Page 19 of Rhapsody of Ruin
I did not smile until I reached the stairs. When I did, I let it have teeth.
By tonight, they would call me soft again. Let them. They could call the river soft while it carved the mountain to powder. They could call dusk soft while it outlived the day.
Let them call me soft.
I would drown them with it.
And if Rhydor stood with me, and he would, whether he liked himself for it or not, we could teach the court to fear something they did not know how to wager on.
At the top of the stairs, I turned once and looked back through the veil of ivy. Across the lawn, through the press of masks and the shimmer of lanterns, he stood still and watched me as if I were the one bright, honest thing in a garden built entirely of lies.
For the first time since the vows, the thought came unbidden and did not hurt: perhaps, together, we could be more dangerous than the games.
A trumpet sounded from the far terrace, thin, bright, the note we used when the queen wanted her court returned to heel. The ivy trembled. The castle exhaled.
I lifted my skirt’s hem and went to answer the call.
Chapter 11
Rhydor
The colonnades of Shadowspire were built to watch men falter. I had known it from the first time I set foot here: the arches rose too high, the pillars too pale, the stone inlaid with veins of silver that pulsed faintly like veins in living flesh. The whole place breathed around me. Ward-light shimmered in the grooves and painted the gardens in shifting glimmers. Even walking here felt like stepping inside a ribcage.
I walked anyway. My boots rang hard against marble, the sound deliberate, a drumbeat through the hush of the inner gardens. My veterans paced with me, five shadows, five anchors I trusted in a world of masks.
Torian, always at my shoulder, quiet and sharp-eyed, calculating each angle like a strategist playing three games of stones at once.
Korrath, his cane tapping softly, one eye blind, the other sharp as a hawk’s, listening harder than most men saw.
Tharos, the iron-handed giant, grim silence his armor, every motion careful and weighted.
Draven, golden-haired, all languid charm and lazy posture, hiding the way his gaze darted like a blade seeking soft flesh.
And Brenn, flame-haired, loud, irreverent, humming a tavern song under his breath, the sound jarring in the cold air of Shadowspire.
They were all different kinds of fire, and tonight, the court wanted to douse us.
Masks turned toward us as we walked: feathers, jewels, silver filigree. Their whispers slithered, faint but sharp enough tosting. I caught only fragments, “beast prince,” “barbarian,” “dragon brutes.” The usual.
Brenn muttered loud enough for them to hear, “They stare as if they’ve never seen men before. Perhaps they haven’t.”
A few titters of laughter rose from the courtiers. Others stiffened, scandalized. Torian’s hand brushed mine briefly, a silent warning: do not take the bait. I breathed out slowly, controlled.
We rounded the curve of the colonnade. The gardens spread below, silver-lit ponds reflecting false stars, ivy-draped arches dripping with ward-fire, flowers that should not have bloomed at twilight glowing faintly with glamour. Beautiful. Hollow.
That was when the knot of nobles ahead pulled a boy into the open.
He was small, a Namyr servant, no older than twelve. Thin wrists, wide eyes, tray tumbling from his hands as a masked lord shoved him hard enough to send him sprawling. Wine spilled like blood across the pale stone.
“Insolence,” the noble hissed, his mask shaped like a fox, his voice smooth with cruelty. “He brushed my sleeve.”
The boy’s mouth moved in terrified apologies. Another lord flicked his fan sharply. “Mask him,” he said, and the chant began, ugly and eager. “Mask him. Mask him.”
The veterans stilled.
Tharos’s iron hand clenched, metal scraping faintly.
Brenn’s humming cut off, teeth bared in something that wanted to be a grin and wasn’t.
