Page 20 of Oracle's Reign
Seven
???
No.
Not again.
Yslie backed away from Peroen’s art studio. A memory—a nightmare—superimposed itself over the present. Only this time, it was worse. The memory of Drexlir faded as the reality of Peroen filled her vision. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t care. Not when she had allowed her feelings deepen to dangerous levels. Not when all she could see was Peroen’s hand cupping Triese’s bare breast.
Yslie choked back a sob, turned and ran. She was going the wrong direction to return to her room, but that hardly mattered. She didn’t need to return to her room. She needed to flee the palace and never look back.
She thought she had prepared herself. After overhearing Triese tell Peroen about her useless magic, then getting a note asking her to switch her portrait time, she had known the prince had changed his mind about wanting her help. She didn’t blame him; Triese had years of experience turning people away from Yslie.
But she hadn’t expected him to drive home his rejection so viciously. He could have told her he no longer wanted her company at the Assembly event. He didn’t have to arrange for her to walk in on...that.
“Yslie!”
Footsteps pounded after her, and she looked for somewhere to hide. She wasn’t familiar with this section of the palace. She reached for the first door she saw. It opened, and she darted inside, slamming the door closed behind her.
“Yslie! It wasn’t what it looked like.” Peroen’s voice cut through the wood of the door.
She leaned back against it, knowing she couldn’t keep him out if he tried to push inside. But Peroen didn’t even turn the knob. He used no force. Instead, he kept talking, and Yslie couldn’t stop herself from listening.
“Triese orchestrated the whole thing, Yslie. I’ll let you—no, I want you to scan my past. You can see for yourself. She used her power. She timed everything so you walked in at the worst possible moment.”
“Her power might have allowed her to time things perfectly,” Yslie said through the door, her voice wobbling, “but that doesn’t change what happened.”
“Nothing happened. She tricked me.”
Yslie made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “What could she have possibly said to trick you into fondling her breast?”
“I wasn’t fondling her. She grabbed my wrist the same instant you opened the door.”
“She was naked, Peroen. And you were standing right next to her.” She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. I got the message. You don’t need to pretend that I wasn’t meant to walk in on that.”
“I’m not pretending, and there was nothat.”
Yslie opened her eyes again, noticing for the first time that she appeared to be in a sitting room, not the storeroom she had expected. She kept talking, even as she took in her surroundings. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You didn’t have to switch myportrait session and arrange for me to walk in on you with Triese.”
“What? You think I—” He fell silent.
Yslie moved away from the door while he struggled to find a new explanation. A table in one corner held a beautifully craftedgohtadar. An arched doorway covered by a beaded curtain presumably led to the bedroom. Paintings covered the walls of the room. Beautiful paintings that had the same poignant simplicity as the sketches she had seen.
She was in Peroen’s rooms.
All she wanted was to run away, and she wound up trapping herself in his private quarters.
She stopped in front of a landscape hanging on the wall. The jagged line of a mountain range cut across the canvas below a midnight sky. It was a painting that called to her, whispering that someone else understood her loneliness. It reminded her that Peroen was nothing like Drexlir. She had still been young enough to hope that her life in Garaea didn’t have to be one of isolation when she had cautiously offered him her heart. Young enough to believe his lies when he told her she was all he wanted.
She wasn’t that naive girl any longer. She knew enough of people to recognize the snakes.
And Peroen wasn’t one.
Shock might have fooled her into lumping Peroen into that category, but that wasn’t fair to him. And she wouldn’t let the past taint her future.
Yslie returned to the door and swung it open.
Peroen looked at her, devastation radiating from him in waves. He raised a hand, but halted it in a jerky movement and let it drop back to his side. “You think I planned this all out because I wanted you to walk in on me with Triese?”
