Page 86 of The Alien's Vicious Starflash Manor

Izzy attempts to copy my movement but stumbles slightly. Rhaela’s hand twitches as if to steady her, though she’s too far away to actually help. The gesture makes Izzy flush pink to the roots of her hair.

“We have much work to do,” Vazor observes dryly, looking between us and his perfectly poised daughters. “The peace summit approaches quickly.”

“Too quickly,” Ivrael agrees, and something in his tone makes me look at him sharply. There’s tension in the set of his shoulders, an edge to his voice I’ve never heard before.

“We’ll help,” Rhaela says, her voice surprisingly gentle for someone who looks like she could fight dragons—though given what she is, maybe that’s not so surprising. “Harai and I can assist with the court dance instruction.”

I flush at the mention of dance instruction, my gaze flickering toward Ivrael—only to find him watching me.

Izzy, however, perks up visibly at the dance suggestion, and I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing. My baby sister, crushing on a firelord princess. Under other circumstances, it might be adorable.

But these aren’t other circumstances. We’re caught in Ivrael’s web of plots and schemes, and I can’t forget that Vazor is part of whatever he has planned.

The way they’re all watching us—the duke, the firelord, the twins—makes my skin tingle with awareness of just how much depends on us learning to navigate their world.

“Perhaps we should begin now,” Harai suggests, smoothing her long dark hair back. “Time grows short.”

Ice crackles beneath Ivrael’s feet. “Five days until the summit begins.”

The number hangs in the air between us like a death sentence.

Five days.

I look at Izzy, still watching Rhaela with barely disguised fascination, and my heart clenches.

We need more time. Need a way out of this labyrinth of untenable choices Ivrael has constructed around us.

Ivrael leads us inside, back to the receiving room. And as Vazor begins discussing the training schedule with Ivrael, laying out hours of dance practice and protocol lessons and court history, I realize we’re trapped as surely as I was in the kitchen. The gilded cage of court life may be prettier than servant’s quarters, but it’s still a cage.

Unless...

I study the twins, noting how they move with perfect grace while still maintaining a warrior’s awareness of their surroundings. They might be our best chance at survival—if I can figure out how to use Izzy’s obvious attraction to our advantage.

“We should start with the basic court dances,” Rhaela says, and when she demonstrates the opening position, Izzy’s eyes track every movement. “The steps aren’t difficult once you understand the patterns.”

“Like mathematics,” Harai adds, coming to stand beside her sister. “Each dance follows specific rules and progressions.”

Izzy brightens at this comparison, and I grin.

“I’m good at math,” Izzy says, then immediately looks mortified at blurting it out.

But Rhaela just smiles—a small thing, barely there, but genuine. “Then you’ll learn quickly.”

I watch the interplay between them, wheels turning in my mind. If we can get close to the twins, maybe we can learn moreabout whatever Ivrael and Vazor are planning. Maybe we can find a way to escape.

Preferably one that doesn’t end with us dead or imprisoned in the dungeons below the Ice Palace.

“Shall we begin?” Harai asks, and Izzy nods so quickly I’m surprised she doesn’t hurt her neck.

Ivrael calls to have the rug rolled up and moved to one side.

As Khrint drags the rug aside, I catch Ivrael watching me with those impossibly blue eyes. Golden sparks dance in their depths, and I wonder if he knows what I’m thinking. If he can sense my desperate search for options, for escape routes, for any way to protect my sister from whatever fate he has planned for us.

Rhaela and Harai move to demonstrate the first dance steps, and Izzy and I take our positions for the lesson.

The marble floor still burns cold against my feet. But now I have something new to focus on besides the chill—the way Rhaela’s hand lingers when she corrects Izzy’s posture, the calculating look in Vazor’s eyes as he watches us.

The growing certainty that five days isn’t nearly enough time to learn everything we need to survive.

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