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Something didn’t feel right.
Chevalier and Clavis had left yesterday, Sariel was in a meeting with the other court ministers, and now Nokto was running late. He was supposed to accompany me to a tea party at a nearby manor. I’d never been to a social engagement outside of the palace without Chevalier or one of his brothers accompanying me, and the thought of going alone made me nervous. Not that I’d really be alone. My guards always came along, too, but they weren’t much help in a conversation. And although Julius and Byron weren’t fidgeting like the stable hands holding their horses or Charlie in the coach box, there was something about their stance that made me think they were on edge.
“Well, he’ll just have to catch up,” I decided. “We’ll be late if we wait any longer.”
“Princess Ivetta,” Julius began, frowning.
“Does anybody know if Nokto had a date last night?” I asked, raising my voice so everybody in the courtyard could hear me. The guard stationed outside the servants’ entrance cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“He did, your highness,” he said.
Julius pursed his lips and opened the carriage door, offering me a hand up. He closed the carriage door behind me and walked over to the guard. I couldn’t hear him, but I could guess what he was saying. Wake Nokto up and tell him to get moving, or Chevalier would hear about this when he got back. Of course, he’d hear about it, anyway. I knew Nokto wasn’t coming along for company, or support with a difficult noblewoman. Chevalier didn’t want me outside of the palace without extra protection. Julius would probably give Nokto an earful when he caught up to us.
The carriage ride was dull without a conversational partner. At least it was short.
“Princess Ivetta, I’m so glad you could make it.”
I smiled and greeted the noblewoman politely. She wore an expression I knew well - fake sincerity, masking thinly veiled distaste. Her daughter was a few years older than me and, judging by the way her hard eyes scanned me up and down as she invited me inside, a much better candidate for marriage to Chevalier, in her opinion. Except her family wasn’t prestigious enough or wealthy enough to have ever been up for serious consideration. But this was where Clavis’ lessons from that mock social engagement came in handy. Smile, find something to compliment, and pretend I was enjoying myself. It really worked. Even if I didn’t win anybody over, I always left with no regrets.
“Oh, what a lovely portrait,” I said, stopping in front of a massive painting hanging in a place of prominence. “Is this your late husband?”
“He could only hope to be so handsome,” she said, her smile taking on a fond aspect as she gazed at the severe-looking man in the picture. “No, this was my grandfather.”
There was an Obsidianite crest in the background. Most of the expatriated Obsidianite families scattered throughout Rhodolite did their best to hide their past, and Sariel hadn’t mentioned this family’s connection to Obsidian. The vague sense of unease I’d felt since we left the palace grew.
“My mother came from Obsidian, too,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to verify Julius and Byron were still right behind me. “I asked Yves to look into my family while he was visiting Gilbert a few weeks ago, but he couldn’t find anything about them. Do you still have any family there?”
I’d hit on the right topic. She talked animatedly about her family history and their former importance among the Obsidianite nobility, and I smiled and followed her to the veranda, where servants were waiting with tea and a variety of pastries. Maybe I was wrong about her. An Obsidianite bloodline had been just cause for hatred and discrimination until recently in Rhodolite, and opinions were slow to change. And even if something was amiss, Sariel had only allotted an hour for this. I sat across from her on the settee, and she poured me a cup of tea, interrupting herself long enough to ask me about cream and sugar. To listen to her go on and on, you’d think her family used to tell the king of Obsidian what to do.
Maybe that was why they got kicked out.
“Sorry I’m late,” Nokto said, his smooth voice inserting itself naturally into a pause when she took a breath. For the briefest second, the smile slipped from her face, and her eyes widened in surprise and…horror? I wasn’t sure. The expression was gone as quickly as it came.
“Prince Nokto. I didn’t realize you’d be coming,” she said pleasantly.
“I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to sample your lovely daughter’s croissants,” he said, sitting on the settee next to me. “Oh, isn’t she here? What a shame. She makes the best cup of tea, too.”
Nokto used the same basic technique as Clavis, but his mannerisms were very different. I’d seen him work at parties several times now, and he had a way of seducing every woman in the room while simultaneously puffing up all the men. His silver tongue could charm anybody and distract everybody from his real motive, which was usually information gathering or tipping a trade agreement in his favor. He had a motive here, too. I knew that because of the way he took over the conversation immediately, directing it where he wanted while twisting the noblewoman around his finger with compliments directed toward her daughter, adding little touches about her having her mother’s eyes to further enrapture the older woman. I watched him carefully, wondering what he was up to.
And then he switched my teacup for his. The noblewoman didn’t notice, but I did, and it made me even more nervous. He didn’t think she’d poisoned my tea, did he? Julius and Byron had been watching the whole time. If they’d seen anything suspicious, they would have done something. But what if she had? Nokto was drinking it now, as if nothing was wrong at all. And he seemed fine. He never missed a beat in the conversation, he showed no signs of illness, and, whenever I glanced back at Julius and Byron, they looked alert but relaxed. As usual.
It was a long hour.
“What was that about?” I asked him when he finally boarded the carriage, taking the seat across from me. Byron had helped me on while Nokto hung back to talk to Julius for a few minutes.
“We had a slight disagreement,” he said airily, resting his elbow on the edge of the open window. “About transportation and punctuality. Guess I’ll have to come back for my horse later.”
I frowned. “You’re lying.”
He smirked. “I’ve been lying since I got here. Her daughter’s croissants are as hard as rocks.”
“Did you think she poisoned the tea?” I asked directly, expecting anything but a direct answer.
“Would I drink it if I thought that?” he asked, the smile in his crimson eyes matching the carefree curve of his lips. He looked the same now as he did when he arrived - the same as he always did. A little disheveled, very confident, and perfectly fit. And yet, something still felt off to me.
“I guess not,” I said slowly.
He yawned. “Sorry. I was up late last night with a - well, you don’t really want to hear about that. So, what does Sariel have lined up for you the rest of the day? Nothing outside, I hope.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
He nodded toward the window. I followed his gaze to the dark clouds gathering in the western sky. We were due for a good summer thunderstorm, and those clouds looked like they would provide one.
“Well, I actually have the afternoon off, and I was hoping to go riding, but I guess I’ll stay inside and read.”
“In your room?”
I looked back at him and frowned again. “Will you tell me what’s going on later if I do?”
He shrugged. “If there’s anything to tell, sure.”
If there’s anything to tell.
I repeated that phrase to myself when I returned to my room, with Julius and Byron on my heels. That meant Nokto wasn’t sure there was a problem, but he was taking precautions, just in case. At least, that’s what I hoped it meant. It could also have been his way of getting me to stop pressing him about it.
I curled up on the settee on my balcony with a book and a blanket. Theresa brought me a cup of hot tea, and the rain started. It hadn’t stopped by the time I went to bed with no news from Nokto.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked Theresa.
“Nothing except thunder,” she grumbled. “I hate thunderstorms.”
“I used to hate them, too,” I said softly.
Lightning flashed around and under the drapes with every strike. The wind had picked up, driving the rain against the windows to pelt the glass with a fury. Thunder rolled and shook the room. Theresa groaned and put her pillow over her head. I lay still, listening to the storm rage, remembering Mother’s sweet voice weaving notes in and around the chaos as she sang and held me close.
I couldn’t sleep.
Long after Theresa’s breathing slowed and evened out, I still lay there, wide awake. Chevalier was at the western Obsidianite border on business, and our engagement ceremony was in four days. Maybe that was why Nokto was so cautious. It couldn’t have been easy for Sariel to pull off another ceremony in just a month’s time, and Chevalier would not take kindly to a delay. He also had my security as tight as ever. I still hadn’t been further than an hour’s carriage ride from the palace for my social engagements, and I had a feeling it would be a long time before he’d allow overnight stays elsewhere. If anything happened to me while he was gone, I didn’t doubt the Brutal Beast would make a reappearance. Just remembering the violence and ferocity I saw from him the night he rescued me sent a chill down my spine.
The wind had died down. I slipped out of bed, pulled on my dressing gown and slippers, and unlocked the balcony door. The storm had gentled to something like a spring rain, although distant flashes of lightning and muted rumbles of thunder said it hadn’t run out of anger yet. I stepped onto the balcony and closed the door behind me, hugging myself as I approached the railing. The rose vines crawling up the pillars had lost most of their blossoms, and down below in the darkness, I knew the gardens had to be a mess.
A flash of white caught my eye.
Chevalier’s cloak? No, and it couldn’t be Clavis’ overcoat, either. But the only other person I knew who wore a coat like that was Nokto.
I leaned over the railing for a better look. The rain hit the back of my head and trickled down my neck, but there was somebody down there, walking around in the gardens, and when they turned, I saw white boots.
It was Nokto.
I went back inside, careful to keep quiet and not wake Theresa as I crossed the room and slipped into the dark hallway.
“Princess Ivetta?” Julius asked.
Shouldn’t the guard have changed by now?
“Do you know any reason Nokto would be in the gardens?” I asked, glancing over at the other guard. Not Byron, but Mark. So, the shift change had happened, and Julius, the head of my guard detail, did not rotate out.
Something was definitely wrong.
Julius frowned. “I’ll go check on him. You stay here.”
I shook my head. “Unless you can tell me there’s an intruder in the palace right now looking for me, I’m going with.”
A tense moment of silence passed while we stared each other down. He finally sighed and said, “Fine. Stay behind me."
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