Page 42 of An Honored Vow

Lord Kilmor was entranced. I didn’t know if that made Dynara superbly skilled or him unabashedly pathetic. I glanced at her elegant dress and then to his misbuttoned jacket and knew the answer was both.

“Your mistress’s talents for throwing a party are unmatched.” Lord Kilmor didn’t hold his arm out for Dynara to take but instead looped his through hers. As fixated as he was with her, she was not a lady he was trying to court; she was a prize he wanted the room to watch him claim.

I tucked my hands behind my back to keep from punching him in the jaw.

He walked Dynara toward the great hall, ignoring me trailing behind them as his lips brushed Dynara’s ear. “I heard that the king may attend. Though I can’t be shocked that such a beautiful creature would entice him all the way from the capital.”

I froze beside them as Dynara laughed. “I would be delighted if His Majesty graced us with his presence. We both would, wouldn’t we,Dashir?” She smiled at me.

Lord Kilmor didn’t notice the mischief in it. Dynara hadn’t called me by the alias we’d agreed on, but the Elvish word forrumor.

The meaning fluttered right over Kilmor’s balding head. He had no idea that he had only heard Damien would be attending because that was what Dynara had wanted him to hear. Therumorhe spoke of was a story that Dynara had sparked and fanned across the kingdom until every important man in Elverath was present.

She had already told me Damien had sent his regrets.

As expected.

Damien’s frequent dalliances late into the night had only been part of his guise. Now that he had claimed the throne, he had no need to attend parties. He was attending to much more vile ends.

“Look, there he is now,” Lord Kilmor shouted with an embarrassing amount of glee as a royal carriage rolled up onto the curved path at the front of the manor.

Dynara’s confident smile dropped as she whipped her head to see who would step out of it. I turned with her, feeling for the hilt of my dagger through my skirts as the door to the carriage opened.

Both our shoulders eased as a towering man dressed in all black stepped onto the stone walkway.

Lord Kilmor stood on the tips of his toes, neck stretching to see if someone else stepped from the carriage. But no other figure appeared behind the gargantuan frame.

My jaw set.

Kairn.

His long black hair flowed loosely behind him as he stomped down the hall. I hid my wrinkled nose behind my fan. There was a sourness to his scent, like he hadn’t showered after a week’s ride but merely doused himself in perfumed oil.

I glanced at Riven. The sleeping dart was already wedged between his fingers as he meandered through the crowd. “Wait,” I signed behind my fan. Lord Kilmor might notice if the mountain of a man fell unconscious at his feet.

Kairn handed Kilmor a pristine envelope without a word. The lord gulped in the shadow of Damien’s new Blade and didn’t say anything to him at all. My gaze fell to Kairn’s chest, where an odd pendant was stitched into his leathers. It was round along the top like a gemstone inset into a crown, but it wasn’t a jewel at all.

The top layer was made of glass. The bottom was lined with fractured pieces of a pearlescent material that turned deep black aroundthe edge. It was a strange decoration. Damien wasn’t someone who would allow his guards to wear something without a purpose, but I had no idea what the purpose was.

“A letter from the king,” Kilmor mused to his guests.

He turned the envelope over to reveal the dark purple seal on the back. I peered at the letter as Lord Kilmor struggled to open it. The symbol was still of a crown, but not King Aemon’s. It had a single point—not three—and was dripping in blood.

I had to restrain myself from scoffing. Spilling blood had allowed Aemon to make his throne, and spilling more blood was Damien’s way of keeping it.

Lord Kilmor’s eyes danced across the page, too erratically for him to truly read the words inked into the parchment.

Kairn huffed a breath that smelled of rotten teeth. “His Majesty extends his regrets for being unable to attend your festivities. Though he would like to invite you and your wi—”

Kairn turned to Dynara, realizing too late that she was certainly not the wife of any lord in the kingdom let alone the High Lord of the Harvest. Her revealing dress and the gold ink painted across her eyeline was not appropriate for a lady.

But Dynara was not dressed as herself. She was dressed as the lords’ fantasy come to life.

“You can call me Dynara, sire.” Her words dripped with honey as she slowly fanned her hand over the thin cut in my bodice that showed every inch of unmarked skin from my breasts to my navel. “And this isDashir.” Her lips held no smirk, but her eyes did as she used my newfound alias.

Kairn’s gray eye stormed like the sea. The other, marked black from Damien’s magic, was flat and unmoving. The amber pupil sat in its midst, a perfect circle that Damien could look through at any point.

I held my breath, waiting for the pupil to contract and reshape. It lingered on me for a fraction longer than Dynara or Kilmor but then settled on the lord.

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