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"I haven't told anyone but you," he added unexpectedly
There was no dissembling in the expression she felt come over her face at thatBut over and above everything else there was something new inside her with these tidingsShe badly needed to be alone to thinkShe wouldn't get that chance for a long time yet today; best to push his story as far back as she could, with all the other things she was always pushing to the edges of her mind
"Thank you, my lord," she murmured, aware that they had been talking privately for some timeAware, as ever, of how that would be construed
"In the meantime," Brandin suddenly said, in a quite different tone, "you still have not yet asked me how I did on the runSolores, I have to tell you, made it her first question
Which carried them back to familiar ground
"Very well," she said, feigning indifferenceHalfway? Three-quarters?"
A glint of royal indignation nickered in buy chloe paddington handbag the grey eyes"You are presumptuous sometimes," he said"I indulge you too muchI went, if you please, all the way to the summit and came down again this morning with a cluster of sonrai berriesI will be extremely interested to see if any of tomorrow's runners are up and down as quickly
"Well," she said quickly, unwisely, "they won't have sorcery to help them
"Dianora, have done!"
And that tone she recognized and knew she'd gone too farAs always at such moments she had a dizzying sense of a pit gaping at her feet
She knew what Brandin needed from her; she knew the reason he granted her license to be outrageous and impertinentShe had long understood why the wit and edge she brought to their exchanges were important to himShe was his counterbalance to Solores's soft, unquestioning, undemanding shelterThe two of them, in turn, balancing d'Eymon's ascetic exercise of politics and government
And all chanel large black and white tote bag three of them in orbit around the star that Brandin wasThe voluntarily exiled sun, removed from the heavens it knew, from the lands and seas and people, bound to this alien peninsula by loss and grief and revenge decreedShe knew the King very wellHer life depended on thatShe did not often stray across the line that was always there, invisible but inviolateWhen she did it was likely to be over something as apparently trivial as thisIt was such a paradox for her how he could shrug off or laugh at or even invite her caustic commentary on court and colony, and yet bridle like a boy with affronted pride if she teased about his ability to run up and down a mountain in a morning
At such times he had only to say her name in a certain way and endless chasms opened before her in the delicately inlaid floor of the Audience Chamber
She was a captive here, more slave than courtesan, at the court of a TyrantShe omega constellation was also an impostor, living an ongoing lie while her country slowly died away from the memories of menAnd she had sworn to kill this man, whose glance across a room was as wildfire on her skin or amber wine in her mortal blood
Chasms, everywhere she turned
And now this morning he had seen a riselkaHe, and very possibly a second man as wellFighting back her fear she forced herself to shrug casually, to arch her eyebrows above a face schooled to bland unconcern
"This amuses me," she said, reaching for self-possession, knowing precisely what his need in her was, even now"You profess to be pleased, even touched, by Solores's doubtlessly agitated query about your mountain runThe first thing she asked, you sayHow she must have wondered whether or not you succeeded! And yet when I, knowing as surely as I know my own name that you were up on the summit this morning, treat it lightly, as something small, gucci ladies watch never in doubt why then the King grows angryHe bids me sternly to have done! But tell me, my lord, in all fairness, which of us, truly, has honored you more?"
For a long time he was silent and she knew that the court would be avidly marking the expression on his faceFor the moment she cared nothing for themOr even for her past, or his encounter on the mountainsideThere was one specific chasm here that began and ended in the depths of the grey eyes that were now searching her own
When he spoke it was in a different voice again, but this tone she happened to know exceedingly well and, in spite of everything that had just been said, and in spite of where they were and who was watching them, she felt herself go weak suddenlyHer legs trembled, but not with fear now
"I could take you," said Brandin, King of Ygrath, thickly, his face flushed, "on the floor of this room right now before all of my gathered copy mulberry handbag cou |
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