Lady Bellenet laughed, scooping a sugar cube from a dainty tray with a tiny silver spoon. “You speak true, my lord. Miss Delara is here because she offers what the scholarship in Mirith cannot. She’s the Keeper, after all.” She tilted her head, regarding Taryel intently, as if he were the scholar of everything Ru. “Tell me, what manner of scientist is Miss Delara? Hugon has said little beyond describing her as a homely girl with a shockingly sharp mind.”
A rising anger now threatened to take over, despite the wine. “Is she aware that I’m sitting right here?” Ru hissed, just for Lord D’Luc to hear. He had suddenly become her unwanted anchor in this jarring evening, a constant whose capricious manners were at least well-known to her. She didn’t understand why Taryel was here or who he was loyal to. Why had he come to her in the forest, tried to run away with her? Was she nothing but a game to him?
But Hugon D’Luc… Ru understood him. At least, she understood enough to know that she couldn’t trust him, that he had only her worst interests at heart. That was something known, a constant to cling to.
The lord turned just enough to catch Ru’s eye, tossing her a sardonic half-smile. “Ignore it. Let them talk.”
Lady Bellenet turned to Lord D’Luc and Ru then, their heads close together, and her eyes narrowed for the space of a breath.
Taryel, meanwhile, spoke as if Ru wasn’t there at all, his intense gaze now fixed on Lady Bellenet. Ru reached angrily for a tiny cake, a sugar-spun flower perched on its top, and shoved it into her mouth.
“To work with Miss Delara,” Taryel was saying, “is to work with the best mind in Navenie. Her methods are purely her own and second to none. She is an archaeologist by trade, anacademic by instinct. Her sharpness of mind, the way she’s able to see one thing and infer another, to predict an outcome before the chips have even begun to fall… she is not just a scientist. She is a magician. A sorceress.”
At this last, his gaze flickeredto Ru.
She could have caught fire and burned to ash, right there at the dinner table.
“How lyrical,” said Lady Bellenet. She turned to Lord D’Luc, appraising. “Though, I don’t see it. Hugon, would you agree?”
The lord paused in stirring cream into his coffee. “I wouldn’t put it quite so rhapsodically.”
Ru wanted to cut in, to make some scathing remark that would wipe the self-satisfied expression off Lady Bellenet’s face. Who did the woman think she was, treating Ru like a mute child? Calling her a peasant? Questioning her intelligence, worst of all? This, the same Lady Bellenet who would see the kingdom destroyed in cleansing flames. Yet here Ru sat, nothing to her but a topic of idle insult. Was that how they saw her, then? An ignorant girl, useless but for her connection to the artifact?
Ru wished she had the guts to fight back, either with words or even violence. She was utterly out of her depth. So she only seethed, strangely glad to stew in indignant anger rather than fear for once.
Taryel’s gaze on her was steady but demanding, and even in her periphery, she was helpless to it. Evenhehad hardly spoken to her, hadn’t given her so much as a hint that he was on her side.
I need to get him alone, she thought.
“Try the chocolate, too,” Taryel said. His tone was quiet, and with those words came a soothing murmur from within Ru — the artifact, Taryel’s heart, softening her ragged edges.
Lady Bellenet and Lord D’Luc were distracted, engaged in intimate, quiet conversation.
Taryel leaned forward as if to involve Ru in his conspiracy. “I requested the cakes especially,” he said, “because I knew you’d like them.”
Ru said nothing.
“It will make you feel better,” he added.
“As if you know me,” Ru muttered, reaching for one of the chocolate confections. Almost defiantly, she took a dainty bite. The cake was gorgeous, rich and decadent. Of course, the chocolate helped. She had always found comfort in bakeries and confectionaries.
He watched her, lips curving in a smile. “They’re all the rage at court.”
“Evidently,” Ru said, “so areyou. Care to elaborate?”
“Don’t overindulge, Miss Delara,” said Lady Bellenet, noticing the cake in Ru’s hand. “You’ll make yourself ill. Clarity of body is clarity of mind.”
“Quite,” said Lord D’Luc, as if he was used to agreeing with everything the woman said. Her handsome little puppet.
Taryel rolled his eyes, his gaze catching at Ru’s in some attempt at a shared joke. But she refused to be taken by his charm. A few nights ago, she had resigned herself to losing him forever. She wouldn’t undo all that grieving; she couldn’t. It would be too hard.
The soft haze of Ru’s wine was beginning to wear off, and the sharpness of reality fell in to replace it. The stark knowledge of where she was, who she dined with, and why, hit Ru at the same time as a sickly stomach ache.
She stared at the tablecloth. It was white, patterned with fleur-de-lis and vines of grapes. Running her fingers over it, she could feel raised embroidery where the vines curled.
Voices rose and fell in the background, a fog of sound. In her mind, and spreading through her body like syrup, the artifact seemed to be doing its best to calm her. Or was it Taryel,somehow caressing her thoughts like he had in the forest? Either way, it wasn’t working.
Breathe in…
