There, she thought, leaning back against the cushions. Still good.
“You’re sulking,” said Losen from somewhere behind the couch.
“Nonsense,” she drawled. “I’m celebrating.” She tipped her head back to look at her protégé and added dryly, “Can’t you tell?”
The young man chuckled, eyes alight. “Suit yourself, mas arna.”
Arna. Saints, when had she gotten old enough to be called a mistress? She wasn’t even thirty. Losen swept away to dance with a pretty young noble, and Kisimyr drained her glass and settled back to watch, gold tassels jingling in her ropes of hair.
The rooftop was a pretty enough place for a party—pillars rising into pointed crowns against the night sky, spheres of hearth fire warming the late winter air, and marble floors so white they shone like moonlit clouds—but Kisimyr had always preferred the arena. At least in a fight, she knew how to act, knew the point of the exercise. Here in society, she was meant to smile and bow and, even worse, mingle. Kisimyr hated mingling. She wasn’t vestra, or ostra, just old-fashioned London stock, flesh and blood and a good turn of magic. A good turn honed into something more.
All around her, the other magicians drank and danced, their masks mounted like brooches on their shoulders or worn like hoods thrown back atop their hair. The faceless ones registered as ornament, while the more featured cast unnerving expressions on the backs of heads and cloaks. Her own feline mask sat beside her on the couch, dented and singed from so many rounds in the ring.
Kisimyr wasn’t in the mood for a party. She knew how to feign grace, but inside she was still seething from the final match. It had been close—there was that much.
But of all the people to lose to, it had to be that obnoxious pretty-boy noble, Alucard Emery.
Where was the bastard, anyway? No sign of him. Or the king and queen, for that matter. Or the prince. Or his brother. Strange. The Veskan prince and princess were here, roaming as if in search of prey, while the Faroan regent held his own small court against a pillar, but the Arnesian royal family was nowhere to be seen.
Her skin prickled in warning, the way it did the instant before a challenger made their move in the ring. Something was off.
Wasn’t it?
Saints, she couldn’t tell.
A servant in red and gold swept past, and she plucked a fresh drink from the tray, spiced wine that tickled her nose and warmed her fingers before it touched her tongue.
Ten more minutes, she told herself, and she could go.
She was, after all, a victor, even if she hadn’t won this year.
“Mistress Kisimyr?”
She looked up at the young vestra, beautiful and tan, eyelids painted gold to match his sash. She cast a look around for Losen, and sure enough found her protégé watching, looking smug as a young cat offering up a mouse. “I’m Viken Rosec—” started the noble.
“And I’m not in the mood to dance,” she cut in.
“Perhaps, then,” he said coyly, “I could keep your company here.”
He didn’t wait for permission—she could feel the sofa dip beside her—but Kisimyr’s attention had already drifted past him, to the figure standing at the roof’s edge. One minute that stretch was empty, dark, and then the next, as a last firework lit the sky, he was there. From here, the man was nothing but a silhouette against the darker night, but the way he looked around—as if taking in the rooftop for the first time—set her on edge. He wasn’t a noble or a tournament magician, and he didn’t belong to any of the entourages she’d seen throughout the Essen Tasch.
Curiosity piqued, she rose from the couch, leaving her mask on the cushions beside Viken as the stranger stepped forward between two pillars, revealing skin as fair as a Veskan’s, but hair blacker than her own. A midnight blue half cloak spilled over his shoulders, and on his head, where a magician’s mask might be, was a silver crown.
A royal?
But she’d never seen him before. Never caught this particular scent of power, either. Magic rippled off him with every step, woodsmoke and ash and fresh-turned earth, at odds with the flowered notes that filled the roof around them.
Kisimyr wasn’t the only one to notice.
One by one the faces at the ball turned toward the corner.
The stranger’s own head was bowed slightly, as if considering the marble floor beneath his polished black boots. He passed a table on which someone had left a helmet, and drew a finger almost absently along the metal jaw. As he did, it crumbled to ash—no, not ash, but sand, a thousand glittering specks of glass.
A cold breeze brushed them away.
Kisimyr’s heart quickened.
Without thinking, her own feet carried her forward, matching him step for step as he crossed the roof until they both stood at opposite edges of the broad polished circle used for dancing.
The music stopped abruptly, broke off into half-formed chords and then silence as the strange figure strode into the center of the floor.
“Good evening,” said the stranger.
As he spoke, he raised his head, black hair shifting to reveal two all-black eyes, shadows twisting in their depths.
Those close enough to meet his gaze tensed and recoiled. Those farther afield must have felt the ripple of unease, because they too began to edge away.
The Faroans watched, gems dancing in their darkened faces as they tried to understand if this was some kind of show. The Veskans stood stock still, waiting for the stranger to draw a weapon. But the Arnesians roiled. Two guards peeled away to send word through the palace below.