But of all the people to lose to, it had to be that obnoxious pretty-boy noble, Alucard Emery.
Where was the bastard, anyway? No sign of him. Or the king and queen, for that matter. Or the prince. Or his brother. Strange. The Veskan prince and princess were here, roaming as if in search of prey, while the Faroan regent held his own small court against a pillar, but the Arnesian royal family was nowhere to be seen.
Her skin prickled in warning, the way it did the instant before a challenger made their move in the ring. Something was off.
Wasn’t it?
Saints, she couldn’t tell.
A servant in red and gold swept past, and she plucked a fresh drink from the tray, spiced wine that tickled her nose and warmed her fingers before it touched her tongue.
Ten more minutes, she told herself, and she could go.
She was, after all, a victor, even if she hadn’t won this year.
“Mistress Kisimyr?”
She looked up at the young vestra, beautiful and tan, eyelids painted gold to match his sash. She cast a look around for Losen, and sure enough found her protégé watching, looking smug as a young cat offering up a mouse. “I’m Viken Rosec—” started the noble.
“And I’m not in the mood to dance,” she cut in.
“Perhaps, then,” he said coyly, “I could keep your company here.”
He didn’t wait for permission—she could feel the sofa dip beside her—but Kisimyr’s attention had already drifted past him, to the figure standing at the roof’s edge. One minute that stretch was empty, dark, and then the next, as a last firework lit the sky, he was there. From here, the man was nothing but a silhouette against the darker night, but the way he looked around—as if taking in the rooftop for the first time—set her on edge. He wasn’t a noble or a tournament magician, and he didn’t belong to any of the entourages she’d seen throughout the Essen Tasch.
Curiosity piqued, she rose from the couch, leaving her mask on the cushions beside Viken as the stranger stepped forward between two pillars, revealing skin as fair as a Veskan’s, but hair blacker than her own. A midnight blue half cloak spilled over his shoulders, and on his head, where a magician’s mask might be, was a silver crown.
A royal?
But she’d never seen him before. Never caught this particular scent of power, either. Magic rippled off him with every step, woodsmoke and ash and fresh-turned earth, at odds with the flowered notes that filled the roof around them.
Kisimyr wasn’t the only one to notice.
One by one the faces at the ball turned toward the corner.
The stranger’s own head was bowed slightly, as if considering the marble floor beneath his polished black boots. He passed a table on which someone had left a helmet, and drew a finger almost absently along the metal jaw. As he did, it crumbled to ash—no, not ash, but sand, a thousand glittering specks of glass.
A cold breeze brushed them away.
Kisimyr’s heart quickened.
Without thinking, her own feet carried her forward, matching him step for step as he crossed the roof until they both stood at opposite edges of the broad polished circle used for dancing.
The music stopped abruptly, broke off into half-formed chords and then silence as the strange figure strode into the center of the floor.
“Good evening,” said the stranger.
As he spoke, he raised his head, black hair shifting to reveal two all-black eyes, shadows twisting in their depths.
Those close enough to meet his gaze tensed and recoiled. Those farther afield must have felt the ripple of unease, because they too began to edge away.
The Faroans watched, gems dancing in their darkened faces as they tried to understand if this was some kind of show. The Veskans stood stock still, waiting for the stranger to draw a weapon. But the Arnesians roiled. Two guards peeled away to send word through the palace below.
Kisimyr held her ground.
“I hope I haven’t interrupted,” he continued, his voice becoming two—one soft, the other resonant, one scattered on the air like that pile of sand, the other crystal clear inside her head.
His black eyes tracked over the roof. “Where is your king?”
The question rang through Kisimyr’s skull, and when she tried to force his presence back, the stranger’s attention flicked toward her, landing like a stone.
“Strong,” he mused. “Everything here is strong.”
“Who are you?” demanded Kisimyr, her own voice sounding thin by comparison.
The man seemed to consider this a moment and then said, “Your new king.”
That sent a ripple through the crowd.
Kisimyr stretched out one arm, and the nearest pitcher of wine emptied, its contents sailing toward her fingers and hardening into an icy spear.
“Is that a threat?” she said, trying to focus on the man’s hands instead of those eerie black eyes, that resonant voice. “I am a high magician of Arnes. A victor of the Essen Tasch. I bear the favored sigil of the House of Maresh. And I will not let you harm my king.”
The stranger cocked his head, amused. “You are strong, mage,” he said, spreading his arms as if to welcome her embrace. His smile widened. “But you are not strong enough to stop me.”
Kisimyr spun her spear once, almost idly, and then lunged.
She made it two steps before the marble floor splashed beneath her feet, stone one instant and water the next, and then, before she could reach him, stone again. Kisimyr gasped, her body shuddering to a halt as the rock hardened around her ankles.
Losen was starting toward her, but she held a hand up without taking her gaze off the stranger.
It wasn’t possible.
The man hadn’t even moved. Hadn’t touched the stone, or said anything to change its shape. He’d simply willed it, out of one form, and into another, as if it were nothing.
“It is nothing,” he said, words filling the air and slinking through her head. “My will is magic. And magic is my will.”
The stone began to climb her shins as he continued forward, crossing to her in long, slow strides.
Behind him, Jinnar and Brost moved to attack. They made it to the edge of the circle before he sent them back with a flick of his wrist, their bodies crashing hard into pillars. Neither rose.
Kisimyr growled and summoned the other facet of her power. The marble rumbled at her feet. It cracked, and split, and still the stranger came toward her. By the time she staggered free, he was there, close enough to kiss. She didn’t even feel his fingers until they were already circling her wrist. She looked down, shocked by the touch, at once feather-light and solid as stone.
“Strong,” he mused again. “But are you strong enough to hold me?”
Something passed between them, skin to skin, and then deeper, spreading up her arm and through her blood, strange and wonderful, like light, like honey in her veins, sweet and warm and—
No.
She pushed back, trying to force the magic away, but his fingers only tightened, and suddenly the pleasant heat became a burn, the light became a fire. Her bones went hot, her skin cracked, every inch of her ablaze, and Kisimyr began to scream.
II
Kell told them everything.
Or, at least, everything they needed to know. He didn’t say that he’d gone with Ojka willingly, still fuming from his imprisonment and his fight with the king. He didn’t say that he’d condemned the prince’s life and his own rather than agreeing to the creature’s terms. And he didn’t say that, at some point, he’d given up. But he did tell the king and queen of Lila, and how she’d saved his life—and Rhy’s—and brought him home. He told them of Holland’s survival, and Osaron’s power, of the cursed metal collar, and the Red London token in the demon’s hand.
“Where is this monster now?” demanded the king.
Kell sagged. “I don’t know.” He needed to say more, to warn them of Osaron’s strength, but all he could manage was, “I promise, Your Majesty, I will find him.” His anger didn’t rage—he was too tired for that—but it burned coldly in his veins.
“And I will kill him.”