A week passes, and Allayria finds herself in front of a pair of wide, tall doors. They are built to impose, not welcome, with dark, intricate moldings and blunt handles that bite against the palm. Behind them are other imposing, cold things. Kings and rulers.
Allayria curls a hand around one, feeling the icy metal beneath, and turns around. Ruben's mouth twitches up in a half-smile, his eyes crinkling, and he nods, as if to say: Go on.
Inside are two others already: a tall, long-haired man sits on the opposite side of the massive circular table, feet propped on the table and expression a delicate mixture of smug and bored. To his left, dozing noisily is an old, shrunken man who can only be Keesark's King Hai Sofo. Allayria has seen him before, though she is certain he won't remember it: she had been one of the fifty children paraded past him when he came to visit Thalassa. That had been eleven years ago, and even then she thought he had to be older than dirt.
"Ruben!"
The other man stands when he sees them enter, and his strides are long and purposeful as he approaches. Allayria notes to the left of his long, pointed nose is a scar running all the way up his cheek, the only blot on a pristine appearance.
A wide smile spreads on Ruben's face, and Allayria thinks it must be real because it's in his voice when he answers: "Rast."
The two embrace, and the other man whispers something in Ruben's ear, holding his head close for a minute. When they break apart, his sharp green eyes fix on her and the smile he wears chills.
"Allayria, meet the High King of Solveig, Rastirel Feuilles," Ruben says, gesturing toward the man. "Rast, may I present the Paragon."
"Your Excellence," the man says, holding out a hand. He means for her to present hers for a kiss.
"Your Grace," Allayria replies, taking his hand and turning it so it shifts into a handshake. The smile on his face twitches, then grows wider.
"Ruben has kept you tucked away for quite some time," he says, and his voice is smooth and colored in arcing, artificial lilts that speak of good breeding and high society. "I almost thought you had died."
His lips twist, the upper curling in that self-satisfactory way that feels inherently feline, and she lets a cold smile grow across her face in answer.
"You don't have much faith in your friend then," she replies.
"I only return the favor," he answers, his eyes sliding over to Ruben and narrowing. "He never trusts me with anything."
"The High King often forgets that as a Skill master and an active member of this council I took an oath of impartiality," Ruben murmurs, "and thus it would be inappropriate to confide in him."
"And when have you ever cared if something was inappropriate?" the High King answers, and there's something in these words because the assured, vaguely amused expression cracks on Ruben's face and he looks, if only for a moment, more like the fearsome force Allayria had seen on Lethinor.
The High King's mouth opens to say something else—a poor decision, Allayria thinks—when the doors open once more and a woman walks in. Despite the mane of gray hair, thrown back in a messy, half-done bun, she looks to be in her 40s, and her lean but stocky build speaks of power.
I know that face, Allayria realizes, and her eyes travel down to the woman's sleeves, which are pinned tightly around her wrists, though a small tendril of black ink peeks out beneath one.
Oh god. Flashes of memory—the marketplace in Thalassa, that lonely clifftop of Lethinor—flit through Allayria's mind, and, Gods above, she remembers where she has seen this woman before.
YOU ARE READING
Partisan - Book II
Fantasy*COMPLETE* "People don't believe in us anymore. They don't believe that in the end we will do what is right. We can't let them down. We can't let Ben win." Decisions made on top of the lonely, wind-swept cliff of Lethinor reverberate around the five...
