He arches his brow.
“A bloody—body.”You.“Covered in roses.”
He studies me up and down. “You have a tell when youlie.”
My face contorts. “No I don’t,” I say, and then in the same breath: “What is it?”
“What do I get in return?” His words carry a tang of mischief, better fitting flirtation. The slant of his smile drops as if he realizes it at the same time I do.
We don’t belong treading in these waters, not when we’re in such close proximity, breathy and hearts racing from our quick exit from the ballroom. I wouldn’t mistake this for anything else, but—
“Violet.” Cyrus clears his throat.
“The journey to love never runs smooth,”I blurt at the same time.
He flinches.
Licking my lips, I dredge up the rest of the rhyme:“And yours…your father would not approve. They will catch you by surprise, hidden in disguise, but leave your grasp before midnight strikes.”
“Where did you hear that?” He sounds a little awed. A little—afraid?
“I told you. In my dreams.”
“The Balican Seer during my tour…she told me the same thing.”
“The same exact words?” So itwasa Fate who spoke tome. Have they been speaking to Seers besides me? “But…your father told me you didn’t get any foretellings about finding love.”
He shrugs. “I lied. He wouldn’t approve of her, right?”
The simplicity of his response jars me, and apparently it shows, because he scoffs. “Fine—I’m a hypocrite. Happy? I lied to Mirabel just now, too, if you care about that.”
“What?”
“Mypersonal gratitudetoward her uncle involves stringing him up for bringing in stolen Balican treasure.”
I’m still confused. We’re always having conversations about two different things. “The Dragonsguard’s haul?”
“The Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Dominions have been letting their dragons propagate on the cliffs near the border. The dragons fly southeast into Balica to raid and return to their lairs on the Auvenese side, pockets full of our neighbor’s gold. Then the guard swoops in and eliminates them. Safe to say, we don’t give everything back to who it belongs to. I’ve been dealing with this all morning.”
No wonder such a large share of the Dragonsguard is sent to the borderlands. Dragons are pests in the less developed countryside, raiding villages for anything shiny and hissing fire when provoked. We’d be in dire trouble if they were still as large as their building-sized ancestors, but now it’s mostly a battle against their rampant procreation and greedy claws.
And our dukes’ greedy claws, it seems. I’m not surprised—Auveny may pretend that destiny is the fair judgment of the Fates and fortune falls to those who deserve it, but havingsifted through the threads of my patrons, I know that truly good souls are one-in-a-thousand exceptions. The rest of us are just hoping not to get our sooty hands caught.
“You could have said something to me,” I sputter, heart beating unsteadily.
“And what would you have done?” Cyrus looks unusually relaxed, hands shoved in pockets. Not even in a rush anymore.
“I don’t know—I just heard about this! I could have…lured some advisors in for a reading…searched for secrets or discrepancies in their threads. I get it, Princey—you don’t trust me, but you have to give me a chance.”
“I am. I have been.”
“And lower your damn standards, when you’re here keeping secrets too.” I narrow my eyes. “You should’ve told me about what the Seer said, at the very least. Everyone is in a panic about you finding love, and meanwhile, youknewyou didn’t have to worry.”
“It’s hard to believe until it happens. I’ve had prophecies follow me my entire life, every one of them vague.” He admires the ceiling with great interest as a dozen thoughts seem to cross his face. “The ball still has to go on, I suppose. A dress of butterflies and fayflowers. That’s something.”
“What else have you heard? If I knew what other Seers said, I could interpret my dreams better.”
“Do you know why we only keep one Seer in Auveny? Easier for a king to control.” He drops his gaze to mine, words toneless. “My father’s policy, early in his reign. He could have kept another Seer alongside Sighted Mistress Felicita, but trying to influencetwoSeers when he wanteda prophecy to be told a certain way—he didn’t like the thought of that. He traded the other one to Verdant for some ridiculous price.”
