Page 77 of Daughter of the Drowned Empire

I gave a sideways glance. “I thought you were looking forward to our debates.”

He chuckled. “To be fair, I didn’t think I’d constantly be forced to defend my own personal usage.”

“Your own personal usage is my best weapon against you. How else am I going to challenge you?” I asked, weakly gesturing at my exhausted body.

“Your brain is by far your most dangerous weapon, your grace. But I’m sure you can find other ways,” he said, looking at me through thick eyelashes. They stood out now that his eyelids were slightly hooded. “Which word would you like me to define? Easy or stretching?”

I turned on my side, too, resting my head in my hand, a perfect mirror of his posture.

“Easy,” I said.

“Easy.” His eyes were sparkling, and in a flash, they dipped down the length of my body, resting on the curve of my hip, before rising to meet mine again. His own lips curled into a full smile. “The opposite of hard.”

Heat pooled in my belly, as if his gaze had burned me. “You truly are a master of stating the obvious,” I said, my voice breathy.

“When you’re forsworn, you’ve got to be master of something.”

“I bet you’re master of lots of things,” I said, my temperature rising.

Then Tristan burst through our door.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ISPRUNGTOmyfeet, turning away. What in Lumeria was I doing? Lying on the floor with Rhyan—flirting.

Rhyan who was my apprentice. Rhyan whose blood ran through my veins and in my armor, cementing a deadly blood oath that meant we were forbidden to each other. Rhyan whose oath was the last thing I should be thinking of because I wanted to marry Tristan. Rhyan who’d kissed me so sweetly beneath a tree on the summer solstice years ago and was now haunting my dreams and senses.

“Maybe you can’t tell time, Hart, but training hours are over.” Tristan’s blue mage robes had been swept behind his shoulders, and his silver belt was low on his hips, making his scabbard prominent. He rested a hand on the hilt of his stave. The stave that had bound me.

“Then it’s good to know I can rely on you to be her grace’s personal clocktower.” Rhyan rolled onto his back and with a swift kick of his feet, jumped to a stand. He swiped two towels off a rack, wrapping one over his shoulders. He flung the other one at me. “We soturi,” he said jovially, “no brains in our heads…. Oh, wait, that includes her grace now. Sorry, were you trying to insult me for being a soturion, for being forsworn, or is this personal?”

Tristan’s hand closed around the stave. “Just wondering why you’re keeping her late. I let my novice leave an hour ago.”

“You may be shocked to learn this, Lord Grey, but she’s a bit behind.”

I glared at Rhyan, who only shrugged as if to say,Well, it’s true.

“She’s done now.” Tristan cocked his head to the side, brown eyes darkening. “I trust you won’t interfere with my taking her away this time?”

“I see no bars,” Rhyan said, a small growl in his voice.

Tristan strode across the room to me. “My grandmother wants to have dinner tonight.”

My heart leapt. “To give us her blessing?”

“I think so. She seemed desperate to see you.”

That was promising. If I could get her blessing, we could be engaged. I’d be Ka Grey…I’d have another powerful Ka to back me if the Imperator tried to send me away.

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“You should go home now to bathe and change. I’ll meet you. It might help if she spends a little time with you alone.”

“She can’t go,” Rhyan said.

Tristan narrowed his eyebrows. “I believe we’ve established that training hours are over. Her grace is not your prisoner this time. She’s going with me now.”

“Her grace was never my prisoner. Nor have I ever arrested her,” Rhyan snarled.