Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1)(38)
Jasminda sucked in a breath and fastened the gold chain around her neck. It fit snugly at the base of her throat. Not quite tight enough to choke her.
“It’s time, miss,” Nadal said.
Jasminda steeled her nerves and ignored the questions battling for dominance in her mind. They exited the rooms, and Nadal led her to the top of a grand staircase where a black-clad butler ushered her down and through a maze of hallways to a grand dining room. The grandeur of the palace was a blur, the empty feeling in her bones stealing most of her attention.
“Jasminda ul-Sarifor.” A hush descended over the vast room as her name was announced by a silver-haired attendant. Every head swiveled in her direction, and she froze under the weight of expectation in the air. The sense of foreboding remained, but she tilted her chin a few notches higher and stepped farther into the hall. Yet another butler appeared at her elbow, a kindly faced man who, despite his Elsiran appearance, reminded her of Papa.
“Miss Jasminda, this way, please,” he said, and led her deeper into the dining room. She followed his straight back, walking carefully in her delicate gold slippers. A four-piece string ensemble sat in the corner playing muted orchestral music. Three enormous U-shaped tables took up the majority of the room, with seating around the sides and a wide space for the servants to come and go in the middle. The end of the center table faced a slightly raised dais on which stood a smaller table. She surmised that must be where the Prince Regent sat. The space was magnificent—more carvings of the Lord and Lady adorned the tops of each window and the ceiling was a grid of carved stone. Around each table sat several dozen people, all watching her. Conversations restarted, but their stares drilled into her as the butler led her to a setting only two metres away from the dais.
She was seated next to a posh woman in an elaborate, feathered hat, her snakelike figure poured into a silken black sheath dress. Directly across from Jasminda, an old man with a hearing cone pressed to one ear and thick spectacles leaned toward the man to his right, complaining loudly of the noise. Each wore a mourning mirror. The most ostentatious display was from an older gentleman farther down the table whose mirror was affixed to his eye patch.
Jasminda fought the urge to squirm as the gazes of so many in the room raked over her, not bothering to hide their inquisitiveness. Her glass was filled by a passing waiter, and she grabbed at it, gulping greedily to soothe the sudden ache in her throat. The hall quieted again, and Jasminda turned to see what had captured everyone’s attention this time.
A hidden door built into the wall behind the dais had opened. A group of guards in the fancy black uniforms emerged, then flanked the door. Chairs groaned across the floor as everyone at the tables stood, almost as one. Jasminda raced to catch up.
The same man who announced her stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Jaqros Edvard Alliaseen, High Commander of the Royal Army, First Duke of Cavill, and Prince Regent of Elsira.”
The servant slid away, and Jasminda’s heart dissolved into a pool of liquid at her feet. Directly in front of her, in full regalia, stood Jack.
CHAPTER FIVE
She had thought him beautiful in dirty fatigues and covered in bruises and blood, but in his royal uniform and freshly trimmed hair, he was nothing short of divine. The spark of hope she’d held inside, the one she’d foolishly allowed to grow into a tiny flame, flickered then snuffed itself out completely.
Jack—Prince Jack—sat stiffly at the raised table mere steps away from her. His face was a rigid mask. He looked straight ahead, acknowledging no one.
The head butler was speaking again, making announcements about the dinner, the soup, the ingredients, but Jasminda’s attention was wholly focused on the man in front of her.
Gone was the ragged creature she’d discovered on the mountain and thought mad, the bruised and bloodied soldier who had sacrificed himself to try to protect a woman he didn’t know. A woman who could have been his enemy. When did he become this statue sitting before her, neither warrior nor poet, but prince?
The coronation must have happened as soon as he’d arrived in the palace, but even more than the shock at his new position, she couldn’t believe how his whole nature seemed to have transformed. The light in his eyes that had withstood capture, gunshot, and beatings was now dimmed.
The kindly butler approached and cleared his throat politely, placing his hands on her chair. She pulled her attention away from Jack to find that she was the only one still standing. As every eye in the room, except Jack’s, bored into her, she took her seat as gracefully as possible, smoothing her dress and thanking the butler in a trembling voice as he slid in her chair.
Her hands shook. She flattened them on the table, imprinting the grooves of the wood onto her palm. Anger flared hot for a moment, then melted just as suddenly into despair. Neither emotion would help her. She was lost in an unforgiving sea. There was no way to escape the glares from around the room, and the one person who had given her comfort during these past days of upheaval was now a stranger to her.
Tears threatened, and she used every trick she could to hold them back, resorting to digging her nails into the inside of her elbow until she could focus on the external pain a little more than the internal.
The first course began, and chatter resumed around the room. The soup set before her was completely foreign. The stunning silverware of her place setting offered four spoons. Jasminda took a deep breath and clasped her hands together, darting glances around the table. The woman next to her had already chosen a spoon, and Jasminda couldn’t see from her position which one it had been.