Page 25 of A Dance of Shadows

When I lick my lips, Linus’s leering smirk only grows. “I’m going to fuck your pretty face until your throat aches.”

He’s lucky I don’t vomit on his fancy shoes at that remark.

I tug at his drawers as slowly as I feel I can get away with, my heart thudding faster. If the potion doesn’t take effect soon?—

All at once, Linus’s posture slouches. I manage to push him toward the bed quickly enough that he sags over on the mattress rather than the floor.

Good, because I don’t think I could have hauled him up there once he’s fallen.

I carry out my act of feigned intimacy while his eyes glaze over and his hands flex in the air. When he falls into his final snoring stupor, I sit back on the bedcovers with a slump of my own shoulders.

Linus has always been a terror, and he’s only getting worse. He’s inflicting his sadistic arrogance and paranoia on the countries that’ve suffered so much under the empire already.

And here he is worrying about the local royals corrupting my loyalty when I already want nothing more than a way to murder him.

I pause, my gaze lingering on Linus’s slack but still horribly handsome face.

His paranoia isn’t totally wrong. Iamcarrying a child who isn’t really his heir, in any way. I have dallied with other men.

I can’t be corrupted when I already am. I gave up on working with the man in my bed months ago.

But there’s another man in the equation now. Marchaslistened to me a little. He’s softened to me at least slightly. He cares about the child I’m carrying that he believes is his.

My heart thumps faster. What if it doesn’t matter whether he’s trying to rope me into a murder plot against his twin as another test? It doesn’t matter whether I trust his motives, whether Linus is in on the scheme or not.

Not if I can turn the faith he’s supposedly offered me into something absolutely real.

Can I steal any lingering loyalty Marc does still feel for his brother? Capture his affections so thoroughly that he wants to spare me from the violence rather than drawing me into the crime?

Make him feel the only right thing he can do for both the empire and his wife is get rid of his twin all by himself, without me needing to implicate myself in the slightest.

The blood will all be on his hands. And once he trustsmeenough to sacrifice his twin without my complicity, it shouldn’t be hard at all to maneuver myself into a position to eliminate him in turn.

I’m not sure I can tackletwohusbands standing in my way. But pitting them against each other might diffuse the threat to almost nothing at all.

The idea unfurls through my head, so swift and vivid it takes my breath away.

I’ve set out to conquer the hearts of three princes who were determined to hate me, a country that saw me as an interloper and an ill omen, and all the kingdoms my new home hasterrorized. Conquering one half of my husband feels like a more immense challenge than all of those combined.

So I’ll bring everything I can to that fight—because if I can’t win Marc over, I suspect I’ll die trying.

Chapter Ten

Lorenzo

My mother sets the small brazier in the middle of the table and lights the chunks of charcoal. The kindled flames waver in a current of cool air. For as long as I can remember, this windowless room has contained an enchantment that stops it from becoming totally sweltering in the day’s heat.

Whenever my family has something sensitive to discuss, we always come to the top of the west tower. No chance of being overheard; no one privy to our secrets.

All the same, Mother takes extra precautions to account for my limited communication options. We can’t have scraps of paper with treasonous speculations slipping out into the rest of the palace.

It’d be easier if I could talk to her with my gift, project an illusionary voice into her head. But as I look up into her dark face, tensed in the sour expression she took on the moment we were out of public view, I’m reminded again of why I can’t risk it.

Mother has always chafed under the yoke of the empire, as well as she hides it. If she found out what I’m truly capable of…

Would she push me into some scheme against the empire without realizing what she’s asking? No one in this room except me truly understands how closely Marclinus is protected, how viciously he’ll lash out against any perceived threat. I don’t want to have to fight with her, to try to convince her that what I’m doing already is the best I can do.

Or would she berate me for the failed ambitions she’ll realize I must have had when I decided my fate? I can practically hear her chiding voice.Of all the foolish ideas…

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