Page 98 of Burn

The man swerved, his nose about to tap against mine. “If you try stopping me, I’ll make it worse.”

Meaning, he would rescind on this arrangement. My eyes cut to Briar, who agonized. The young woman’s isolation versus a nation’s future.

Nicu’s future.

I traced the harsh lines of Jeryn’s face and saw it at last. For a second, his grip on the merlon tightened. He wanted this request fulfilled. Badly.

But to what end?

Unfortunately for him, making deals with a jester was risky business. If he abused Flare, the princess and I would know. Even before then, we’d prevent him.

Sensing a chink in his facade, I nodded. “She’ll be moved,” I replied, verbally maneuvering a chess piece into place and aware of the princess’s shrewd attention on me.

Aye. Flare would be relocated. We just wouldn’t tell the prince where.

Jeryn might as well have been examining me under a microscope. Regardless, he took the bait, inclined his head, and strode away. Yet he stopped as my voice flicked a nugget at him.

“That’s your only condition,” I mused. “Don’t you want something else? Aren’t you more worried about Autumn’s future actions versus what Summer would do?”

The prince’s head clicked over his shoulder. “Get to the point.”

Gladly, if Winter insisted on pretending like he hadn’t already figured it out. “The captive must be worth a lot to you.”

“No Season intimidates Winter.” The shadows bisected his features. “And no fool is worth anything.”

When he disappeared into the nearest tower stairwell, Briar gained my side. Together, we watched the door shut behind the prince.

“Ruthless,” she condemned. “Yet that cannot be his only cost.”

My fist flexed around a second dagger, with its hilt concealed under my coat. “It’s not.”

He’d made clear his feelings about Autumn’s campaign for emancipation, doubting it would pose a continental threat and believing we’d fail spectacularly. Therefore, bargaining with us hadn’t warranted concern. As for Summer, Jeryn must have concluded that Rhys’s messy, hot-headed recklessness was more of a long-term issue.

But that couldn’t be the extent of it. Winter could have requested anything from us, so whatever else he sought to gain from this deal, it would take endurance to find out.

From a distance, the prince seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Alas, that was the problem with people who wore masks. For I should know.

Whereas vengeful Summer raged like a tempest, unflappable Winter exuded cold restraint. Not to be obvious, but the only thing worse than a stupid monster like You Know Who was an intelligent one. At this point, there was no predicting which would be more fatal. Whether we’d just made a deal with a greater oppressor than Rhys remained to be seen.

31

Poet

’Twas a good thing the princess and her jester had practice in keeping our enemies close. With that in mind, we strolled into the pear orchard the next evening as one unit.

Long tables stood between rows of trees, baskets held bushels of glowing pears, and strands of poppy-orange lights pulsed from the branches. Cadence, Posy, and Vale sipped flutes of white wine and charmed the council, all in pursuit of stoking our reputation. From a different corner, Eliot and Aire did the same with members of the nobility.

Briar idled beside me, with her fingers looped over my arm and her cognac gown swishing across the ground. The upper half of her locks were plaited and swooped backward to the nape, with the rest of her hair looping through the weave in a makeshift low ponytail, which hung down the dress’s backless V.

For this occasion, I’d opted to look mildly disciplined, combining the pampered elegance of an ancient fae with the disheveled audacity of a rogue. A leather vest left my arms bare. But the high neck and bullseye clasps atoned for the potentially perverted exposure of skin. A diamond motif—as close to a typical jester’s motley as I would ever get—patterned the vest in shades of raven black and whiskey. Because of that, I toned down the rest with streamlined pants, the sides exhibiting slivers of flesh through nets that ran up the sides.

Very well. Perhaps I hadn’t toned it down at all.

On Briar’s other side, Jeryn wore an ankle-length navy jacket tailored from priceless wool and trimmed in steel gray thread to match his boot tips. The vestment was sealed shut and clung to the slab of his chest like a straitjacket, and matching navy pants ascended the cliffs of his legs. But for once in his tyrannical life, he’d shrugged off that bristly pelt of a coat, no longer looking as if he was carrying a dead elk on his shoulders.

Don’t get me wrong. The fur coat was fabulous in its design, albeit sweltering even in Autumn, not to mention questionable regarding its original source.

From her seat at the banquet table’s head, Avalea rose and beckoned us. Horns resounded, the brass noise trumpeting through the air to announce us.

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