Authors: Barbara Ann Wright
He cleared his throat. “Already done.” After a moment, she felt a light touch and looked up to meet his softened gaze. “Your sister-in-law knew what she was getting into before her marriage, Katya.”
“I know, but the Waltz is…” Katya trailed off, pressing her lips together. They couldn’t understand.
She
didn’t fully understand, and she’d done it once, a year before her brother had married. She’d had to keep the Fiend Yanchasa the Mighty at bay, and she barely remembered it. “The people have mostly forgotten Yanchasa. It’s…difficult to prepare someone.”
Brutal shrugged. “People have lost their sense of fear. You said it yourself, some things can’t be explained. From what you’ve told us, Brom won’t even remember the Waltz after it’s over.”
Across the table, Maia rubbed her arms as if chilled. “But those watching won’t forget. Too bad we can’t let Yanchasa loose. One look at it and no one would claim our family uses the legend to keep the throne.”
“That would only work if we wanted everyone in the kingdom to die,” Crowe said. “Summoning Yanchasa killed the first king of Farraday and nearly destroyed his entire army.”
“I know,” Maia said “That’s why I said we can’t.”
“Peace.” Katya rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The people know there’s a ritual, and that’s all they need to know. The last thing we need is for traitors to find out the details of the Waltz.” She touched the fabric covering her necklace. “Or the Aspect. Now, ideas on how to get more information on this particular group?”
“I’ll check the other chapterhouses,” Brutal said.
“Good,” Katya said. “Pennynail, have your contacts turned up anything?”
He pointed to Crowe, who shook his head. “Whoever’s leading this group is buried too deeply for our contacts. The best we can hope for is rumor or gossip to help us understand what they want.”
“We don’t want to understand them,” Katya said. “We want to eradicate them.”
Crowe shook his head. “If we know what they want, Highness, we can more easily find them.”
“They want to kill my family.”
“Mine, too,” Maia said. Katya nodded to her.
“When you are working as the leader of the Order of Vestra, they are not
your
family,” Crowe said, “they are the
royal
family.”
“I know,” Katya and Maia said at the same time.
“Then remember, anger is dangerous,” Crowe said. Katya resisted the urge to grasp her necklace again. Anger could lead to rage, which would bring on the Aspect, and that could kill them all.
Katya licked her lips. “Maia, you asking questions of the courtiers will be less noticeable than me asking. Eavesdropping on hallway gossip while pretending to be an idle idiot suits me best.”
“Pennynail and I will call in some old favors,” Crowe said.
“Let’s get to it.” They all stood to go to their respective tasks. Her curiosity piqued, Katya lingered until everyone had left but Crowe. “What are these favors you and Pennynail did that you can now call in?”
“Ask and ask and ask again, but I shall never tell.”
“I’m not asking about his identity. I’m just asking what you two do together.”
“You’ve worked with him long enough to trust him, correct?”
“He’s saved my life many times.”
“Then continue to trust him. And me.”
“Always. Even though you aren’t blood, you feel like family. When I was little, I thought you and Roland were both my uncles instead of just him.”
“Thank you.” He stared at the table, his face like stone.
With a sigh, Katya wished she could take back the forbidden word: Roland. Her stomach burned with resentment. She was old enough to protect her family, to maintain a secret identity, but not to know what had happened to the former leader of the Order, her uncle—Maia’s father—a man Katya had loved as a second father. “He’s been dead seven years.”
Crowe shook his head and didn’t speak. He’d headed the Order until Katya turned sixteen; he knew the pressure, the terrible weight of secrets, and still he didn’t share.
Katya gave up. Crowe could be as tight-lipped as a corpse when he wanted to be. “See you tomorrow.” He nodded, and she took the secret passageway back to her room.
Averie greeted her with an impish grin. Dressed in a high-necked blue dress with Katya’s hawk and rose on the hip, Averie still had the grace of a hunter as she moved about the room. “Don’t worry. The guards drove the eager hopefuls off before they even got close to the pyramid traps.”
“How many?”
“Three. Four if you count Lady Hilda. Our gorgeous redhead hasn’t given up; it seems she likes the chase.”
“I suppose that’s flattering,” Katya said; a fleeting recollection of Starbride played in her memory. “What did the others look like?”
“Oho, do you care all of a sudden?”
“It’s only ego.”
Averie described the suitors based on what she’d heard; there was no hint of an Allusian. Katya shrugged, but Averie nodded slowly, a knowing gleam in her eyes. “Not who you were hoping for? Do tell.”
“Won’t.” Katya grinned as her lady-in-waiting set a plate of cheese and cutlets on the table beside her. “I take back every bad thing I’ve ever said about you, jewel of my heart.” She bit into a slice of roast beef and closed her eyes in bliss. “I just realized I skipped breakfast.”
“I’ll fetch you a glass of wine.”
“I might abdicate to you if you keep this up.”
“Keep the crown. I’m holding the cake in reserve until you promise to give me your jewelry.”
“Take what you like. I saw the coat you had made for the Courtiers Ball, by the way. It’s genius.”
“And the sapphires I found will go lovely with your eyes.”
“When
are
we getting married?”
“I don’t marry titles. You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.”
Katya attacked the rest of her lunch as Averie brought her wine; her thoughts wandered to the task in front of her. She ruled out everyone in the Order as the palace traitor; she couldn’t point fingers at her team. Crowe would have censured her, but Katya couldn’t work with them if she didn’t trust them. Was that how Uncle Roland had died, betrayed by someone he should have been able to trust?
As Katya sipped her wine, the encounter with Starbride flitted past her mind’s eye. It’d been nice to be a face in the crowd, a guardswoman who could flirt with impunity, free to give directions to a lost courtier. Of course, Starbride would be at the Courtiers Ball—all of the courtiers and nobles would. They all wanted something, and a ball was the perfect place to continue their petitions. But what did Starbride want? When she’d found out who Katya was, she hadn’t taken the opportunity to turn on the charm or plead her case. And out of all the years new courtiers had been coming to the palace, Katya never heard of one wanting the library before anything else.
Starbride could be a wallflower, she supposed. Courtiers could be shy, but a shy girl would’ve hidden in her room; she would’ve clammed up when meeting a stranger. A shy girl would have keeled over when Katya threatened to lop off her head. Starbride had even seemed a little offended.
The idea was…intriguing. It reminded her of her brother Reinholt, who’d chosen the courtier no one expected as his future queen. Brom’s background was impeccable; it was an excellent match but still unexpected. Brom was plump and cute; she had a laugh that could cheer anyone. All the courtiers liked her because none of them thought of her as a threat. They didn’t know that Reinholt valued her sweet disposition more than anything, or that he wooed her in private. Brom could keep secrets, and if Katya’s unassuming sister-in-law could remain a mystery, anyone could.
Katya stood and pulled her arms over her head until her shoulders popped. She hadn’t recognized the Shadow, but she didn’t know everyone at court. Either he hadn’t recognized her or his brain couldn’t wrap itself around the princess chasing traitors through the woods. He might not live in the palace, but he knew one of his fellow conspirators had palace connections. Katya paced over her sitting room rug. All she could do now was keep the eyes of court on her while her team did its job and then run the traitor to ground once they sniffed him out.
With that in mind, Katya wandered. Through the halls of the palace, she languished, boredom as moving art. Whenever she found a group of hall-lingerers, she complained about not being able to go out hunting because she had to be presentable at the Courtiers Ball that evening.
The courtiers and nobles put on sympathetic expressions. Some of the ladies leaned close, their wispy, layered dresses whispering across the backs of Katya’s hands. It made her recall Starbride’s dress, more layered than all of them, and led to thoughts of Starbride’s mother. Katya hid her smiles behind yawns.
When Lady Hilda turned the corner down the hall, Katya almost groaned. The courtiers gave way like sand before the tide at Lady Hilda’s green-eyed glance. Their pinched expressions said they didn’t want to yield, but something in Lady Hilda’s sensuous walk spoke of danger as well as sex.
“Lady Hilda.”
“Good afternoon, Highness.” She curtsied low enough to display a great deal of cleavage. After a quick glance, Katya told her eyes to behave. “I’ve come to reserve my dance.”
“Reserve your dance?”
“This evening at the Courtiers Ball. I assumed that was what you were doing.” She cast a glance at the men and women who’d given them a bit of space. “Arranging dances.”
“I’ve never bothered to make reservations before.”
“Well, allow me to introduce you to the concept. It’s sure to be the new trend. Dance the evening away with me, and I’ll promise you a wonderful time.”
In the past, it would have been tempting, but Starbride’s self-mocking sense of humor kept surfacing in Katya’s mind. Besides that, Lady Hilda’s shamelessness made her edgy. It might have turned her on years ago, but now she could see that Lady Hilda’s entire posture spoke of need, lust mixed with desire for power. Katya put on a crooked grin and cursed the fact that she had a part to play.
She took Lady Hilda’s quite close hand and raised it to her lips. “I never make promises, and so I never expect them to be kept. All I can say is if I see you there, I see you there.”
Lady Hilda chuckled, a low, smoky sound in the back of her throat. “Oh, you’ll see me. And I always keep my promises.” She backed away, gave another one of those eye-towing curtsies, and then slinked back the way she’d come, leaving Katya’s other admirers to crash back together in her wake. They didn’t dare laugh behind Lady Hilda’s back, not yet, not until they knew how Katya felt. She didn’t give them any indication, as usual. She put her bored face on and wandered, letting all the talk wash over her and waiting for anything interesting to surface.
A small gathering of people congregated in the middle of one hallway. They talked excitedly, and not for her, though she caused the babble to swell for a moment. Her hangers-on were only too happy to inform her that the king was soon to be passing that way. He usually went from the function of the moment through the secret passageways to his apartment, but Katya knew an appearance now and again in the hallways helped spread goodwill amongst the nobles and courtiers.
Katya mingled with the knot of people and surveyed the crowd, hoping to pick out any grumbling about the Umbriels. She fixed on one man who didn’t chatter but watched the hallway with a hard look, an intense anticipation that turned Katya’s stomach to ice.
She passed behind the rest of the waiting crowd and glanced at him now and again, keeping her bored face on tight. She put off any who tried to speak to her with a wave. Down the hall, her father turned the corner. Cassock-clad pyradistés, Crowe included, surrounded him. Da spoke with various nobles as he strolled. He received their bows with a nod and clapped Earl Lamont on the shoulder, laughing loudly at something the old man said.
Katya’s glance darted to the cold-eyed courtier. A pyramid glimmered in his fist. The sides were uneven and cloudy, not well made, but well enough to perform one task. The courtier grasped it and stared at Katya’s father without blinking.
Anger brewed in Katya’s chest, and she almost dropped her mask. This man dared to attack her father in his own hall? Her pyramid necklace flared as her anger grew, and down the hall, Crowe’s head lifted. His eyes found Katya’s, and she nodded toward the pyramid-wielding courtier. Crowe’s right hand dropped to the split in his cassock, and Katya knew he was pulling a pyramid from his trouser pocket. He pushed toward her through the chattering crowd that pressed her father.
Katya continued toward the courtier. She stopped just behind him and forced herself to calm down. “Lovely day for it, don’t you think?” she said in his ear.
He jumped and nearly whirled, but she caught his arm, keeping him still. “What…what?”
Katya dug into the flesh of his upper arm until he gasped. “Keep still, and you might get out of here alive.”
He shivered. “I knew it might mean my life, but people have to know.”
“What?” Katya’s free hand inched toward the pyramid. “What do they have to know?”
“The Aspect. They’re not human. The Umbriels are
monsters
!” He said the last part in a strangled whisper as he turned to look at Katya. “You…”