Page 55 of Tides of Shadows

I sighed. I felt as if someone had placed a stone on my chest. As if I couldn’t breathe.

“A few times.” One time too many. My heart clenched with pain.

“That kind of power...” he stared at his hands. “It truly can control the realms”

Only now was he beginning to realize how much element slept within him. Before, he’d always doubted it. It had been just a small flame, barely noticeable. But now. I could feel Aidenar’s power constantly, as if something had opened in him today. It pulsed in the air around him, ready to explode.

Aidenar touched his cheek.

“Why does my face hurt?” he frowned. “Did you smack me?”

“I had no choice.”

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, “Did you like it?”

Chapter

16

Time moved without mercy, and the Gathering would soon draw to its close. I needed more shipping deals. I would not lean only upon Aidenar and his Family, that was the last thing I desired. I needed more contracts to raise our trade from its knees. The coins set aside to keep all of us in White City dwindled. The palace covered a portion of the cost, but I longed to stand apart and pay my people what they deserved.

I was my father’s daughter, Victor Veymaris’s child. I had not inherited his cold reckonings, however I had taken his ambition and his iron will. So, I decided to try my luck in a house of play, where fortune changes masters every night. In Thalrock I often spent my evenings in taverns, playing cards with sailors and shipmasters. I gambled no worse than a seasoned player. I usually benefited from my opponents dismissing me as a harmless girl.

Roderick had said that Marcus de Vris, one of the greatest traders in White City, was unreachable to normal people. Except he was a regular at the Black Lily - the house of play and sin. If there was a narrow chance to catch him, it would be there.

I had no intention of bowing to his guards, asking for an audience, or waiting for his mercy. If Marcus held a weakness, I meant to set a hook in it and take the old road to do so.

I dressed in a close-fitting black suit that marked my figure. I opened the neckline farther than I wished, near to my navel, and every inch of bare skin felt a betrayal of myself. Desperate days called for desperate measures. I bound my hair high, and a few red strands fell against my face, lending me a hunter’s edge. In the mirror I saw a woman whose smile promised and whose gaze warned. I even added some blush, that I borrowed from Mirabel, to my pale cheeks. I had never seen myself like that.

“Who would have thought it would come to this,” I murmured to my reflection, and then I went.

The Black Lily was a house of sin, where rich merchants, lords, and gamblers forgot their morals faster than they forgot their wives. Golden lamps cast warm light across black marble floors, the smoke of pipes drifted beneath the ceiling, and laughter tangled with curses and the chime of coins. Roderick walked at my side, dressed in stern simplicity, like a grim guardian sent to keep me from drowning in that river of temptations. He kept his counsel, I kept mine, yet I felt his gaze sweep the hall for threats.

We stepped into the great room.

Marcus de Vris sat at a card table, sprawled like a king among vassals. A heavy sapphire ring burned upon his finger, a wine cup stood beside a mound of coins. He wore the face of a man who had seen too much and purchased more. His gaze slid over every woman in the hall like a hand across velvet. My body drew taut. Time to enter the game. I let my fingers drift across the cloth of my suit, set it just so, and moved toward the table.

“Wish me luck,” I cast over my shoulder to Roderick.

“I would rather wish you prudence, my Lady,” he muttered.

But I no longer listened. As a man rose from the ebony table, I noticed the other player. None other than Aidenar Cavareth. He lounged there, careless, with his white shirt unlaced, rolled up sleeves, and a cup in his hand. The smile he wore was the very one he chose whenever he wished to rouse my temper, a lazy show that hid something sharper beneath. His silver eyes flashed when he beheld me. Surprise cut his face for a moment, then he smoothed it and revealed nothing. His presence did not help me. For a breath I could not tear my gaze from his chest, from his hands turning the stem of the cup. I gathered myself. I had not come here to fantasize.

Marcus lifted his head when I stepped into the lamplight. His eyes gleamed, first with surprise, then with interest.

“What a wonderful surprise,” he drawled, setting his cards aside. “A red-haired siren among sharks.”

I smiled, though I longed to scoff. “Perhaps I came to hunt the sharks.”

Marcus laughed low and motioned me to a chair. A seat opened, for a merchant cursed and vanished into the crowd. Before I could pull the chair back, a girl tried to settle herself upon Aidenar’s knees. Her hands wandered across his chest. He caught her wrist and set her aside, light as if she weighed nothing.

“Not tonight, sweetheart. Seek some soul in need of comfort. I have my diversion for tonight.” He did not spare her a glance. He looked only at me.

The play began.

Three pairs of hands, mine, Aidenar’s, and Marcus’s, drew cards and tossed coins to the middle of the table. The stakes climbed with each round, and with them the strain. My purse grew lighter, my pulse quickened.

I won the first hand. The second went foul, and Marcus raked my coins away. The next few games were a dance upon a knife’s edge, sometimes better, sometimes worse, and ever the wagers rose.