Page 9 of The Star's Sword

I nodded.

“Tell me,” Zadis said. “What would you do if he disappeared? If he was just gone?”

I blinked, my heart instantly going into shock at the mere thought of not having him with me. “What do you mean?”

“I understand you love him,” Zadis said. “And he loves you, no one denies that.” Zadis looked down at our linked hands. “And I love you, as do others, though I perhaps yearn for more than most.”

I almost yanked my hand back, but didn’t. At the thought of losing Sam, I needed something to hold onto.

He stopped walking, then moved on again, like he was working hard to push forward. “Cleo, I just mean, in this life, nothing is promised. Nothing is certain.” He looked back over his shoulder at me. “Isn’t it better to spread your love around?”

I swallowed. “I don’t think of love like that.” I pulled my hand back, suddenly needing space. “I think of it more like, you can’t help who you love, as you just end up moving through life with someone, and bonds form.”

Zadis nodded, capturing my hand again, bringing it slowly up between our faces, slowly entwining our fingers. As he stepped forward in a smooth motion, I realized he was initiating a dance with me. For a moment, I felt caught up in the pure force of his magnetism, every bit the aristocratic fae prince I’d met.

We turned in a small circle and then he released me playfully again, the heat between us still flickering in sparks at our edges as we walked forward again, side by side.

Friends, but with something else surely happening.

Something dancing around us like fireflies in the wind.

“I get your first dance, Morningstar,” Zadis said, walking slightly ahead of me, his hands clasped behind his back, as the tall iron gate to Simon’s keep came into view. When we approached, two vampires dressed in antique-looking tuxedoes pulled back the huge gate for us. For the first time, instead of going to the catacombs to donate blood, we were headed along a blood-stone path across a lush lawn surrounded by gardens, toward the large, glass ballroom solarium in the center of the courtyard.

Inside, even from a hundred yards away, I could make out the glint of sparkling crystal chandeliers, lavish mirrors on every surface without glass windows, gold on every bevel, crowning on every corner or edge.

Inside, beautifully outfitted figures swirled and mingled and clashed, some in slinky satin gowns with long ropes of pearls, some in elaborate ballgowns, some in suits and some in tunics with elaborate stitching.

Everything so luxe.

I could see why Simon liked to splash out so much with his clothing when he wasn’t in king apparel. Apparently elder vampires loved sparkles.

Elder vampires were almost always richer because they’d lived long enough to either accrue or steal more than other vampires. Also, many of them had gained strength when human blood had been plentiful. Now it was a luxury, a product to be had at all costs, with vampire diplomacy barely able to hide that all vampires at all times seemed to be trying to hoard blood and humans while deciding if it would be too much trouble to take someone else’s blood or humans.

I’d learned a lot about society just talking to the vampires who always took my blood donations.

But those vampires’ lives, of constant toil, were nothing like the ones lived by the ball-attenders up here.

My neck began to prickle with tension, goosebumps rising as we got closer to the ballroom. Another couple was walking in front of us, wearing masks and formal wear, and the woman’s heels clicked on the pavement.

I glanced down at my feet, making sure my boots couldn’t be seen. Now I just had to hope no one could hear them squeaking.

Zadis glanced down as well and then gave me an amused look. “I should have known you’d prefer alternative footwear.”

I blushed. “Will anyone notice?” I hoped it wouldn’t all be for nothing. I’d put on makeup after all, and actually combed my hair.

Cayne even said I looked less like a wildebeest. That was about all the compliment I could ever expect from him, especially since my beauty regimen didn’t really concern me with all my time spent training.

It wasn’t that I didn’t admire beautiful people, or people who could make themselves even more beautiful. But in the havens where I was raised, even vanity was a sin.

And I’d also seen through life the effect beauty had on people, and how much beauty could enable terrible things.

So even as people had called me beautiful, I hadn’t enjoyed it, hadn’t associated it with anything good.

But as the vampires inside began to look over at us, I could tell it was going to be an uncomfortable night.

Appreciative glances swept over both of us, but many eyes fell on me, making me feel almost consumed but yet studied, like slow prey watched by a hundred predators.

Then as if a spell was broken, they turned back to what they were doing, and another song started, and I realized in my panic I’d wrapped my arm around Zadis’s.

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