Her blind deception the.., p.19
Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection Series Book 2), page 19
‘A girl wandered through the labyrinth,’ Elias said, the irreverence gone now, his tone serious. ‘She was lost, and alone, and sick. She isn’t dangerous, and before you say I’m not a good judge of that, Maelin, Goras and Tanathil have come with me to testify the same thing.’ Eyes flicked in our direction, and I could feel them scouring me, the hooded, anonymous figure sitting between those he’d just named. My skin prickled all over as around me, the Yoxvese reached out to touch me with magic. It didn’t feel invasive, exactly, but it was unnerving knowing that they were all looking for signs of deception and aggression. I hugged my arms tightly around myself and Mae squeezed me closer.
‘Is this true?’ Elder Meira asked, her attention now fixed on us.
‘It is, Elder,’ Goras rumbled, getting to his feet to speak, his vast form towering over me. ‘She is peaceful.’
‘And all she wants is a place to belong,’ Elias continued, drawing eyes back to the circle. ‘She wants to learn about our culture, our world, to live as one of us.’
‘And how do we know she won’t take what she learns back to her druthi so they can use it against us?’ one of the other Elders chimed in.
‘Would you want our entire race judged on those who follow Koschei?’ Elias asked quietly. Muttering broke out again as the spectators shifted in their seats. ‘We can’t judge all of humanity based on the worst of them. And maybe there are things she can teach us, too, that will help defend against them.’
Elder Meira stared at him for a long time, seeming to turn over his words. Finally, she surveyed the circle, then nodded. ‘You speak well,’ she said. ‘You do your mother proud.’
For some reason, Elias didn’t seem pleased with this statement. He shot a frown at the floor.
‘Your human girl may have one turn of the moon to roam among us,’ she continued, shooting her gaze back up to where it rested on me. ‘In that time, she is never to wander alone. If you and your friends have sworn for her, then she is your responsibility. If she can prove herself capable of integrating with our ways in that time, she may stay.’
A smile split Elias’s face, that one that reached his eyes, and he directed it up the stairs, towards me. ‘Thank you, Elders. A chance is all she’s asking for,’ he said.
Chapter 16
Rhiandra
I woke the following morning expecting to find a warm body next to me. Confusion set in as I reached out to find the bed beside me cold and empty. As the mist of sleep began to lift, I realised I’d only dreamt that he’d come and found me.
But he hadn’t.
Which was probably for the best.
When Leela brought my breakfast, she told me she’d found out nothing new about Lester, other than that he seemed to lose a lot of money at cards. I asked her to keep any eye on Dovegni. I needed to know if any members of the council were meeting with him regularly, though I wasn’t sure how useful that information would be, or what I’d do with it if I had it.
‘There’s something else you should know, ma’am,’ she said as she poured coffee and I smeared a slice of bread with a thick layer of boysenberry jam. ‘There’s a fight in the southern courtyard.’
‘Don’t tell me. Lord Terame has been caught in bed with someone’s wife and he’s been challenged to a duel,’ I suggested, always ready to enjoy gossip about the fool things the courtiers got up to.
‘Not this time.’ She shot me a sideways look that wiped the smile off my face.
‘Then what?’
‘Your husband is involved.’
I almost choked on my breakfast. ‘What?’
‘I believe it’s only a training match, but it’s drawing a bit of a crowd.’
I swore under my breath, abandoning my breakfast. Well, at least I knew where he was now. ‘Help me finish dressing.’
Within a few minutes, I was sweeping out of my apartment and down towards the scene in question with my attendants swishing along behind me. The courtyard was unusually crowded for so early in the morning. Encircled by a waterway crossed by stone bridges, the centre was a mosaic of coloured tiles. Small groups of courtiers paraded very slowly through the covered galleries on the level above, craning their necks to watch the spectacle taking place below. Some had stopped altogether and stood whispering to one another as they leaned over the raining, fluttering fans or passing coins back and forth, wearing expressions that ranged from shock to disdain to calculation.
Two men were darting across the tiled mosaic as three others lounged on chairs nearby, stretching their limbs and presumably waiting their turn in the centre. The two fighters were shirtless and unarmed, attacking each other with nothing more than fists in the early morning sunlight. It was immediately obvious that Leela hadn’t heard wrong, and one of the fighters was Draven.
He moved fast, with the smooth gestures of someone well practised, his weight shifting from back foot to front foot as he swung his body forwards, delivering a flurry of blows and ending in a fierce uppercut. As I slowed and my attendants caught up, I heard giggling, and the word ‘barbaric’ hissed from one to another, though the chatter dried up when I shot a glare over my shoulder.
I could see why the fight was drawing attention. Elaborate sword play was the sport of the nobility. They would never have expected a display of hand-to-hand combat from a king. He might as well have started a drunken brawl.
But despite the ridiculous display, I couldn’t help feeling a spike of sharp, savage pleasure at the shock I saw around me. Because the spectators couldn’t fail to notice how glorious Draven was, with a torso of lithe muscle on display, swarthy skin glazed with sweat. Let them be shocked. Let them stare. Let them wish they could touch him like I had. My step faltered briefly as I shook away that thought, perplexed by the brief attack of pride.
Crossing one of the footbridges, I paused at the end of the mosaic and folded my arms. He ignored me for a few moments longer as he dodged another blow, but when he laughed and clapped his opponent on the shoulder, his eyes finally found me. A smirk flickered across his face as he shook out his hands and nodded at one of the other men, who stepped up to take his place.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded as he approached me.
‘Sparring,’ he said matter-of-factly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘You should try it. I think you’d like it.’
‘You’re prancing around exchanging punches like a barbarian.’
He swept his hair away from his damp forehead. ‘If I’m a barbarian, you’d better get out of my way.’
‘Look at everyone up there watching you,’ I said, jerking my head in the direction of the gathered courtiers. ‘They’re all wondering where you learned to fight with your fists, and before the day is done a new crop of rumours will be tearing through the court and every plotter and conspirator will be looking for a way to use it against you.’
‘Let them talk. You don’t need to worry what these people think of you, and you definitely don’t need to worry what they think of me,’ he said, before he lifted his fists again. ‘If you’re going to stand there looking like you’re ready for a fight, take a swing at me.’
I barked a laugh. ‘You want me to what?’
‘I remember a woman in a suvoir who got the better of an angry man who had her by the hair. Can you throw a punch as well as you can break a hold?’
I shot another look towards the crowd of whispering onlookers. ‘You’re mad. You’ve completely lost your mind.’
‘Are you the same woman who held a hairpin to my throat and threatened to kill me, or does all that ferocity dissolve as soon as you don your pretty dress?’
Infuriating, arrogant man. ‘Oh, I’d happily strike you, Draven,’ I said smoothly. ‘But I’m not going to look a fool using something as inadequate as a fist to do it.’
Darting forward with unsettling speed, he gripped my arm and yanked me against him, twisting me into a choke hold with his forearm against my neck. I hissed with fury, my hands immediately going to his arm, digging into him with my fingernails.
‘You like to talk,’ he murmured, his breath feathering my neck. ‘You can talk all you like. Talk to anyone you like. But in the end, that’s all it is.’
Now it made sense. This was some sort of punishment for going to talk to Lester. With a swift kick, I sank the heel of my shoe into his shin. He inhaled sharply and released me. I lurched away, straightening my dress and smoothing at my hair. ‘If you grab me like that again, I’ll show you some of the other tricks Madam Luzel taught me to defend myself against brutes like you.’ I shot a look at the courtiers above. Fire and brimstone, there would be some sizzling gossip over lunch today. At least Dovegni would be pleased to think his theory about our marriage was right.
‘I might enjoy that. I did last time,’ Draven said, rubbing at his shin. Then he straightened. ‘Come on, take a swing. You know you want to.’
‘So this is how you want to deal with your anger? By fighting me?’
‘This isn’t fighting, Vixen, this is foreplay.’
‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’ Throwing up my hands in frustration, I spun away from him. ‘Come and find me when you’re ready to be reasonable.’
He caught my wrist. ‘Wait.’ The sobriety in his voice stilled me, and when I turned back, I was both relieved and apprehensive to find a shadow over his face.
‘Yes?’
‘Come with me. We can’t talk here.’ He threaded my hand through his arm, as though he was escorting me to a ball and he wasn’t half naked and covered in sweat.
‘Oh sure, but provoking me to punch you in front of half the court is perfectly fine,’ I grumbled as I allowed him to lead me away from the courtyard and into one of the covered galleries that fringed it. It was cool and quiet, coloured in dappled morning sunlight and empty of the courtiers that were congregating above. He swiped up his shirt from where it was draped over a bench and shrugged it on as I watched with folded arms, feeling strangely uncomfortable. He… smelled good. Looked good, all glossy with exertion. A memory absorbed me, of his hands sliding up my nightdress, gripping my hips, pulling me against him. I had the absurd desire to press my mouth to his stomach, to trace the lines of his abdomen with my tongue. Inconvenient, when I was sure he was going to interrogate me again on where I’d been the day before, or on what I’d learned from Lester. Perhaps he’d ask about the blood stone necklace, since he’d seemed to react when he’d seen me wearing it.
‘I’m going away for a few days,’ was what he said instead as he tucked the shirt into his trousers.
‘Going where?’
‘To the Oceatold border.’
‘Why?’
‘Because people keep complaining to me about attacks on the coast and I want to divert some resources.’
I studied him. He was lying. I was sure of it. ‘And the real reason?’
He cocked his head. ‘How about you tell me where you really were yesterday and I’ll tell you why I’m really going?’
I said nothing.
‘What’s wrong, have you run out of lies to sell me?’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Or have you realised I won’t keep buying them?’
I folded my arms against the strange, clawing feeling in my chest, as though I could contain it. ‘Why are you accusing me of lying?’
‘I told you, you’re more transparent than you think you are.’
My heart thudded a little harder. Surely, he couldn’t read me that well. I was a good liar. And I’d already sold him a far bigger lie than the one about where I’d been the day before. ‘Maybe you’re just a bit paranoid.’
He shook his head, turning that bitter smile to the ground. Then he drew closer, siphoning away the space between us. ‘You want to be treated like a partner?’ he said, leaning in. ‘Then start acting like one.’
‘So this whole trip away is just to punish me,’ I said, refusing to back away, even when the words came out huskier than I meant them to. A part of me liked that I was getting to him, that he’d been angry the night before, that he seemed all jagged edges now. Why did he smell so good?
His gaze dropped to my lips. ‘No, but I’m glad you think my absence is a punishment,’ he said, then he picked up his coat. I let out a captive breath, tried to wrestle my focus back to things that weren’t imagining pinning him against the wall and kissing him like I had on Aetherdi.
‘And what do you expect me to do while you’re gone? Embroider?’
‘Rule,’ he said simply. He laughed at my expression when he turned back. ‘What else did you think I would say? If you’re worried about the courtiers, then stay here and keep an eye on them. Do whatever you think needs to be done to bring them to heel. I trust you to do that.’
‘Even if you don’t trust me with anything else.’
‘And who’s fault is that?’
As I looked up at him, I tried to remind myself that this was just a game. That I shouldn’t get so provoked by it. That it shouldn’t hurt. I softened my eyes, fluttered my lashes, reached up to brush a lock of hair off his forehead. ‘You’re right. Maybe we need to stop toying with each other.’
His expression hardened immediately and he caught my hand. ‘Don’t try that,’ he warned. ‘I can take your deceit and your spite, but don’t try to pander to me like you do everyone else.’
I reclaimed my hand, burying it behind me as I scowled down at the ground, uneasy that he so consistently saw through me.
‘Take care of yourself while I’m gone,’ he said after a moment, his voice quieter.
His fingertips brushed my cheek lightly, briefly, and then he was walking away. I watched him, watched as he ran a hand through his hair, his shirt sitting lopsided and clinging to his damp shoulders, until he disappeared around a corner, and I tried to imagine standing before a court and condemning him. Tried to imagine letting Dovegni haul him off to a dungeon.
Tried to imagine what he would do if the rumours about the dark-haired girl in the Yawn somehow reached him.
The palace felt strangely empty while he was gone, and I kept myself distracted. I tossed Dovegni’s offer around in my head, trying and failing to find an angle that wouldn’t make me feel like I was caught between a rock and a hard place. While I did, I paid visits to a handful of the more influential courtiers and tried to assert my presence. I commissioned the portrait I’d decided to have hung around the kingdom, avoided a governance meeting, spent time plucking away at my lute and sleeping late, and pretended Draven’s absence didn’t make me feel alone. Pretended I didn’t miss the way his gaze ran over me. Pretended I didn’t sometimes think of him in the middle of the night.
It also seemed too good an opportunity to miss having Cotus return to the Yawn to restock his cabin. It served the purpose of reassuring him that I wasn’t planning on abandoning Gwinellyn, though it was becoming more and more difficult to envision a future where I could bring her back without ushering in consequences I didn’t want to face. And, I hoped, he would see some evidence that she wasn’t dead to loosen my guilt for a while longer.
I organised a sitting for the portrait on the day Draven was supposed to return. The painter, a man by the name of Mr Leclair, twitched whenever I so much as breathed too deeply. He also sucked on the end of his brush and had an annoying tendency to brag about his other portraits while he painted, making the sitting even more tedious, a feat I hadn’t thought possible.
‘Are you almost done?’ I asked him yet again, and he was caught in a little spasm of displeasure at the fact that I’d moved.
‘You cannot rush art, Your Majesty,’ he said for the third time that session.
‘Of course I can, I’m the queen,’ I said pointedly, but he only burrowed into mixing his paints. I was beginning to regret commissioning the painting, but I couldn’t very well let Linus’s portrait hang on the walls of every tavern in the city as though he was still the one on the throne. A memory of him blank-faced and still, of red froth at the corners of his mouth, sprang to mind unbidden, and I blinked it away, shifting enough that the artist started twitching again.
‘If you are growing tired, Your Majesty, it might be best to take some rest,’ he murmured, leaning so close to his canvas he looked like his was going to begin painting with his nose.
‘I’m fine. Keep going,’ I said, lifting my chin and arranging my expression again. He exhaled a quiet sigh that I chose to ignore. I went back to wondering what Draven had done while he’d been away. By all accounts I’d heard, he’d been to the border as he’d said. He’d met with captains and soldiers and essentially conducted himself as though he was just a benevolent king interested in his country and his subjects. I wasn’t so easily convinced. Would he think what I’d done while he was away just as suspect?
‘Your Majesty, you’re moving again,’ Leclair protested after a few more quiet minutes. I blinked down at my hands, where they’d been unconsciously twisting at the fabric. One of my attendants rushed forwards to rearrange the skirt. She didn’t speak a word other than to whisper instructions about turning this way or that, her fingers trembling as she smoothed out the fabric. I remembered Leela cautioning me to know the ladies tending to me, and I watched her with a frown.
‘Marie isn’t it?’ I asked as she readjusted my headpiece. She flinched as though I’d yelled at her.
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ she said.
Ah. Lord Sherman’s daughter. I tried to think of something to say to her, but all I could think of was those trembling fingers and down-turned eyes. She was afraid of me. I was uncomfortable with that realisation.
‘Have you peeked at Mr Leclair’s progress?’
She shook her head rapidly. ‘No, of course not, ma’am.’
‘Then go and look. Tell me if it’s any good.’
‘It will not do to see the painting before it’s finished, Your Majesty,’ Leclair objected in a tone far too peevish for someone talking to a monarch. He lifted an arm above the canvas, as though to shield his work.
