Page 24 of A Pact of Blood

She could be fierce and determined too. Who knows what other dimensions she had to her?

It’s only… If she’s capable of murder, then I can’t say I really knew her regardless of the rest.

Bastien crosses my path, takes one look at my face, and catches my arm to drag me over to one of the lawn games that’s just started up.

“I know you’re mourning,” he says under his breath. “But you’ve got to try not to look like you’ve just been gutted. Distract yourself.”

Is that what he’s doing? It’s always seemed easier for the others to harden themselves to our losses and failures than it is for me.

And I have been gutted, in one smooth stroke with the flick of a hand, and over and over every time I miss her secret smiles, the knowing glint in her eyes, the heat of her caress.

The balls we lob at the hoops feel heavier than usual on my hand. The sport strikes me as even more pointless thanusual. My frustration seeps into my throws: one and then another flies wide.

After I’ve knocked one of the hoops—not the one I was supposed to be aiming at—right over, I pull back toward the hedges to leave the game to the other players. Counsel Etta drifts over to join me, her pale forehead furrowed.

“Prince Lorenzo,” she says in her dry voice. “You’ve seemed rather out of sorts lately. Is there anything in particular bothering you?”

A chill runs down my spine. Etta is one of Tarquin’s—and now Marclinus’s—chief advisors. Which means she’s wise enough to potentially put the pieces together if the source of my tangled emotions has been too obvious, and close enough to him to easily share any suspicions she has.

My grandfather’s voice echoes up from the past—his stern words while he shook his finger at my six-year-old self while tears streaked down my cheeks.You’re a prince. You feel what you feel, but you can’t let everyone see it. No one wants a ruler who bawls in front of them every time he’s disappointed.

Bastien’s right. I have to get a better grip on myself.

I thought I’d gotten better at bottling up my negative emotions as I grew into a man, but obviously my control is still wobbly. Aurelia’s desertion shattered it like a vase knocked to the floor.

With conscious effort, I turn toward Etta and force a smile onto my face. I’ve spent the past fifteen years here pretending obedience and passivity. That’s what everyone expects from me.

I just don’t know how to find my way back to that state of “normal” when I’ve been thrown so off-balance.

Pulling a scrap of paper and a pencil out of the pouch at my hip, I scrawl a quick message.Stayed up too late practicing a new instrument. Too tired to be at my best.

It’s a plausible excuse. I have traded music for sleep in thepast, although the weariness has never left me quite as off-kilter as I am at the moment.

Etta purses her lips, but she inclines her head as if she accepts my answer. “If anything does trouble you, especially if it would affect others’ well-being too, I hope you’ll share your concerns.”

I nod, my supposed agreement a bald lie that doesn’t give me so much as a twinge of guilt. The advisors are the imperial family’s creatures—they serve Marclinus’s interests, not anyone else’s.

I pull myself away from the game completely, figuring I’m less likely to show distress if I stick to admiring bright blossoms and enjoying the whiffs of floral-scented breeze. Naturally, my feet end up leading me straight into Aurelia’s vicinity.

She’s standing with several of the court nobles near one of the marble fountains. I sit on a bench on the opposite side, where I can’t see her or make out her voice over the warble of the water.

I’m simply enjoying the cool spray. Nothing strange about that.

I close my eyes for a few minutes, focusing on the patter of droplets as well as I can. The scrape of footsteps over the gravel that surrounds the fountain snaps me back to alertness.

It’s only one of the imperial guards. He stands stiffly by the fountain, watching the empress with a somber expression beneath his curly hair. His hand rests on the hilt of the sword at his hip. The broad scar by the corner of his eye suggests any fight today wouldn’t be his first.

His presence is to be expected. No doubt there’s at least one other guard monitoring Aurelia from a discreet distance. But something about the tension in his stance niggles at me.

Does he think there’s a threat nearby?

While he stands sentinel, I studyhimand the area around us as surreptitiously as I can. What reason has he seen to worry?

Then his mouth moves, a low mutter that’s meant only for himself. Any sound to the words is so quiet it’s lost to the warble of the fountain.

But I’ve spent years interpreting hasty gestures and mouthed words from across the room when my foster brothers and I need to communicate stealthily. I’ve developed a decent skill at reading lips.

And the words I think I saw the man’s lips form are ones I might have seen just a few weeks ago, when Aurelia first arrived, from my own foster brothers.

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