searching first?” I said brusquely. With my apology to Ben given and his forgiveness pending, I was all about getting this back down to business. And getting somewhere where I could jerk my arm out of Kor’s.
But for the moment, he kept it firmly clamped down on his arm with his free hand, all the while smiling and nodding casually to everyone we passed in the corridors outside the feast hall.
“It’s only just sunset. You sure you don’t want to take a tour through the Moonmarket?” Kor said innocently. “Or the conservatory? It’s breathtaking this time of.…”
My glare finally silenced him. He sighed.
Sarah, try just a bit harder to pretend you are at least tolerating my presence. Or people are going to suspect you are with me for ulterior reasons.
I plastered a sweet smile on my face, comforting myself that it would make the words I spoke through my teeth all the more disconcerting.
Now that we were finally out of earshot of our tablemates, I hissed, “You knew this little escort business would upset Ben so much, didn’t you?”
Kor snorted. “Of course I did. I’m not an idiot. Even though he is.”
“Why? What does it mean?”
What did you persuade me to do to him? I thought with gritted teeth. But still, now more than ever, I refused to communicate silently to him.
He smirked at me. Some beautiful young woman, wearing my colors and going with me, as high-ranking as I am, to the Moonfair? Why, dear Sarah…that’s just one small step shy of an engagement. You have no idea the gossip we’ve just started.
He seemed to contemplate that last bit with relish.
I stared at him.
Then breathed, “I am going…to kill you.”
“But don’t you see?” Kor said innocently out loud.
Then silently added, That’s what made the disguise so perfect. Everyone knows the Moontouched Earthren is associated with Ben. So who this exotic, lovely stranger is that is tied so closely to me, they have no idea. I’ve just made you an entirely separate puzzle in their minds.
I smiled pleasantly as we passed a couple of Starkissed who did, indeed, openly stare with curiosity. But no suspicion.
Keeping my smile, I muttered to Kor, “I don’t torching care what the logic is. You knew it would hurt Ben.”
I thought, And you did it anyway—without explanation, in a way that was bound to make him assume the worst. For.…
“For his own good,” Kor said, smile fading. “You know why, Sarah.”
“No, no I don’t. This line, you never should have crossed,” I said flatly, glad we were getting far enough away from the crowds that only our guards were to be seen for the moment. “You will stop using me as a weapon against Ben now. In fact, you will stop hurting and endangering him ‘for his own good’ altogether. Or so help me, Kor.…”
His face and eyes were completely serious now. “Or what?”
I set my face to flint. “I will tell him that there’s a danger to him that you’re hiding from him.”
Kor’s eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply.
Then his eyes narrowed. “What…did Svyer tell you?”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t know how much of it is true. She clearly has some beef with you that I frankly tried hard not to let color my perception of you. But you’re not helping your case, Kor.”
There had been no one around except the guards for a minute or two now, and even they were keeping a respectful distance to let us sort out our little—gracious, from their stiff, professional looks, you’d think we were having a lovers’ spat.
Kor must have felt confident enough that trend would continue, because he stopped me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “What did she tell you, Sarah?”
The endangerment to Ben part hadn’t even come from my conversation with Svyer. But I wasn’t about to tell Kor that I apparently had the ability to eavesdrop on him.
I looked him in the eye. “She said you would do anything for power. That you betrayed your own brother for it.”
Kor stilled. His hands dropped. For the first time, he looked…utterly defenseless.
“Interesting,” he whispered.
“Is that true?” I demanded.
His lips twitched in a humorless smile, as brief as a snowflake. “True enough. Yes. Everyone knows that.”
I just stared at him, not knowing what to say next. He hadn’t denied it. And apparently what I’d thought of as a deep, dark secret was common knowledge.
So…what happened now?
The shutters over his vulnerability slowly closed. “What else did she say? I highly doubted she slandered my name with just the truth.”
“Er.…”
I was doubting myself and Svyer’s objectivity again. Besides, even if the rest of it were true, confessing even vague knowledge of his plotting to his face wasn’t exactly the smartest idea. Particularly with so few people around.
Even with all those guards.… Kor might just be dangerous enough to take them on.
And he was standing awfully close.
Kor’s face softened, his voice becoming gentle, persuasive. “Sarah, I know it is hard, that it feels like you are betraying a friend by telling me, but this is more important than you know. If she is trying to turn you against me.… I need to know what she said to you. Everything she said to you. For her own good.”
Big mistake.
I hardened again. “There you go again, thinking you know best. You know you can’t always—”
I cut off as I felt it grow—a pull.
“Sarah?” Kor said urgently.
I looked down the hall. It wasn’t the direction we had come from; it was ahead. But just to be sure.…
“Kor, where is Ben supposed to be right now?”
“Mingling with the feasters, then making his way through the Moonmarket to the pageant location to get ready,” he said impatiently. “Why?”
I pointed. “In that direction?”
“No,” Kor said slowly, pointing back the way we had come. “That way.”
“Well,” I said simply, keeping my finger up. “That’s a promising start to the evening. I may have just found our moongate.”
have been that easy. After following the pull’s direction as best as we could, we still were searching for a long, frustrating half-deken.
A very uncomfortable half-deken for me and for our guards when anyone passed by, because, for an excuse as to why Kor and I were wandering scarcely populated corridors alone together, Kor would usually give them something to gossip about later.
His methods seemed to depend on the range of interest of the passerby, with the least interested just seeing him whispering sweet nothings in my ear to the most curious woman getting a glimpse of him pressing me into a nook for a very convincing fake make-out session, complete with his body fully against mine and his hands and lips at my throat.
After that person left, I shoved Kor away and glared daggers at him. “Never. Do. That. Again.”
“It was completely necessary, trust me,” Kor said. “That was my second-great-aunt. If I hadn’t been extremely occupied, she would have stopped to interrogate us about the date for the heartbinding, and not taken no for an answer until we gave her one. Now you tell me: which would you have rather endured?”
He had me there. Torch him.
Of course, I wouldn’t have had to choose between fake make-outs or great-aunt interrogations if it weren’t for his fully conscious decision to get us into this mess.
If I didn’t know better, I would have said he was enjoying this. It almost made me think there was something to Svyer’s last, wildest accusation about him plotting to become my consort.
“I…hate you,” I said flatly, and stormed off to try another direction. And our long-suffering guards followed.
I didn’t know which guard reactions were the worst: the one who looked as if he would rather have been given any other assignment tonight, the two who had completely bland looks, or the three who were openly amused.
“You know,” I said at one point, looking sidelong at Kor. “There’s an easy solution to our puzzle. I could just surge to the gate.”
“You could,” Kor said grimly. “And if we get desperate, we can try that. But it’s not ideal.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“Think, Sarah. That wouldn’t tell us where the gate is. And to get back to us, you would have to go through it again, and who knows what might be lying in wait for you on the other side.”
“Oh. Right.”
“At the very least, we would hardly be better off than we started, because you most likely wouldn’t be able to describe to us where you are or how to get to you.”
“Right,” I said with a sigh.
Why did he always have to be so dang right?
About…not-people things.
At long last, at one dead end, my hands brushed something that began to glow, and the more I rubbed the wall over, as if wiping away nonexistent dust, the more lines glowed white, until finally a small door with a white tree was revealed.
“Yes,” I breathed, and I pressed my hand into the door.
It swung open, revealing a small, dark corridor.
I was about to step inside when Kor held out an arm to bar my way.
“Let me go first,” he said grimly. Then, without waiting for permission, he began walking cautiously down the corridor.
I shrugged. At this point, I was more than happy to let him spring any traps that might be waiting for us. In fact, I was hoping that my future-telling Moontouched ancestors had left a special surprise just for him.
No such luck. We walked down the corridor without incident and came into a plain, square room, and at the far end of it…
…was the gate, white lines glowing in the stone, with a white tree on its surface.
“Yes!” I cried, pumping my fist.
“That’s a gate?” I heard one of the guards behind us murmur as they filed into the room behind Kor and me.
“It is indeed.” Kor answered the rhetorical question with a wide, triumphant grin, his eyes never leaving the moongate.
Except to look at me, sharing in this moment.
And for that moment, just that moment, I trusted him. And forgave him. After seeing that same relief and joy that I felt in his own eyes.…
How could I not?
I approached the doors and put my hands on them. They took my power from me and, once I backed up, opened slowly, revealing the curtain of ice and the Inner Rim of my hold beyond.
“We did it,” I breathed.
And with surprisingly little danger and drama, too, I thought in bemusement.
Of course, even in my thoughts.…
I had to jinx us.
“We did indeed,” Kor said lightly. “And just in time, too.”
I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
He smirked. “You wanted to see Ben in the pageant, right?”
“Yeees?” I said, but suddenly, seeing the way he was looking at me…I was no longer so sure.
He hooked his arm in mine and winked. “Then close those doors of yours, and let’s go.”