“Don’t be offended,” she said. “It was a plan my father hatched. He thought she should be here but she wouldn’t come. My intent was not so much to deceive as to represent my House.”
“I’m not offended. I am impressed by your ability to carry out such a charade. And I confess I am reviewing what I might have said and how foolish I might have sounded.”
“Not at all foolish. You have been brave and thoughtful and most complimentary.” She could not help a smile for that.
He was thinking back. “Ah. I admit to feeling a bit of anger at Casserah for not valuing you as she should. I see you were playing a deep game. I will strive to forgive Casserah.”
Now she laughed. “I spoke much more harshly than my sister would have,” she said. “One can hardly sit there and heap praise upon oneself without feeling a bit ridiculous.”
He regarded her closely for a moment. “I had the sense—almost—Casserah was warning me away from Kirra. But it was you. Telling me not to be too fond of you. Why would that be?”
It was at that exact moment that Kirra realized he was still holding her hands. She tried to casually pull them away, but his grip tightened. She felt her breath come a little faster. “It was not a warning,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal. “I was just talking. Part of the game.”
“I’ve thought about you,” he said. “Every day, since you left me at the borders of Merrenstow. Wished I could speak to you again. Wished I could tell you—tell you how much I appreciated—”
Now she did yank her hands free. “Oh, please. No more thanks about the rescue from Tilt,” she said. “I was doing a service for my king.”
“I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your conversation,” he continued steadily. “Your laughter. Appreciated you. Your voice and your smile have lingered with me all these weeks. It is a bit like being haunted by a very merry ghost.”
She was silent a moment, torn between the happiness of hearing the words and the despair of knowing he shouldn’t speak them. “No one has ever called me a ghost before,” she said. “I will add it to my list of favorite compliments.”
His expression shifted; he became even more intent. “I could call you other things,” he said. “Use other words.”
“You’re married,” she said baldly.
He nodded. “I am. As soon as I met you, I wished I wasn’t.”
She took a quick breath. “Foolish talk. You’ve been overcome by moonlight and the romance of another wild adventure at my side.”
“I have been planning to ride to Danalustrous to see you again,” he said. “I would have made up some reason to come meet with your father. I have been rehearsing sentences in my head for weeks.”
Better and better—worse and worse. Kirra turned her shoulder to him and began pacing along the flagged walkway. Romar fell in step beside her. “Had you come to Danalustrous, you most likely would not have found me,” she said. She was determined to keep her manner airy no matter what he said. “I am rarely there. I am rarely anywhere for long.”
“I know. But it seemed impossible to me that I would go the rest of my life without seeing you again. So I practiced for the day.”
“Lord Romar—” He gave her a swift look of reproach for using his title, but she did not amend. “You scarcely know me. Be careful what you say and what you feel. You are crafting your emotions around the picture of a woman that you have built in your head. The chances are very slim that I am that picture come to life.”
“I know that the longer I know you, the more you will astonish me,” he said, “but I do not think I have the basic outlines of that picture wrong.”
She gave him a quick, sad smile. “It will do neither of us any good if you carry that picture with you in your heart.”
“Very well,” he said. “I will try not to fall in love with you.”
She could not help but laugh in astonishment at that.
“But I would like the chance to become one of your friends—one of your intimates,” he said. “One of the people you turn to as you share the random thoughts in your head, one of the people to whom you show your true self—even when the outward form of that true self is in disguise. I would like to be able to know you as few people do. That much you can give me, don’t you think, without compromising my honor or your own?”
She stopped abruptly to face him on the path. “I think pacts like that can be dangerous and easily overset,” she said.
“Kirra,” he said—and then, again, as if the very sound of her name gave him pleasure. “Kirra. Let us just try the business of being friends.”
She didn’t know how to answer. She had realized, as he probably had, that the structure of the social season was likely to throw them together over the next few weeks, for it was likely that he, too, would be traveling to the other great Houses for the summer balls. And for the past five years, she had spent as much of her time at Ghosenhall as she had spent at Danalustrous, for she was a favorite of the king’s. No doubt Romar’s responsibilities as regent would bring him to the royal city even more often. There was almost no way they could avoid each other without actually making that a priority.
She knew it was not something she would have the strength to do.
“We are friends,” she said.
“Then that is enough for me.”
Someone inside the ballroom screamed.
Romar’s head whipped in that direction; Kirra felt her entire body tense. Another scream, and then a whole chorus of cries, accompanied by the sounds of shattering glass and falling objects.
“Silver hell,” Romar grunted and took off at a dead run for the house. Kirra picked up her skirts and raced beside him, changing her face, changing her weight, resuming Casserah’s body as she ran.
They burst into the ballroom a moment later to find it a scene of chaos. Kirra instantly spotted Senneth by the pool of fire in one corner of the room; that meant Amalie was inside the ring, and safe. Everywhere else was a tumble of bodies as hand-to-hand fights threw assailants across the smooth marble floor between overturned tables, smashed vases, and scattered purple flowers. The walls were rimmed with beautiful women in brightly colored dresses, clinging to each other and weeping. Beside them stood dozens of noble men, helplessly watching, not accustomed to battle. But a few lords were alongside the soldiers and guards furiously fighting on the floor. All four Riders were among the combatants, mowing down adversaries with their usual brutal efficiency. More Kianlever guards poured through interior doors even as Kirra watched.
Romar leapt forward to join the fray, but even in the short time it had taken them to run in from the gardens, the battle had pretty much been decided. There couldn’t have been more than twenty attackers, and the Riders had accounted for almost half of those. The others were ruthlessly overcome until there were only loyalists left on the dance floor, milling about with swords upraised, bending down to check that each fallen man was truly dead or disabled.
The instant that Tayse sheathed his sword, Senneth’s wall of fire came down. Kirra spared a moment to admire their symmetry, then ran across the floor toward Senneth, picking her way around the bodies. Tayse’s head turned toward the sound of her footfalls, then he quickly turned his attention to the guards still prowling the ballroom.
“To me, all of you,” he called. “Who are these men? Are any left alive to be questioned? What do we know?”
A loose knot of lords and soldiers gathered in the middle of the ballroom to confer. Kirra arrived at Senneth’s side. Amalie was seated on a divan, patiently repeating to Valri that she was fine, she was unhurt, she was not afraid. Three women were bending over Eloise, who appeared to have fainted into a plush chair. Kirra saw no one in this particular group who was actually hurt.
“All safe?” she asked Senneth in a low voice.
Senneth nodded. “And you?”
“Yes, but there were two men outside who attacked Romar just as I arrived. Part of this contingent, I suspect.”
Senneth raised her eyebrows. “Yes. He escaped?”
“With my help.”
A small smile for that. “You have your uses.”
“What happened here?”
Senneth nodded toward the dance floor. “As you see. I looked up to find Donnal flying in through the ballroom window, so I knew there was trouble. I pulled the princess off the dance floor just as Tayse and the other Riders came running in, warned by Cammon. The Kianlever guards arrived late.”
“Though they should have been the first to fight,” Kirra murmured. “In Danalustrous, they’d have all been dead before Danan Hall was breached.”
“In Brassenthwaite as well.”
For a moment, blue eyes stared into gray as they tried to assimilate this knowledge. “Sabotage?” Kirra breathed.
“Treason?” Senneth replied.
“In
Kianlever
?”
“Maybe we’ll learn something from the men left behind.”
Indeed, Tayse, Romar, the man who looked to be captain of the guard, and one of Eloise’s vassal lords had all clustered in the middle of the room. Kirra saw the captain bending over a man who lay on the floor, bleeding but apparently alive. She considered drifting closer to hear what they might be saying, then thought of sending a spy instead. She looked around, but saw no sign of an owl or hawk.
“Where’s Donnal?”
“Back out patrolling. I wasn’t sure if there might be a second assault to follow the first.”
Behind them, there was a moan and a stir, and Eloise pushed herself upright in her chair. Kirra murmured, “If I was Kirra, I would see if she needed the help of a healer.”
“I’m guessing she’s not hurt, merely frightened. And horrified,” Senneth replied. “This will be hard to explain to Baryn.”
Kirra gave Senneth another inquiring look, eyebrows raised, incredulity on her own face.
Did she plan this?
Senneth shook her head. “I just don’t know,” Senneth said.
Justin was making his way through the bodies toward them. Kirra and Senneth moved forward to meet him so that none of the other ladies could hear their low-voiced conversation.
“Any information?” Senneth asked.
“Kell Sersees says two of the men were at his house three days ago for some ball he had.”
Senneth looked at Kirra. “Who?”
“Kell Sersees. The richest vassal in Kianlever,” Kirra explained. “He had what Eloise called a—a ‘Shadow Ball,’ a big event a few days before her own. Apparently, among the Thirteenth House, there’s a whole summer season that mimics our own.”
“Thirteenth House,” Senneth repeated.
Kirra nodded. “Yes. Again. Might clear Eloise, though.”
“I don’t think we’ll learn much from the survivors,” Justin said. “They look like common house guards who just do what their commanders tell them. It’s not like they’ll be carrying letters signed by Halchon Gisseltess saying, ‘Go to Kianlever and attack the princess.’ ”
“If Halchon had anything to do with this,” Senneth said.
Justin looked surprised. “Who else?”
“That’s the question,” Senneth replied. She glanced around the room. “Is it safe to disperse the crowd, do you think? Send everyone to bed? Or will Tayse want to ask them questions?”
Justin shook his head again. “We’ve already gathered up the people who might be able to answer any questions.”
“You take care of Amalie and the queen,” Kirra said. “I’ll do what I can to help Eloise.”
It was another weary hour or so before the ballroom was cleared out. Most of the women were happy to leave, still sobbing into their handkerchiefs or pale with shock, but a handful of hardy souls lingered awhile, fascinated by bloodshed and remembered battle. A contingent of guards carried out the bodies and escorted out the survivors, while the Riders and a few top soldiers continued to debate. It was at least two hours past midnight before servants appeared with mops and buckets and began to wash away the blood.
Eloise was still encircled by a ring of friends, vassals, servants, and the merely curious when the cleanup commenced. Kirra pushed her way through the group with her sister’s unself-conscious determination. “Time the marlady was in bed,” she said, pulling on Eloise’s elbow. “And the rest of you, too. I’ll see her to her room.”