toward her had disrupted long-laid plans.
Dangerous combination: wounded pride and thwarted ambition.
"She won't get the opportunity."
Something in his tone made her stop pacing and look at him directly.
"What does that mean?"
He found himself studying her. Seeing the emotion that hadn't been visible during the hall confrontation, the way she'd held her ground.
The vulnerability she was showing him now, in private, that she'd never show them.
"It means challenging you was a mistake she won't make again."
The words came out more definitive than he'd intended. More possessive.
She was quiet for a moment, her gaze searching his with unsettling intensity, looking for something. The faint tremor in her fingers betrayed the calm she was trying to project.
"I had it handled," she said, and the determination was genuine. Fierce. She believed it.
"I know." It was the truth. He'd seen her dismantling of the previous challenger, watched her identify weaknesses and exploit them. She could have handled Morwyn too, given time. "But you shouldn't have to."
The words surprised him even as he said them. Her comfort had become more important than politics. Protecting her from assault had become instinctive rather than strategic.
He'd started thinking of her as his to protect.
She looked up at him, her expression softening as the anger melted away, replaced by something that tightened his chest. Vulnerability. Trust. Something dangerously close to affection.
His shadows stirred restlessly, wanting to reach for her. He held them back through the effort of will.
"We should turn in," he said finally, forcing practicality into his tone. "Tomorrow brings another crisis."
Another ward failure, another desperate repair, another opportunity for her to get herself killed while he tried to work and protect her simultaneously.
She nodded, but neither of them moved immediately toward the corridor. The space between them felt charged, heavy with things unspoken.
"Dante," she said, using his name again instead of his title. Softer now, more intimate.
The sound of his name in her mouth affected him in ways he wouldn't name.
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you intervened tonight."
He looked at her, noting how the starlight through the windows caught in her eyes, turning green to emerald.
How the midnight blue silk he'd chosen draped perfectly, moving with her.
How the anger had given way to confidence.
A stark contrast to the uncertainty Lady Morwyn had tried to provoke.
How she stood here in his alcove, alone with the Reaper, and showed no fear.
Showed trust instead.
Dangerous.
Her expression shifted. Her pulse jumped visibly at her throat. Her lips parted slightly as her breath quickened.
His shadows stirred without his permission, reaching toward her before he caught them.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor.
He stepped back, realizing he'd somehow moved closer without meaning to. Only inches had separated them.
"Tomorrow," he said, rougher than intended.
"Tomorrow," she agreed, and the way she said it sounded less like acknowledgment and more like a promise.