Page 243 of Maksym

Shad glanced at me. “That bother you?”

A lesser man would have made the question softer. Shad did not insult me that way.

I considered the hall, the aisle, the throne, the flowers, the machinery of a kingdom preparing to witness love and legitimacy in the same breath. Did it bother me that Maksym had changed? That my twin’s attention now turned instinctively toward another heartbeat? That a woman had stepped into the place beside him that no brother, no hand, no advisor could occupy?

It had. For about the length of one breath.

Then I had seen Grace in the dungeon, blade hovering by an act of will, laughing as Lucian Devereaux discovered how little his old cruelties mattered when severed from power. I had seen Maksym look at her with pride so naked it would have embarrassed a weaker family. I had watched them build not a romance, but a jurisdiction. A life with law around it.

My brother was not less mine because he was hers. He was more himself. And I had gained another sister. That was irritatingly difficult to resent.

“No,” I said. “It does not bother me.”

Shad studied my profile.

I sighed. “If you look moved, I will throw you over the railing.”

“Would ruin the flowers.”

“Then I will wait until the aisle is clear.”

He gave a low laugh, brief and rough. “There he is.”

I did not smile. Much.

Shad’s phone buzzed in his coat pocket. The sound was small. Almost vulgar against the old stone and rising ceremonial light. We both looked at the pocket.

He straightened from the railing and retrieved the phone.

He answered. “Speak.”

I heard only the faintest murmur from the other end. Female voice. Controlled but strained. Amethyst reception, unless my hearing had begun insulting me.

Shad listened. His eyes lifted to mine. That was enough.

“Yes,” he said into the phone. “Keep her there. No one touches her. No one crowds her. Do not take her beyond the front reception lounge unless she moves first.” A pause. “No, do not call His Majesty yet.”

My attention sharpened.

His gaze stayed on mine. “We are coming.”

He ended the call. Below us, the palace continued preparing for joy. Above it, trouble had just stepped through another door.

Shad slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Reception at Amethyst. A woman walked in demanding to speak to the King.”

“Demanding.”

“That was the word used.”

“Species?”

“Unclear.”

A small, deeply inconvenient sensation moved at the base of my spine. Not fear. Recognition of pattern.

People who came politely to Amethyst wanted indulgence, alliance, information, judgment, shelter, or permission to do something unwise under supervision. People who demanded the king rarely brought anything pleasant in their hands. Four months ago, a dying woman had come to our threshold and torn the western territories open to inspection. The Goddess, as Shad had so recently observed, did nothing by half measures.

I looked down once more at the hall.