Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms, #1)(22)

“You’re that intent on escaping from your new bodyguard? And leave him—I would assume—lurking outside my chambers?”

Cleo smiled pleadingly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. He’ll never even know I was gone.”

“And what do you suggest I tell him if he decides to check in on us?”

“That I suddenly discovered I had air magic or something and made myself disappear.” She squeezed her sister’s hands as she brushed past her at the window, intent on her plan. She would be gone no more than a quarter of an hour, then she’d be back.

“You’ve always had a taste for adventure,” Emilia said, relenting. “Well, romance or not...good luck.”

“Thank you. I might need it.”

Cleo swung her legs over the side of the balcony and climbed easily down the trellis, landing softly on the grass below. Without looking back up at the window, she quickly made her way across the palace grounds, beyond the main castle, to the neighborhood of luxury villas, still within the castle walls. Only the most important of nobles got to live here, protected from any outside threat.

The palace grounds were a city unto itself, with open-air cafés and taverns, businesses, shops, crisscrossing cobblestone streets, and beautifully kept flower gardens, including one with an expansive labyrinth of tall hedges where Cleo and Emilia had hosted a party a few months ago. More than two thousand people lived here happily and prosperously. Some rarely bothered to leave the compound at all.

The Lagaris’s city villa was one of the more impressive homes, only a five-minute stroll away from the castle, and built from the same golden mix of materials as the castle itself. Aron sat outside, smoking a cigarillo, and he watched Cleo’s approach with a lazy smile on his good-looking face.

“Princess Cleiona,” he drawled, exhaling a long line of smoke. “What a delightful surprise.”

She eyed the cigarillo with distaste. She’d never understood the interest some people had in sucking in fiery smoke from crushed peach tree leaves and other herbs and exhaling it. Unlike wine, cigarillos were nasty, their smell not sweet and fragrant like peaches at all.

“I want to talk to you,” she said.

“I was just sitting here watching the morning go by, thinking that I was so incredibly bored I might have to do something about it.” There was a familiar slur to his words, but not too pronounced. Many would think nothing of it, but Cleo knew very well it was a sign that Aron had already started drinking. It wasn’t even midday.

“And what were you going to do about it?” she asked.

“Hadn’t decided yet.” His grin widened. “But now I don’t have to. You’re here.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Of course. It’s always a pleasure to see you.” He looked at her pale blue silk skirt, which was wrinkled and dirty from her descent from Emilia’s room. “Somersaulting through flower beds on the way over here?”

She absently wiped at the stain. “Something like that.”

“I’m honored you’d make the effort. You could have simply sent word to me to come to you.”

“I wanted to talk to you in private.”

He looked at her curiously. “You want to talk about what happened in Paelsia, don’t you?”

She felt herself pale. “Let’s go inside, Aron. I don’t want anyone else to hear us.”

“As you wish.”

He pushed open the heavy door and let her in ahead of him. She entered the opulent foyer with its high domed ceiling and marble floors, tiled in the pattern of a colorful sunburst. On the wall was a large portrait of Aron as a young, pale-skinned boy and his stern-looking, but attractive parents. He stayed by the door, keeping it open a crack so the smoke wouldn’t leave a lingering odor behind. His parents didn’t approve of smoking inside the house. Aron might be arrogant and confident, but he was still seventeen and had to abide by his parents’ rules until his next birthday—unless he wanted to move out ahead of schedule. And Cleo knew without a doubt that he didn’t want that sort of responsibility, financial or otherwise.

“Well, Cleo?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything for a full minute.

She summoned her courage and turned to face him. She desperately hoped that speaking with him would quell her guilt over the murder and help bring an end to her nightmares. She wanted him to justify his actions—to have them make more sense to her than they did right now.

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened with the wine seller’s son.” She blinked, shocked to find that her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “Can you?”

His gaze hardened. “Of course I can’t.”

“How do you…feel?” She held her breath.

His cheeks tensed. He threw the half-smoked cigarillo out through the front door, waving his hand at the smoke left behind.

“I feel conflicted.”

Already, she felt a large measure of relief. If she was to be engaged to Aron, she needed to know that they felt the same way about most things. “I’ve had nightmares. Every night.”

“About the brother’s threat?” he asked.

She nodded. It felt as if Jonas Agallon’s eyes still bore into her. Nobody had ever looked at her with that much unbridled hate. “You shouldn’t have killed that boy.”