Page 44 of A Game of Veils

I run down the street toward him, and the people around me stumble. More skeletal figures appear everywhere I sweep my gaze. They snarl and snatch at the civilians, wrenching them out of view.

Whipping around, I grasp after their victims, but I can never reach fast enough. They’re always just a little too far away.

A sob builds in the back of my mouth.

Strong arms embrace me with a waft of a cedar-sweet scent. A steady but gentle voice that hits me right in the heart speaks by my ear. “It’ll be all right, Lia. We’ll see this through.”

I choke up so abruptly I can’t breathe.

We won’t see it through. Our story has already ended. Any second now the blades will flash and the blood will spray?—

I jolt out of sleep with my heart pounding and my skin clammy with sweat, my fingers clutching the sheet. The darkness weighs heavy on me with the thick rosy scent of the potpourri the cleaning staff replenishes every day.

I’m not home. I’m still in the imperial palace, trying to see the future I want through all on my own.

The ache of that knowledge barely has time to sink in before a sharp chuckle rings through the air from just beside my bed.

I’m not alone after all.

I jerk upright on the mattress, one hand groping beneath the heap of extra pillows next to me. My fingers close around the handle of the small dagger I decided to keep there after Prince Raul proved he could enter my chambers regardless of locks.

Light flares at the other side of the room. The lit lantern casts an eerie yellowish glow over the three figures arrayed next to my bed.

Raul brought two of his fellow princes this time.

It’s actually Bastien standing closest, as if he’s leading this invasion. He holds the lantern to the side so I can see his striking face.

The wavering light turns his narrow features harsher but blazes off his auburn hair and in his deep green eyes. Which are fixed, with stark intensity, on me.

“Welcome back to the world of the waking, Your Highness,” he says flatly.

My gaze darts from him to Raul standing by his shoulder with a smirk and Lorenzo poised near the end of the bed, his deep brown skin and black hair nearly blending into the shadows beyond. They’re watching me too, Raul looking amused and Lorenzo more pensive but neither of them at all friendly.

I keep my grasp on the hilt of the dagger but don’t draw it out. The moment they see the weapon, I’d lose all benefit of surprise if I need to use it. And they haven’t done anything worthy of outright murder just yet.

Or maybe they have. Bastien adjusts his free hand, and a gleam of gold brings my attention snapping back to him.

He’s holding a thick gold ring. A thick gold ring with a sapphire nestled amid its rippled band?—

My pulse stutters. My gaze plummets to my hand still resting on top of the sheet—to my now ringless forefinger.

In my shock, I hadn’t registered the missing pressure. How in the realms did they manage to pull it off my finger without the movement waking me?

My heart settles into an even but quickened beat, more rapid than when I woke up from the nightmare. A chill winds through my veins.

I keep my voice steady through sheer force of will. “Have you decided to become common thieves now? Breaking and entering wasn’t enough of a crime?”

Raul sinks down on the edge of the mattress and lets his gaze travel over my form beneath the sheet. The nights in the palace are warm enough that I can’t bear to keep on a blanket, and the thin fabric shows every slope of my torso and legs.

“Maybe we simply wanted to keep you company,” he purrs. “The lamb must get lonely in this big bed all by herself.”

Bastien flicks an irritated glance toward his foster brother before focusing back on me. He turns the ring between his fingers. “You wear it even to bed. It must be very important to you. Why does it bother you so much to lose it?”

The chill descends straight to my gut. How closely has he been watching me that he realized the ring was more significant than a random piece of jewelry?

Or maybe he’s simply more perceptive than most of the nobles I’ve been surrounded by. I doubt even Marclinus for all his evaluations of his potential brides has given my jewelry a thought.

I swallow thickly. “It’s special to my family. My mother gave it to me just before I left as a parting gift, a connection to home. It’s the only thing I can easily keep with me that I brought from the place where I spent my entire life until now. So yes, it’s rather important.”

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