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seven

C elandine stood on tiptoe but couldn’t catch a glimpse of what Troi was doing behind the dressing screen. “Are you certain you don’t need me to—”

“No.”

“The laces on your tunic—”

“We had laces one hundred years ago, Your Highness.”

“Fine, slugabed. But if you come out looking sloppy,” she threatened, brandishing a hair-brush, “I will work you over from head to toe.”

“If you intend to do that,” came his deep, wicked voice, “I would prefer to be undressed.”

She threw the hairbrush, and it hit the dressing screen with an unsatisfying thump. He laughed.

“The ball begins in less than an hour,” she said. “We don’t have time for distractions!”

All the years seemed to have built up in her chest, and if one thing went wrong tonight, she would shatter.

“We’ll arrive on time, Celandine.”

His reassuring tone and the way he said her name calmed her racing pulse. But the emotions gripping her heart only grew more tangled.

It wasn’t too late to call off the Gift Collector. She and Troi could abandon the manor, leaving the necromancer to find nothing but an empty house.

And then what would Celandine eat? How would she put a roof over her head? As a woman on the run from the Mage Orders, that bounty was her only hope of making her way in the world.

“Let go of your worries,” Troi said. “You can rely on me.”

He stepped around the dressing screen.

The air left her lungs. The breeches she had taken in hugged his calves and thighs to perfection, showing off every muscle he had regained.

His altered black-and-gold velvet tunic emphasized his broad shoulders and golden-brown skin.

He had trimmed his stubble beard, and a topaz stud gleamed in his earlobe.

Every detail was perfection. The famed prince had stepped out of the legends and into her century.

“Celandine,” he said, his voice low with a little rasp, “you look like a princess.”

She looked down and smoothed the gown she had modified for herself. It was the deep purple-black of a summer night sky. She had also donned a beautifully embroidered marriage headband, for her disguise would not have been complete without that to signify her status as his wife.

She tried not to wonder whom this finery had belonged to, for it was low of her to be jealous of a long-gone princess. “I hope seeing these on me does not make you miss your wife.”

“I never had a wife. I don’t know whose heirlooms these were, but they’re yours now.”

She looked up at him. “Didn’t you face pressure to marry and father heirs?”

“Certainly. I found it convenient to be at war as often as possible, where the matchmaking mamas couldn’t throw their daughters at me.”

Celandine chuckled. She couldn’t fault him for wanting to remain unattached after how she had shunned a second marriage. “Were you planning to settle down after your coronation, then?”

He adjusted his collar with a rueful look. “Let us say that my parents’ experience did not inspire a love in me for the institution of marriage.”

“Family politics are the most painful of all.”

“As you well know.”

“And what about the fanged mamas of Orthros?” Celandine asked before she thought better of it. “Did any of them arrange a heretical marriage for you?”

“Hesperines don’t marry, and the eternal bond between immortal mates is one that cannot be arranged. It is fated.”

“That sounds ominous. How does Hespera reveal this fate to you, then?”

“Addiction.”

Something about how he said the word sent an unwholesome thrill down Celandine’s spine. It was not impossible to imagine becoming addicted to a Hesperine’s bite.

“You know your mate by your Craving for their blood,” he went on. “An eternal hunger that can only be sated by the one destined to spend forever at your side. You need no other blood, mortal or immortal. We call that person a Grace.”

“Do you have a Grace waiting for you to wake?” She found that even more unpleasant to think about than a wife.

Troi gave her a humorless smile. “I doubt I’m a candidate for such a blessing from Hespera.”

There was something profoundly, unexpectedly sad about that bleak statement. She knew what it was like for life’s joys to be forever out of reach. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s just as well. If I were Graced, I would have died in that Slumber. A Hesperine can’t survive without their Grace. They die of withdrawal.”

“Oh.” She shuddered. “That seems a high price to pay for love.”

“It has its benefits,” he said, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. “Sating the addiction is said to be ecstasy without compare. The depth of the magical bond adds to the pleasure.”

Suddenly she felt too warm in her gown. “So Hesperines do practice profane pleasure rituals.”

“I promise I will behave at the ball tonight.”

“I doubt that very much.”

He gestured to himself. “Will I do?”

She smoothed the rich embroidery on the front of his tunic. “You look perfect.”

He leaned his ear closer. “What was that? Did I mishear you, or did a Pavo princess give me her approval?”

“Enjoy it while you can, Taurus.”

He beckoned to her. “I think I need you to repeat that.”

“Never.” She stepped back. “Now for that Hesperine disguise you promised me.”

He folded his arms and considered her. Magic caressed her, and she suppressed a shiver. “That should do nicely.”

She picked up a bronze hand mirror and looked at her reflection. “I look exactly the same!”

“I am no illusionist, but all Hesperines can cast veil spells that subtly conceal. Even if someone who once knew you looks right at you, they won’t recognize you.”

She stared at her crow’s feet and silver hairs in the mirror. She was older than him, and life in the temple had aged her beyond her years. “You make a very convincing prince just back from the wars, but no one will believe I am your new bride. Men like you marry fresh maidens.”

He stepped even closer to her, his presence, his scent, overwhelming. She breathed in orange, neroli, and oak as his dark magic shadowed her arcane senses.

He lowered his head toward her, slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away.

She tilted her face up toward him.

He took her chin in his hand and brought his mouth down on hers.

He held her there as he kissed her lips roughly apart and stroked deep with his tongue.

She could have broken free of his careful grip, but she didn’t.

The mirror slipped from her grasp onto the carpet.

She flattened her hands on his hard chest and stood transfixed.

At last, he let her up for air. She tried to breathe, her head floating. He tucked back a strand of hair that had escaped from her headband. She must look like a ravished new bride. She certainly felt like one.

He gazed down at her, his eyes incandescent gold. “If anyone doubts our ruse, I will make a believer out of them.”

He’d half made a believer out of her, even though she knew the truth. It was all for the plan, of course. For the kill.

At the gates of the manor, Troi wrapped himself and Celandine in veil spells that would hide them from every mortal eye. He felt the urge to wrap her up tightly in his arms, too, and carry her in the opposite direction of their enemies.

Why were his protective instincts raging like this tonight? She could take care of herself, and all he should be thinking of was how he would kill Rixor and Kaion.

They halted at the boundary of the Sanctuary wards. He stared at the infernal ring of fire that had kept him bound here for the last century. With a few twirls of Celandine’s spindle, the fire sank away.

He was free. By her hand.

He stepped over the threshold and into the current world.

Human emotion rolled through him and made him stagger a step back. The wards had kept him insulated from the life of the city, and now it felt as if he had swallowed all of Corona’s excitement and greed and desire.

Celandine caught his arm. “Troi?”

“I’m all right. Merely…adjusting.” He stood up straighter and mustered his control of his Hesperine abilities, such as it was.

The historical street of ancestral manors was mostly recognizable, at least. But the celebrants strolling by or passing in their horse litters were dressed in a dizzying array of styles that he had not imagined in his lifetime.

He tracked a woman’s bare throat with his gaze. “Such revealing fashions these days. Why are you wearing a high collar that goes up to your chin?”

She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “A prince once told me decorum adds to the excitement of the chase.”

He traced a finger down her collar, touching the site of his bite through the fabric. “Are you enjoying the chase?”

The color deepened on her cheeks. “You did not misrepresent your skills.”

Hidden by his magic, they left the Taurus district. A wide boulevard lined with orange trees was the only border that divided the city residences of the two feuding dynasties, but it had been an impassable divide for generations. Arm in arm with Celandine, Troi walked into enemy territory.

She led him down a back street where servants hustled to and fro, then along a stucco wall that bristled with warding spells. Pausing in the shadows, she brought out her spindle again.

Her eyes flashed, and her brow furrowed with effort. “Rixor has strengthened the wards since my day, but not enough.”

A hole spread in the spells directly in front of them.

“Hurry,” Celandine said. “Help me over.”

He pulled her against him and levitated them over the wall. She made a small sound of surprise.

“Did you think I would merely boost you and expect you to climb, when we could do things the Hesperine way?” he asked.

“You are a handy fellow to have while breaking into my own house.”

Her manor was a sweeping complex of rounded arches and broad porticoes surrounded by lavish gardens.

Peacocks roamed between tall stone fountains and topiaries.

All the elites aligned with the Pavones were descending from their litters near the front entrance, where guards in teal, green, and black admitted them one by one.