The King's Blood

life now full of things that had once seemed beyond his grasp.
    He’d wintered in Ebbingbaugh when he wasn’t chasing around after the wandering feast of the King’s Hunt. Returning to the mansion in Camnipol had been strange as a dream. Here was the storage room where he’d watched Feldin Maas, the previous Baron Ebbingbaugh, slaughter his own wife. Here were the garden paths he’d fled through in the night, the letters proving Maas’s guilt pressed to his chest. Everything about the place screamed danger. But it was his by right now.
    The north drawing room was the one he’d mentally labeled “the sitting room by the courtyard.” And the guest he’d expected wasn’t the one waiting for him.
    He’d seen the girl in court the year before, but he’d seen more or less everyone in court. Her skin was the soft brown of coffee and milk, her hair spilling softly around her long, high-cheeked face. She wore a dress of startling green under a black leather cloak cut slightly too large, a fashion Geder himself had unintentionally begun. Her chaperone was a looming Tralgu woman in an almost comically frilly dress who stood in the corner.
    “Ah, oh,” Geder said.
    “Lord Protector Geder Palliako,” his house master intoned. “Her Ladyship Sanna Daskellin, third daughter of Lord Canl Daskellin.”
    “I hope I haven’t come at a bad time,” the girl said, gliding across the room toward him, her hand out for him to accept. He accepted it.
    “No,” he said, nodding. “No, this is fine.”
    Her smile was fast and bright.
    “My father is hosting the opening of the season, and I wanted to bring the invitation to you especially. You don’t think I’m too forward, do you?”
    “No,” Geder said. “No, not at all. No. I’m delighted you could stop by.”
    She squeezed his fingers gently and he realized he was still holding her hand. He let it drop.
    “We’ve only just returned to Camnipol,” she said. “How did you find your new holdings?”
    Geder crossed his arms, trying to affect an ease he didn’t feel.
    “With a map and a guide for the most part,” he said. “Maas never invited me out. We didn’t travel in the same circles. I spent most of the winter just trying to find out where he’d put everything.”
    She laughed and sat on a red silk divan. It occurred to Geder that she wasn’t leaving. The combination of unease and excitement was slightly nauseating. He was talking to a woman in his own house with her chaperone present. There was no transgression against etiquette or propriety, but his blood raced through his veins a little faster all the same. Geder licked his lips nervously.
    “So what are his plans for the season’s opening. The usual feast, I assume.”
    “A fireshow,” Sanna Daskellin said. “He’s found this marvelous cunning man from Borja who can build structures to channel flame and make it burn in all different sorts of colors. I’ve seen him practicing.” She leaned toward him, a small shift of weight that indicated a shared secret. “It’s beautiful, but it smells of sulfur.”
    Geder laughed. Behind the girl, the Tralgu chaperone remained impassive as a guard at a counting house. Geder moved toward a leather chair, but the girl slid to one side of her divan and tapped gently against the abandoned half, inviting him. Geder hesitated, then sat at her side, careful not to touch her. Her smile was made of sun and shadows, and it left Geder feeling both uncomfortably aroused and subtly mocked.
    “Isn’t it awkward sharing a courtyard with Curtin Issandrian?” she asked.
    “Not particularly,” Geder said. “Of course, he hasn’t even returned yet. I suppose it could be once he’s back. He might be a bit unpleasant to be near. Could be some conflict.”
    “I wouldn’t think so,” Sanna said. “Issandrian may be ignorant enough to keep company with traitors, but he knows a lion when it looks at him.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” Geder said. Sanna’s expression invited him to smile along, and he found it very difficult not to. “I mean… I suppose he would.” He made a claw of his fingers and scratched at the air. “Grrr,” he said.
    Sanna’s laughter brought her a degree nearer to him. She smelled of rosewater and musk. When her fingers brushed his arm, Geder’s throat felt oddly thick.
    “Oh, I’m terribly thirsty. Aren’t you?” she asked.
    “I am,” Geder said almost before he understood the