Page 51 of Ash and Feather

Why was he studying me so closely?

Was my disguise wearing thin?

I’d made sure to change the sound of my voice—but had I not done enough?

“Who are you?” he asked. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting before.” His expression softened, a corner of his lips quirking and a touch of curiosity lighting in his bright hazel eyes. To someone who didn’t know him like I did, he would have seemed friendly. Charming.

“Elora Estel.”

“Estel?” He considered the false name. “From the Calan region, I’m guessing?”

I nodded.

“I wasn’t aware our message had gotten through to any of your clan. The lord of your people has been rather…stubbornin all our dealings thus far.”

I forced myself to adopt a tone I knew would flatter his ego. “Some of us are able to see as clearly as you can, despite what our leaders want us to believe.”

He smiled. “Happy to hear it.”

He finally released my arm, though he remained entirely too close. Every second of that closeness was making my nausea worsen. My mind kept attempting to shut down, to somehow protect me from the visceral memories of everything he’d done to me.

Just as the urge to back away from him became nearly unbearable, a rope of heat snaked through my body. It felt the same as earlier, and I was almost certain of it, now: Dravyn could sense my fear, my panic, my disgust…and his magic was responding to it, subtly but surely.

I stood taller, willing my expression into something blank, unreadable, just as a soldier rounded the corner and headed straight toward Andrel.

“We have a situation in the square that Captain Raegel thought you’d want to be present for,” the soldier said. “Spies from Galizur. Four of them.”

Andrel no longer seemed interested in who I was or why I was here, for better or worse.

“They’re apprehended?”

The soldier nodded. “And we’ve sent for…herto deal with them, as she requested. The required ones are gathering to hold trial.”

“Good,” Andrel said. “Let it be quick, so that we might send a message to the ones hoping for their safe return.”

He sneered the last two words with such cruelty that it took all the restraint I had not to whip the knife from my hip and plunge it straight into his stomach.

After a few more brief words, the messenger left.

Andrel lingered, tilting his head toward me and studying me once more. “You’ll join us at this exciting event, I hope? And then feel free to write to your lord back home with all the details later; perhaps we can enlighten him, yet.”

“Of course,” I replied, still fighting the urge to reach for my knife.

Maybe I imagined it, but it seemed as though his lips parted in a slight, mocking smile—almost as though he could sense my violent desires and was daring me to act on them.

I kept still.

Somehow, I kept still.

He said nothing else before turning and walking away.

I watched him leave, heading in the same direction as the messenger. He was nearly out of sight before I managed to make my feet move.

I stepped outside, shielding my gaze against a sun that had grown brighter during my absence. As I moved through the city, following Andrel at a safe distance, I kept an eye out for potential escape routes I could take.

I would see what I needed to see of this trial, and then I would be gone before Andrel could look my way again—that would be enough for now.

It would have to be.

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