The other girls titter. One voluptuous brunette pouts that I didn’t pick her.
The Volkish girl, Carlotte, takes my hand with a tempting smile and leads me to one of the back rooms. Walking down the long hallway, we’re assaulted by grunts and moans from behind closed doors. She takes me to the last room, then starts to peel her gown’s strap off one shoulder.
I lay my hand over hers. “I’m not here for that.”
She laughs like I made a joke. “It’s okay. I don’t mind taking a tumble with you. Every girl in there was hoping you’d pick her. I mean . . . look at you.”
I hold up my hands and start again. “I want to talk to you. That’s all. I’ll pay you the same price, but for your discretion, not your cunt.”
She slowly realizes I’m serious. One hand nervously runs up her other arm. Eyebrows furrowing, she says uncertainly, “Why do you want to talk to me?”
In a low voice, I ask, “Were you born in Volkany?”
Her eyes widen, ringed with fear. “Where did you hear that? Not even Madame Anfrei knows about that!”
“Look, I don’t hold it against you. I don’t care where you’re from, and you can rely on my silence. I’m just looking for information on Volkany from someone who’s been there.”
“But I haven’t been there,” she insists in a whisper, her eyes big and round. “At least not that I remember. I was brought to Astagnon when I was three. A market vendor found me wandering the streets. I only spoke Volkish. When I finally learned the Common Tongue, apparently I told her I was from over the border wall, from a Volkish town named Kittengen. I don’t remember anything from that time, though.”
“How did you get over the wall?”
“I don’t remember. I swear. I’d tell you if I did.” Her honesty rings true, and my chest rises and falls with a tired breath. Another dead end. But then she perks up. “There is, well, not a detail, really. Just a song I remember. I think my mother might have sung it to me.”
I cock my head. “Sing it.”
Her voice trembles as she sings haltingly, “From slumber deep in realms unknown . . . dormant powers start to breed . . . first the king, and then the beasts . . . What do you do with sleeping gods? . . . Pray they don’t awaken.”
She looks at me shyly. “It doesn’t rhyme, I know. It was probably originally in Volkish, but I only remember the song’s general meaning in the Common Tongue.”
Sleeping gods awakening?
Dormant powers breeding?
It’s a riddle—and I don’t like the answer it’s pointing to.
I pay the girl, and we play a game of Hazard for the duration of my paid time, so our lovemaking seems convincing. It could get her in trouble if anyone suspected I was here for information.
As I’m leaving, troubled by the possible meaning of the girl’s remembered song, Madame Anfrei stops me. She holds up a folded letter addressed to her, bearing the Valvere seal.
“Look what was just delivered by courier. An invitation to Lord Rian and Lady Sabine’s engagement party. It’s to be held this Friday. A masquerade with a winged theme. How perfectly diabolical of Rian to embrace his bride’s show of rebellion. They might just be well matched after all.” She gives me a knowing smirk like she knows this is the last thing I want to hear. “I’ll see you there, handsome.”
Chapter 29
Sabine
Out.
GET OUT.
I wake with a start, sweat slick on my temples. There it is again. That voice. I’ve heard it more times than I’d like to count, and its source remains a mystery. My animal friends in the castle say they can’t hear it. I never believed in ghosts, even though Immortal Woudix’s story in the Book of the Immortals chronicles his ferrying ghostly souls to the underrealm. Are they real after all? Whatever the voice’s source is, it feels angry.
Angry at me? Is it ordering me to get out?
It wouldn’t be the first sign I’ve come across that I’m not safe here. Sorsha Hall is a warren of shadows. Rian only lets me see what he wants me to, just like his carefully cultivated tour of Duren. I’ve barely even seen him in the week I’ve been here. He’s frequently absent on “business,” and I don’t think it’s just overseeing the town’s legal vices. Two nights ago, I heard the guards at my door discussing a team of Golden Sentinels who Rian sent to the border wall; they never returned.
OUT NOW.
I clap my hands over my ears, though it’s useless since the voice rings from within my head. It’s driving me mad. What time is it? After midnight, judging by the moonlight. Donning a silk robe, I throw open my door, ready to confront the guards outside about what’s really going on in the castle. They must know something.
But I go still as stone when I find Basten on the other side.
He’s traded his huntsman garb for the light sentinel armor that castle guards wear: brass shoulder plates and forearm guards, leather breastplate with the Valvere crest, a collar-like piece around his neck, and a baldric belt to hold his sword. Though the brass armor is polished to perfection, he still looks like he belongs in the woods. His hair is long and loose. His cheeks tanned from the sun.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snap.
“Lady Sabine.” His rumbling-stone voice rolls across the threshold between us. “From today on, I shall have the pleasure of serving as your bodyguard.”
The formal tone doesn’t suit him any more than the armor does. Though I must admit, it does something to me to see him in metal and leather. The armored plates make his already enormous frame even more affecting. I once thought he looked like a god—now, he looks as imposing as the king of gods himself, Immortal Vale.
And damn if my belly doesn’t tighten at the sight of him. Naturally, that’s the moment when I realize I’m in nothing more than a revealing chemise and robe. Cheeks blazing, I wrap the robe tighter over my chest.
Scoffing, I blurt out. “Are you trying to torment me?”
His brows lift innocently. “I’m merely obeying Lord Rian’s orders.”
“Oh, of course, you’d never do anything to transgress against your master.” Fire sparks from my eyes as I lean in, sniffing. “You smell like cheap perfume.”
His lips part for a quick retort, but then he stops, and a cold smile crosses his face instead. “Yeah. Well. Probably from the whorehouse I visited last night before taking up this post.”
My jaw slackens as my cheeks blaze in outrage. I must be throwing off more heat than the fireplace. A whore? We’ve been in Duren barely a week, and he’s already fucked someone else? I scramble for words, then shut my mouth. No. Basten Bowborn doesn’t deserve my anger. He doesn’t deserve a second of my thoughts at all.
“Did you require something?” he asks with infuriating calmness, pretending he’s simply my bodyguard. “You seemed anxious to leave your room.”