The Midnight Star Read Online Free

closely. Day by day, the prince has grown more withdrawn, his eyes turned frequently and longingly to the sea. There is a new energy in the air that Raffaele cannot quite put his finger on.
    â€œYou still feel her pull?” Raffaele asks at last.
    Enzo nods. He turns instinctively toward the window again, in the direction of the ocean. Another long moment passes before he answers. “Some days, it is quiet,” he says. “Not tonight.”
    Raffaele waits for him to continue, but Enzo falls back into his deep silence again, his attention still on the ocean outside. Raffaele wonders whom Enzo is thinking about. It is not Adelina, but a girl long gone, from a happier time in his past.
    After a while, Raffaele takes the bowl of water away and gently dabs Enzo’s arms dry, then applies a layer of ointment to the burned skin. It is an old salve that Raffaele used to request back at the Fortunata Court, when Enzo would visit him at night to have his hands bandaged. Now the court is gone. Queen Maeve has returned to Beldain to lick her wounds and restore her navy. And the Daggers have come here, to Tamoura—what is left of Tamoura, at any rate. Adelina’s Inquisitors dot the hills in northern Tamoura, holding strong.
    â€œAny news of Adelina?” Enzo asks as Raffaele reaches for a fresh set of bandages.
    â€œDumor’s capital has fallen to her army,” Raffaele replies. “She rules all of the Sealands now.”
    Enzo looks back to the sea, as if searching again for the eternal pull between him and the White Wolf, and his gaze seems very far away. “It won’t be long before her attention returns here, to the rest of Tamoura,” he says at last.
    â€œI wouldn’t be surprised if her ships show up next at our borders,” Raffaele agrees.
    â€œWill the Golden Triad meet us tomorrow?”
    â€œYes.” Raffaele glances up at the prince. “The Tamouran royals say their army is still weakened from Adelina’s last siege. They want to try negotiating with her again.”
    Enzo gingerly moves the fingers of his left hand, then winces. “And what do you think of it?”
    â€œIt will be a waste of time.” Raffaele shakes his head. “Adelina turned down their last attempt without a moment’s hesitation. There’s nothing to barter—what can the royals offer her that she cannot simply take by force?”
    Silence falls over them again, perhaps the only answer to Raffaele’s question. As Raffaele continues to wrap Enzo’s arms in fresh bandages, he tries to ignore the waves outside.
The sound of the sea beyond the window. A pair of candles burning bright in the darkness. A knock on the door.
    The memory comes unbidden and unrelenting, breaking through the walls Raffaele has put around his heart since Enzo’s death and resurrection. He is no longer tending to the prince’s wounds but standing, waiting, frightened in his bedchamber at the Fortunata Court years ago, looking out at a sea of masked people.
    It seemed as if the entire city had turned out for Raffaele’sdebut. Noblemen and noblewomen, their robes of Tamouran silks and Kenettran lace, fanned out across the room, their faces all partially hidden behind colorful half masks, their laughter mingling with the sounds of clinking glass and shuffling slippers. Other consorts moved amongst them, silent and graceful, serving drinks and dishes of iced grapes.
    Raffaele stood in the center of the room, a demure youth dressed and groomed to the height of perfection, his hair a curtain of dark satin, his gold-and-white robes flowing, black powder lining the rims of his jewel-toned eyes, staring out at a sea of curious bidders. He remembers how his hands trembled, how he’d pressed one against the other to steady them. He had been trained in the types of expressions to allow on his face, a thousand different subtleties of the lips and brows and cheeks and eyes, regardless of