The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(22)

“It’s sweet,” she said.



Two hours later, the wine’s sweetness had gone sick and sour in Min’s belly. The feast was in full swing: a raucous dance circle had formed at the center of the floor with Lu and her nunas at its center. Min’s own handmaidens had left her side to join in, whooping and cheering loud as anyone. None of them noticed Min slip away.

The rain had ended, and the central gardens were eerily still but for the drip of water off the trees. Most of the servants had been reassigned to duties at the feast, and those that hadn’t had likely slipped off duty to watch the dancing. Min was grateful for their negligence, scuffing her way down an empty covered walkway. The night air was cool against her skin, perfumed with jasmine and citrus and wisteria. Blissfully quiet. At this distance, the stomping cacophony of the feast was muted. Big, but soft. Like the roar of the ocean.

The covered walkway ended at the Courtyard of Prayers, at the center of which stood the Gray Temple. The building had been abandoned since shortly before Min was born, but before then it had briefly housed the last order of Yunian shamanesses—hostages of the empire following the Gray City’s surrender of the Gray War. They had been Yunis’s best beloved, the most powerful and secretive wielders of northern magic, if the stories were to be believed.

But they had been an uneasy feature in the court of the empire, regarded as foxes in a henhouse. It had been only a matter of time until those suspicions had calcified to accusations; they were executed scarcely a year after their arrival.

Min shivered. As children her nunas had whispered the temple was haunted. Even now many of them would not walk by it without a whispered prayer of protection. When Min had mentioned it to Lu, however, her sister had just scoffed that nunas could be as ignorant as peasants sometimes.

It’s just an old building, Min told herself. Whatever magic the shamanesses had brought with them from Yunis had died along with them. And she was a grown woman now, too old to be frightened by ghost tales.

She hurried through the courtyard, though, slowing only when she reached the next covered path. It was lit by an overhead string of lanterns, but these were easily outshone by the full moon. She looked up at it, flinching at the toll the movement took. The world heaved around her, and she closed her eyes against it. Perhaps she’d had too much to drink.

“It’s not like I’ve never had wine before,” Min grumbled to herself. She had had a cup at her father’s last birthday celebration. Nearly a whole cup. “At least half,” she continued. “It’s hardly—oh!”

Her voice broke off as a figure emerged from a stand of well-trained willows up ahead and stepped onto the path. As it turned toward her, she recognized Set.

He stopped when he saw her, taking an apprehensive step backward. The odd crystal he wore around his neck caught a ray from the full moon and flared, hot and white. Min flinched, instinctively covering her eyes.

The light burned so strong it blanched the world. It seemed to bleed past the boundaries of sight and became a sound—a high, clear note like the ringing of a glass bell so deafening she could scarcely hear the ordinary world. The merriment of the feast carrying across the courtyard, vulgar by contrast, went mute.

As abruptly as it had appeared, the light winked out. Its song stopped as well, abrupt as a slamming door.

She moved the hand from her eyes and saw Set was walking toward her, brushing stray drops of rainwater from his shoulders.

“Good evening, Small Princess. I did not expect to see you here.” His voice was cheerful, but she sensed it was forced.

“I . . . ,” she hesitated, then curtsied. “Good evening, cousin.”

The world seemed so ordinary. Had she imagined the way his necklace had caught the light? An effect of the wine, probably. Drunkenness. That was all. The thought left her oddly bereft.

“What is the Small Princess doing, wandering so far from a court feast on her own?” Set asked.

Min’s heart dipped. Would he tell her mother he had found her wandering? Well, so what if he did? She was allowed to walk. Min hesitated before saying, “I felt faint, cousin. I did not wish to disturb the other guests on such a joyous—” her voice dropped off as she remembered that in fact, the day had been less than joyous for him.

He did not seem to register her folly, just nodded. “I am sorry to hear you are unwell. Allow me to accompany you back to the feast, so you might fetch your nunas. It does not do for a young girl to make her way in the dark alone . . .”

He is trying to get rid of me. Like she was some dumb child.

“No, I just . . . I wanted to tell you—” The words surged from Min’s mouth before she could stop them. As though to chase after them, she took a step forward, then tripped. These damned pot-bottomed shoes.

But the ground rushed up toward her, and there was no time to explain. Then one of Set’s hands was there, catching her own. His was warm and steady. He put the other on her waist, bracing her.

“The stones are wet. From the rain,” she blurted. Set had removed his hand from her waist, but the other was still wrapped securely about her own. Her fingers were curled tightly about his. She did not remember doing that. “The shoes . . .”

“I think you mean ‘the wine,’” he said. Min reddened, but when she looked up she saw he was smiling, and not unkindly.

“Forgive me. A joke,” he said, releasing her hand. He stood with his arms akimbo, regarding her. “Now. What was so important that you should throw yourself to the ground in your haste to say it?”