‘Let him go,’ murmured Halliron in that musical gentleness that could and had stopped killing fights. ‘My heart tells me this prince knows all too clearly what he’s about. You cannot shoulder what troubles him.’ A smile revealed the sly gap in front teeth. ‘Besides, if he’s touchy as the ballads name his forebears, he’ll tolerate no man’s interference.’
Steiven swore explosively. ‘I know that. You know that. But likeness to his ancestors isn’t going to satisfy my clansmen. If this womanish brooding continues, my war captain has vowed he’ll strip the royal person to his short hairs to find out if they hide a castration. By Ath!’ the former regent ended with rare and exasperated fierceness, ‘If Caolle tries, it’s on my mind I’m going to let him!’
Etarra prepared for war. The clang of the armourers’ mallets rang from the smithies day and night, counterpointed by the whack and slap of practice staves as last year’s recruits were drilled to professional polish. Almost overnight it seemed that every young man of fighting age appeared in the streets wearing half-armour.
Not all would be leaving for battle. The highborn elite, those whose pedigrees traced back without taint to the original burghers who had overthrown the old monarchy, found themselves sidelined in the bustle created by the renegade prince. Their exploits, their mischief and their profligate gambling debts were no longer the talk of the ladies’ parlours. Arithon’s name had supplanted them, and out of fear of his shadows, mistresses and favoured courtesans turned fickle in sudden preference for strapping big fellows with less refined manners and swords.
The parties of the rich and young grew the more frenzied to compensate. From Diegan, Lady Talith heard details: of how the bluest-blooded and brashest had drunk claret until they staggered, and then staged a race up the alarm tower to see who could be first to swing from the bass bell’s clapper. The winner had emerged miraculously unscathed. Those less lucky, judged by the nature of their scars, became heroes, or the butt of scathing jokes which was the fashionable way to test their charm. One gallant had twisted an ankle. Another had fallen through a railing and suffered two broken wrists. He appeared in splints at the soirees and bragged that the ladies could kiss him on both cheeks at once, as he lacked a sound hand to fend them off.
Once, Lady Talith would have sat front and centre to egg on admirers and dare foolish feats to gain her favour. She would have laughed at the cleverest wit and gleaned all the gossip to unravel the fierce tapestry of intrigue that underlay the glitter of Etarran society.
But this night found her separate from the festivities, breathing in the outdoor airs that perfumes inside the ballroom behind her were selected with care to overpower. There was nothing attractive by night in damp stone; starlight, to her, was too uncomfortably new to feel safe. The laughter, the dancing and the delicate sparkle of light through the pierced porcelain of a thousand candle-shades should have drawn her back like a moth to flame. Her gown of costly damask was new, and her jewels simple, but dazzling.
But the parties now seemed silly shamming. She resisted the creeping ennui to no avail and just as fiercely fought to deny its cause; to avoid setting name to the day, no, the moment, when the wild antics of the men had become reduced to just games, and empty ones at that.
Diegan had experienced a similar change. Though brother and sister had not compared thoughts, his humour had been flat for days. Where once he would have battled jealously to retain his circle of admirers, now they were deserting his side like ebb-tide, with himself the one least dismayed. It felt, Talith decided, as if somebody had entered her childhood home and maliciously rearranged all the furniture.
She could not flee the recognition that her life seemed dreary since Lysaer s’Ilessid had stepped into it.
Talith leaned over the balustrade. Never before then had she known admiration that did not arise from flamboyance; humour that did not belittle; power not bought through brutish intrigues or bribes.
The man’s direct nature had cut through Etarra’s convoluted greed and excesses like a sharpened knife through mould rinds.
A breeze whispered through the garden, loosing a small blizzard of petals and almost masking the footfalls that approached from across the terrace. She was annoyed. She had fended off four dandies on her way to the doorway.
‘Go away.’ Cold, disastrously discourteous, she refused to look aside and so much as acknowledge the identity of the man she dismissed.
The footsteps stopped.
Warm hands reached out and gently gathered the twist of hair that trailed down the nape of her neck. She stiffened, dismayed to realize she could not spin and deal a slap for the impertinence. His fingers had tightened too firmly: like a boat, she was effectively moored.
‘They insisted inside that you had grown tired of the party,’ Lysaer s’Ilessid said in greeting.
She shivered. Then blushed; and would have slapped him then for his boldness, that had wrung from her such a reaction. She was unaccustomed to being played like a fish.
He let her go. Cool air ruffled through the strands his fingers had parted. Mulberry blossoms showered in a swirl of white, and eddied in the lee of the railing.
Talith stepped around, prepared to use her pretty woman’s scorn to drive him off-balance. He deserved as much for his confidence that everywhere he went he would be welcomed.
Wonder stopped her cold. Strung in his hands was a chain of lights, delicate as flame hung on beadwire.
Lysaer smiled. His eyes sparkled with reflections; his face, struck out in shadow and soft light, held a beauty to madden a sculptor to fits of missed inspiration. The pale, fine hair that just brushed his collar was his sole ornament.
The effect stopped Talith’s breath.
‘Do you want me to leave?’ Lysaer teased.
Pique snapped her out of entrancement. ‘You haven’t been invited to stay.’ But her glance betrayed her, as she marvelled at the shining string that quivered and danced between his hands.
His smile deepened at the corners. ‘No jewel can compare.’
He looked down at the bauble, made it gleam and spit sparks like stirred embers. ‘This cannot compare. It’s a poor, flashy phantom. A worthless illusion sprung from light. But if you insist on hiding in the darkness, at least if you wear it, you’ll be gilded.’ He reached up, stepped closer and, with a gesture that brushed the bared skin of her
