Page 48 of The Half King
Cerise wished he wouldn’t stand so near. A new kind of heat radiated from her chest. She fanned her cheeks, but that didn’t stop them from flushing. “What about General Petros?” she asked. “I think we should invite him, too.”
“I already did,” Kian said. “He’s away on an errand for me, but he’s an excellent tracker and an even better rider, so I have no doubt that he’ll catch up to us on the trail.”
Cerise didn’t like the idea of leaving without the general. She recalled the angry voices she had heard in the city, chants ofDown with the Half King!“What do we know about our guide? Can we trust him? I would feel better if we brought some of the royal guard along, at least until General Petros can join us. A king should be protected.”
“A king should be,” Kian agreed. “To show my face outside these palace walls without protection would be lunacy. That’s why I intend to wear someone else’s face.”
Cerise raised an eyebrow.
“This morning, I summoned Father Padron,” Kian explained. “I ordered him to transform my appearance into something more…pedestrian…for the day.”
“That explains the clothes,” she said with a glance at his outfit.
“Nothing escapes your notice, my lady of the temple.” Kian winked at her. “Padron should begin the transformation any moment now.”
As if on cue, Cerise tasted the metal tang of magic, and Kian’s hair began to shorten and change color to a ruddy brown. His eyes remained unchanged, but his nose formed a slight hook, his forehead lengthened, and his lips thinned.
In a blink, the king looked like a stranger.
She glanced around for Father Padron but didn’t see him. “Did he transform you from inside the palace?”
“He did indeed,” Kian said, frowning while he probed the slope of his new nose and the wide expanse of his brow. “Isn’t it disturbing how easily he can do that?”
She understood what Kian meant, but even though her trust in the Order had been shaken, she was still amazed by the scope of Father Padron’s power. “I’m grateful he’s in your service.”
Kian laughed. “Spoken like a politician. You’re becoming a real emissary, my lady of the temple.”
“I only mean to say the Order has its use,” she told him. “And not all of the priests are after your throne. Some of them are loyal to the goddess.”
Kian grinned at her like one of the temple workers had done years ago, when she had asked if hot cocoa came from brown goats. “There’s the Cerise I met in the garden. The starry-eyed girl who sees no evil. I knew she was still in there.”
“I’m not wrong, though,” she insisted. “There are some good priests in the Order.”
“You overestimate them. You can’t help it. It’s how you were raised.”
“Perhaps I’m biased,” she said. “I can admit it if you will, too.”
“Me?” he asked, touching his chest. “How am I biased?”
“It’s simple,” she told him. “Shiera’s curse sends you to the shadows every night, and she’s the one the Order serves. You resent the goddess for punishing you, and by extension, you resent her priests and those who worship her.”
“That would make sense if…”
“If?”
“If I resented you, too.” Kian rubbed Blue’s ear, and while doing so, he reached up with his thumb to touch her chin. “But I don’t. And you’re more blindly devoted to that goddess of yours than any priest under my command.”
It took a moment before Cerise found her voice. All she could say was, “She’s your goddess, too.”
“Is that so?” he murmured, drawing closer while his gaze lowered to her mouth.
The next thing she knew, she was angling her face toward his. Her mind warned her to stop, but her heart refused to obey. It didn’t matter that Kian looked like a stranger. Her spirit knew him, craved him, and as she held her breath in anticipation of feeling his kiss, her body stirred with equal parts fear and hunger.
From far behind them, Daerick shouted a greeting, and she drew back from Kian. The king seemed to recover from the moment quickly. He returned his attention to scratching Blue behind the ears, casually grinning as if nothing had happened.
“I’ve got it!” Daerick jogged into the paddock while brandishing a sack of coin. “Now who’s ready to ride a sweaty beast across the desert?”
“Sweaty beast?” Kian made a show of looking around, trying and failing to hide a smile. “I don’t see your mother here.”
