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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T HE HOUSE OF HARVEST had transformed into a theater. Rich velvet drapes covered every sandstone wall and window. Flickering candles lined the hallways, creating an intimate atmosphere that shouldn’t have been possible in such an enormous manor.

I wore a long jade gown that glistened like a tide pool as I walked. It was a custom piece made by Wilden, the local tailor who had designed every dress and suit of leathers I had ever worn as Blade. Dynara must have told him the dress was for me because the fit was perfect and underneath the layered gossamer skirt were matching trousers and boots that went up to the knee. I just had to pull a single ribbon at my hip to detach the skirt and I would be free to run or strike at will.

Wilden had more than outdone himself.

Lords nodded to Dynara as they passed through the entrance hall. Their eyes lingered over her ample bust and the waterfall of curls that perfectly framed her face.

She had always been striking, but in the soft light of the torches surrounded by dozens of dazed men, it was undeniable just how enchanting Dynara truly was. Every movement she made was the perfect blend of grace and seduction. She held her fan with her middle and ring fingers while the index grazed along her collarbone and the pinkie pointed to the high slit in her burgundy skirt. The men’s eyes trailed down the length of her, never realizing that they were following a map of Dynara’s own making. That they were too focused on her to notice the drapes shifting as people moved behind them.

In another life, Dynara would have done well at the Order.

I hid my mouth behind my own fan. My glamoured bracelet shifted down the sleeve of my gown. Dynara tilted her head to hear me whisper, “Where are the wives?”

We had been stationed at the entrance for almost an hour, and I hadn’t seen any of the kingdom’s ladies on the arms of the lords. Every person wearing a skirt had a brand along her wrist or arm, many of whom were Halflings pretending to be Mortal. Most of the servants were Halflings too.

Bile coated my tongue. Even though the Crown had outlawed Mortals fraternizing with us, most of the men were delighted at the idea of pleasure houses filled with secret Halflings. I didn’t know if it was the servitude or forbidden nature that made Mortal men feral with lust. I supposed it didn’t matter. They would lay with Halflings like Dynara without regret, boasting to their friends in a haze of ale and sweat, while making Halflings like me enforce the king’s law for the other halfbreeds who dared get caught speaking to a Mortal out of turn. No matter what role the kingdom gave us, the hypocrisy was stifling. My skin itched along my back as if I were a marionette being restrung to obey the kingdom’s rule, even just for a night.

For this to work, everyone had to be a puppet one last time.

Dynara ran her bejeweled hand along the length of her hair, twisting the ends of it at her hip. She gave the lords passing by us a demure smile before turning her head toward my neck to hide her answer. “The lords are well aware of who is hosting this event. Most of them would consider their wives an intrusion.”

She nodded in the direction of the ballroom doors. Crison, as Mistress Augustine, was speaking to Lord Curringham’s replacement—Lord Kilmor. Despite the glamour disguising herself as the Mistress to everyone else, Crison still styled herself as Augustine. Her raven hair was slicked back into Augustine’s signature bun, tugging at her skin so much that her thick brows were pulled up toward her hairline.

She turned just enough for me to see the necklace around her throat. I recognized it as the glamour Dynara had taken to Cereliath that first night. I had always assumed she would be the one to play her old Mistress, but Crison played the part well. If I didn’t know about the glamour, I would have never believed that the woman heartily laughing at Kilmor’s joke was not the actual Augustine. Her mannerisms were perfect, even down to the slight curve of her neck and the hip that jutted to the left.

Dynara pointed at a couple stepping out of their carriage. The lord was handsome with only a streak of gray over his eyebrow. He glanced around at the courtesans milling about the front hall. On his arm was a beautiful blonde with pale, freckled skin. If her husband’s eyes were hungry, hers were ravenous.

I recoiled back against the curtain.

Dynara hid the curl of her lip behind her hand. “The only wives who come are the ones who like to partake in their husbands’ … purchases.” Dynara lifted her chin. “And for that, they will burn too.”

It was unnerving to see such a sweet smile say such violent words. Dynara nodded at the black carriage pulling up behind them. The coachman wore an Elvish chain around his neck though he looked Mortal enough not to need a glamour. He opened the door, and everyone saw a brown-haired man with hazel eyes and a thick, curling beard. I saw Riven, the glamour shattering for me as soon as I noticed the blue flower pinned to his jacket.

Dynara smirked as Riven’s hand grazed my skirt without looking at me. He took his place at the end of the hallway, waiting and ready.

“The green eyes suit him.” Dynara pursed her lips, the glamour breaking for her too. My stomach tightened. I had told Riven the truth was his to share, but Dynara had known something was wrong from the moment I wrote to her saying Riven had left. She had started prying before Crison even left the room.

She cocked her jaw to the side, looking away from Riven’s sideways glances. As a true friend, she had accepted my choice in forgiving him, but I knew it would be sometime before Dynara forgave Riven—and Killian—for lying to her.

Her chest heaved as the new Lord of Harvest nodded his head and made his way toward us.

To her.

His eyes never left Dynara. “Lord Kilmor,” she said with a curtsy. She looked up at the lord through her lashes and gave him a feline smile that would make any man weak in the knees.

“Paxton.” He grabbed her hand and pressed his lips to it. “Dynara, don’t make me remind you again.”

She bit her rouged lip. “You will need to remind me at least one more time before I disgrace a lord in his own house.” She waved her hand at the lavish decoration before tracing her middle finger across the top of her breast.

Lord Kilmor was entranced. I didn’t know if that made Dynara superbly skilled or him unabashedly pathetic. I glanced at her elegant dress and then to his misbuttoned jacket and knew the answer was both.

“Your mistress’s talents for throwing a party are unmatched.” Lord Kilmor didn’t hold his arm out for Dynara to take but instead looped his through hers. As fixated as he was with her, she was not a lady he was trying to court; she was a prize he wanted the room to watch him claim.

I tucked my hands behind my back to keep from punching him in the jaw.

He walked Dynara toward the great hall, ignoring me trailing behind them as his lips brushed Dynara’s ear. “I heard that the king may attend. Though I can’t be shocked that such a beautiful creature would entice him all the way from the capital.”

I froze beside them as Dynara laughed. “I would be delighted if His Majesty graced us with his presence. We both would, wouldn’t we, Dashir ?” She smiled at me.

Lord Kilmor didn’t notice the mischief in it. Dynara hadn’t called me by the alias we’d agreed on, but the Elvish word for rumor .

The meaning fluttered right over Kilmor’s balding head. He had no idea that he had only heard Damien would be attending because that was what Dynara had wanted him to hear. The rumor he spoke of was a story that Dynara had sparked and fanned across the kingdom until every important man in Elverath was present.

She had already told me Damien had sent his regrets.

As expected.

Damien’s frequent dalliances late into the night had only been part of his guise. Now that he had claimed the throne, he had no need to attend parties. He was attending to much more vile ends.

“Look, there he is now,” Lord Kilmor shouted with an embarrassing amount of glee as a royal carriage rolled up onto the curved path at the front of the manor.

Dynara’s confident smile dropped as she whipped her head to see who would step out of it. I turned with her, feeling for the hilt of my dagger through my skirts as the door to the carriage opened.

Both our shoulders eased as a towering man dressed in all black stepped onto the stone walkway.

Lord Kilmor stood on the tips of his toes, neck stretching to see if someone else stepped from the carriage. But no other figure appeared behind the gargantuan frame.

My jaw set.

Kairn.

His long black hair flowed loosely behind him as he stomped down the hall. I hid my wrinkled nose behind my fan. There was a sourness to his scent, like he hadn’t showered after a week’s ride but merely doused himself in perfumed oil.

I glanced at Riven. The sleeping dart was already wedged between his fingers as he meandered through the crowd. “ Wait ,” I signed behind my fan. Lord Kilmor might notice if the mountain of a man fell unconscious at his feet.

Kairn handed Kilmor a pristine envelope without a word. The lord gulped in the shadow of Damien’s new Blade and didn’t say anything to him at all. My gaze fell to Kairn’s chest, where an odd pendant was stitched into his leathers. It was round along the top like a gemstone inset into a crown, but it wasn’t a jewel at all.

The top layer was made of glass. The bottom was lined with fractured pieces of a pearlescent material that turned deep black around the edge. It was a strange decoration. Damien wasn’t someone who would allow his guards to wear something without a purpose, but I had no idea what the purpose was.

“A letter from the king,” Kilmor mused to his guests.

He turned the envelope over to reveal the dark purple seal on the back. I peered at the letter as Lord Kilmor struggled to open it. The symbol was still of a crown, but not King Aemon’s. It had a single point—not three—and was dripping in blood.

I had to restrain myself from scoffing. Spilling blood had allowed Aemon to make his throne, and spilling more blood was Damien’s way of keeping it.

Lord Kilmor’s eyes danced across the page, too erratically for him to truly read the words inked into the parchment.

Kairn huffed a breath that smelled of rotten teeth. “His Majesty extends his regrets for being unable to attend your festivities. Though he would like to invite you and your wi—”

Kairn turned to Dynara, realizing too late that she was certainly not the wife of any lord in the kingdom let alone the High Lord of the Harvest. Her revealing dress and the gold ink painted across her eyeline was not appropriate for a lady.

But Dynara was not dressed as herself. She was dressed as the lords’ fantasy come to life.

“You can call me Dynara, sire.” Her words dripped with honey as she slowly fanned her hand over the thin cut in my bodice that showed every inch of unmarked skin from my breasts to my navel. “And this is Dashir .” Her lips held no smirk, but her eyes did as she used my newfound alias.

Kairn’s gray eye stormed like the sea. The other, marked black from Damien’s magic, was flat and unmoving. The amber pupil sat in its midst, a perfect circle that Damien could look through at any point.

I held my breath, waiting for the pupil to contract and reshape. It lingered on me for a fraction longer than Dynara or Kilmor but then settled on the lord.

I forced myself to release a breath. The glamour still dangled from my wrist. It was enough to keep Kairn—or Damien—from recognizing me. There was no reason to believe that the glamour would fail, that Damien had discovered a way to break through it or track me outside of sleep, but my hand rested over the release ribbon of my skirt anyway, ready to attack.

I had learned my lesson in underestimating Damien. One sign of recognition from Kairn, and I would stab my blade into his gut before he could get his sword from its sheath.

A long moment stretched between us, Kairn taking his time as his gaze trailed over me. I forced myself not to look at Riven standing at the table behind him. Though I saw his jaw flex as Kairn smacked his lips at me like a dog begging for a bowl of scrap meat. I smiled widely instead of gutting him. Kairn didn’t have an inkling as to who I was.

We still had the upper hand.

“How thoughtful of His Majesty to send such an esteemed member of the Arsenal to protect us,” I said with a curtsy and an obvious glance at the giant silver sword fastening Kairn’s black cloak. “I feel safer already.” I stepped forward and let my finger graze over the silver fastener—the same symbol that had hung from my neck for thirty years. “Though I hope His Majesty understands that even his sharpest blades can grow dull without sufficient relief .” I imitated Dynara’s low rasp, letting my words hang in the air like a secret between me and my target.

Kairn blinked. I didn’t know if he was shocked by my forwardness or had noticed the jest in my tone.

It didn’t matter. His hesitation was enough.

I pressed my chest against him, bending at the knees to widen the distance in our heights. It was strange how the largest of Mortals seemed to prefer the smallest of women. Kairn wrapped his hand around my waist and pressed me even more tightly against him.

I had him.

“I would be most delighted if you would join me for a dance.” I looked up at the man who had claimed my post, who had captured Nikolai and did gods knew what with him, and smiled through heavy lashes.

Kairn took my arm with a ghastly grin. I held my breath so I didn’t have to smell the stale sweat and dirt that couldn’t be covered by the shiniest leather armor. The crowd split as Kairn walked us down the hall. No man wanted to anger the gigantic assassin with a reputation for blood-filled rages. And the courtesans seemed relieved that Kairn had not chosen them.

My stomach hardened. I would never have let his hand touch any of them.

The drapes of fabric that covered the walls ruffled as we walked past. I hid my gaze behind my fan and caught the silhouette of someone running behind the curtains with a heavy bag slung over their shoulders.

The servants were escaping right under Kairn’s nose.

Riven followed behind us, ready to strike. Dynara nodded at a black-haired woman standing at the door and she dropped the tray she was carrying.

Riven stuck the dart into Kairn’s neck. He smacked his skin, looking for the culprit just as a line of courtesans dressed in feathered costumes exploded out of the side room. Kilmor and Dynara were lost in the wave of chaos, but Riven and I held strong, waiting for the Blade to drop.

But he didn’t.

“Out of the way,” Kairn barked, pushing two girls to the ground. He rubbed his brow and leaned against the wall. I turned to Riven with an outstretched hand and he slipped me a second dart.

“Sire, are you well?” I asked, shoving my cleavage into his face as I stuck the dart into his arm.

Kairn swayed again, catching his weight on a table full of drinks. Glass shattered, covering the floor, but Kairn still didn’t fall. He had taken five times the dose to quell the average man and that still wasn’t enough.

I turned back to Riven, ready to catch another dart, but Riven shook his head. My heart stilled. There were none left.