Crown Court #2
I had the sudden sense that someone was staring daggers into my back. I didn't need to turn to see who.
“Brothers.” The word landed like a title with the warmth removed.
Luceris sat in the empty seat next to Mallas.
Of all of us, he looked the least like Father and resembled no one. He had only Queen Morigan's golden hair. His gold crown rose in tall spikes with a single ruby embedded at the center. His eyes were a smoky tone of green, like a snake cloaked in shadows. Fitting, really.
The Crown Prince of Primoria. A title I did not miss.
I nodded to him.
He did not return it.
“Luceris,” Elion said gleefully. “I almost missed you without the fanfare. No grand entrance today?”
“You only notice what can be bought, Elion,” Luceris said coolly. “I don’t qualify.”
I sipped my wine and looked straight ahead.
Queen Morigan looked every bit the aristocrat she was as she ascended the dais.
Chiseled bone structure, porcelain skin, back straight, shoulders squared.
Her eyes met mine as she passed. A flicker of irritation crossed her features before it was thoroughly masked with a convincing curve of her red lips.
I smiled back.
We ate in silence and watched the night's performance. The singer’s voice filled the hall in a way that shouldn't have been possible from a single body.
It pressed into the high ceilings and came back down changed.
She sang a Primorian ballad about a king who lived a thousand years and the kingdom that flourished beneath him.
It was as beautiful as it was deeply calculated.
“Twilight is treating you well, brother.” Luceris leaned forward to look at me past Elion and Mallas. His eyes moved over me as if he were looking for something. Evidence of the thing he feared, perhaps.
“I hear your borders have become quite an achievement,” he added.
Borders. Even as the rest of the realm acknowledged Twilight as a kingdom, he never accepted it.
“I'm satisfied with it.”
He looked into his glass. “Quite a military presence you've built. The reports are impressive.”
Elion's eyes danced between us, unsure whether to stop this or sit it out.
My fingers tightened around my glass.
“Borders require defense,” I said without looking at Luceris.
“Defense.” Luceris smiled. “Is that what they're for?”
A heavy silence fell over our table.
Mallas visibly tensed, his fork frozen midway to the meat on his plate.
I looked at Luceris. “What are you implying?”
“Your men answer to you personally,” Luceris continued conversationally. “Not to the Crown, but to you specifically.”
“My men answer to Primoria.”
“Seems to me you're compensating admirably for the magic that left you. You're rebuilding your reputation quite well, I must say.” He sipped his wine. “Tell me. Does it feel any different? Building things with your hands when you no longer have anything else?”
Elion made a sound between a nervous laugh and a cough.
“I find it clarifying,” I said. “You should try it.”
Luceris’s smile thinned.
I lifted my glass to my lips and found it to be frozen. The wine had turned into a thin, frosted slush. I set it back on the table.
Mallas leaned in toward me. “The reports really were impressive,” he said. “I read the full assessment last month. The agricultural expansion alone—“
“The bastard's enthusiasm for his brother's achievements,” Luceris said pleasantly. “Do you ever stop trying?”
Mallas didn't flinch. His expression remained perfectly neutral when he looked at Luceris.
The silence that followed held enough weight to crack the porcelain.
Elion’s chair scraped as he stood. “Wine?” He grabbed the bottle at the center of the table. “Mallas? Luceris?” Then he looked at my frozen glass and winced. “You can have the whole bottle.”
He poured with great enthusiasm and timing.
We all drank after Mallas pressed a fresh glass into my hand with a tight smile.
The performers had filtered out, and the nobles had finished their speeches of undying loyalty to my father. Elion went into a quiet discussion with Mallas about a rare trading opportunity that we all knew only benefited one person.
When my glass of wine was finished along with most of my patience, I tossed my napkin on the table and stood. I stayed at the banquet exactly long enough to be unremarkable. There was no reason for me to stay past that.
“It's been wonderful to see you all,” I said to everyone and no one. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Mallas smiled and stood to clasp forearms with me. “I'll see you in a couple of days.”
He would attend my annual masquerade. Elion would have been invited if he hadn't used my masquerade last year to auction off invitations he didn't own. I had placed him on a ten-year ban.
Elion pouted.
I ignored him.
Before Luceris had a chance to say anything provoking, I moved toward the exit.
Graeson fell into step behind me as expected.
Father's eyes met mine as I passed the dais. A single nod of acknowledgment, and what looked like relief crossed his face. Relief that I hadn’t turned his skies dark. Relief that he was rid of me for another decade until the next banquet. It was hard to tell which. Probably both.
I slowed and inclined my head once. Enough to be respectful and not an inch more.
Riven appeared at my shoulder as I crossed the room.
He glanced at Graeson behind us, who had straightened with awareness.
“Report came in,” he said quietly so only I could hear. “Someone took the Thalvarn contract.”
Graeson craned his neck, making no effort to hide that he was trying to listen.
We kept walking.
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
The cold outside was reinvigorating after hours of thick air and expensive perfume.
We made it to the carriage, and I turned to face Graeson.
I didn't speak. Only looked at him expectantly until he bowed and retreated inside.
“Do we have a description?” I asked Riven when Graeson was gone.
“Not yet.”
The masquerade was in a week. They would want access and proximity. The assassin would come as they always did.
I briefly thought about what drink I would pour them this time and wondered who they would send. The last assassin hadn’t even made it to my study before Riven caught him. There was a bottle of vintage that I would have offered him.
Whiskey.
I had decided that I would pour him whiskey when he came. I was looking forward to it.