Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,112
crowd when the fourth bell chimed—gone once their business was addressed, or surreptitiously removed?
A palace page elbowed his way through the press and bowed. “Milady. I have a message from Archa Severos.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nadesda still on the far side of the room. “Thank you.” She traded the boy the sealed envelope for a silver penny. “Does she expect a reply?”
“She said it was nothing urgent.”
Savedra nodded, and the boy bowed again and retreated. As soon as he was gone she inspected the black wax and broke the seal. By Nadesda’s standards “nothing urgent” only meant that no one would die in the next hour.
The note was a short one, written in a simple private cipher. Make sure the princess is especially radiant at the masquerade, it read. Her newest friends will be there, with gifts.
She stifled a scream, smiling instead as if reading a pleasant trifle. Her hand was steady as she tucked the note into her sleeve, but only barely. Friends for enemies was a common substitution, gifts for harm another. The assassin would try again.
She might have gone to her mother and demanded more information, but when she turned she nearly stepped into Ginevra Jsutien.
“Imagine meeting you here.” Ginevra wore burgundy brocade today, a tasteful and sober high-necked gown that did nothing to hide her slender curves. Savedra envied the girl her dressmaker—not to mention her figure.
“Will your aunt be happy to see you speaking to me?”
“She’s gone to the washroom.” Yellow topazes flashed in the darkness of her hair as she tilted her head. “I thought I should ask you about your costume for the solstice ball, considering what happened the last time we wore the same colors.”
“Saints, the ball.” She’d had the beginnings of a costume since the end of summer, but hadn’t been in for fittings in decads.
“I know,” Ginevra said, her lips pursing in a charming moue. “I haven’t decided on anything either. Luckily my milliner is used to me by now.”
Savedra met Ginevra’s eyes for an instant; they were of a height. Tall, slender, black-haired—her hands tingled as an idea began to gain strength. “About what happened last time… How would you like to play a game with me?”
“Oh?” The sparkle in her grey eyes belied the lazy disinterest in her voice. “What sort of game?”
“How does your dressmaker feel about challenges?”
Nikos came to her at midnight, kissing her before she could finish a greeting. It had been decads since they spent the night together, and she felt every absent day as he pulled her close. She wanted to protest as he led her to the bed, guilt twisting a knife beneath her sternum, but his fingers were tangled in her laces and her hair, and the scrape of teeth and stubble against her neck replaced guilt with want.
They lay in breathless silence when the bells tolled; the hour of regret. Savedra pressed her face against Nikos’s neck and breathed in salt musk and the lingering cedar-and-saffron of his perfume.
“What’s wrong?” she finally asked, trailing her fingers down his arm. Gooseflesh prickled in the wake of her touch. “Something Kurgoth said?” She had thought briefly of spying on them, but decided against it. She didn’t want to lose the captain’s trust so quickly, and she had a costume to plan besides.
“He’s worried about Father.” He laughed humorlessly, his chest shaking against hers. “And imagine how bad it must be if a man like Kurgoth will speak of it. He’s nearly as emotionless as Father himself.”
“What’s the matter?”
“He says Father is tired, stretched too thin—worse than the usual stress of a campaign. Nightmares. And of course Father won’t speak of them.”
“Does he think Mathiros will share them with you?”
“He knows better than that. He hoped that I could persuade Kiril to help, but I think that ship has sailed.”
“You could command him. He is a sworn agent of the Crown.”
“He served my father out of love, and Father squandered that. Besides, Father hasn’t seemed inclined to listen to him lately, either. The old man deserves some rest.”
Savedra sighed and pulled Nikos closer. “Don’t we all?”
CHAPTER 16
Erisín celebrated the longest night of the year with masques and parties. Legend held that the masks were meant to confuse the hungry spirits who crept through the mirrors that night, but in more recent times it was an excuse for excess and indulgence before the Invidiae—the demon days that fell at the dark of the year.
In the palace, celebrants gathered in