Page 110 of The Ragpicker King
“Not my secret to tell,” Conor said. His voice was flat. “I need something to drink. Wretchedly badly.”
“That won’t help,” Kel said.
Conor bared his teeth in a smile. “It won’t hurt.”
Kel stood up, grabbed the wine bottle off the abandoned tray—it had been opened but was still half full—and knelt down again. Hehanded the bottle to Conor, who threw his head back and took several deep swallows.
By the time he lowered the bottle, his hand was steadier. He had spilled a little of the wine onto his hand and the black velvet of his tunic.
“Is this about your father?” Kel whispered. He could hear the fear in his own voice.Conor, what has happened that’s so bad you can’t tell even me?
Or was it worse than that? He thought of Antonetta’s warnings. Of all his own lies. Of the house of cards he had built on sand, so precarious a single wrong word could bring it all crashing down.
“No.” Conor looked down at the back of his left hand, watching the spilled beads of scarlet wine run between his fingers. In the gold light of the waterfall, they seemed to shine. “Not my father. I want—” He looked up, directly at Kel. “I want a different life than the one I have.”
“Oh,” said someone softly. A low voice, and familiar.
Kel looked up, as did Conor. Anjelica stood at the mouth of the corridor. It was not far away; Kel wondered when she had arrived there. She would certainly have been able to hear everything.
Conor blinked, looking dazed, as she moved toward them. Because she was beautiful, Kel thought. And because, in her diamond dress, she seemed to blaze like a torch. It reflected back the waterfall’s light, turning her from silver to gold. Rings flashed on her fingers as she reached the place where Conor knelt and held out her hand.
“Get up,” she said. “Conor Darash Aurelian, Crown Prince of Castellane, get up off the floor.”
There was something in her voice Kel had not heard before. She spoke to Conor as if, between royalty, there was a secret language. Conor stared up at her. And then, as if the words were hooks lodged beneath his ribs, he rose to his feet. He straightened his shoulders. He looked at Anjelica, maskless, his gaze direct.
“You heard me,” he said. “How much did you hear?”
Kel rose silently. The balance had changed, he thought. Shifted between one breath and another. He was in the background now, as Prince and Princess regarded each other. It did not matter that Conor was clutching a wine bottle, that he was muddy and wet with rain. He was who he was. And so was Anjelica.
She said, “I heard you say you want a different life.” She took a step toward him. “I understand you did not choose me, or this marriage—”
“It’s not you—” Conor began.
She only shook her head. “And I did not choose you,” she said with a small smile. “But it is incumbent upon each of us, I think, to make of our lives something wewouldchoose.”
“I think you are braver than I am,” Conor said.
“You are brave enough,” she said gently. “What is more frightening than change? And you have changed a great deal in these past months. I did not know you before, but everyone speaks of it. How much you have altered since the Shining Gallery. It may be a change that had its birth in blood and horror, but it is change nonetheless.”
“Perhaps,” Conor said. He looked at her. “What do we do now,Ayakemi?”
“Our duty,” said Anjelica. “We return to the ballroom. We show the Hill we are united. Kutani and Castellane.” She stretched out her hand to him, and he took it. “They play the tune. And we dance.”
Anjelica
“Don’t look at me like that,” Anjelica says, almost in a whisper.
“How am I looking at you?” Laurent’s voice is soft. His arms are around her, as the dance requires. It is the first time she has felt his touch in months, and she is dizzy from it. She can feel the resonant beat of her own heart, smell the familiar scent of him: ocean and spice. A dash of black powder. The scent threatens to bring back memories in a wave—a dangerous wave that might crash over her, leaving her vulnerable in front of all these people. Leaving her unable to hide what she needs to hide.
She thinks of her mother.Control your emotions, daughter, or others will use them to control you.She has always been the least obedient of her sisters, the one who demanded to know why she could not go out into Spice Town on her own, why she could not sit with the King when he dealt judgment or met with Ambassadors. Her father had found it amusing when she was small, and he had been inclined to indulge her. Later, he had regretted that.
How are you looking at me?Anjelica thinks. Like fire. Like his gaze would burn away her clothes, leaving her naked in his arms.Like I am a person and not just a beautiful object. No one haslooked at me like that since I came here—no one but Kel and Conor.
“Not the way the Ambassador from Hanse would look at me,” she says.
“You can’t be sure,” he says. “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. The same might have happened to him, had he been here.” Laurent’s voice threatens to undo her and all her promises to herself. It is rough and rich, low like the ocean when the tide went out, scraping itself over barnacles and sand.
“Before the message from Andreyen reached me, I thought perhaps I might never see you again,” Laurent continues. “Though I had determined to wait until all hope was gone.”
