Page 22 of Feralheart

The crowd applauded, calling out praise.

A young noblewoman clutched her chest. “Amazing!”

Fenian dismounted, moving like a man who’d never had to think about how to position his own body, as if every part of him had been calibrated for performance.

Did he realize what this performance cost the creature beneath him?

My palms prickled. I shoved my hands into my pockets, pressing my fingertips against the fine red lines that hadn’t quite faded.

The crowd left the stands, moving toward refreshment tables set up in the shade. Fenian remained beside Aristus, scratching along the beast’s jaw hinge. The dragon’s eyes half-closed and he rumbled, his nostrils releasing smoke.

Fenian murmured something too quiet to hear. His face stayed unreadable, but the gesture was tender. Real in a way the performance hadn’t been.

A dull ache spread beneath my skin.

A prince and heir to the throne, he must know what the runes did. Yet he still used them, making Aristus perform. Then he stood in the aftermath, soothing the pain he’d caused.

I wasn’t sure what to think of that. Cruelty I understood. Kindness as well. This was both at once, and it made my head hurt trying to sort which one mattered more.

Across the yard, Narlene passed with a tray, her eyes swollen from crying. The prince’s head turned. He watched her the whole distance of her walk, then said a few quiet words to his aide. The man slipped away and intercepted her by the wall, giving her a purse. She stiffened, but stuffed it into her pocket.

The prince had already turned back to his dragon.

Why would he notice a weeping kitchen woman at all, let alone give her coins? Perhaps he knew why her husband had been sent to the mines and wanted to help.

But did the elite ever help anyone?

I turned away and nearly collided with Overseer Nuant.

“The third performance ring needs raking,” he said. “Get to it.”

I grabbed equipment and hurried in that direction.

An hour later, I hauled two full water buckets through the stables to the rinse station. The buckets were heavy. My arms ached, and I hummed my mother’s tune under my breath for distraction.

I’d timed my route to avoid the main walkways, but a child darted in front of me. I stumbled.

One bucket slipped from my hand and fell to the floor, toppling over. Water splashed across the flagstones, spreading in a dark stain toward where an elite and an aide were exiting the arena.

Prince Fenian stopped, his left boot a hand's breadth from the water.

In the arena beyond, Aristus swung his head toward me, his nostrils flaring. The dragon lunged in this direction. Fenian lifted his hand and spoke in High Aurian. The sound slid under my skin the way a draft sneaks beneath a rickety door. Aristus halted, his wings half-spread, his body coiled. His pupils tracked my hands the way a bonewailer locks on a blood-scent. The fine lines across my palms burned.

This wasn’t aggression. He’d scented the wild dragon on me, though I wasn’t sure how he could when I’d bathed and washed my hands so many times they were chapped from the soap.

A groom grabbed Aristus’s harness and tried to redirect the beast.

“Sire,” he called out. “Shall I take him somewhere cool?”

Aristus leaned into the man’s grip, still straining toward me, tasting the air with the focus of a creature who’d found the day’s only interesting thing.

Fenian’s gray eyes dropped to my hand, still white-knuckled around the remaining bucket handle, catching the fine lines on my skin.

I stepped to the side. “Apologies, Sire.”

Fenian said nothing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a small crease forming between his brows. He really was pretty, and I was well aware that I should not be noticing such a thing.