38. Chapter 38 #2
Camrick pushed open the great doors, and the first thing I saw was that the dais had been rearranged. Where there had been one long table facing the hall, there were now two—angled toward each other to allow for easier conversation. On the far side sat a group of robed men.
My gaze moved across them as fear settled into my bones.
Most wore black. Thibault was in white at the end, hands folded, eyes already on me.
At the center was a man with plain features in striking purple trimmed with gold.
His posture suggested he’d been born expecting to be watched, even if nothing about his appearance made him look like he deserved the attention.
This had to be Vaustin.
Reina was there, seated with a stiff demeanor that suggested she already wished she hadn’t come. Richart stood behind her left shoulder, looking as tense as I’d ever seen him. There was an empty seat where Berian should’ve been, conspicuous as a missing front tooth.
Owain sat at the center opposite the man in purple robes. One look at his face told me everything about the temperature of the table. His jaw was clenched tight, spine too rigid to be comfortable. Wound tight enough to snap.
Just get it over with and finally admit to yourself that you want him.
I had to cover a scowl.
Fine. I want to hold his hand and sit far too close to him for propriety. Happy, heart?
Except my senses became all too aware of the mood of the hall as we moved through it.
The relaxed atmosphere I recalled from our shared luncheon was now one of wariness.
I wondered if I was imagining it until I observed the warriors’ frequent glances toward Owain.
They were reading him like the weather—one flash of lightning and the storm of steel would rage.
My palms began to sweat. The rending magic I’d been quietly suppressing since the doors opened prickled along my forearms like fire looking for something to consume.
Unhelpful, I told it firmly.
I also noticed, gradually and with growing unease, that the men seated by the aisle were dipping their chins in a sort of salute as I walked by. It wasn’t for Camrick, as I’d expected, because each of them met my eyes briefly before looking away.
Reina had said my reputation as a powerful mage would spread, but the Assembly’s arrival for me had clearly taken the rumors to new heights.
The loud thumping of my heart echoed in my ears. Sweat was pooling beneath my borrowed silk by the time we reached the dais steps. I was suddenly profoundly grateful that Camrick’s arm was still under my hand, because without it, I might’ve simply stopped walking.
I approached, and the scrape of every mage’s chair as they rose in near-perfect unison cut through the hall’s noise like a blade being loosed from a scabbard. Had they practiced that? Or was it simply the result of foul men spending excessive time in tight quarters with each other?
The warriors went still and ready behind me.
The man in purple came forward first. He was younger than expected, narrow through the shoulders, with a close-trimmed beard and eyes the color of pond scum. His smile appeared stiff and unnatural up close. The look in his eyes catalogued me with too much and yet not enough interest all at once.
I shivered.
“My lady Lunette.” His voice carried all the authority his presence tried to. Except he was so small next to Owain, it was hard to be impressed. “I am Vaustin Maeron, Keeper of the Assembly’s Conclave. It is a genuine pleasure to meet you.”
Hound.
His nasal voice grated my nerves even more than his aura, which seemed to press in from all sides. He introduced the others. I heard their names, but they moved through my mind like water through open fingers, each gone as the next arrived.
A servant pulled out my chair. She judges the space, you fall with grace, went through my mind as I tried to focus on Owain on my right and Reina to my left. Camrick was situated just on the other side of Owain.
The moment I settled into my chair, I realized how much last night had changed. Facing a row of mages should’ve unsettled me, but it was easier to hold myself steady, to sit tall, with Owain’s warmth something I could reach for just inches away.
The conversation began diplomatically. Vaustin had a gift for careful pleasantries laced with just enough inspection behind them to almost go unnoticed. Reina did a fine job of keeping him tangled up in conversation. I wanted to walk over and hug her for it.
The other mages were less adept at subtlety.
“Your family—your parents were both healers, I understand?” one of the black-robed mages asked conversationally while reaching for his wine.
“No,” I said. “Only my father was.”
“And siblings? Extended family still in—forgive me, where was it you said you were from?”
I had not said. “A small village.” I smiled pleasantly, ignoring the question about my siblings. “Very small.”
I would keep my mouth shut about the clusters of Fae-blooded families spread throughout the borderlands. I knew what happened to them when the Assembly decided they were worth examining more closely. Entire families had disappeared after a visit from men in matching black robes.
“You know,” one mage confided, leaning in conspiratorially, his tone inviting a reciprocal disclosure, “my cousin has a touch of Fae blood. Such heritage is exceptionally valuable. And you have it in abundance.”
The way he examined my ears made me want to claw his eyes out. And apparently, I wasn’t the only one made uncomfortable by this comment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw several of the closest warriors—Richart included—flinch toward their weapons.
“How lovely for him,” I remarked, trying to convey that I preferred not to extend our chat.
Through it all, Vaustin’s eyes kept straying to me with an intensity that made me feel pinned to my chair. He wasn’t using his silencing magic on me, but his oppressive aura felt like a hand testing a door again and again to see if it would open. Every few minutes, it probed a little further.
Owain saved me from the next question. By the gods, I wanted to crawl into his lap, to feel his warmth directly. But of course, I couldn’t. All I could do was push my food around my plate and pretend to eat.
“Gentlemen.” His voice remained at its usual volume, yet the table quieted around it.
He set his goblet down with a small, precise move that seemed practiced.
“You didn’t travel this distance to examine her family history.
You came to examine her magic.” There was a dry, deliberate undertone to his words now.
“Shall we not waste each other’s time pretending otherwise? ”
Vaustin had the beginnings of a scowl but smoothed his expression into something polished. “Prince Regent, we are simply—”
“You are fishing,” Reina interrupted pleasantly, “and the fish has noticed.”
“Apologies, Duchess.” Vaustin inclined his head with the grace of a man accepting a minor loss in a longer game.
The silence that followed had the edge of steel and magic.
Thibault was the first to recover. He pressed a hand briefly to his chest. “They are also here to extend their most sincere condolences to the entire kingdom for the loss of Queen Theresa.”
A chorus of agreement, hushed and measured, rose from the mages.
Owain, impossibly, tensed further. Seeing his genuine affection for his sister-in-law used to manipulate the conversation made rending magic spark at my fingertips.
I reached beneath the table and squeezed his leg gently—there and gone, small enough to be nothing, large enough to say I’m here. The change in him was immediate. His jaw loosened just a touch, and his shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly.
But before my hand could rest in my own lap again, a tendril of shadow wrapped gently around my wrist, gently nudging my fingers open. I gave in, and Owain’s warm palm slipped in to replace the magic.
I became abruptly, inconveniently aware of every point of contact between us. Despite my ever-present feeling of being a fish out of water, and despite everything we were trying to conceal, being with him felt perfectly right.
With his hand in mine, I could be vulnerable. My fear no longer had to wear a mask of anger to help me survive. I wasn’t doing this completely alone any longer.
“We have the right, as the arbiters of magic—” Vaustin began, but Reina cut him off.
“Self-proclaimed arbiters,” she said brusquely.
The visible effort Vaustin used to keep his eyes from narrowing almost made me laugh. Damn my ridiculous sense of humor.
“Duchess.” That one word was two complete sentences layered on top of one another. At the top was a concession, but below that was the most delicate of brush-offs.
He continued, “As you said, we are here to examine Lady Lunette so that we might determine if she is a risk.”
Owain’s gaze slowly swiveled to him. Vaustin’s throat worked as the pressure of his violent attention finally registered.
I squeezed Owain’s hand hard under the table.
We expected this.
I was still here. He didn’t have to fight.
But he kept staring the hunter down—eyes black as storm clouds—like he was about to turn Vaustin into another bisected bouquet. So I sent a wave of soothing heat through our contact, the same way I might soothe a patient. Only this time, I didn’t pretend it wasn’t personal.