Chapter 7 All Business
ALL BUSINESS
ELYRIA
The knot of shadows in Elyria’s chest tightened to the point of near-pain.
“Yes, there is history there,” Tristan said.
“There was. I mean, we all grew up together. Things are bound to transpire. Close quarters and all that. Feelings might have gotten . . . complicated, once or twice.” He adjusted his grip on Elyria’s hand and waist as though bracing for her reaction.
When she gave him none, he continued, “But it’s been a long time since then. Water under the bridge.”
“Is that so?” Elyria asked wryly, jutting her chin in Tenny’s direction. “Does she know that?”
The music crescendoed. Tristan’s face fell. “Ah, well, yes, that. See, that’s why I didn’t particularly think it was a good idea to ask her directly.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Tristan’s head swung from side to side, the knight looking about the room as if searching for someone to help him avoid the awkwardness of this conversation.
“Oh, at one point or another, haven’t we all been very close friends?
You must know what that’s like. You arrived here surrounded with beauty of all shapes and sizes.
I confess, I find myself particularly fascinated with that one.
” Tristan winked before spinning Elyria in the direction of Nox, who was now cloistered off to one side of the room, speaking with Kit.
Elyria’s brow furrowed at the glimpse of concern she spotted on both their faces before Tristan pulled her back.
“I’ve never seen a nocterrian in person before, you know,” he said when she was in front of him once more. “They’re . . . tall.”
The music subsided, the song having finally ended. She extricated herself from Tristan’s grip and joined the room in offering a smattering of applause to the musicians. “You’re rather tolerant for a human, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
Elyria offered him a pointed look.
He chuckled. “Fair enough. I may only have just arrived back in town, but if what I walked in on with Beatrice and Clarissa earlier was any indication of the reception you’ve received thus far, please allow me to apologize on behalf of all Kingshelm.
I fear the attitudes around here do remain a bit medieval. ”
“And I fear you’re almost too good at deflecting, Sir Hale. But I would love to revisit our previous topic of conversation.”
His grin fizzled out. “I . . . I don’t know if I’m equipped to explain the complexities of the situation between Tenny and Ric.”
“Yet you stopped me from asking one of the two people who is.”
“It’s com—”
“—plicated. So you’ve said.” The back of Elyria’s neck prickled again, an energy pulsing in her chest, zipping through her veins. It made her mind feel noisy, her body restless. Like she had forgotten something, or like there was something she was supposed to do. She just didn’t know what.
Tristan grimaced. “But surely you must know that after the Crucible—”
“Never mind,” Elyria said hastily, rubbing her hand over the silky material of her dress as though doing so might silence the noise in her head. “Please, forget I said anything at all. It’s none of my business.”
It is your business, her mind shouted. He is your business.
“It hardly matters,” she finished. Elyria regretted pressing Tristan on the topic, regretted every word they’d exchanged about it. This was idiotic. She had no claim on him. He wasn’t hers.
Something deep inside her protested at that thought. She squashed it before it could blossom into anything more.
Tristan arched a brow but said nothing as the quartet began playing again—a new song, faster, more upbeat.
She needed to move, needed to dance out the restlessness that these unanswered questions had stirred beneath her skin.
So this time, it was Elyria who grabbed Tristan’s hand, pulling him back toward the dance floor, brows lifted in silent question.
Tristan barked a laugh and immediately launched her into a quick spin.
The move drew a grin from Elyria’s lips, and she had to begrudgingly admit that this was rather .
. . fun. The knight moved with a deftness and grace that Elyria didn’t often attribute to humans.
And between the lively music and Tristan’s questions about whether the size of a nocterrian’s horns was indicative of the size of anything else, Elyria was actually enjoying herself.
Enough so that she nearly forgot about the way the back of her neck still prickled and the knot in her chest still pulsed.
“You’re a surprisingly good dancer,” she said, slightly out of breath as the song came to a close.
Tristan’s brow furrowed as they slowed their steps. “Why is that a surprise? Do I not look like a good dancer?”
She smirked. “I think you look like trouble, Sir Hale.”
“Now, that’s the finest compliment I’ve been paid in a long, long while. Though, from what Ric’s told me, it’s perhaps a more appropriate word to describe you.” His grin was bright, beaming. “I suppose we can ask his opinion once he gets here.”
“Once he what?” Elyria was mid-turn, already checking the room for Kit and Nox, to see if they were still conversing and whether she could deduce an inkling of whatever had them so concerned before, when Tristan’s words registered.
When she felt another pulse in her chest, firmer this time, like her shadows were trying to untangle themselves.
The combination caught her off-guard, caused her footsteps to falter, her gait to slip. And suddenly the oh-so-elegant, regal, and supposedly graceful Victor of Nyrundelle was tripping on the hem of her own stars-damned gown, about to fall flat on her ass in the middle of the ballroom.
The reaction was instinctive, her wings materializing on her back in a burst of glimmering light, flaring out to right her faltering feet.
The ballroom was silent as a tomb.
Only for a moment.
Because just as Elyria’s eyes landed on a bemused Kit, the entire room erupted in a frenzy of whispers and titters and gasps that were all entirely too audible for Elyria’s liking.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Tristan’s voice cut through the haze, tinted with awe but still warm, inviting. “Those are . . .” His gaze roamed across Elyria’s purple-and-green wings from tip to tail.
She fought tooth and nail to bury the flush threatening in her cheeks, embarrassment at her lack of control—in more ways than one—roaring in her gut.
“Whoops,” she said with an air of casualness that she hoped Tristan couldn’t tell was entirely fake.
“Wasn’t supposed to show these off tonight.
Where’d Beatrice run off to? She wanted to see them.
” Elyria forced a laugh as she flared her wings wide for effect.
Tristan just continued staring, an expression of near-reverence on his face that she didn’t quite know how to feel about.
Elyria cleared her throat. “Have you never seen fae wings before?”
He finally pulled his eyes back to her face, and Elyria might’ve sworn they looked a bit glassy.
“I have,” he said after a moment. “It’s just .
. . I’m sorry. I’m staring. I’m being an unmitigated ass.
It’s just that while we were dancing, with those hidden from view .
. . It’s so easy to forget that you’re . . .”
“That I’m, what? Fae? Really? This didn’t give it away?” She gestured to her hair. “These didn’t?” With both hands, she tucked her locks behind her ears, fully revealing their starkly pointed tips before disappearing her wings once more with a quick wisp of magic.
The display had another round of gasps surging for a moment, before slowly—too slowly—the room’s chatter began building to a normal cadence again. And thankfully, the excitement from Elyria’s reveal was eventually taken over by food and drink and party-appropriate conversation once more.
She cleared her throat. “You said, ‘once he gets here.’ ”
“Er, yes?”
“Ric—He—My”—she sucked in a breath—“Cedric is coming back to Kingshelm?”
Tristan laughed. “My lady, he is already here.”
The prickle at the back of Elyria’s neck became almost painful. She resisted the sudden urge to whip her head wildly around the room, to automatically start seeking.
What is wrong with you? she scolded herself internally. Calm down.
“He’s somewhere in the palace as we speak,” Tristan continued, and if he noticed the way that Elyria’s breath had stalled in her lungs, he didn’t let on. “Honestly, the right bastard should have been here long before me. I can only imagine what’s been holding him up.”
“I . . . I thought . . .” She shook her head, clearing the haze that was forming, forcing her restless knot of shadows to still. “We had received word that the Victor of Havensreach was on an assignment that took him from the city.”
“And so he was—so we were. We arrived back only hours ago, my lady—”
She held up her hand. “I do believe we moved beyond ‘my lady,’ quite a while ago. Call me Elyria, please.”
Tristan smiled. “We returned for this very celebration, Elyria,” he said pointedly, “at the king’s request and the lord paramount’s rather fervent insistence.”
“I see.”
The band picked up their song again, a slow, romantic melody wafting through the room.
“As I said, he should arrive soon, and personally, I look forward to seeing his face when he realizes you’re here. But while we wait”—he dipped into a bow, extending his hand to Elyria once more—“would you allow me another dance? I promise to keep you upright this time.”
She took his proffered hand, smothering the feeling of—what was it? Joy? Fear? Anticipation?—that stirred beneath her shadows. “That was a one-time occurrence, I’ll have you know.”
“But of course.”
“I am a very good dancer,” she said.
Tristan grinned. “I never doubted it for a second. One might even say you’re dangerously good.”
“Very funny,” she said, but she was indeed laughing as she said it. “I’ll have you know that—”
Her breath caught.
Because that’s when she felt it.
The unfurling of that tight knot of shadow behind her ribs.
The prickle on the back of her neck intensified, shifting into something physical, visceral, running down her spine and into her chest. A pang. A pull.
A tug.
Elyria couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her lips, her fingers tightening around Tristan’s hand reflexively—hard enough to make him flinch.
“Steady there,” he muttered, but Elyria barely heard him.
She was already turning, knowing beyond a doubt what she would find.
Who she would find.