Kael walked forward until his face was inches from Auberon’s. His gaze was like a heated blade. “Crispin said you loved her. I don’t think your selfish heart is capable of love. But if you do, then prove yourself and find her.”

  “I have nothing to prove to you, Kael of Estria,” Auberon spat.

  But he was lying, and they both knew it. He had everything to prove. Loyalty, honesty, usefulness. He had to win Briand’s forgiveness back. He had to show to her that he was sorry for the betrayal before.

  Kael turned on his heel and left the room, leaving Auberon sitting alone with his pulse hammering in his ears and rage curling beneath his skin, rage that quickly faded to hollowness.

  The truth was, he was trying to sleep, but his bloody mind wouldn’t calm long enough to let him. He lay awake at night, a thousand concerns drumming in his awareness, a thousand fears crawling beneath his skin. He’d called for the massage, the wine, all of it in hopes that he could calm his restless head.

  It wasn’t working.

  He needed exhaustion. Pure, unrelenting fatigue, the kind that made one’s blood and bones feel heavy as sacks of sand, the kind that would force his body to sleep no matter how many things besieged his mind.

  Suddenly, Auberon had an idea. It was a rather loathsome idea, but he didn’t have many options.

  Curses, what a vile prospect this was. But it just might work.

  He rose swiftly, lest he lose his opportunity, and stalked across the floor with his robe trailing.

  Kael was at the door giving sharp instructions to the guards when Auberon strode back into the main chamber. The Monarchist turned at the sound of footfalls, and Auberon just had time to catch the look of fury that blazed in the other man’s eyes before Auberon swung his metal-encased fist at the traitor’s jaw.

  Kael moved with an infuriating swiftness, but the blow still grazed the side of his head. Blood sprang from the grooves left by the joints in the metal glove. Auberon felt a surge of satisfaction at the sight of it. He wanted to hit things. Feel the solid contact of his hands against someone else’s skin. It felt real.

  The guards at the door rushed to seize him, and he didn’t resist. They yanked his arms behind his back as Kael worked his jaw gingerly, testing the damage done, and Auberon waited in silent defiance for the captain of the guard to land a blow in revenge now that Auberon was incapacitated.

  But Kael didn’t strike him. His brows drew together as if he had put something together in his head, and an expression Auberon didn’t trust flashed across the other man’s face.

  Then, Kael smiled.

  “Release him,” the Monarchist commanded the guards. After a beat of hesitation, they did as he commanded.

  Was that it? Was the infuriating Monarchist a lily-livered coward? Was he refusing to fight back on some misguided sense of honor, some loathsome principle of proper sportsmanship?

  “Come on,” he growled. “Strike me. You want to. I can see it. Give in.”

  The captain of the guard exhaled in answer, his hands flexing.

  Auberon was about to snarl at Kael in disappointed fury when the captain of the guard drew back his arm and punched him.

  Kael’s fist connected with Auberon’s cheekbone, and the Seeker felt a sting of delight along with the pain. He staggered back against the couch, landing in a sprawl across the springy cushions, and he couldn’t contain a grin.

  “There it is,” the Seeker hissed as he pushed himself up on his elbows, his face throbbing, quelling the pain in his chest. “There’s that rage. Give in to it, Kael.”

  Kael stood breathing slow, a calculating expression on his face now.

  Auberon rolled off the couch and sprang forward, but Kael was quicker. He caught Auberon by the collar and punched him again, harder this time, and Auberon’s head snapped back at the blow.

  Yes. This. This is what he wanted. The pain anchored him.

  Auberon turned his head and spat a rusty spray of blood on the marble floor. He looked back at Kael, grinning crookedly.

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  Kael struck him in the face a third time and let go of his collar, and Auberon dropped like a bag of rocks. His shoulder slammed against the floor, sending a jolt of pain across his rib cage and down his spine, reminding him of all his bones, reminding him that he was a creature that felt things, real things, not just the sea of ennui and sorrow he’d been drowning in for far too long.

  This time, Kael didn’t pick him back up.

  Auberon was seething and on the verge of laughing simultaneously. His pulse thundered in his head. This was the best he’d felt in months. He was almost sorry when Kael turned on his heel and left.

  The lock clicked, and Auberon wiped the blood from his lips and stood, thoughtful.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE NYRIAN NIGHT sky glistened like a noble-born lord’s diamond-studded tunic. Stars streaked across the darkness, falling into the sea on the horizon. Insects chirped loudly in the night, and a bat fluttered through the light of the torches burning along the palace walls. Far in the distance, someone was playing a lute, and the mournful notes of the sound wove through the lush silence of the private palace garden.

  Jehn stood in the shadow of a palace wall with his face pointed toward the stars, waiting. He watched as glowing moths darted through the darkness just above the stream that flowed beneath the wing of the palace. They looked like stars that had escaped their prison in the sky to flit below in the shadowy places of mortals.

  He wondered when he’d become so damnably poetic.

  Probably about the time he’d started kissing his wife.

  The faint scrape of skin against stone alerted him, and Jehn lifted his head to see his captain of the guard descending the side of the palace wall like a panther on a tree.

  “Are you trying to break your neck?” Jehn asked when Kael dropped the last bit of the way and landed on the moss beside him.

  “The queen’s shadow guard do such things every morning before breakfast. I could climb this wall blindfolded,” Kael replied. He spoke matter-of-factly, and Jehn knew it was not a boast. Kael had probably done exactly that.

  Sweat glittered on the captain of the guard’s brow in the moonlight as he turned his face toward his prince. “Where is your guard?”

  “I am not quite convinced that the members of the shadow guard aren’t made of, well, shadow,” Jehn grumbled. “I’m rather jealous of them. They move so silently that the queen probably doesn’t even feel as if she’s a prisoner being escorted everywhere.”

  “I can assure you,” Kael said, flashing a grin that spoke of stories of secret skirmishes and practice fights, “when cut, the shadow guard bleed like mortal men and women. As do you, my prince. And you’ve neglected to answer my question. Where is your guard?”

  Jehn sighed extravagantly. “My guard’s presence was disturbing the tranquility of the garden, so I sent them away.”

  “An assassin—” Kael began, scowling.

  “I am not entirely without defense,” Jehn interrupted. He drew his robe back to show Kael the glitter of the curved knife tucked into his belt. “I have means of fighting back.”

  It was a rather pointless gesture, they both knew. Jehn was not exactly the finest fighter in the court.

  Kael drew his own knife and slipped into the shadows. He returned a minute later, appearing silently in the dark after having assured himself that the garden was safe from assassins. His eyes were dark with displeasure, which Jehn ignored.

  Kael’s jaw flexed with agitation. “Jehn,” he said, with a note of weariness in his voice. “Please do not make it necessary for me to become your shadow to ensure your safety. I have too much to oversee at the moment. I have a Seeker prisoner that I’m keeping secret from your court and doing my best not to strangle, and a thousand threats to your court to untangle daily, and a dozen other enemies’ swords—sometimes literally—pointed at my throat. I do not have time to play nursemaid to you. Don’t force me to take extra measures.”

  Jehn made a noncommittal noise, unmoved even by that light threat. He was feeling reckless tonight. Unmoored. He hadn’t taken the Nyrian physician’s drugs in two weeks, after whittling his dosage down bit by bit until he no longer felt as if bees were swarming beneath his skin without it, and his brain felt strange. His thoughts were full of sharp edges and unexpected discomforts. He had a thousand things to consider—the war, his court, the Nyrians, the Eisean situation—but every so often, he would think of the queen, and momentarily, his thoughts would scatter like birds disrupted from their roost.

  “How fares the efforts with the Seeker? Have you found Briand yet?”

  “Would I be here if we had?” Kael said softly.

  Jehn turned and looked at him. There was a pause.

  “Don’t think,” Jehn said, “that I am unaware of how you’ve already been making short trips to the surrounding islands in search of her. You went as far as the outer ring of isles the other day, didn’t you?”

  “I would go farther,” Kael said, “if I could be spared from my duties here. Now that I know she’s alive, I will never stop searching. Never. Even if the bloody Seeker never dreams another dream. Even if everyone else stops.” His voice was husky with conviction. “As long as I can search, I will.”

  “And your spy network?” Jehn asked. “What of them?”

  “Searching for information from Bestane to Tyyr.”

  “You have, of course, anything you need from me,” Jehn said. “Anything.”

  “Thank you, sir. I know you did not part on good terms with her.”

  “There is a layer to my life that isn’t political,” Jehn said with a flicker of irritation. “I daresay I’ve been able to separate the two better than most.”

  Kael said nothing, and Jehn sighed. He couldn’t fault his captain for not believing him. The depth to which royals treated political and personal things as separate entities entirely was lost on everyone who was not a prince or a queen. Jehn the prince might be furious with Briand for her alliance with the queen of Nyr, for her stealing of his vial of dragonsayer of poison—but Jehn the man admired her spirit.

  Even Kael did not understand it.

  “Tell me more about the shadow guard,” he said, flicking his gaze at the wall Kael had descended from earlier. “In your estimation, do they serve their queen because of their duty to her, or are they compelled by their payment?”

  “They aren’t mercenaries; they love their queen fiercely,” Kael replied. He tipped his head thoughtfully, studying his prince. “Why do you ask? Do you have some suspicion I do not know about?”

  “No, no… nothing like that,” Jehn said with a wave of his good hand. “I only wondered… the queen’s court, after all, is not particularly loyal to her. It has been my observation that her shadow guard is different, but my observations are frustratingly limited, and the queen does not like to talk about them. Even among the Nyrian people, they are often believed to be a myth.”

  “The queen’s court is filled with fools,” Kael said.

  “I didn’t think you liked the queen of Nyr,” Jehn said. He was surprised at Kael’s apparent defense.

  “The queen is a clever woman,” Kael said, “and she’s a sly, consummate trickster. Those who underestimate her will be sorry for it, I think.”

  “Not necessarily a ringing endorsement.”

  “Were you hoping for one?” Kael lifted both brows, and Jehn experienced a stab of something that was almost defensive.

  Had he been?

  “I was only wondering your opinion.”

  Kael’s expression was unreadable, but Jehn knew his captain of the guard well enough to know that he was unconvinced at Jehn’s lie. And Jehn had to wonder at himself. Why did he care? The queen of Nyr had trapped him in a politically advantageous marriage of convenience. She was cold and dangerous, and she didn’t trust him.

  But she was fascinating and clever and as full of hidden surprises as the intricate private gardens she’d designed for herself. She had a way of seeing everything, absorbing every word, every movement down to a flick of the eyelashes, and deconstructing it later with the attention of a clockmaker taking apart a competitor’s design to see exactly how the fellow had gotten his timepiece to work. She was brilliant and unpredictable. Jehn hadn’t realized until he met her how much the men and women he’d been pushed toward before had bored him. He had no interest in pursuing things that proceeded exactly how he anticipated.

  With these realizations came concern.

  Any emotions regarding the queen of Nyr that were not suspicion and a healthy sense of mistrust were dangerous. She was more akin to a serpent than a kitten, and he’d best remember that.

  Jehn was saved from further rumination when Kael said, with the air of a confession, “I bloodied the Seeker today.”

  “Why?”

  “He struck me in the face.”

  “I’m sure that was cathartic.” Jehn wished fervently at times that he could do the same to a select number of his council members. Sometimes, the amorphous nature of political battles waged with breath and insinuation instead of something as simple and instinctive as flesh connecting with flesh or sword clanging against sword made him feel like an animal writhing in a cage. Helpless. Ineffectual. Utterly impotent.

  “Yes,” Kael mused. “It was cathartic. But not in the way I expected.” He paused. “I think I am going to make it a regular occurrence.”

  Laughter echoed to their right, and the prince and his captain of the guard paused, listening. A couple staggered past on one of the lighted paths in the distance, their faces lit by the colored lanterns that hung at intervals along the trails through the garden. They paused to kiss on one of the bridges known as the Lover’s Arch, the silk of their dresses shimmering.

  “The queen might object if you take to beating her prisoner,” Jehn noted once the couple had moved on along the path.

  “I quite honestly doubt that, given that she’s more interested in the sister,” Kael said. “And anyway, the Seeker struck me because he wanted me to hit back. It was an attempt at a connection, however crudely it was expressed, and I think I can work with that. Build on it. The Seeker’s misplaced aggression constantly provokes him to attack everyone and sabotage everything. If we have any hope of rescuing Briand—”

  He broke off at speaking her name. The abruptness of his silence hung in the air like a sharp sound.

  Kael recovered himself, and said smoothly, “If we have any hope of a successful mission, the Seeker must be able to direct his aggression somewhere. He needs to feel less powerless, so he stops lashing out at me constantly.”

  Jehn understood. He and Kael had come to blows themselves when they were on the ship bound for Nyr. Sometimes, it was a relief to put something real behind turbulent emotions.

  He thought again of the queen of Nyr.

  Relief, indeed. Confusing, perplexing relief. But there it was.

  “What do you think, sir?” Kael’s voice dragged him once more from his pensive thoughts about a perplexing woman.

  “I think you know what you want to do,” Jehn said.

  He was speaking to himself as much as Kael.

  ~

  The shadows had deepened even further, and the moon had risen high in the sky when Jehn returned to his chambers, this time in the company of two guards that Kael had summoned.

  He left the guards outside when he entered the room, which was swathed in shadow and the muffled feeling of too many secrets, too many lies. They draped like discarded garments over the floor and across the couches. Jehn stared around him, wondering if he had the strength to sit up and review the information his spies had brought him most recently, but no, he ought to sleep.

  He lay down, but his bed felt too large and too empty. He tossed, feeling pain in his hand and a suffocating heaviness in his head, searching for sleep without drugs and finding it elusive. The nightmares were waiting anyway, ready to spring the moment his consciousness waned and he crossed the barrier between waking and dreams. So, he turned on his back and stared at the ceiling, bargaining with his fears, calculating what it might cost were he to find some draught or tincture to ease his way into sleep tonight.

  The soft sound of a foot pressing into the carpet alerted him to her presence. He rose on one elbow and watched as the queen of Nyr approached from the shadows, quiet as a ghost. She was still wearing her ceremonial robes, and her hair was twisted up in an array of fans and combs. She stopped before she reached him, sitting on the couch and kicking off her shoes. Her bare feet flashed in the near-darkness like pale, sun-brightened river stones before she tucked them under her.

  “You were not at court today,” she said.

  “My hand was hurting me.”

  The queen reached up and drew one of the combs from her hair. A lock of shining black fell around her face. She set the comb on the low table in front of the couch, the same table on which Jehn had played Dubbok with the dragonsayer.

  In a way, he was playing a kind of game now too.

  The queen drew out another comb. “I know something that might help with your hand.”

  “The tincture—” Jehn began.

  “Not the medicine,” she said.

  He fell silent, watching as she removed the rest of the combs and then ran her fingers through her long, glossy hair.

  “It’s an old technique called yori,” she said after a pause. “Tapping, massage, stretching. It was developed on the island where I grew up. My mother used to use it on me when I was small, when I was anxious. I have found a man who is trained in it.”

  “Yori,” Jehn repeated, testing the word. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “I’ll show you,” she said, and rose in a fluid motion. She shrugged out of her heavy ceremonial robe and left it lying like a discarded snakeskin on the couch. Underneath she wore simple white silk trousers and a loose tunic shirt. She approached the bed and reached out one slim hand toward him.

 

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