Bring Me Their Hearts(52)

I’ve made her angry again. This seems to be a trend. I follow her, pausing at the painting of Lord Y’shennria.

“You’ve got a beautiful wife, sir,” I murmur. “But she’s awfully stubborn.”

His wry, handsome smile seems to say, As equally as you.

I toy with the red ribbons woven in my fishtail braids as the carriage drives. The lack of a sword at my hip eats away at me, but Y’shennria insisted weapons were forbidden during a banquet.

“Have you told Lady Himintell what I am?” I ask Y’shennria. She quirks a perfectly sculpted brow.

“Do you think me mad? As far as she’s concerned, you’re a farmer girl I’ve hired to pose as my niece to steal the prince’s heart. Figuratively, of course.”

“So she thinks you just want to raise the Y’shennria family to power by making me queen.”

“Precisely.”

There’s a beat in which the sunbirds cry to one another, forlorn and melodious.

“Why didn’t you? Hire a farm girl, I mean.”

“Because you can’t control a farm girl.” Y’shennria exhales like I’m asking the simplest question in the world. “Humans are…unpredictable. Unreliable. They become blinded. They can fall in love—it doesn’t matter with what—noble boys, lovely dresses, power, luxury. A Heartless only ever burns for one thing—their own heart. And those who burn don’t easily blind.”

For some strange reason, that moment Lucien “saved” me flashes through my mind. The weight of him against me, the feel of his warm breath on my skin; it blew every thought of taking his heart out of my head. I was blind then—blind to anything but him.

He’s nothing but a means to an end, the hunger hisses.

As we arrive at the palace, the facade of whitestone absorbs the blaze of the peach sunset, setting it aflame. Y’shennria leads me through the doors and into the main hall, the water beneath the floor ruby-laced with sunset beams. The hall is crowded with extravagantly dressed nobles, clothes of mauve and emerald green and seastorm blue, gold and silver threads so entwined and delicate it looks as if the fabrics just sprouted them naturally. I’m nearly blinded by the flashes of the sunset off their precious gems—the nobles clearly saved their best dresses and baubles for tonight. On the opposite spectrum are the modestly dressed servants in black, offering wine and iced fruit on silver trays.

“Why is everyone waiting?” I ask Y’shennria.

“The dinner is still being prepared,” she explains. “And lingering in the hall is a type of…tradition. We gather here and watch one another filter in, critique everyone’s presentation.”

I groan. “That sounds riveting.”

“It’s more for the adults. Not much else is expected of you other than to sit there and look beautiful.”

“Do I? Look beautiful?” I bat my eyelashes at her as a joke, but her face remains serious as ever.

“Very much so.”

I’m taken aback by the sincerity in her words, but before I can say anything she disappears into the crowd. Knowing her, she’d just been stating a fact. Seawhisper said it herself; I’m the prince’s type. That’s why they chose me in the first place.

I exhale and lean against a marble pillar in a less busy spot of the bustling hall. If everything goes as planned, the prince will develop real feelings for me, feelings enough to blind him to his own safety. But how genuine can his feelings be, if my entire personality is faked? If I’m just carefully curated bait in a steel trap?

I shake my head and take a wine flute from a passing tray. Why do I care? If I deceive him, then I win this awful game. And winning is all that matters. What happens after the facade breaks is none of my business.

And yet some tiny voice in me chimes up, hoping the prince—no, Whisper—will be smart enough to not fall for me. Whisper is a thief, and I know a thief’s instincts. He can’t go soft, lose his cloak of wariness. If he does, I’ll be disappointed.

If he does, he loses his humanity.

A laugh born of despair works up to my wine-stained lips. “I really am a monster, aren’t I?”

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable in my own skin, convinced every person here can tell how selfish I am just from a glance, I walk out of the hall to the west wing. At least I think it’s the west wing. Y’shennria had me study the palace layout, but it’d been so huge and my lesson so brief I’ve forgotten it already. I let my feet wander; the farther I get from the nobles and their chattering, the easier I can breathe. That’s all I want—to get away, to be anywhere but here. The wine buzzes through my veins pleasantly as I waltz the vast, rich, and yet nigh-empty hallways, and I wonder back to Reginall for a moment; did he and the other Heartless drink during the war? It’s one of the few human things still left to us. I’m willing to bet they got drunk every night, so drunk they’d forget the blood they’d spilled that day.

I trace my own cheekbones, where blood tears would be by now if this wine was anything else. A celeon guard watches me from his post before a door, his violet eyes narrowed slightly.

“Good evening, sir.” I smile at him. “How are you faring tonight?”

The celeon grunts, the tentacle-like protrusions of his whiskers twitching. “Just fine, milady.”