Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) Read Online Free Page B

to me?” she asked. We all knew who She was.
    “Sweet. Sweet and deferential. And if anyone asks you about her, she is a magnificent Queen, one you are proud to serve. She’ll get nothing from us that way. If she insults you outright…say only that you are honored by the King’s regard, but do not dream of anything beyond his wishes.”
    “Yes, my Lord. What have you told the court, as to why I have not been seen for a week?”
    “I told them that you were ill,” the Duke said. “There were rumors of poison, did you know?” I was on high alert at once, every muscle quivering. “Ridiculous,” the Duke said, too easily. “Foolish to think that anyone would poison a child. I told them so.”
    I could not help myself—in that moment, I had to know if it had been the two of them. I cast a look at Temar and, to my surprise, he was watching me as well. But I got nothing for my indiscretion; his face was unreadable. If it had been he who slipped the poison into our food, there was no guilt showing in his eyes. I shivered; there was a reckoning coming, but I did not know how, and I did not know when.
    Unlike me, Miriel had been braced for the reference to poison. Her smile did not slip even a fraction. “Foolish indeed,” she concurred sweetly. “Am I to be well enough to attend dinner tonight, then, my Lord?”
    “I expect it. And I expect you to be charming, and sweet, and remind all who see you that the King has chosen you because you are the finest of the maidens at court. Do not put on any airs, or be familiar with him: a curtsy to the throne, nothing more. Let him seek you out.
    “I will let you prepare yourself for your return to court. Oh, and another thing—if the King arranges to meet you, you will send Catwin with a message. I expect to know where, and when. And allow him no liberties.”
    “He has never asked anything dishonorable of me,” Miriel said. There was a note of pride in her voice, and her uncle’s eyes gleamed. He was quick to cut her down.
    “If you are not incompetent, he will. Within a year, at most, I should think. You will tell me when he does.”
    “But hold him off.” Miriel’s voice was expressionless.
    “No one has ever found a better way to keep a man.” The Duke sounded amused. “Deny him what he most wants, and he will give you what you most want.” He smiled. “Perhaps, at any rate. If you can do it.”
    Miriel’s eyebrow quirked, and then she shrugged one shoulder. “Yes, my Lord uncle.”
    “You don’t intend to disobey?”
    “And be ruined and cast aside?” Miriel countered. “No. I do not.” He laughed, and left the room, and Temar left with him, without a backward glance. When I looked back to Miriel, she was watching me.
    “Watch where your loyalties lie,” she said sharply. “I’ll not tolerate you mooning after him.” I did not retort that this was not mooning, this was not infatuation. I had adored Temar from the first, it was true, but with the easy worship of a child. Temar might be handsome, but he was like a living, breathing work of art—better, he seemed half a legend, like a character from a storybook. When I watched him, it was not because I pursued him as a maid will, with her mind on marriage—the thought was laughable, we were Shadows. I watched him because he had been my friend once, and I did not know what he was to me now, or what I was to him.
    What was the most jarring was the sense, in the evenness of his gaze, in the way he watched me, that I was his equal in a way I had not been before. Just as Temar had lifted me from orphan child to something more, something special, my deception had lifted me from student to adversary. Now, for the first time, I was not the lesser of the two of us. It was so strange a thought that it had not occurred to me until now, seeing him here.
    And—my heart twisted—I did not think anything could make me forget the guilt that I had lied to him; after so many months wondering when fate and the Duke