Page 28 of A Game of Veils

Her expression brightens with understanding. “You like to read about music.”

And stories of the macabre, but I don’t see how it’ll help anything to let her in on that distinctive hobby.

My pulse has quickened at her enthusiasm. I come around the table so we’re standing only a few feet apart, giving her a clearer view. Then I twitch a finger toward her again, graze my fingers past my temple with a discreet tap, and swivel my forefinger around the head of my thumb.

Aurelia’s brow knits. “What do I think about…?”

I angle my thumb so it stands upright and circle the tip more slowly. Then I raise my hands to form a crown of fingers on my head.

The princess’s mouth twitches. “The emperor? Or the imperial heir?”

I have ways of distinguishing, but I don’t see the point in getting into them here. I shrug again with a swift tap of two fingers together. How about both?

The light fades from her eyes, sending an unexpected pang of loss through me.

“I think they’re the most powerful men in this half of the continent, if not the whole thing,” she says in a careful tone. “And they require all due praise.”

She doesn’t indicate that she believes they deserve that praise. I can’t help thinking she hardly seems excited about the prospect of her marriage, although maybe that’s been diminished by the bloody trials leading up to it.

I motion toward her again and then wave my fingers away from us—once, twice, three times, as if to indicate the palace, the lands beyond, the entire damned country.

Aurelia’s canny gaze absorbs it all, and her expression firms. “Am I going to leave? No. Just because one’s goal has become harder, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still worth obtaining.”

The sympathy that was twining through me snuffs out in an instant.

That’s all this scenario is about for her, isn’t it? Obtaining her goal. Setting herself on a throne, no matter who lies bleeding along the path there.

And here I was admiring her lovely smile. Regretting the dulling of her shine.

She wanted me to.

A burst of anger laced with guilt propels me straight toward her. Aurelia scrambles backward in my wake. Her shoulders hit the bookshelves behind her.

I glare straight into her deep blue eyes and drag my finger across her throat just shy of touching the skin. A gesture every human being can recognize.

Aurelia swallows audibly. When I ease back a step, she peels herself off the bookcase and lowers her head. “I can see my company is no longer welcome. I apologize for interrupting your reading.”

She strides out of the library with a swish of her pale skirt, and I tell myself the burn at the base of my own throat is all fury, no regret.

Chapter Ten

Aurelia

Igaze up at the tapestries decorating the hallway, my ears pricked for any sound of footsteps. Marclinus didn’t grace us with his presence in the dining room for breakfast, and the page I spoke to said he’d taken his meal in his private chambers.

The apartments of the imperial family lie beyond this hallway. If I meander it for long enough, I may get another chance to speak to him apart from his court.

There has to be something I could say that will lessen his interest in continuing these trials. It couldn’t be clearer that his father is the driving force behind them.

Can I work a wedge between them? It’ll need to be subtly done, but if there’s a way to stop the madness before another lady lies slaughtered in front of me, I’ll take my chances.

A faint tapping does reach my ears, but the pace and weight of the steps don’t fit the imperial heir. When I glance over, it’s Vicerine Bianca approaching.

At the sight of me, her lips curl into a predatory smile. She saunters closer with a pat of her upswept braids.

What was she doing over by the imperial apartments? Or in the imperial apartments?

The image flickers through my mind of her voluptuous form pressing close to Marclinus’s side yesterday in the parlor. He didn’t appear all that engaged by her charms then, but that doesn’t mean he never is. Rochelle indicated they have enough of a history that she’d be displeased to see him marry.

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