Ione watched him go. Her face conveyed little, but Elm searched it anyway. When she caught him looking, he fixed his mouth with a lazy smile and offered her his arm. “I should warn you, I’m a horrid dinner companion.”
Ione’s hand pressed into his sleeve. The smell of her hair—floral, sweet—filled his nose. “That makes us a pair.”
They walked in silence to the grand stairwell. The steward opened his mouth to announce them, but was quieted by a flick of Elm’s wrist. Still, heads turned in their wake. Conversations went quiet as Elm and Ione—whom they all still assumed to be the future Queen—strode down the stairs. There were smiles, bows. Elm returned none of them.
Neither did Ione.
Elm peered down at her dark, shapeless dress. “Insulted the tailor, have we?”
“The tailor?”
“Your attire.” His gaze swept down her body. “It’s...it’s a bit...”
Ione’s voice went flat. “Please, continue. I live and breathe to hear your opinion of my gown, Prince Renelm.”
“If you could even call it that.” Elm plucked at the ribbon along her neck, his finger grazing the underside of her jaw. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
“All my dresses are back at Hawthorn House. Your father sent this one to my room.”
“With his two dimmest Destriers in tow, I see.”
Ahead, music swelled in the great hall, the climax of a jig. “Then your ploy during the inquest was a success.”
“To a point.” Elm leaned down, his voice in her ear. “My father wishes to keep everything under his thumb. Including you.” He grimaced. “And, more effectively, me. We’re to pretend nothing happened—speak nothing of your cousin or uncle or father—and certainly nothing of Hauth.”
Ione raised her brows. “What excuse am I to give for my betrothed’s absence?”
“Hauth is ill, but recovering.”
The great hall was loud, the King’s court well into their cups. Some remained seated while others gathered in groups, swaying to the music. Voices clamored against stone walls. Cheeks flushed and clothes shifted from dancing, the hall rife with forfeit sobriety.
The King’s table was lifted on a dais similar to the one in the throne room. From it, green eyes watched. When Elm faced them, he noted the demand, expectancy, and annoyance stamped across his father’s face. He knew what the King wanted. On his right side, in the seat that had only ever been Hauth’s, there was a vacancy. An empty chair.
The High Prince’s chair.
Elm pinned Ione’s hand against his arm. There was no way in hell he was going up there alone.
She scowled down at his hand. “What are you—”
“One last stipulation, Hawthorn,” he said through tight lips. He shot his father a void smile, pulling Ione with him to the dais. “If you want free rein of the castle, I am to be your chaperone.”
Her exhale was a hiss. When they stood before the King, chins tilting in stiff reverence, Ione’s eyes were so cold Elm felt a pinch of guilt for dragging her up there.
The King’s displeasure was poorly masked. Still, he offered a curt nod, eyes flickering to his court, aware of the eyes upon him. His gaze returned to Ione, bleary yet narrow, lingering a moment too long over her body—her poorly fitting dress. The corner of his lip twitched.
In that moment, he looked all the world like Hauth.
Elm slammed his hand into his pocket. Only this time, the Scythe’s velvet edge did nothing to soothe him. But three taps—three taps and he could make his father roll his eyes so far back into his head he’d stop seeing straight. His finger twitched against the red Card’s velvet edge, the idea headier than any wine.
Ione merely held the King’s gaze, the frost in her eyes shifting to disinterest. She yawned.
“Sit,” the King barked at them.
The only empty chair was Hauth’s. On its right sat Aldys Beech, the King’s treasurer, along with his wife and son.
Elm didn’t bother to glance at them. “Shove over.”
Beech’s eyes, already too large for his head, bulged. “But, sire, the King has gifted us these seats—”
“I don’t give a flying f—”
“What Prince Renelm means,” Ione said, her voice easy, “is that, while he merely warms Prince Hauth’s seat, that seat,” she said, gesturing to the chair under Beech’s narrow bottom, “belongs to me, your future Queen.” She threw her gaze over her shoulder at Elm. “Unless you’d like to see me take my seat atop the Prince’s lap.”
Beech’s eyes widened further—as did his wife’s and son’s. They brooked no further argument. Fleeing either her beauty or wrath, the Beech family not only vacated Ione’s seat, but the dais altogether.
There was no getting comfortable. Elm half expected spikes to shoot out of Hauth’s chair and impale him, the wood sensing his master’s absence, conscious that the spare had taken his place.
What Ione had said about sitting in his lap hadn’t helped him settle.
Elm ate quickly, waiting for his father to be distracted so that he and Ione might slip away from the wretched dais and continue their search for her Maiden Card.
But his father’s focus was never long spent. King Rowan spoke to courtiers in grunts and nods, his gaze forward—but Elm was certain he was watching him. He was like a schoolmaster, waiting for his least-favorite pupil to step out of line.
When the gong chimed ten times, Elm let out a groan. “What a waste of time.”
“You’re in a mood,” Ione said into her goblet, her heart-shaped mouth stained red along the inside of her lips.
“I’m always in a mood.”
“A family trait, perhaps.”
That set his teeth on edge. “You’re not half as funny as you think you are, Hawthorn.”
She took another drink. “I wouldn’t know where to start, making a Rowan laugh.”
Elm pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass.” He flung a hand toward the great hall. “It comes easy, in this place.”
“So your terrible mood has nothing to do with the party that left the castle this morning? The one with Elspeth and Ravyn Yew?”
Elm lifted his head from his hands, his eyes slow to focus. He ran his thumb along the rim of his goblet. “Who told you that?”
“The Destrier with marks on his face—Linden.” She touched the high collar of her dress. “I think he thought it might hurt me, knowing my cousin was free of the castle and I wasn’t.”
“Did it?”
“It might have, once. I might have cried for the loneliness of it all.” Her voice frosted over. “But I don’t cry anymore.”
The pinch of guilt Elm had felt for dragging her up to the dais wrenched. He looked out over the great hall. Still too early to dance, most of court was still seated at the long table, their goblets ever full, tended by servants who expertly wove through the hall. Those who stood came in a slow line to the dais, offering words of praise to his father and his council or asking after Hauth.
They should have been looking for Ione’s Maiden Card, not wasting the evening on pageantry.