"Damn," she muttered under her breath. Part of her wanted to turn, and leave. But she stood her ground. The emperor knew who she was. She'd been approved to attend the ball. And she knew she had done nothing wrong.
Still, she hoped the Ashmeiser might fail to recognize her.
No such luck. The man had no sooner straightened from his bow to the emperor and empress, his robes still settling back into their elaborate folds, when he caught sight of Imogene and raised a blond brow. He looked from her to Jean-Paul and then moved to join them.
"Lieutenant...Caravalle?" he said, pausing before them.
She curtsied. "My lord Ashmeiser. It's Lieutenant Carvelle."
"Close," he replied. He had unusual eyes for an Andalyssian—the color of frosted water. A light blue gray that held no hint of human warmth. "Illvyan names sound similar to my ears. You will forgive my poor grasp of your language."
His grasp of Illvyan was excellent. She knew that from experience. Still, she managed to drag the Andalyssian equivalent of "No need to apologize" from the depths of her memory.
The words only gained her another assessing look. "You are keeping exalted company, Lieutenant. You are not on duty, I think?" He turned to Jean-Paul. "Are you and the lieutenant friends, my lord?"
"We are," Jean-Paul said firmly. "I thought your delegation had decided to rest tonight rather than attend the ball, my lord."
He sounded somewhat exasperated to Imogene’s ear. And not bothering to take much care to hide it. She tried to gather her thoughts, to pivot from meeting the empress to being the diplomat she was learning to be. But the Ashmeiser's robes carried that faint mossy salt-smoke aroma she associated with their court. Here in Illvya it seemed even earthier. Almost...unpleasant. The storm of memories it conjured threw her off her stride.
"We changed our minds," the Ashmeiser said. "We have been finding your balls so entertaining, after all, my lord. It is helpful to learn of the traditions of Illvya more thoroughly so we can use that knowledge to build a bridge more strongly between our two countries.”
Imogene doubted the Ashmeiser had ever found a ball entertaining in his life. No, he seemed more like the type who might take pleasure in dissecting some small helpless furry animal. Or an enemy. The back of her neck crawled as the smoke filled her nostrils. If they hadn't been invited to join the ball, why had they? It was somewhat rude. For one thing, the servants would be scrambling now behind the scenes to make sure the arrangements for the supper that would be served later included options for the Andalyssians. Not to mention redoing most of the seating order.
She could only hope she was seated away from the Andalyssians. Because the smoke smell of the Ashmeiser was making her stomach roll.
Thankfully the Ashmeiser turned back to join the rest of his countrymen. Imogene caught the empress's eyes, and Liane grimaced behind the Ashmeiser's back, the expression so fleeting, Imogene thought she might have imagined it. Apparently she wasn't the only one who disliked Andalyssians. A comforting thought.
She looked up at Jean-Paul. He was watching the Andalyssians, paying attention to their interactions. She had to learn to enjoy this, she realized. If she married Jean-Paul and joined the court, she had to find meaning in the politics, a way to work for good with it, or she would go mad. Perhaps a start would be to view tonight as an exercise the tutors in the Diplomatic Corps had set her to study. How to meet an emperor, the embodiment of an old failure, and your future father-in-law all in one night, and emerge unscathed.
She rather thought that seemed an unfair degree of difficulty for one night. But there she was. Still smelling smoke and ash, still not ready to meet the Duq of Saint-Pierre and somehow manage to convince him she would be a good match for her son.
But then Jean-Paul looked back down at her and smiled, and she remembered why she was doing this. Which made her want to roll her eyes at herself even as she acknowledged the emotion.
"Would you like to dance again before I find my father?" Jean-Paul murmured. "Encounters with the Ashmeiser require a palate cleanser, I find. Normally I would choose ilvsoir, but it's early in the evening to start drinking hard liquor." He smiled again. "Besides, you are far more intoxicating than ilvsoir in that dress."
As he was intoxicating in his evening clothes. But she wouldn't have said no to a slug of the sharp sweetness of ilvsoir to take the sting of smoke out of her throat either. Why was it lingering? The Ashmeiser really hadn't smelled so strongly of it.
A memory twinged. A religious service in Deephilm. Priests of earth performing magic and ritual she hadn't understood. She'd tried to watch what they were doing, but the power was blurry to her eyes, half hidden in fog. But she remembered how sharp the taste of ash had been in her throat as they’d worked their rite.
Wait.
She swung back toward the Ashmeiser, opened her eyes to the magic, reaching for the ley line beneath the palace. The Ashmeiser blurred before her eyes, as though there was a veil of smoke around him. Was he using magic? Here, so close to the emperor?
Even as she watched, he stretched an arm toward Aristides, hand held at a peculiar angle.
"Stop!" Imogene yelled, fear spiking through her. And before she could even form the next thought, Ikarus appeared, wrapping one large hand around the Ashmeiser's arm and dragging him away from the emperor.
Everything dissolved into chaos. Guards appeared from every angle. People started yelling, the Ashmeiser one of them. The emperor, she noticed, had moved first to put himself between the empress and the rest of the room, though his gaze was on the Andalyssians. Other than that, the details grew distance as she stared at Ikarus, feeling as though she was witnessing something not quite real.
Until Jean-Paul said, "Imogene, could you ask Ikarus to let the Ashmeiser go, please."
As she did so and Ikarus vanished from sight, everyone turned and began shouting at her.