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Dom looked at her over his shoulder, his gaze green and withering. “It isn’t wise to push them together, Sorasa. And don’t feel like you must hover over me all night.”

She shrugged, coming up alongside him. He frowned at her closeness but said nothing, turning his focus back to Corayne.

“Annoying as you are, Elder, you’re also quite useful,” Sorasa said.

She enjoyed the shock as it crossed his face. Dom blinked down at her.

“Have you gotten into the wine already, Sarn?”

“These Treckish would not dare approach an immortal prince,” Sorasa explained, ignoring his jab. “I’m simply reaping the benefits of your long shadow.”

She nodded to the men and women around them. They gave the pair a wide berth. Dom hardly seemed to care. Sorasa wondered if he noticed the mortals at all.

“Little do they know, you’re the danger here,” Dom grumbled. “Not me.”

“That’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me, Elder.”

“Well, now that I have your attention, I say again...” He bent to her level, looking her square in the eye. Torchlight flickered in his emerald stare. “Stop meddling with Corayne and Andry.”

“They’re a pair of teenagers bound to save the realm or die trying, stuck together on this impossible journey. Believe me, there’s no meddling needed,” she said curtly.

Dom sighed, wrenching his eyes away from the windows. “Isuppose not. I only wish Corayne were better at hiding herself, her emotions.”

“I don’t,” she said, taking even herself by surprise.

The immortal whirled, his brow set in a single tight line. “Youdon’t?”

“Corayne can be herself without a second thought,” Sorasa answered, finding the words only as she spoke them. “She can wear her own face instead of a mask.”

Her cheeks went hot, and she wished for a hood or cowl. A Tyri veil woven with gold coins. Ibalet makeup and powder. Anything to hide the crack in her own mask. She felt it grow wider and wider, struggling to hold back all she kept at bay. Dom looked down at her, his eyes ticking over her expression. The Elder was hardly a perceptive man, but he wasn’t blind. She saw the compassion well up in his eyes, the same terrible remorse she remembered from the hills, in the clearing, when her hands ran scarlet with Amhara blood. She hated every second of it, and nearly bolted from the hall. Her fingers jumped, eager to grab a glass of gorzka from the nearest table. If only to force it down Domacridhan’s throat, and save herself from an entire night of his brooding judgment.

His lips parted, and she braced for an interrogation or, worse,pity.

“You are only encouraging heartbreak, Sorasa,” he said, turning away. It sounded like a reprimand. And a mercy.

She let out a relieved sigh, the tension unclenching in her chest.

“Perhaps you should stop worrying about their hearts, and tend to your own instead,” she muttered, sizing him up with a sly look.

Like Sigil, he was bigger than most of the soldiers in the room, cutting a fine figure. The Spindleblade on his back made him look more rugged than she knew him to be, like a warrior instead of a prince.

Dom prickled under her scrutiny. “I do not follow your line of thought.”

She smirked and gestured to the room, waving her hand at the roving current of courtiers and soldiers. Men in finely embroidered tunics. Ladies in their dresses, their hair done up in traditional Treckish braids, their sleeves trailing long laces of precious gold and silver thread. More than a few eyed Dom as they passed, just as they eyed Sorasa, wondering who they were. And more.

“I count at least six people in this room, man and woman both,” Sorasa said, “who would happily keep you company for the night.”

A fluster came over Dom for the second time that night. Flushing, he reached for a small glass of gorzka and gulped it down. He gasped at the taste.

“Six,” he finally muttered, sounding shocked.

Sorasa almost rolled her eyes. For all his Elder senses, he was still entirely clueless about many things, most of all mortal emotion. She jerked her chin, nodding in several directions, to lords and ladies around the room. One was far bolder than the others, a young woman with red hair, milk skin, and eyes as green as Dom’s. She idled close by, unmoving, watching him like a crocodile. Patient and waiting.

“It may be the last chance you ever have,” Sorasa said, shrugging.

He narrowed his eyes, going sullen, and grabbed for anothersearing glass. “I have little desire to bed a mortal, let alone one I will never see again.”

To Sorasa’s surprise, he pressed the gorzka into her hand. Her fingers closed around it eagerly, but she couldn’t make herself raise it to her lips.