I’ve been seated mere seconds when the queen and her entourage sweep in. The entire court clambers to its feet in a show of respect as Vanora makes her way to the head of the table. She settles in a flurry of silk skirts, her ornate crown a golden haloatop her silver hair. I make to sit back down, but Jac stills me with a hand on my wrist before my knees bend more than an inch.
“Wait,” he murmurs.
Evidently, we need queenly permission to sit—something she takes undue time giving, thoroughly examining each of us at the banquet table in turn, her flinty eyes moving down the line. She purses her lips in disapproval at some, nods with faint acceptance at others. Most, she gazes at with practiced apathy. Her brother she ignores outright. But when her eyes land on me, a delighted laugh bursts from her lips.
“My word, in that brown drab I thought she was one of the servants, come to dine with us!”
The courtiers all join her laughter.
Jac and Uther both stiffen beside me.
“Enid, at least, knew how to dress,” Vanora continues, looking positively delighted by the opportunity to publicly humiliate me. “Butshewas the daughter of a lord. Tell us, girl, where is it you hail from?”
Hundreds of eyes bore into me. The hall is so silent, even the flames in the hearths have ceased crackling.
I cough to clear my throat. “A small kingdom in the Midlands.”
“Which one?”
When I remain silent, the air grows markedly tense. To ignore a direct inquiry from the queen is simply not done. Not in private and most certainly not in the company of the entire royal court.
Not at all.
I look fleetingly at Penn, hoping he might interject. But it seems he, too, wants to hear my answer. His face is set in a stony expression, his mouth pressed in an uncompromising line.
“Are you hard of hearing, girl?” Vanora snaps. “Answer me at once!”
“Ace,” Jac prompts lowly, pressing an elbow into my side.
I clench my fists and force my tongue to form a single word. “Seahaven.”
“That little spit of land that sticks out into the Westerly Sea, isn’t it?” Vanora asks her closest adviser. At his nod, she laughs with abandon, prompting a chorus of sycophantic amusement from the rest of her courtiers. “My word! Can one even call such an inconsequential place a kingdom? I doubt that backwater peninsula even has running water or basic roadways.”
My teeth grind together to keep from snapping back.
“No wonder you blend so well with the help.” The spiteful old crone smiles. “Tell us, girl, what kind of upbringing did you have inSeahaven?”
I look at her, veins sizzling with defiance. I know my eyes must be blazing with it. “I was no lord’s daughter, if that’s what you’re asking. I grew up in a cottage no longer than this table.”
The jewel-draped woman across from me snickers behind her gloved hand.
“Mmm.” Vanora’s eyes flash with gloating triumph. “Are you quite certain she is the Remnant of Air, brother? Perhaps it was not a mark on her chest but a smear of dirt from whatever pigsty you found her in.”
The flames in every taper candle in the hall leap abruptly, a sudden blaze of light. The courtiers’ snickers become shrieks of fright. All laughter dies instantly, replaced with eerie silence. It is broken several moments later by the screech of a chair being dragged back.
Beneath my lashes, I risk a glance at Penn. He’s taken his seat at the foot of the table despite the fact that Vanora has not given him leave to do so. The move sends a subtle yet unmistakable message to the entire court.
Queen or no, he will not bow to her authority.
“Rhya,” he says without looking at me, “take your seat.”
Perhaps I’m imagining things, but I think I feel a pulse of fury through the bond, furling round the invisible thread that ties us together. I stare at the blazing candles on the table. They burn so hotly, wax is flooding down in rivulets. No one in the hall moves, no one even breathes, as I slowly pull back my chair and take my seat.
Vanora’s jaw tightens with displeasure but she says nothing more, thoroughly engaged in a silent battle of wills with her brother across the span of the table. Every particle of air in the Great Hall turns stale with discomfort as the confrontation drags on.
Finally, she relents, lifting her hand to give the command for the rest of the hall to sit. Hundreds of chairs drag back in unison, the sound earsplitting. Everyone is soon distracted by the servants who flood in from the wings, carrying with them dozens of platters and pitchers.
“Those two siblings make the air in the Cimmerians feel warm.” Jac unfolds his cloth napkin with a scowl. “It’s enough to make a man long for a simple campfire cook pot, I tell you…”