Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

I stalk the halls of Perillos, dusky light radiating through the windows in shades of molten gold kissed with rose. If I'm going to get into Talan's room, this is the time of day to do it. I sift through my memories for all the thoughts I've overheard from him.

In the somber, dusky veil of twilight, light withers to mortal hues. Silence enshrouds me, and I'm buried in ashen grey. The burning sun, snuffed out like a life cut short…

His thoughts can be strange, nearly impenetrable, but they give me a sense of him. Twilight can be beautiful, but it always feels like a lonely time to me, when the daylight starts to die. I remember it being worst on Sunday nights, for some reason, when the sun started to set. It was always such a sorrowful feeling of having missed out on fun, a certainty that I'd spent too much time alone, that I'd be headed into another day of corrosive loneliness at school, where I always seemed to say the wrong thing or wear the wrong thing…

So, even if his thoughts were wrapped in strange phrases, I understood him.

Outside Talan's room, an armored soldier stands in the hall, gripping a pike—a member of the King's Watch. I take a deep breath and try to look serene. As I near the sentry, I summon the image of the veil in my mind, feeling its power hum over my skin. My protection from Talan's invasive magic.

The guard glares and shifts his position to block me. "Is the prince expecting you?"

I put my hand to my chest. "I'm his chief mistress. Of course he is."

Everything about the guard is silver—his armor, his eyes, his long hair. He peers down at me. "Are you the one from Lauron?"

"What do you mean, ‘the one from Lauron'? How many mistresses does he have?"

"It's just that I'm from Lauron," he says softly, "and I've never seen you."

My blood runs cold. "Well, we were at the outskirts of town."

He narrows his pale eyes. "And your accent." He speaks slowly. "It's not quite right for a Lauron farm girl, is it?"

My heart slams. "Is it really your place to question the prince's chosen?"

His gaze sweeps down my body. "It is my job to protect the king and his family, so yes. What do you have on you?"

I look down at my dress—the sheer, pale blue cloth, the gold embroidery, the lace in just the right places to hide everything. "What could I possibly have on me?"

The truth is, I do have something on me—the replica key wrapped around my wrist. And I don't want this guard going anywhere near it.

His jaw clenches. "I'll search you before you go in."

"Do you really think the prince wants you touching his mistress?"

"As I said, my job is to protect him. And something isn't right about you."

I swallow hard. "Oh, forget it. I'm not letting you touch me. The prince will hear of this." I turn to walk away from him, and he grabs my arm. "Get your hand off me," I snap.

But his grip is iron. He's hostile, suspicious, and I need to change his perception. So, when he yanks me, I let go and topple backward onto the floor. Agony shoots through my wrist, and I grunt with the pain, which is quite real. "Why are you hurting me?"

"I didn't mean to." His face blanches. Good. His fear and guilt are already clouding his mind.

The door swings open, and Talan leans against the doorway, his hair looking tousled. "And what, pray tell, is going on here? Did you hurt my mistress?"

My mind races. I have to take control of this situation. I need to control the narrative, to make sure that Talan finds out only the information I want him to hear.

"Your Highness—" the guard begins.

"He says he suspects me," I cut in, rubbing my throbbing wrist. "He suspects me of not really being in love with you. He thinks I'm a fraud, apparently, and that our relationship is a sham."

From the floor, I shoot Talan an expression that says, He's found us out . As if we're together in the guard's suspicion.

Talan turns to the guard and raises his black eyebrows. "And you hurt her?"

"I didn't mean to. I just don't think she's who she says she is," the guard stammers.

Slowly, I stand, still cradling my injured wrist. "He's threatening to report me to the king for being a fake."

I know the reaction this will get.

Talan acts swiftly. In a blur of movement, his dagger arcs through the air. The guard grabs his neck, his blood spilling onto the flagstones. I step back, my heart racing, and stare down at the guard as he bleeds out. My legs feel weak, and my head is clouded. Guilt carves through me. The man was only doing his job, like I was doing mine. And unfortunately for me, he was fucking good at his job. But it was either him or me, and if I'd let this conversation take its natural course, I'd be the one bleeding on the floor.

I look up at Talan, my mouth going dry. For the briefest of moments, I see something unexpected on his face. Is it regret? Guilt? But before I can make sense of it, his expression settles into a mask of cool composure. Sheathing his dagger, he brushes his dark hair away from his face. "He belonged to the King's Watch. He was good at his job. But that's the problem, isn't it? I can't have someone good at his job watching me, informing on me. I need an idiot as my sergeant-at-arms. Now he's a problem I no longer have."

The expression he shoots me is ice-cold.

I swallow. "Right."

"Guards!" he calls.

At the far end of the hall, two guards hurry around the corner. They stop to stare open-mouthed at the body at the end of the hall, watching the man's blood run in rivulets between the flagstones.

"Get someone to clean this up," Talan says. "And I'll need a new sergeant-at-arms, one who will not treat my mistress as if she's some sort of criminal." He leans against the doorframe and folds his arm, a ghost of a smile playing over his lips. "What brings my mistress here, exactly? And did my chivalrous protection elevate me above ‘murderous pig-shagger' in your estimation?"

My mouth opens and closes. This is not how I'd expected this to happen. I stare down at the guard's body. "I've quite forgotten why I came."

He opens the door to his room and steps inside, pausing to look back at me. Sunlight from the windows behind him gilds his dark, tousled hair and outlines his broad shoulders. "Are you coming in, then?"

Silently, I follow him, and he closes the door behind me.

Once inside the huge room, he leans against a column and gives me a wry smile. "How may I be of service, my faithful mistress?"

I try to remember the little speech I'd prepared, the one I'd gleaned from his thoughts. "Nivene isn't around, and everything is so quiet. I've spent too much time in my room by myself." I shrug. "Maybe I don't like to be alone at dusk, is all."

"And here I thought you felt nothing but disdain for me." His voice is a quiet, silken drawl as he steps closer. "Are you after something from me, love? The sweet release of a lover's touch, a night's solace in my bed, to scream my name for real this time? That's usually why women show up at my door, but I can't say that grim spectacle was the best start to the evening."

My heart stutters.

Fuck. I've been thrown off guard already. I need to reflect his own thoughts back at him. "No, it's just that I wanted some company. It's a feeling I get when the sun is setting, when the dying light fades to a mortal pallor. It reminds me of the intense solitude a person must feel in their final breaths, when someone is alone with their pain."

A line forms between his eyebrows. "Oddly enough, I know exactly what you mean. Have a seat. I'm pouring myself wine, if you want some."

I follow him across the vast, vaulted chamber, my heart beating faster. Light spills from arched windows onto a four-poster bed made of twisting, gnarled dark wood. The blankets on the bed are a velvety purple. A table and two chairs stand beneath the windows.

He crosses to a mahogany desk and uncorks a bottle of wine.

I glance up at a stained glass rose window. It's an ouroboros—a serpentine dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of creation and destruction. This is Talan's sigil, and it is strangely fitting for him.

A tapestry hangs on one of the walls, depicting a dark, snaking river with weeping willow trees drooping into the water.

"That's beautiful," I say as he hands me a glass of claret.

He glances up at the window. "That's the drowned Isle of Shallott."

My eyebrows flick up. I'm still trying to reorganize my thoughts, to compose myself after everything went so badly awry. I'm trying not to think about how this lovely claret looks like the blood of the man Talan just killed. I take a sip of the wine and relax a little. It's heaven, in fact—berries and oak infused with sunlight.

The light catches Talan's eyes. They are dark as ebony, but at this angle, I can see a vibrant ring of copper around the iris. How did I never notice that copper before?

"Why did you choose Shallott to hang on your wall?" I ask.

"That's where my mother was from, before the isle was drowned in the human war."

My curiosity sparks. "All the way out in Lauron, we don't really hear that much about what happens at court. I never heard about your mother."

When he looks at me again, the copper is dazzling. "She died a long time ago. They say a demi-Fey turned her in to the King's Watch, trying to curry favor with my father."

I swallow hard. "Is that why you hate humans so much?"

He's studying me closely, and my breath catches. "Tell me, Nia, why can't I see into your dreams? I can't get in your head at all."

As he speaks, I feel his magic prodding at the edges of my mind, trying to look for a weakness, a serpent's fang of power nudging at my thoughts. I clench my teeth and fight to stay in control. There's danger in the intensity of his gaze, and I stare out the windows at the mossy walls surrounding the castle. "I have no idea, Talan. I don't know how your power works."

I turn back to see him sipping his wine. He's wearing a black, short-sleeves shirt, baring the skin of his lower arms. A tattoo twists up one forearm and over his bicep, disappearing into his shirt. Thorny vines, I think, that reach all the way up to his throat, stopping just below his chin. No, not vines, I realize, leaves of a willow branch, drawn to look sharp.

He's standing so casually, so relaxed, but he's still trying to break into my mind, and I can feel my defenses about to shatter like glass.