Chapter 10
CHAPTER
Azrian
The greatest blessing of his first blood vow had been its haste, with no spectacle, no lengthy courtship, no time for dread to fester. The second, it seemed, would not grant Azrian the same favor.
He waited at the mouth of Cascade Park’s arcade, where the Velnar separated the Gilt Quarter’s orderly splendor from the Commercial Terraces’ busy din. Sunlight fractured through honey-colored limestone arches, rippling across the veined marble at his feet.
He was accustomed to arriving early, though it meant he had to suffer the attentions of the gathered Gilt while he waited.
Azrian ignored their whispers. Instead, he took up his post beneath the highest arch, spine rigid and arms folded behind his back, the picture of the discipline he’d spent a decade crafting.
He checked his timepiece—an heirloom, battered and precise, one of the few things from his first life that had not been stripped away. Twelve bells. The moment had arrived, and so had they.
The Duchess of Braythar moved with the deliberate grandeur of a woman born to command. Miss Almarien kept pace beside the Duchess, but with the rigid, stubborn strength of a willow forced to grow, straight and unyielding, among oaks.
Azrian met her eyes. Clear blue and steady, entirely lacking the fear or deference he’d come to expect from others in the Gilt. Instead, they held something far more dangerous.
Judgment. As if she had already tallied his worth and found it lacking, and did not care if he noticed.
He should have looked away. Instead, he catalogued each act of defiance: her hair loose about her shoulders, snubbing the Gilt’s favor of elaborate updos; waves of dark gold framing a long neck patterned with freckles, openly displayed by the sleeveless, square-cut gown.
No powder, no paint, nothing to hide what the Gilt would call a flaw.
Protocol demanded he greet the Duchess first, so he bowed. “Your Grace.”
Lady Delarine gave a brisk nod. She cut her gaze toward Miss Almarien.
Her gown poured over her like the current of a woodland stream, grape-colored silk clinging and slipping across her frame, accentuating her long lines and angles. It bordered on scandalous, how the dress refused to soften or disguise a figure too willowing, too unbending for Gilt pleasure.
She was nothing polite society wished women to be, which made her not merely strange but dangerous to a system built on predictable docility.
“Lord Vaelros.” Her voice scraped like dry velvet across stone. “I see the Emperor released his favorite hound from his cage. How novel to encounter you in broad daylight.”
There was something momentous in the cadence of her speech, like waves crashing against rocks. Not soft, not trailing, not local.
Azrian knew the feeling.
Her mouth betrayed what her neutrally civil expression sought to conceal. Full-lipped and expressive, it commanded his attention like a misplaced brushstroke on an otherwise blank canvas.
“Miss Almarien.” He bowed. “I see your new circumstances haven’t improved your manners.”
She looked at him, sharp and unblinking, undoubtedly counting his weaknesses the same way he counted hers. Once, he would have said she’d find none. He was less sure now.
“And you, my lord, are as cruel as ever.” She smoothed the skirt of her dress. “How predictable to find exactly what I expected beneath the formal attire.”
Lady Delarine’s eyebrows rose, the only indication of surprise at the open hostility. “Perhaps you might continue this… lively conversation, while walking?”
They set off along the arcade, Miss Almarien at Azrian’s side.
A faint breath of lavender and clean parchment trailed her, sharp and simple, nothing like the cloying florals the debutantes favored.
They walked in wary, precise counterpoint.
Behind them, Lady Delarine shadowed their steps, a watchful hawk.
The avenue was abloom with the city’s usual peacocking: young men in jade and saffron, matrons bundled in silk, girls in pastel lace. Each one watched their party sidelong, pretending not to.
“My sources inform me you were a governess before your… convenient return to society,” Azrian said.
“And you were human before the Emperor made you a weapon,” she volleyed back, like she’d been waiting for the chance. “I find one transformation considerably more remarkable than the other.”
He was caught off guard by her directness, and it took a moment to recover. “You know very little about me, Miss Almarien.”
“I know enough.” Her tone was flat, but the cold blaze in her eyes said what her words did not.
“I’d expect someone with your history not to judge so quickly. But you wound as easily as you’re wounded.”
Their gazes locked, and he saw in her the same stubbornness that had been his own hallmark before the Emperor had burned it out of him with cycles of obedience.
For a brief, dangerous moment, he almost admired her.
At last, she looked away, to the row of white figs trained along the arcade’s curve.
He tried again at conversation, this time with the subtler tools of his trade. “Being thrust back into a society that previously shunned you must present certain challenges.”
“No more than being ordered to court someone against your will, I should imagine. I seem to recall you were not… on offer , was it?” Her gaze found him, unwavering. “Tell me, does the Emperor often dictate your personal affairs?”
The question, so calm and pointed, landed where it hurt. She was closer to the truth than she could know, and for a heartbeat, memories of Evara threatened to surface, unbidden. “Do you often make yourself so… unpleasant?”
“I do not find comfort in gilded lies, my lord. However brutal, I’d prefer the truth.”
That, at least, he understood. Though sometimes, the absence of a lie was the closest thing to truth the Empire allowed. “A luxury few in the Gilt can afford. Including governesses playing at nobility.”
“ Former governess,” she corrected with a razor-edged smile. “Current burden to the Hand’s imperial duties, it would seem.”
Oh, she had no idea. “We had agreed to keep our distance.”
She made a low, dismissive sound, leaning toward him so Lady Delarine could not hear. “Yes, my lord, I recall. Imagine my surprise when you appeared at the Awakening Ball, after promising you would not partake—”
“The Emperor ordered it.”
She studied him for a moment, and he wondered if she could sense the fracture, the hairline fault where his own will ended and the Emperor’s began. Then her face hardened. “Naturally. You always obey the Emperor.”
Azrian let the accusation settle, watching how the sun limned the delicate fuzz along her cheek.
She spoke without looking at him: “You realize your obedience brought about my ruin?”
“ Your ruin?” He pressed a finger to his chest. “I’m the one who now must bond again. You would’ve been blood vowed regardless, if not to me, to another.”
“But bonding to you puts the Empire—and the Registry—in my home. It’s scrutiny for the rest of my days. It’s—”
Lady Delarine overtook them, her tone clipped.
“You speak of the Registry like a tyrant, instead of the foundation upon which your current fortunes rest.” She paused while a cluster of children darted past, their governess struggling behind them.
“In Ilvarenne, image is not a luxury; it is the only currency. If you believe yourselves scrutinized now, imagine what that might look like should word reach the Emperor of how you are going at each other’s throats. ”
Miss Almarien’s jaw went rigid. She looked away, focusing on the horizon, perhaps looking for it to rescue her.
Azrian’s reply was quiet. “ Fortunes is a generous word for the Registry’s latest project, Your Grace.”
Miss Almarien’s return volley was immediate, biting. “Am I the project, Lord Vaelros? I thought of myself as a punishment.”
He hadn’t meant to offend her, but there was no point attempting to reason, and he certainly had no intention to apologize. “Perhaps there’s little distinction.”
“Enough,” said Lady Delarine with such command that both fell silent.
“Your personal feelings are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that you play your part to the Registry’s satisfaction.
Either perform as expected of you, or do not participate at all.
” She paused, looking at each of them. “Can you both do that?”
Azrian nodded. “Perfectly.”
To his surprise, Miss Almarien’s reply was softer. “Yes, Your Grace.”
The moment stretched, the three of them locked in a silent contest to see who would yield first. In the end, it was the wind that broke the stalemate, rattling the leaves of the white fig trees and scattering a flurry of pale blossoms onto the path.
Miss Almarien spun on her heel, skirts snapping. “Thank you for your time, my lord. It has been… illuminating.”
“Indeed. I shall call on you this week,” Azrian said, because it was what he was supposed to say. He did not expect her to welcome the prospect.
Her eyebrow arched, almost mocking. “I’m beginning to think you are to use me as an excuse to be let out of your cage, my lord.”
She dipped in a curtsy that was nearly insolent, arms swept out wide, then strode away before he could answer, Lady Delarine in tow. The ghost of lavender clung to him like an accusation long after she’d disappeared into the trees.