Page 27 of Fortune's Blade

He was reclining at one end of the table in a rich burgundy velvet robe with scattered, silver spangles that showed off a well-muscled chest. His hair was now shoulder length and gleamed in loose waves, and he had grown into his features as well, which were lean and hawk-like in human guise. The impression was heightened by the fact that he was eating something which I strongly suspected had been alive until a moment ago, as it had stained his lips a brilliant scarlet.

He looked like an ancient Roman senator who had been drinking too much wine, rather than a teenager who had spent his afternoon annoying his sister. And it wasn’t just the outward appearance that had changed. I remembered him as inquisitive and coltish, getting into anything and everything, and then laughing his way out when it landed him in trouble. He’d had an easy sort of charm, youthful, a little bumbling, and yet endearing.

Even Claire’s fey bodyguards had liked him, and they didn’t like anyone.

But when he met my eyes now, it took actual effort not to look away. I made the effort, holding his gaze long enough to avoid a charge of cravenness, but not long enough to be considered a challenge. I hoped.

I let my lips curve into a smile instead. “You’ve had a glow up,” I told him frankly, and saw him blink.

For a second, he was that boy again, with a faint blush staining his cheeks and a grin splitting his lips. And then he remembered his dignity and frowned, ignoring the hand I had extended. “We don’t do that here,” he told me bluntly.

“Oh? What do you do?”

He frowned some more, perhaps realizing that he’d trapped himself, and was now going to have to be either breathtakingly rude or greet me properly. But after a brief hesitation, he manned up, reached over to put a hand behind my head, and briefly touched our foreheads together. And since he’d decided to be hospitable, he did the same for Louis-Cesare.

Claire, however, declined, looking around for somebody to fill her goblet. “You already greeted me, remember?” she asked.

“People are watching,” Tanet told her quietly. “They’ll think we’re feuding.”

“Aren’t we? I still have claw marks on my back.”

“You do not! I was careful—”

“Is that what you call it? Because I’d hate to see the results if you weren’t.”

“Yes, you would,” he agreed. “Now, greet me.”

He reached for her again, but she pretended she didn’t notice and held out her goblet for the servants who had just fluttered in.

There were three of them, which seemed excessive as we already had two, one positioned on either side of the oblong opening onto the carnage. But the latest arrivals had brought food, platter after platter of it, which they artfully arranged on the slab of granite. They got in the way of the guy with the pitcher, who was trying to forge a path through to Claire’s empty glass, but he finally managed it.

He filled it with some delicious smelling wine, then moved on to Louis-Cesare and I. Claire tasted the offering, smiled, and finally gave Tanet his greeting. Which did not seem to mollify him much.

“I’m sorry my sister has such poor manners,” he told us, as if he hadn’t had to be strong armed into playing host. But he leaned into it now, perhaps to show Claire up, and dutifully enquired about our day and how we were finding our accommodations.

I let Louis-Cesare answer him, and wax lyrical about how beautiful we found his realm. He was better at that sort of thing than me—most people were better at that than me—although at least I had managed not to embarrass myself. And they said diplomacy couldn’t be taught!

My family history proved otherwise. My father had been known as Mircea the Bold once, a nickname he’d earned by being far more likely to stick a sword in your eye than to offer you pretty speeches. Yet he was now the consul’s chief diplomat and famous for his charm.

Maybe there was hope for me yet.

“They’re putting on a show tonight,” Tanet said dryly, as the two servants by the door suddenly leapt toward the center of the opening, to keep some tasty morsel from splatting in the middle of our table.

The slaughter was ramping up outside, as more and more diners decided to take to the air. It was making the “chefs’” job that much harder, as there wasn’t much free space to fling anything into anymore, and ensured that each course that did make it was set upon by a number of hungry guests. That, of course, caused fights, and ended with a good deal of the meal getting tossed about.

I didn’t see what they’d accidentally sent our way, as the servants had already thrown it back, which was fine with me.

“This isn’t normal?” I asked Tanet calmly.

“No, it’s to show off—to you and about you.” He shot me a look over some tiny, scrabbling feet.

His dinner seemed to consist of a mass of struggling small creatures that looked like dormice and were trying to climb out of the slick, high sided bowl they’d been served in. One of the tiny, furry faces had surmounted what I assumed was a hill of his brothers and was twitching miniature whispers at me over the rim. I drank some wine, a rich, fruity red, and glanced at Claire, wondering how she was holding up.

Not well, as it happened. That wasn’t surprising, considering that she was that most impossible of impossible things: a vegan dragon. Or she was trying to be, having ordered up a bounty of greenery for the table which Tamris was regarding in confusion. But Claire’s alter ego had other ideas, and I saw the struggle on her face.

Literally saw it, as her usually smooth cheeks kept flushing with more than color. Faint scales bloomed and shifted across her pale skin—pewter with an iridescent lavender tint—making her look as if a strange spotlight was strobing her. But there was no light; it was her inner turmoil writ large, and everybody just ignored it.

“About us?” Louis-Cesare asked, after a moment.

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