Page 142 of A Dance of Shadows

I don’t know why he didn’t ask any of his friends or playthings to join us in the carriage. For the first few miles, he makes no effort to engage me in conversation, remaining in uncharacteristic silence.

When I finally look at him again, he’s watching me with a grin so cutting it’s almost a grimace. A shiver races up my spine.

Linus leans back in his seat, folding his hands on his chest, but I can’t shake the impression of tension coiled through his body as if he’s poised to pounce.

“I’m so sorry I’ve disappointed you,” he says in a lazy but ominous tone that doesn’t hold a trace of actual regret.

I blink at him. “Pardon?”

“Your displeasure would be obvious to anyone who knows you as well as a husband should know his wife.” Linus tsks his tongue chidingly. “You really bought into everything he sold you.”

Even though I’m still not certain what he’s talking about, a deeper shiver travels through my entire body. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

Linus snorts and yanks himself upright again, abruptly enough that I barely contain a flinch. His icy gray gaze bores into mine. “You’d rather have his company. You think he’s the better one. Do you imagine he’s going tosaveyou?”

His question is so patronizing I want to punch him right in his smug face, but the words before it freeze me completely.

You think he’s the better one.

He can’t really be aware—he’s probably just fishing for a reaction—howcouldhe imagine how much I know?

Through sheer force of will, I show nothing but a knitted brow. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, and I don’t appear to need saving at the moment. I can’t imagine whose company I’d rather have than my husband’s.”

Linus flicks his hand to dismiss my words, his attention never leaving me. His harsh chuckle rattles my nerves. “Therighthusband.” He keeps his voice just quiet enough that I don’t think the guards will be able to hear it over the whir of the carriage wheels. “You don’t have to keep pretending. It makes you look like an idiot. I know everything. I always knew. My brother and I make all our plans together, you stupid, simple sap of a woman.”

My mouth has utterly dried up. I open my mouth, but no words come to me. A choking sensation fills my throat.

Linus leans closer, the manic light I long ago learned to fear flickering in his eyes. His breath hits my cheeks with the force of his low words. “Marc and I decided we’d better see just how loyal you are. Whether you’d stay loyal tobothof us, even if you were tempted away. You failed that test so thoroughly, didn’t you? Begging him for help, buttering him up while giving me the cold shoulder.”

“I— That’s not—” My thoughts are still too scattered for me to form a coherent response. If Marc hasn’t been reporting our interactions to his twin—my plea that he attend to my dislocatedshoulder, all the compliments I’ve offered him—then how would Linus know?

And if he has… Does that mean everything else Linus is saying is true?

Has it all been one more sick test as I first suspected, meant to jerk my heart around the way they’ve already attempted to break my body and my spirit?

“We planned it from the very beginning,” Linus goes on, all spiteful self-satisfaction. “Couldn’t have a faithless interloper bringing an heir into the family. He’d come to you the moment our positions were confirmed, spin you a tale about how much he hates me and wants me gone, and see if you’d bite. Find out just how far he could turn you against me. It’s pathetic how well it’s worked.”

I manage to find my voice. “I haven’t turned against you.”

I haven’t done anything to him that he could possibly know about. I’ve barely spoken critically of him to Marc.

But I did stop acting as if I wanted Marc to give his brother another chance. I stayed silent when he made his promises to solve that problem for me.

I might not have agreed to help murder his twin, but in their eyes my lack of protest might amount to the same thing. These are men who saw their court’s frustration that they’d sought a bride from abroad as treason enough to justify the torment and murder of their own noblewomen.

Linus scoffs at me. “As if you haven’t sniveled for everyone else’s approval every chance you got. Trying to make yourself look like a martyr when I brought my power to bear. Pathetic.”

For all his sneering, his glare is pure anger. Because so many peoplehavebeen swayed in my favor?

That’s far more his fault than it is mine, but the details hardly matter now.

I grope for some remark that might appease him. “I only wanted to be the sort of wife you deserve.”

That isn’t even a lie.

Linus only bares his teeth in response. “You’ve been counting the days until we’re home, for whatever you imagine he’s going to do there. What you can actually look forward to is us destroying you. Bit by bit, in every wayyoudeserve, until you wish you’d never dreamed of becoming empress. You hoped you’d get him today instead of me?Hesees your failings just as well as I do. He can’t wait to grind you into the dirt you are.”

I push a protest past the strangled sensation that’s spread through my entire chest. “Please. I swear I don’t understand why you’re so upset. I’ve never spoken against either of you. I’ve served you as well as?—”

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