Shadow Magic - By Jaida Jones Page 0,17

to admit, he was also incredibly strong. He made good use of his size, too, squeezing up next to Josette as though he’d been there all along.

The man flanking the prince narrowed his eyes, like maybe he was thinking about flipping Caius Greylace over, if he got any closer. He was a bodyguard then, or whatever the Ke-Han equivalent of that was. His hair was all thick black braids, pulled back into a complicated twist that left them to spill neat as you please down his back—though unlike the Emperor, he didn’t have any fancy jade dangles to make noise when he moved. Didn’t matter though, since from what I’d learned, it was the braids that were important. Something like our version of medals of honor. The man, whoever he was, had been a soldier. I thought it would have been pretty fucking hilarious if we’d recognized one another, but the truth was that all the Ke-Han looked the same to me, and this poor bastard was probably thinking the exact same thing about us.

“I am very pleased to hear you enjoyed the dinner,” the smiling prince said, his words softened and masked by a heavy accent. Still, there was something about the way he looked so delighted to be speaking our language that you couldn’t help feeling a little of it too.

“Oh, the dessert was especially wonderful,” Josette told him. “And so light! I expect I’ll have to be refitted for all my dresses by the time we leave.”

The prince laughed politely, like he’d understood maybe half of what Josette had said, or at least enough to know that it was a pleasantry.

“Who intends to leave?” Caius asked. “You put us so to shame with your hospitality, I’ve half a mind to stay here indefinitely once the talks are over.”

The prince trained his eyes on us, uncertain for a moment while he tried to sort out the words. I thought about that glimpse we’d got of the Emperor, his brother, as compared to the lamb in front of us, lips moving silently like he was reading a book. He looked more like a foreign ’Versity student than a prince. His brother, on the other hand, had looked every inch like haughty royalty. Maybe it skipped the second-born.

“Thank you,” the prince said carefully. “It is my—it is our hope—that you feel comfortable here.”

Caius ducked in a deep and graceful bow. “I’m Caius Greylace.” He elbowed me in the stomach, just above the hip, which I guessed meant I was supposed to bow too.

Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get him for it later, though.

“This is my companion,” he went on, like we were there together or something.

“Alcibiades,” I said gruffly, because it was too late in the day to be getting into titles, and besides, I didn’t have one.

The prince nodded, taking in the latest display of prostration on my part with clever dark eyes. I didn’t trust him, not for a minute, but then he had fewer braids in his hair than the man who stood beside him. He was more a prince than a warrior, yet.

“This is Prince Mamoru,” Fiacre said, looking pleased to have something to say. “Haven’t managed to catch the name of his stalwart companion yet, but ah, he seems very… tall.”

Prince Mamoru’s eyes lit up with happiness, probably at recognizing his name in among all our messy foreign words.

“Mamoru,” he said, resting a hand against his chest.

He was delicate enough that he reminded me a little of Greylace, though he was certainly quieter, and heaps more reserved—so a Greylace I would have better liked to have around.

“Prince Mamoru,” Caius repeated, replicating the accent and the strange round R like he’d been practicing the language for years. “Might I say quite candidly that I am simply in awe of your jewelry? It’s incomparable to anything in Volstov!”

He reached out a solicitous hand, likely to admire one of those bracelets, or maybe just to make another sweeping bow—I wouldn’t ever be sure, since the man standing next to the prince seized Caius’s wrist with the speed of a practiced soldier.

I found myself reaching for my sword, before I remembered two things: that the war was over, and that it was forbidden for us to carry a weapon within the Emperor’s palace.

Josette’s smile slid off her face like a piece of creamed eel. Prince Mamoru’s eyes went wide. Caius Greylace looked as though he’d never had as much fun in his entire life, even when the man