Page 52 of A Game of Veils

“Raul,” she begins.

I don’t give her a chance to make excuses, to pull away. I jerk forward as if I’ve dropped something and bend down to retrieve it.

The moment I’m at the floor, I cup Aurelia’s ankle. As I rise, I skim my hand over her smooth skin, lifting her skirt with it.

It takes less than a second—the beat of a heart. The swiftest of kisses against the skin just above her knee, and then I’ve released her, straightening the rest of the way up.

Aurelia steps to the side, increasing the distance between us, with a quiver that tells me exactly why she felt she needed that space. The heat of her body lingers on my hand.

She’s so close to melting.

I open my mouth to draw her in even more—and the sudden thunder of footsteps brings me spinning around.

The guard isn’t marching toward us. He’s storming toward one of Aurelia’s competitors, a pale slip of a thing who’s crouched next to one of the side tables.

Right by a goblet someone left behind.

“Trial breaker,” the guard bellows, towering over her.

The lady only manages to stammer. “I—No, it was only—I wouldn’t have?—”

The guard lifts his head with no acknowledgment of her protests. He looks across the room toward the emperor and his heir. “She had her hand around the goblet and was tilting it to her mouth.”

Tarquin sighs as if disappointed. “She knew the rules. If she can’t stay true to them, she won’t be true to us. Deal with it.”

The lady raises her hands beseechingly. “Please, I was so thirsty I lost my?—”

Her last words are cut off with the hiss of a blade and the gurgle of blood from her severed throat.

I tamp down my disgust and turn away as if I’m bored by the display, only to find my gaze on Princess Aurelia again.

Aurelia, who’s staring at the slaughtered lady with her lips pressed tight and all trace of a flush vanished.

When I blink, the hint of uneasiness vanishes. Her face settles into its usual serene expression.

A thread of uneasiness winds through my gut.

That’s one fewer obstacle on her way to the throne. Shouldn’t she be glad to see the competition eliminated?

Was her subtle show of distress a trick to shake my resolve, or is this the lie now? Could she actually have cared about that simpering fool?

I can’t ask her even if I wanted to, because the next thing I know, she’s striding off beyond my reach.

Chapter Eighteen

Aurelia

Simply walking into the dining room intensifies the burn of hunger in my belly. Over the past day and a half as my body has adapted to the emptiness, my appetite has mostly dwindled from a sharp throbbing to a dull ache, but even the faint scent of the doughy rolls already laid out on some of the tables sets off a fresh jab.

As I walk toward the head table, I avert my gaze from the carafes of various beverages. The gravelly sensation in my mouth and the pinching of dryness in my throat has only deepened the longer I endure this trial.

Perhaps I should just be glad for the minor relief of wearing undergarments again. One of the female guards played chaperone in my bedroom overnight, but she didn’t interfere with my dressing any.

Normally when I reach the head table, one of the palace staff directs me to my assigned seat for the meal. Today, the woman who approaches motions me off to the side near Marclinus’s throne-like chair. “You won’t be sitting for this meal. All of the seats are taken.”

The emperor and his heir are going to make us stand through the entire luncheon we’re not allowed to partake of? A prickling of dizziness ripples through me even imagining it.

Rochelle has come up behind me in time to hear the instructions. We exchange an uncertain glance, but we don’t speak about it.

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