Tressa laughed as colored Lights made her glitter like a gem herself. Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine her crawling all over a dragon, dirty and sweating for hours. Yet everyone else here had been a part of her world, and they had bonded. They could do the dance and oil a dragon.
Someone mentioned the war. Everyone at the table knew someone at the front: Dragon Mage, Battle Mage, army officer. I perked as news was shared.
They might know something to link Thorkel to Merram. How could I ask? Even a Threepines should know about the most powerful men in the kingdoms.
This Threepines did know something about them. If I could exchange it…
I waited for a lull. Then, my focus on the Stones game in front of me, I tried to speak as nonchalantly as the rest. “I heard that while the battle is in the northeast, Thorkel is hiding in the northern Karpak mountains.”
Thunderous silence. Even the other table stopped playing.
So much for staying invisible.
“She can speak!” cried Anastasi. “Imagine that—a Threepines, with news.”
Tressa’s shock turned into a cool glare at Anastasi. “A surprise, indeed. On a par with a wealthy Riversbend. Yet, obviously, it does happen.”
Several at the table inhaled, and Anastasi turned scarlet.
I was lost. Again.
A middle-aged man at the other table cleared his throat. “If Thorkel had forces in the Karpak, we’d be there.”
“It’s just him,” I said. I sounded so small. “He moves between locations.”
“Poor Adara, she is not used to such attention,” Tressa said. She gently slipped a hand across my back to hug my shoulders. “But that is how she knows things others do not. She listens. Go on, tell them more.”
Vaguely I caught on that she was pretending I’d already told her, but relief strengthened me. Tressa wouldn’t turn on me. I cleared my throat, grateful for her touch.
“When the Dragonmaster met with me—to welcome me, you know—he stepped out to speak to—a man. I overheard.” Oh, First One, what was I doing? Not thinking, that was for sure. If Merram wanted the information known, he’d have announced it. “Thorkel is in the mountains, and the Dragonmaster is hunting him. That’s all, really. It sounded almost… personal.”
I bit my lip, waited, and hoped. The woman in Kyer green burst out laughing. “Oh, Tressa, she is a dear, sweet thing.”
Several of the others began to chuckle. Tressa’s grip tightened, and I tried to stay calm, but my insides fluttered like chickens. Jerroth didn’t laugh. He smiled, slightly, but he also shook his head. Tressa smiled, too. Tightly. And Anastasi positively frowned.
“I’m sorry,” the green-vested woman said. “You know of the assassination of the previous Dragonmaster?”
“Of course,” I said. Sylvia had mentioned it. Once.
“Thorkel didn’t do it out of insanity.” She leaned forward with glee. “He was wildly jealous.”
“Merram and Thorkel were childhood friends,” Jerroth said quietly. He studied my every twitch. To help me? Or to keep as a weapon? Tressa sat so stiff, maybe I was no longer her friend. Jerroth went on. “Merram’s family served Thorkel’s, a viscounty to a county. They joined the Kyer together. Thorkel made himself known for innovation, Merram for his ability to diffuse conflict. When the previous Dragonmaster began to ail—”
“Merram was the next choice,” I said before anyone else could. See. Threepines. Uninformed, not stupid.
Jerroth nodded. “That’s when Thorkel killed the Dragonmaster in an attempted coup. When he was discovered, he fled to Carthesia.”
“Now Merram hunts his once friend,” Tressa summarized. “Tristian, please play that stone before breakfast is served?”
The group broke into smaller conversations, but people shot me glances. Tried to include me. I returned to my silence.
I am a complete sheep-brain. I’d learned my history, but at what cost? At the cost of invisibility. At the risk of Merram finding out I’d told his secret. I wanted to justify my actions by saying they had kept my father’s identity from me, but concealing the truth of a girl’s parentage was one level of secret. Concealing the movements of a known enemy as part of war strategy—that was an entirely different kind of secret.
Secrets.
Merram and Thorkel. Friends. Friends knew secrets.
“Adara, would you do the honors?” Tressa asked.
I jerked back to the party. Tressa carried a large teapot toward me. My etiquette teacher had mentioned the tea ritual in passing. The hostess of the party, singling one guest. To honor. By letting her warm the teapot.
With her Gift.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh, Tressa, I…” I had no idea how to decline. What sane person refused such an honor?
“And here’s the moment where you show off your friendship with the blue mage,” Anastasi muttered with bitterness. It was the first time she’d spoken since Tressa’s comment on her sudden wealth.
“What?” Tressa stopped, and the water inside the teapot sloshed. “Blue?”
Across the room, calculations. A blue? Orrik had warned me to keep my Gift’s color a secret for good reason. Through the room, a revision of my value, already increased by my previous tidbit of gossip.
“Isn’t she?” Anastasi said, sitting straighter. She took in Tressa’s shocked expression and my wide-eyed panic. “You must be her—brown hair, sapphire eyes. You must be the blue.”
“I… I don’t…” I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to run. My chair clattered backward as I shot to my feet. Like a ghost, the servant spirited the chair out of the way. At the same time, Jerroth appeared at my side, a hand on my elbow. To steady me? To keep me from running?
“How did you manifest?” Anastasi asked. Her words were almost frantic as she leaned across the table. “What’s your Talent? Fire, right?”
“Enough.” Tressa set the teapot on the table so hard a thin crack appeared. She grabbed Anastasi’s shoulder and pulled her away. “You vulgar upstart! How dare you attack my friend. If I ever catch you antagonizing one in my circle again, I will see you ruined. Do you understand?”
Tressa’s words stabbed with icy fury, and Anastasi’s eyes widened
