Page 30 of Skysong

Kitt stood beside her, grinning like a fool. Andala looked between them, raising a brow at Kitt, who winked.

‘Royal wine. It’s potent stuff.’ He laid a brief hand on Oriane’s shoulder. ‘Come and see me if your head troubles you tomorrow morning. Goodnight, ladies.’105

With a courtly bow, he turned and made his way down the corridor.

‘Come on,’ Andala murmured, shepherding Oriane further inside, scowling at Kitt’s obliviousness. He was smarter than this. Surely he knew there was something going on.

Or perhaps her friend was in on it as well. The thought threatened to stop her in her tracks, doubt curdling like sickness in her stomach.

Barely in the door, Oriane was already pulling clumsily at her powder-blue gown, blinking heavily in the room’s dim glow. ‘I can do that,’ Andala said, and though Oriane was half out of the dress already, she stopped obediently to let Andala take over.

‘You are enjoying yourself here,’ Andala remarked lightly, as she loosened the rest of the outfit’s stays and fastenings.

Oriane laughed again. ‘I am. I—’ She stumbled a little, and Andala’s hands tightened automatically at her waist, steadying her. ‘Oops.’

She turned to face Andala. A rosy flush had spread across her face – from the wine, no doubt – chasing the delicate dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

Andala drew her hands back abruptly. Oriane stood swaying, clad only in her shift. Her dreamy, drink-induced smile faded a little, and her warm brown eyes lost their focus.

‘I am enjoying myself,’ she repeated. ‘But should I be?’

‘What do you mean?’ Andala asked warily.

‘I sometimes find myself forgetting that I …’ Oriane’s words tumbled over one another. ‘I should …’ She drifted over to the bed and sat down, loose curls falling over her face. ‘I sometimes feel …’

If Andala was going to tell her, this would be the moment.

They’ve askedmetowatchyou.

Theywon’tletyouleave.106

Oriane was still staring into the distance, her brow creased in a tiny frown. It looked out of place there, and Andala found herself hesitant to deepen it.

Your father isn’t coming.

They’re lyingtoyou.

She looked away. No, she would not tell her. But why? Because she didn’t want to worry Oriane? Or because it suited her to keep the skylark prisoner too?

‘Be careful,’ she muttered instead. The warning was so cryptic as to be entirely useless. She knew that. But it had slipped from her lips anyway, because she needed to saysomethingthat felt true, even if it wasn’t the truth itself.

She needn’t have worried. The skylark was fast asleep now, tranquil, as if she were already dreaming.

107

Chapter 14

Oriane woke very early, with a headache and a sense of unease.

She cringed, burrowing beneath the covers as she recalled snippets of the previous evening: random moments and half-formed memories. Kitt had walked her back from dinner in Tomas’s chambers, and they’d laughed a lot, but she couldn’t call to mind what they had spoken about. Andala must have helped her undress when she returned, but she remembered nothing of their interaction.

No – not nothing: it came back to her now, something Andala had said to her as she lay there, mind spinning towards sleep. Two words, spoken so quietly that they should not have resonated as they did, subtly pervading her sleep and haunting her in full force now she’d woken.

Be careful.

Oriane lay cocooned in the bedclothes, that unease growing, creeping.Becareful.What had she meant by that? What had she been trying to say? It was unlike Andala to talk to her that way. And Oriane did not know why two whispered words should carry so much weight.

But they did. She hadn’t been careful lately, had she? She’d been swept up, carried away. Twenty years of caution thrown to the wind, lost to the rhythm of a whole new life.108

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