Traitor (A Crown of Lilies Book 1) Read online

  “Poor girl,” I murmured.

  Aubrey eyed me. “How do you mean?”

  “If what we all think will happen tonight, happens…” I hesitated, shaking my head. “Then the first real exposure to society this girl has ever had will be instantly overshadowed. She’ll be introduced to the Court, and then immediately undermined as her claim to the throne is snatched away.”

  “You assume it’s a boy,” he pointed out.

  “As will everyone.”

  “…Poor girl,” he agreed, tossing back the remainder of his glass. Those amber eyes gave me a brief but pointed scan. “I see you’ve set your mind to something this evening.”

  I smirked and raised my chin, keeping my eyes on the crowd. “I’m sure I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  “Mm. And I’m sure you just dusted that gown off from some forgotten corner of your wardrobe.” I chose not to dignify him with a reply. He pressed on regardless. “You’ve already won the prize, my dear. No need to rub it in.”

  “I’m doing no such thing.”

  He waved his glass at the buzzing throng before us. “There are plenty of eligible young noblewomen here who would beg to differ.” Now that he mentioned it, I did notice a few icy glances aimed my way.

  “I see you’ve begun without me,” crooned a familiar voice nearby. I turned to see Adrian’s tempest eyes watching us with amusement. In the midst of our gossiping, I’d not even heard the announcement of their arrival.

  “Speaking of which… I’ll leave you in good hands.” Aubrey offered him a polite bow before gracing me with a kiss on the cheek and a roguish wink. I watched him disappear into the crowd, undoubtedly off to find Leon.

  “I suppose I don’t need to tell you how you look this evening,” Adrian purred as I turned my attention to him.

  “Utterly shameless, I’ve been told.”

  He smiled, lowering his lips to mine. “A complete scandal.”

  It drew a few murmurs from nearby, but they didn’t matter. Better they should gossip about our lack of decorum than whisper lies about my upcoming sojourn with Aubrey.

  The entire room turned to bow and curtsy deeply when the King and Queen materialized atop the entryway staircase a short while later, trumpets heralding their arrival. They descended into the ballroom and I watched as a small young woman emerged from the same entryway.

  “Presenting her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess Selice fen Audilil,” the herald’s sonorous voice bellowed.

  We all made our obeisance once again as she glided down the steps. Escorted by the captain of her guard, they made for a pretty picture: she, in flowing, ethereal white, he in his crisp uniform with gilded trim. Her pale gold locks fell nearly to her waist in a cascade of loose curls. She looked young to my eyes, but despite her petite frame, she had a remarkably commanding presence. The pair quickly disappeared from my sight, surrounded by a press of nobles eager to curry favor.

  Those of us with more dignity hung back and let the vultures swarm. With the parting of the crowd, I noticed a group I’d missed in my earlier sweep of the room with Aubrey: a cluster of olive-skinned men in laboriously ornate garb of garish colors. Straining my ears, I could hear them speaking in heavily-accented Hydraxian as they watched the throng of nobles with poorly-concealed distaste.

  I was glad for Selice’s sake when the feast was called and everyone’s attention shifted. The King and Queen raised glasses at the head of the heavily-laden table, toasting the equinox and the successful hunt, and welcoming the group I had rightly guessed was the political delegation from Hydrax. They bowed graciously, careful masks of deference now securely in place.

  Clumsy, I thought, not to maintain them throughout the evening. One never knows who might be watching.

  “And now,” King Amenon added, sliding one arm about Queen Rishel’s waist. “It is with great pleasure that we announce the impending arrival of our firstborn.” A cheer arose, accompanied by thunderous applause as the monarchs shared a sweet kiss. I glanced at Selice, standing nearby and clapping politely. I was too far to read her face, but her posture suggested she had known this announcement would accompany her debut.

  We feasted, then, and I did my best to employ my mother’s teachings and observe rather than lose myself in Adrian’s company. He noticed and didn’t press me, chatting animatedly with his siblings instead. My mother, seated to my other side, put me to shame. Where I had to focus to maintain both a keen alertness and a convincing countenance, she navigated effortlessly. Even I wouldn’t have known she was engaged in anything more than conversation if she hadn’t stiffened ever so slightly at the Hydraxian emissary’s mention of the soon-to-be-expected Persican delegation.

  “Perhaps,” he entreated Lord Augustus in his heavy accent, “you might assist us in arranging a joint conference with His Majesty to discuss a more… mutually beneficial alliance between our great nations.”

  Aubrey’s father creased his brow, already well into his wine for the evening. “Yes, yes,” he agreed hastily, focused on his venison. “I’ll speak to him.”

  I saw the flash of anger in my mother’s eyes before she returned politely to her conversation, the lapse in her demeanor vanishing. My mother never faltered. Not at Court, anyway. Her capacity for intrigue and deception bordered on uncanny. Whatever threat she had perceived in that exchange, it concerned her enough to slip her guard, and set me on edge for the remainder of the meal.

  “May I have you back now?” Adrian’s patient voice murmured in my ear as we made our way back into the ballroom.

  I offered him an apologetic smile. “Forgive me, I’ve been distracted.”

  His mouth twisted into a wry smirk. “Yes, I noticed.”

  Eyeing the cluster of garishly-bedecked foreigners, I slipped my hand onto his arm and lowered my voice. “It’s the delegation,” I confessed quietly. “I don’t entirely trust their intentions here.”

  That made him laugh. “Surely not! In my experience, there’s little in the world less trustworthy than a politician.” When I opened my mouth to press the matter, he cut me off. “We can speculate all we want on the way to Petrion. Tonight,” he paused to plant a kiss on my knuckles, “I’d like to enjoy an evening with my future wife.”

  We danced and chatted with numerous others, making a good show of unity and accepting the various congratulations on our engagement. Adrian was fielding one such barrage of niceties when a flash of white caught my eye across the packed hall. Princess Selice stood to one side of the room, talking quietly with her escort near a towering display of spring flowers, but otherwise entirely alone. As I had anticipated, she had been dismissed just as quickly as she had been swarmed by the Court, in light of the announcement of her impending sibling. I touched Adrian’s arm and he followed my gaze, giving me a surreptitious nod before returning to the conversation. Excusing myself quietly, I slipped through the crowd in a roundabout route to come up on her left.

  “Pardon me, Your Highness,” I curtsied low to her as she turned my way. Her neatly pressed captain stiffened.

  She said nothing, simply watched me and waited as I straightened and immediately faltered.

  Her eyes! Gods, her eyes! Her father’s brass ones paled in comparison. They nearly glowed, sunlight and wheat fields swirling in her irises, a startling echo of my encounter in the Kingswood. I scrambled to collect my wits.

  “Forgive me,” I managed to force out. “I wanted to congratulate you on your debut.”

  “Thank you,” she replied in a cool tone. Young, she might be, but there was nothing naïve about the girl standing before me. She saw me and everyone else in that room as a threat – exactly as she should, given who and what she was. I wasn’t entirely sure whether to be impressed or dispirited.

  “I wondered if you would care to join my fiancé and I for a glass of wine.” I knew what her answer would be before I finished uttering the words.

  She smiled prettily, but it didn’t reach those remarkable e
yes. “Thank you, no.” That was all. Nothing more. The two of them simply stared at me, waiting for me to disappear.

  I’d never failed so spectacularly in my life – never misjudged a mark so completely. I’d thought to rescue her from a humiliating social rejection, to extend a friendly hand when the rest of the Court had already turned its back on her. In doing so, I could have forged a valuable alliance, a parallel of the one my parents shared with hers.

  But Selice didn’t need my help – didn’t want my pity or my friendship.

  And I thought Quintin was a hard bastard.

  Bobbing a polite curtsy, I excused myself from them and retreated back through the crowd.

  I found Adrian deep in conversation with a few lesser nobles from House Guillar, gesturing animatedly as they described some complex architectural detail of note. I didn’t care enough to engage. Blue-gray eyes turned to greet me as I returned in defeat.

  “I tried,” I murmured, glancing back in the direction of the Princess. “I’m not the company she wishes to keep at the moment.”

  He wrapped one arm about my waist. “Perhaps a dance would take your mind off it?”

  A large assembly of players had been filling the hall with lively music all evening. The tune shifted and dozens of bedecked nobles waltzed across the floor around us as Adrian led me into their midst. When he’d claimed a spot for us, his hand gave a gentle tug, drawing me into his arms.

  We fit well together. We always had. We didn’t bother with propriety. Let them stare. His hand slipped beneath the cascade of my hair to find the bare skin at the small of my back, pulling me close. Fingertips caressed slow circles on my flesh, then slipped just under the draped edges of the silk. I flushed beneath his touch, my eyelashes fluttering inches from his own, breath mingling in the small space between us. I could feel that searing ache through the slick silk of my gown as he pressed himself against me, his fingertips curling to dig into my flesh. Closer, they demanded.

  Needless to say, all other thoughts quickly evaporated. I luxuriated in his touch, in the audacious, reckless intimacy, barely kept under wraps in full view of the entire Court.

  “Come with me,” I whispered when I could bear it no longer.

  We measured our steps, making our way discreetly from the ballroom in search of some private corner. Finally, down several hallways and turns, we stumbled into a vacant study and locked the door. His mouth closed hungrily on mine, hands holding my face captive, raking through my hair, gripping my neck. I tugged at his doublet, pulling him back toward the desk at the far end of the room. We crashed gracelessly into it, his hands finding my buttocks and lifting me onto to the table. Fingers buried in my hair, he kissed me long and deep.

  “Wait,” he gasped, pulling away with considerable effort. Hands raised in a gesture of pause, he met my gaze, his a roiling squall of desire and forbearance. “If this is too much…”

  I considered him with a renewed awe, tilting my head as my heart swelled at the sight of the conflict in him – not the conflict itself, but the restraint it had taken him to face it. To recognize it. To put me – us – before his own desire.

  I knew what he was asking. He was afraid to push, knowing how the attack had shaken me. There had been many times, over the previous months, when I had felt as fragile as a cracked mirror; thin skin holding the pieces together, ready to shatter at any moment. But not here, not now, with him. Strangely, I thought of Shera and what she had said to me the morning after, shoving my sword belt against my chest.

  I held that tempest gaze as I reached down and gathered my skirts, dragging them up my legs, slow and deliberate. He caught his breath at the sight of me, boots carrying him unwittingly back into my embrace, pressed between the silken tangle of limbs and fabric. His nose grazed mine, rough hands bracing against the desk beneath me.

  “I am the heir of Lazerin.” I murmured against his lips, tugging the laces of his breeches loose. “And you cannot break me.”

  The carriage ride home was marked by my mother’s exceptionally distracted countenance. It was late, or early, but she was not one to overindulge and her distant mental state owed nothing to exhaustion. She was processing, evaluating, replaying the night’s covert observations in her mind. I was glad, for it meant she wouldn’t likely notice my slightly more disheveled state or Adrian’s scent on me. When we made our way into the foyer, Emmett was waiting to take our cloaks. Gabe and Quintin followed us through the door, all shuffling boots and rattling armaments.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” my mother intoned absentmindedly. “That will be all for this evening.”

  Gabe disappeared toward the servants’ quarters, yawning into the dark of the house. Quintin held back just long enough to eye me with poorly-concealed distaste. Apparently, he was not as distracted as my mother.

  “I’ll see you at daybreak.”

  I had hoped for a respite due to the lateness of the evening, not to mention that we’d be busy with travel preparations the next day. As he stalked down the hall after his counterpart, I couldn’t help but scowl after him.

  Stubborn ass.

  “Shera has a fresh pouch of silphium for you,” Mother murmured my direction, mind still fully elsewhere. “Goodnight, dear.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Dawn came brutally early. My legs dragged their way down the stairs and out into the garden. Drooping eyelids flickered in annoyance at the sight of Quintin spinning through his warm-ups in lively form. After stretching, I buckled my Freyjan shield on my arm and drew my own sword, waiting for instruction.

  Blue eyes glanced my way, as cold and guarded as they had ever been. The slight twitch at the bridge of his nose suggested I was the last person he wanted to see that morning, but he had his orders. Duty comes first, in any Tuvrian’s mind.

  “Today, we add the dagger.”

  “I’m not sure today’s a good day to add anything,” I muttered sleepily.

  He wasn’t amused. “If you think no one ever fights except on a good night’s rest, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  I bit my tongue and drew my belt knife in my left hand. I'd practiced with sword and dagger before, but never with the weight of the shield dragging on my balance.

  “Not like that.”

  He grabbed my left wrist, wrenching the weapon from my grip and flipping it around so the blade extended down, the opposite of how he’d shown me previously. It would be good for a back-hand or over-hand strike, but not much else. He caught my dubious expression.

  “You think you know better?”

  “Thought you said only highwaymen and alley thugs fight with a tucked blade.”

  His frown deepened. “Different application.”

  “Just doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Fine, try it your way then.”

  I flipped the knife back around and squared up against him. He swung at my left side. I deflected with the shield and made to stab at his open rib, but before I could shift my arm’s momentum for the strike, he recovered and brought his sword back around on the outside of my left hand. The dagger thudded on the grass a few feet away.

  “Now, my way.”

  It was awkward at first, but of course, he was right. With the knife tucked along my forearm in a back-handed grip, I could deflect and pivot much faster, driving the blade into the opening with less force but more speed. The bulk of his ire seemed to fade as we settled into the lesson. I checked my own temper, glad for a reprieve from it.

  “It follows the momentum of your arm instead of trying to reverse it. Circles, see?” He drew his belt knife to demonstrate the pivot slowly. “It’s a more stable grip, as well. You’re less likely to be disarmed.”

  “You have one, too!” I blurted out before I could stop myself, my eyes fixed on the blade in his hand. I’d never seen it out of its sheath before, telltale whorls of folded steel sprouting from a deceptively utilitarian hilt. He paused in confusion, following my gaze. “Sorry,” I added quickly. “Just
surprised. I guess most Tuvrians have Euzoni steel.”

  Though how they could afford it was beyond me. House Euzros might be a Lesser House of Tuvre, but their metalwork was prohibitively expensive – and for good reason. Their secretive methods produced weapons that held a razor-sharp edge, that could pierce plate armor with enough force and cleave ordinary steel in two.

  “No,” he replied, hefting the blade in his hand, a piece that likely cost more than my dowry. “But it’s more common. This was a gift.”

  “From your father?”

  His face darkened, retreating back behind those thick walls of his. “From a friend. Enough distraction. Get back to work.”

  When the majority of the packing was done, I spent the afternoon running Valor ragged in the vast fields outside the city walls, Quintin struggling to keep up on his stalwart gelding. Once I’d managed to burn the bulk of his energy from him, I unclipped his bit and left him to his own devices for a while, knowing he wouldn’t stray far.

  “What will it be like, do you think?” I wondered aloud, sprawled out on the soft grass, soaking in the warmth of the day. Valor huffed as he grazed nearby, my stoic guardian having resigned himself to the ground a few feet away.

  “Elas?” came his hesitant reply.

  “Elas, Agorai, the tall ships, all of it.” Clouds rolled past overhead.

  “Dangerous.”

  I snorted. “You think everything is dangerous.”

  A flock of small birds startled in a nearby tree, taking wing in a panicked burst of feathers and a chorus of alarmed chirps. The dark cluster of their silhouettes faded into the stillness of the afternoon sky.

  “I don’t speak any Elan,” Quintin admitted after a long silence, an unusual hint of uncertainty in his voice.

  “Only the academics use it, now. Alesia and Elas have been trading for centuries. Most Elans speak our tongue.” He didn’t reply, that self-conscious tension hovering around him like a shroud. “But I can teach you a few common phrases on the passage over, if you’d like.”