Then Prince Kance’s hand grasped mine. With as much sincerity as I could muster, I found myself mouthing platitudes, wishing him all the best in his forthcoming marriage.
He smiled back, and I wondered if I only imagined the faint melancholy lingering at the edges of his mouth. “Thank you, Tea,” he said, “I’m glad you approve.” His kind words dug deeper into my gut. “I only wish that…” He stopped, staring over my shoulder with a puzzled frown.
I turned but saw no one. “Prince Kance?”
He blinked and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve been having headaches for the last few days.”
“You must not work yourself too hard, Your Highness.”
“I know, but I’ve had little time to rest, and Lady Altaecia’s herbal teas don’t seem to be working.” His green eyes, worried, met mine. Then he said, “I wanted to tell you sooner. About the engagement. I should have told you sooner. I don’t understand why I didn’t.”
“I thought you didn’t know,” I said, bewildered. “You looked fairly shocked at the announcement.”
“I knew. I just wasn’t expecting Father to issue the proclamation today. And he didn’t…” He stopped, frowning, almost seeming to forget I was there.
“Are you all right, Your Highness?”
“Kance,” Kalen said, materializing behind the prince, “your father wishes to speak to you.”
The prince shook his head and smiled weakly at me again. “I have to go. Thank you again, Lady Tea. Kalen, keep her company for me.”
“I have better things to do.”
“No, you don’t.” The prince’s voice was unnaturally stern. “See to her concerns. I want you to watch over Lady Tea the same way you watch over me. I have some important matters I need to discuss with Father.”
“She can handle herself just fine.”
“Please, Kalen.”
Kalen scowled. Together, we watched the prince leave, but as soon as he was out of sight, I spun around.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Kalen demanded.
“Away.” Kalen was the last person I wanted to see me cry. I took a step toward the door, and he grabbed my hand.
“Listen here, Tea. I know that you’re—”
I whirled back, my eyes glistening. “I thought you had better things to do,” I hissed.
Kalen hesitated, staring at my face. After a moment, he let go.
Fox was waiting for me by the doorway. His face was grim, as he was eager to be off himself. But Polaire caught me as we were leaving. “Come here, Tea,” she commanded. “Stay. Their royal majesties would be offended by you slinking away like this.”
Perhaps it was the events of the day compounded by my vulnerability, but I chose to be snippy. “I don’t want to.”
Polaire frowned. “Immaturity isn’t becoming of an asha, Tea.”
“Maybe if you didn’t persist in treating me like a child, I might be more motivated to act like an adult!”
She scowled, displeased by the furtive looks being thrown our way. “Is this because I neglected to tell you about our plan with Likh? Come now, Tea. You shouldn’t fuss over such a trivial matter.”
“Yes, I should. I suppose your taking credit for rescuing Lord Besserly shouldn’t be held against you either. Or the prince’s own engagement, which I had no inkling of until the announcement an hour ago.”
“Tea, that’s not fair.”
Tea, Fox warned me. This is not the time.
I knew I had to leave. To lose my temper in a roomful of nobles would not be to anyone’s advantage, least of all my own. But I couldn’t resist one last dig.
“Or perhaps it would suit you better if I shut my mouth and did as you wish, like a little toy dog performing tricks for no purpose other than to please you. Perhaps it shouldn’t matter that I risk life and limb to put down daeva, risk sanity to confront a Faceless you are too cowardly to interrogate yourself. But I’m the immature one, aren’t I?”
I didn’t wait for Polaire’s response. I turned on my heel and strode off, glad she realized her hypocrisy enough not to pursue.
The celebrations continued for the rest of the night until, I was told later, the early hours of the morning. Fox and I said little, looking out from my window into the world below, at the expanse of the city. “What are we doing?” I finally asked. “How ridiculous are we to be depressed about two people who are engaged to one other?”
“At least we’re still doing things together.”
I started giggling, and it caught on. Fox and I laughed at our absurdity, laughed until we had exhausted our surplus, until the lights winked out, one after the other, as the twenty thousand eyes of the city closed to dream.
Fox stayed with me until I fell asleep. When I woke sometime later, he was gone. I could feel him somewhere within Kneave, aimless. Beyond him, the shadows stirred and sighed, the azi sensing my melancholy and commiserating.
Alone in my room, I held up my heartsglass. Framed against the moonlight, it sparkled back at me. Resigned sadness occasionally marred the surface, but to my credit, neither resentment nor anger clouded its glass. It would take much more than this, I knew, to break my heart.
“I heard of the engagement,” I said, intrigued despite myself. “I had always wondered what brought it about.” Kion rarely made arranged marriages. Possessions and titles were passed down through the matriarchal line, so their women often had a say in who they married.
The bone witch closed her eyes, as if done with the conversation. “I can feel him, Kalen,” she said after a moment. “He’s here in the palace.” She strode to the still-cowering emperor, and her voice rose. “Where do you keep him, maggot? If you have shorn so much as a strand of white hair from his head, you will regret it for days.”
The Daanorian noble cringed. The Dark asha’s hand whipped through the air, and he sank back, crying out in pain.
“The prisons,” he gasped. “The prisons!”
The asha’s eyes hardened. She stepped toward the fallen man and crouched. “You will stay here until I return,” she said. “You will not move or blink from the moment I step out of the throne room until the moment I step back in. If you so much as twitch, I shall twist your insides and roll out your entrails like a royal carpet, and you will die as you choke on your own liver, your heart in my fist.”
The emperor said nothing and remained stock-still, his eyes round with fear.
And then, inexplicably, the asha began to laugh. “You are powerless. You are powerless! You are nothing more than an illusion. Oh, the irony!” She pushed him, sending him sprawling back to his corner. “If I find him harmed in any way, Your Majesty, I shall make good on my promise to gut you.”
The aeshma plodded nearer, settled itself at the base of the throne, keeping a languid, lazy eye on the dethroned noble.
Kalen rose as well. “I will search for the princess, and I will ask the soldiers about the blight. There might have been more sightings.”
The asha nodded. “Follow me, Bard. There is someone I would like you to meet.”
I followed her down the hallway and into an unused wing of the palace. The asha knew the way; she drew a sword and a locked wooden door shattered under its blow. Darkness beckoned us in. She led me down to the dungeons, and I shuddered to think of what we might find there.
But only one of the cells was occupied. Its prisoner sat, unblinking, as the asha moved closer. Even in the gloom, his heartsglass shone a blinding silver that was a light all on its own.
“This is Khalad, Bard,” the asha said. “The first-born son of Odalia, the former crown prince of House Wyath, and Heartforger to the Eight Kingdoms.”
Khalad stared up at us from underneath a shock of white hair—though he was still a young man, no older than Lord Kalen—with eyes almost the same shade as his heartsglass.
“What took you so long?” he asked quietly.
6
“And to what do I owe this honor?” Aenah drawled. “Two visits in two days! What a wonderful surpri—”