Page 43 of A Game of Veils

I’d direct the conversation to another new topic, but Fausta saunters over to our little cluster just then, trailing several of her noblewomen friends behind her. She tosses back her flame-red hair and wrinkles her pert nose at me.

“Lady Giralda, Lady Iseppa, let’s not fawn over our princess from the north. We can’t let her think she’s as superior as she likes to act.”

I act superior? The kettle would like to have word with the pot.

I keep my smile in place. “We were only having a friendly conversation.”

Fausta’s scoff is as delicate as the rest of her petite frame. “Friendly. As if we haven’t all seen how you look at us, heard how you talk about us. Oh, yes, please bestow more of your patronizing wisdom on me.”

She’s framing my attempts at help as condescension. My teeth grit against a barbed retort.

If I snap at her, I’ll only appear to be proving her right.

I smooth the anger from my voice. “And what do you call it when a lady purposefully demoralizes her peers, Lady Fausta?”

My rival sniffs as if she couldn’t possibly dignify such a question with a response and turns away from me. “Let those of us who understand the greatness of Dariu stick together and avoid those who’d look down their noses.”

The two ladies have gone rigid. When Fausta starts to drift away, they scurry after her with nervous backward glances as if they think I might retaliate.

“You were wonderful during the knives,” one of them simpers to Fausta before they step out of hearing behind a fountain.

I can’t blame them for caring more about what one of their own thinks of them than my opinion. But it’s hard to take comfort from that thought when Vicerine Bianca sweeps by in Fausta’s wake.

She motions to the other nobles who’ve paused to watch the altercation, directing them away from me and Rochelle. “Who has time for such pathetic figures. What do you make of the latest shoes on offer in Vivencia, my ladies? Far more refined than anything you’d find in the wild north, no?”

None of those nobles were ever my friends, but my stomach sinks to see the gap widening around my friend and me. Fausta and Bianca have discovered a means of warfare that extends beyond the trials.

Even Rochelle’s father seems affected. “My girl, there is something I wished to discuss with you alone…”

As he drags her away, my gaze slides back to the emperor and Marclinus of its own accord, only to find the two of them watching me with an evaluating air.

I lower my gaze and stride off to find myself a fresh glass of wine. And try not to speculate on how it might hurt my chances if the man I’m meant to marry thinks his whole court already hates me.

Chapter Fifteen

Aurelia

Cheerful voices warble through the drawing room. The warmth of the hearth wraps around me. When I look up, my mother’s smile reaches me from across the room.

My heart leaps with the most painful sort of joy. I’m home. Somehow, I’m home.

Fiddle music lilts through the air. A few of my friends spring up to dance. My sister catches my hand, tugging me into the whirl of bodies?—

And I find myself spinning past the doorway, all the way through the castle gates. The capital city of Costel sprawls before me, the brightly colored faces of the buildings beaming under the sun.

The music keeps playing, as if it’s a festival day. The city folk are emerging from their homes and businesses to romp together on the streets.

I weave between them, tasting the tang of ale and sweetness of fresh-baked pastries lacing the air. I grin wider at every bob of a head, every merry greeting.

“So happy you could join us, Your Highness.”

“Thank you for the castle’s generosity, Princess Aurelia!”

The celebratory atmosphere pulls me in—but a flicker of shadow snags my attention with a lurch of my heart.

A dark shape lurks at the mouth of an alley. Black uniform painted with white bones as if it’s a living skeleton—a Darium soldier.

I’ve barely noticed him before he’s yanking a little girl off the street into the alley. A yelp breaks from my throat.

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