Chapter 4 #3
"I believe," he said quietly, "that some things refuse to stay buried. And that the people who dig them up usually regret it."
He raised my hand to his lips. The kiss was feather-light, formal, expected. But his eyes never left mine.
"Enjoy the ball, Lady Vane. The night is young. And the palace—" he released me, stepping back, "—has such a long memory."
He turned and walked away, melting into the crowd of officers and admirers, leaving me standing in the center of the floor with my heart racing and my dagger-hand itching.
He suspects. He doesn't know—he can't know—but he suspects something.
I moved toward the edge of the room, needing air, needing space. I found a balcony door half-hidden behind a velvet curtain and slipped through it, gasping the cool night air like a drowning woman breaking the surface.
The balcony overlooked the palace gardens—manicured hedges, Aether-lanterns floating among the roses, a fountain that spilled liquid silver instead of water. Beautiful. Empty. Safe.
Or so I thought.
"Remarkable performance."
The voice came from the shadows at the balcony's far end. A woman's voice, cultured as poisoned honey.
I turned.
She emerged from the darkness like a spider from a web—Lady Morgana Ashford, if the rumors I'd collected were accurate.
Younger than expected, perhaps twenty-five, with hair the color of fresh blood and a gown of emerald velvet that made her look like a predatory plant.
Her face was lovely in the way that knives are lovely: precise, sharp, designed for a purpose.
And her eyes—
Green. Calculating. Familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.
"You dance beautifully with His Highness," she said, moving closer with the fluid grace of a woman who'd never once been denied anything. "Though I must say, your technique is rather... unorthodox."
"Eastern training," I said, recovering my poise, leaning against the balustrade in a posture of careless ease.
"We do things differently in the provinces."
"Do you?" She stopped an arm's length away, close enough that I could smell her perfume—jasmine and something darker, something that reminded me of funeral lilies.
"How fascinating. Because you see, Lady Vane, I knew the Voss family rather well. I grew up in the capital, you see. Attended the same academy as the late Commander Iraia. We were... acquaintances."
Danger. Danger. Danger.
"How tragic for you," I said. "To lose a friend to treason."
"Oh, she wasn't a friend." Morgana smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing I'd seen all night.
"But she had the most remarkable eyes. Grey, like storm clouds. And a scar—" she reached out, her finger hovering an inch from my left eyebrow, "—right here. From a training accident when we were sixteen. She got it defending me, actually. How ironic."
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"Your eyes," Morgana continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, "are exactly the same shade. And while I can't see your brow beneath that charming mask..." She leaned in, close enough that her lips brushed my ear. "I would know that look anywhere. The look of a woman who died angry."
The music inside swelled, a crescendo of strings and celebration.
I smiled at her. The real smile. The one I used to give Marco's enemies in the seconds before I pulled the trigger.
"Then you should know," I whispered back, "that angry women don't stay dead. They just get better at holding grudges."
For a moment, we stared at each other—two predators recognizing the same hunger in opposite mirrors.
Then Morgana laughed. A bright, musical sound that carried back into the ballroom.
"Oh, darling," she said, stepping back, adjusting her gloves. "This is going to be delicious."
She swept past me, back into the light and laughter, leaving me alone on the balcony with the taste of copper in my mouth and the certainty that the game had just changed.
I looked down at the garden, at the silver fountain, at the city beyond the palace walls where Jinx was waiting, where Torvald was watching, where my army of ghosts was slowly assembling.
Three enemies in one night, I thought. The prince who hunts me. The lady who knows me. The general who killed me.
I pulled the mask from my face, letting the night air cool my skin.
Good. Let them look. Let them wonder. Let them lie awake in their silk sheets and wonder if the dead really do walk.
I scaled the balcony railing with the ease of a woman who'd climbed out of too many windows in too many bad situations. The drop was fifteen feet to a garden hedge, then a shadowed path to the east wall, then the river beyond.
Behind me, the ball continued. The king, dying upstairs, probably unaware that his celebration was already rotting from within. The prince, searching the crowd for a woman who'd vanished. The lady, smiling her poison smile and planning her next move.
I hit the ground running, my midnight dress tearing on branches, my heart singing with the wild, terrible joy of being alive when everyone wanted me buried.
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A/N:
The Lady King wasn't crowned yet.
But she'd just crashed her first royal party.
And she was absolutely coming back for more.