Page 49 of The Sundered Blade

The bartender, Jarek, had once insisted that Garimore needed the Vaniell who took risks and infuriated others. The one who made everyone wonder if they were insane to trust him. Who reveled in the unexpected and never did as he was told.

His people needed the Vaniell who was entirely himself.

But so did Kyrion. So did Karreya. They needed the man who was willing to be outrageous and dance on the razor edge of disaster because it was where he felt most alive. And that meant taking risks not only with his life and his magic, but also with his heart.

Perhaps he would wind up wounded and bleeding in the end, but at least he would havelived.

“I’m coming,” he said simply. He reached out and clasped Kyrion’s forearm in a firm grip, meeting those glowing eyes without flinching. “I may not be a fighter, but I’m also too stupid to know when I’m beaten. If you’ll have me, we might as well go and do this impossible thing together.”

An onlooker could have heard a feather falling to the stone floor in the silence that followed.

Until Kyrion gripped Vaniell’s arm in return. “Perhaps no one thinks of you as a warrior,” he said, “but they would bewrong. I am pleased to have you with me.”

A surge of exultation caught Vaniell by surprise, along with a fierce desire to break down and weep.

Against all rational expectation, he had found another friend.

“Ready when you are,” he said.

CHAPTER14

Karreya had not experienced nerves since the day her much younger self had first defeated her mentor in the Enclave arena, but as they ascended the many steps towards the entrance of the palace, she could feel her hands beginning to grow clammy. Her heart beat too quickly, and her chest felt strange.

The confrontation she’d been hoping for since her arrival in Abreia was finally at hand, and she could not predict how it would play out. Could not even imagine a likely course for the conversation.

As they reached the top of the steps and handed their invitations to a steward in a red tunic, Leisa nudged her with an elbow. “I can’t believe I forgot about the flounces,” she muttered, with a grimace of utter dismay.

And as they crossed the threshold into the entry hall and Karreya took her first glance at the inside of the Garimoran royal palace, she couldn’t quite believe it either.

The hall was broad and brightly lit, with high ceilings and glass panes in the roof. The walls were carved marble, and the columns had been ostentatiously embellished with gold leaf, yet somehow even the garish decor was overshadowed by the people moving in and around the room.

She and Leisa stood in a multi-colored sea of spangled and beribboned skirts composed of tier upon tier of ruffles. The men were far more conservatively adorned, but many of them wore shirts with ruffles at the collar and cuff. Gems dripped from fingers and wrists and throats, as if someone had opened a jewel chest and strewn it about the room. Taken together, the effect was bewildering and made it difficult to focus. Karreya’s attention begged to dart from one explosion of color to the next, and the black sashes worn over each ensemble did little to provide relief.

In comparison to the rigid formality and protocol of the imperial court, it was positively shocking, and Karreya began to wonder whether her father could truly be presiding over such appalling excess.

But a far more important question was whether she and Leisa would be able to blend in with the crowd in their relatively simple gowns. There were a few others who had eschewed the bright colors and garish designs worn by the majority of the attendees in favor of more sober ensembles, but those few seemed to belong to the less fortunate members of the court. The poor, or the barely invited. Which, perhaps, was just as well. One of the more effective forms of disguise was to make oneself into a person others considered beneath their notice.

Though Karreya felt uncomfortably as if she had not quite succeeded in this case.

“They are looking at me,” she whispered to Leisa out of the corner of her mouth.

“Who is?”

“People.” Too many people. Men and women alike, casting her strange glances, then looking away before she could meet their eyes. “Some of them look hungry, and some of them look angry, and I do not know why.”

Leisa snickered under her breath. “That, my friend, is because I might have misjudged your dress and accidentally allowed everyone to see how utterly stunning you are.”

“You think that I am…”

“Beautiful,” Leisa finished for her. “Yes. And so does a certain prince, if I’m any judge of the situation. Did he never tell you so?”

“He did.” And it had not been a lie. He had been the first person to ever see her that way. The first person to make her believe she could be more than just a weapon. She carried the gem he had given her as a reminder, and it suddenly seemed to grow heavier in its hidden pocket. Tempting her to touch it. To allow it to warm against her skin so that he would know that she wished he were here.

But Vaniell had his own task, and she would not be the cause of its failure.

As if sensing Karreya’s discomfort, Leisa took her arm and pulled her forward into the crowd. “As entertaining as it would be to watch these poor courtiers flirt with you all evening, I suspect we’d best move on and find the heart of these festivities.”

Karreya glanced ahead at Lord Kellen and his father, the Duke of Pergisham, who wore a frustrated scowl as he stalked through the milling crowds of people. They’d come in together, but now that they’d gained entry, Karreya and Leisa were free to do whatever was required. So long as they avoided being caught, of course.

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