Page 55 of Blood On His Lips

Silence blanketed the field. The White Guard never made noise. I met Numair’s gaze and saw the worry in his tight mouth and narrowed eyes. Worry for me, worry for us all.

Renaud came to my side, not even having the courtesy to let his feet squelch in the mud. Flecks of brown dotted his pale gray robes, and his long hair shed a river of water at the tips. He looked like some storm god come to life, not muddy and sodden and sorry like me.

“Are you ready to give up the game yet?” he asked.

“This was never a game.” I moved away from the body, shifting into a defensive stance, and every light on the grounds went out, in the distance the tinkling notes of shattering glass.

Renaud turned in the direction of the tree line. I straightened, following his line of sight.

“What,” Juliette said, “the fuck.”

Dense gray mist roiled from the forest, pushing out and above the tree line. The Prince remained still, the set of his shoulders radiating silent displeasure, and something else. Something I almost thought was fear. I stepped next to him, shedding the skin of our conflict in order to face this new threat together.

I had no doubt this was a threat.

A piece of the mist broke and formed a shape which solidified into a female form in the next several steps.

I took my cue from Renaud’s utter silence. Attuned to his body language, I didn’t dare look away from the approaching figure.

She wore black armor edged in gold, the style and fit familiar though I’d never seen it before, at least not outside of a daydream. A high-necked cloak hung off her shoulders, and dark brown hair disappeared down her back. No skin showed except for her face, a pale gold-brown, and as she drew closer I saw that her dark, single-lidded eyes were fixed on Renaud.

She looked. . .human, mid-twenties, her features hinting of Korean descent. Which made no sense.

She wasnothuman.

I stiffened my entire body against a shudder, against the instinct to fall to my knees as she drew closer, radiating subtle cold but also a promise of life, the grief and joy of birth and death intertwined. She was somehow the most beautiful female I had ever seen, and the most monstrous, even though her features were merely averagely lovely. Though I tasted the barest shimmer of her power, it’s overt lack chilled me all the more. She was not powerless; she possessed enough power to give even the Prince pause.

This meant her shields were so impenetrable that the well they hid must be vast. Bottomless. A perverse peculiarity of our kind that I’d only heard about but never witnessed. Renaud’s strength filled a room and stole breath unless he muted it, but even the muting wasn’t enough, it still spilled out of him. But this female seemed almost normal.

She stopped at a respectful distance, her gaze on Renaud. The fog enclosed the three of us.

“Son,” she said in a serene contralto voice. “Why have you not come to visit?”

Shit.

“Assariel and I have missed you.”

Oooh, shit.

Mother? This was Renaud’smother?

“Do you have no greeting for me?” she asked softly, and I recognized where the son must get the subtle part of his temper. I tensed.

Renaud bowed, and it wasn’t perfunctory. “Majesty.”

“So formal?” She smiled faintly. “How serious my youngest has become during the long years of his absence.”

“It’s only been a handful of years, Mother.”

“Yes, only seven or eight centuries, I believe. It took some time to find you. Your father is proud.”

He—he hadn’t spoken to his mother in seven or eightcenturies? I dared the tiniest glance at him, then followed the line of his gaze past his mother’s shoulder.

“I see Father has accompanied you. I didn’t feel the gate open, nor did I feel you pass the borders of my territory.”

I heard the subtle edge in his voice. I would’ve smirked, but his mum was a scary wench.

Her slight smile widened, her eyes creasing. “We felt your borders. You are our son, however, and they accepted us. We mean you no harm. Assariel chose to acquiesce to my request that he remain back a little way. I wanted to speak to you without his interference.”

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