Page 61 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

The song came to an end, the sudden silence ringing in her ears as they broke apart.

An ache unlike anything she had ever known settled over her, a loss so stark that she feared she would never recover as they bowed to each other.

But he didn’t let her go, not yet, catching her fingers as their claws brushed, steel against steel.

“I will never make that mistake,” he swore, a solemn vow, as he bent low and pressed his mouth to the back of her hand. “I have always seen you, Shan, and I will assure your rise to glory, even if it’s over the broken bodies of those who never would allow you to ascend.”

When everything felt like it was one second from falling apart, here he had come, with enough confidence to bolster her.

With a promise that he would never let her down, and, blood and steel, could she get addicted to this.

She was standing on a precipice, and it would take nothing to follow the King over the edge, knowing that the fall would feel like flying—free and wondrous.

But Samuel stepped into her field of vision, holding out a pristinely gloved hand. “May I cut in?”

“Of course,” the King said, with an affable smile. “Thank you for allowing me to dance with your extraordinary fiancée.”

The two of them bantered back and forth, friendly as anything, but Shan could only hear the rush of blood in her ears and feel the bitter taste of shame in the back of her throat.

Because here was Samuel, her beloved Samuel, good and kind and everything she struggled to be in the world, pulling her back from the brink without even realizing it.

She was weaker than even she had realized if the King was able to pull her strings so easily. If she wasn’t even noticing it anymore.

Samuel’s hand found her as the next song began, the floor filling with more couples after the King’s display, and Shan forced a brilliant smile onto her face as he led her into the next dance.

Brow furrowing, Samuel didn’t question the obvious falsehood of her cheer, but Shan knew that she was skating on thin ice, and it wouldn’t be long before a single slight misstep would send her crashing to the frigid depths below.

The King didn’t depart from the soirée after their dance, though he did not honor any of the other attendees by sharing the floor with them.

Instead, he glided from group to group, sharing soft conversations with his fellow Blood Workers.

Shan couldn’t catch most of what he said, even if she was constantly aware of his movements, hovering at the edge of her awareness.

More approachable—more human—than she had ever known him.

And Shan wasn’t the only one who noticed the stark change. Even hours later, as the party drifted through and past the midnight hour, the eyes on her were dark and appraising. Re-evaluating just who their new Royal Blood Worker was, and just how much influence she could exert.

This was a gift—Shan wasn’t fool enough to dismiss it, as subtly given as it was. A single dance a currency more powerful than anything money could buy. The Eternal King continuing to lift her up, even when she thought she had nowhere higher to go.

The sound of glass shattering cut through the ballroom, along with the vilest string of curses she had ever heard in her life. The music came to sudden stop, as did all the ambient conversation, and Shan whipped around to find the source of the noise.

Sir Morse stood in front of Samuel, his face red and trembling with barely checked fury.

The remains of his glass of mulled wine lay in pieces at their feet, delicate shards of crystal in a pool of deep red.

Deeper than blood, and her magic didn’t catch the low faint hum of power that indicated that either of them had been harmed in the tantrum.

Though it looked that if she didn’t step in soon, there was the very real possibility that it could change in a heartbeat.

Edward Morse had always been prone to violent solutions, and with the sneer he was sending Samuel’s way, puffing up his chest to loom over her man, Shan feared that this might finally be his breaking point.

The end of the tether she had hoped to keep Morse on, the reality of what Isaac was doing shattering the fragile state of peace that she had worked so hard for.

“You are a useless joke of a Councillor,” Edward hissed, jabbing the tip of his claw against Samuel’s chest. “How many of us have to die before you do the fucking job you were chosen for!”

Samuel, for his part didn’t even flinch, his expression one of pure disdain, his gloved hands in his pockets as he refused to be bullied.

And despite the vitriol that Morse continued to spew, spitting the name of the brutalized dead in Samuel’s face—Brittney Arena, Zelda Holland, Vaughn Dabney—as if any of this had been his fault.

He did not have it in him, his heart too good for such cruelties.

No, she knew where the blame lay, and as much as it hurt her to admit it, as much as she hoped that she could reach Isaac, as much as she had hoped to stop this before it got too far, she had realized with aching clarity that this road would only lead to disaster.

If Morse got his way, there would be war, bloodshed on the scale that her fool of a brother couldn’t even comprehend, and Isaac was only adding fuel to the fire.

But that was a matter for another day. For now, she couldn’t let this continue. As the hostess of the event, as the Royal Blood Worker, she was honor-bound to step in. As Samuel’s fiancée, she was ready to smack his name right out of Morse’s mouth.

Shan stepped away from the group she had been conversing with, Amelia giving her hand a squeeze of support before letting go, stepping a little harder than normal so that heels echoed on the marble floor.

Sir Morse turned to face her as she arrived at their side, her hand pressing against the small of Samuel’s back in a clear show of support, and Morse cut himself off mid-sentence, his anger clearly at war with his common sense as he remembered where he was and who was watching this altercation he had started.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the eyes of the entire ton were on him, the Eternal King was mere feet away, his silence powerful and ominous as the seconds ticked on.

As the tension grew more pressing.

Tilting her head to the side, Shan furrowed her brow, concern dripping from each word, cloying and sweet. “You were saying, Edward?”

A bead of sweat peaked on his brow, rolling down his face as he stammered. “It’s just… just that I…”

Samuel tilted his chin up, so regal, so casually unaffected that Shan had to swallow down a cry of pride. “Your concerns have been noted, Sir Morse, but suffice it to say that the Guard are investigating matters and any updates will come through official channels.”

“Unless,” the King said, speaking up for the first time, his low voice cutting like a knife, “you have some concerns about the way my nation is run.”

Morse jerked away, turning to the King with a deep bow. “I would never insinuate—”

“Please.” The King crossed his arms across his chest, and in that moment the resemblance between him and Samuel was uncanny.

“You’ve gone a far step beyond insinuating, young man.

Your grandmother would be so disappointed in your behavior.

It is a shame that you inherited none of her wisdom or patience. ”

Morse flinched at the words, at the way the King threw his relationship to the much beloved Councillor of Military Affairs back in his face.

A pointed reminder that they all knew exactly why he was this way, the boots he feared that he would never be able to fill, the legacy he wanted to live up to.

Even if it meant cementing it in blood and violence.

But Shan was nothing if not a politician, so she slipped around the side, resting a friendly hand on Morse’s shoulder. “Clearly this was a case of the wine going to your head, wasn’t it, Edward?”

He tensed under her touch but didn’t brush her off, knowing that she was the only thing that stood between him and complete humiliation. Jaw clenched, Edward nodded jerkily. “The mulled wine was too delicious, my lady. I fear I overindulged.”

“I cannot blame you,” Shan replied, with a trilling little laugh.

“It is a tense time, and we are all a little wound up.” She summoned a serving girl with a flick of her wrist, a pale young thing who Shan would be sure to give a bonus to, when the party was done.

“Prepare a pot of tea for Sir Morse, would you? Actually, have the kitchens send up a round of it to end the night.”

The girl curtsied. “Of course, my lady.”

Shan smiled back at Edward as the serving girl hurried away. “Perhaps some of the cake will help you sober up, Edward.”

“Yes, of course,” he mumbled, looking very much like he had been run over by a carriage. He inclined his head to the others, muttering a quick, “My lord, Your Majesty,” before ambling off towards the much picked over dessert bar.

The musicians resumed their playing without even having to be told, and Shan was quite pleased at their professionalism, as conversations restarted in fits and bursts around them.

“Well done,” the King said, stepping closer and closing the ring, a little huddle of privacy as everyone else politely turned away. “The both of you. I’m proud of how you handled him.”

“Naturally,” Shan said, twining her arm with Samuel’s, a united couple standing together. He relaxed a little bit, some of the carefully constructed disdain fading with a sigh. “We couldn’t let such crass sentiment pass unchallenged.”

“Quite,” the King agreed, then rubbed as his temples. “It was illuminating, however. There is much work to do, and I’ll need the both of you. Soon.”

“We are at your service,” Shan said, in the same breath that Samuel muttered, “Obviously.”

The King didn’t call out Samuel’s little flub, rubbing at his temple with a sigh. “Good. Good. Shan, I trust that you can see this soirée to the end. There are a couple of last-minute matters I need to see to.”

He didn’t come out and say it outright, but Shan knew what he referred to. Their latest test with Mel, out somewhere beyond the borders of Dameral. Now all the more pressing, given the unease that Morse had illustrated this very night.

Morse might not realize it, but they were doing far more work behind the scenes than he could even conceive of. Things even the esteemed Councillor of Law did not know of.

She only offered a demure smile. “I can. Samuel, will you make the rounds with me?”

He caught her fingers, raised her hand to his lips, pressing a small kiss to it—chaste and quick, but the relief in his eyes was clear. The thanks that she was sure would come later. “I am, as always, yours to command.”

The King huffed a little laugh, clearly amused by them, but he slapped Samuel on the shoulder before leaving. “Look for my letters.”

With that he was gone, slipping away from the party without so much as a look at Morse or any of the others.

“Well,” Samuel said, with a little groan. “Back to work?”

Shan lifted a shoulder in a quick shrug. There was always more work to do, and it was only sheer luck that this night hadn’t gone worse. But she didn’t argue, leading him back around the ballroom once more.