Delora looked at Jaenelle Saetien—and smiled. Even powerful men could be trained to make the preferred choice in order to quiet rebellion and have some peace in their home. He might be powerful and dangerous, but the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan was still a man and a father. In her experience, very few fathers had enough spine to resist becoming putty in a daughter’s skillful hands.
As for Yaslana, he might be a rube, but he had a savage reputation as a warrior and, therefore, couldn’t be completely dismissed as insignificant to her ambitions—especially when there was a connection between those two men.
What they needed was a little test.
Delora gave Hespera the slightest nudge to make sure she’d be watching. “Leena, walk across the green like you’re heading for the book exchange. Wave at Jaenelle Saetien and keep going.”
“Why?” Leena asked.
Delora gave Leena the smile other girls recognized—and feared. “Because I want you to.”
While the other girls and the three boys who were the core of their male companions stepped back into the shadows, Leena hurried across the green. When she came abreast of Prince Sadi and his pack of coattail relatives, she looked over and waved.
Jaenelle Saetien waved back, looking desperately embarrassed to be seen with her family, such as it was.
But every damn male in that group, including the younger boy, focused on Leena with a predator’s interest. So did the woman Delora assumed was Jaenelle Saetien’s mother.
No wonder the girl was so desperate to get away from all of them!
Well, she could help with that. She certainly could.
Delora studied the adult males. One Warlord Prince paying attention was dangerous. Two?
They were going to have to scatter that focus, crack that unity.
Time enough to do that once the adults had gone home.
Jaenelle Saetien wanted to sink into the ground, embarrassed beyond words that Leena, one of the girls who was in Delora and Hespera’s exclusive group of friends, had seen her parents taking her to her room. How humiliating was that?
“I’m not a baby,” she said. “I can find my own room.”
“Humor me,” her father said. “And if you don’t want to humor your father, humor the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan—who outranks you.”
She bristled at the reminder that a condition of her being at this school was following the rules with regard to caste and Jewel rank. At home, she could argue with her father. In public, she now had to address him as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan—and a man who wore Black Jewels.
“Go on, then, if that’s what you need to do,” he said quietly. “I won’t call you to task for a lack of manners.” He turned away from whatever had held his attention and looked her in the eyes. “This time.”
She heard the warning, and she wanted to say it wasn’t him, not really him, that she wanted to get away from. But couldn’t Uncle Lucivar have dressed a little better? Couldn’t Daemonar? Did they have to look like they’d just come in from a patrol? And did they have to look around like they’d never seen a school or a real building?
She reined in the desire to bolt. “Thank you, Father. I appreciate your understanding.”
His smile held sharp amusement, but all he said was, “Lady,” which was permission for her to leave.
She walked quickly, tempted to run, but running would have raised questions. Or not.
She didn’t want them asking questions, so why did it make her heart hurt to think they might not ask?
She found her room. The bed was made; the clothes were hung or neatly placed in drawers. The desk was empty except for the long list of books and materials she needed to purchase and a piece of paper—a note from her father with the amount of credit available for her use at the book exchange so that she wouldn’t have to worry about buying her books or other school supplies.
It was a generous amount, but it was restricted to whatever could be purchased at the book exchange. It wasn’t the open credit line the other girls had that could be used in all the shops in Amdarh.
It didn’t matter that her father put spending money into an account every quarter and let her use the money for anything she pleased. Restricting this credit line to the book exchange was just another way of him telling her she was still a little girl playing at being a grown-up.
When they had talked during an afternoon picnic this summer, Delora had expressed a concern that Jaenelle Saetien’s father was refusing to see his daughter as an emerging adult, as a woman coming into her own. They had discussed the school and the best way to convince her parents to let her attend, and what she needed to have in order to fit in. They’d talked about rules and parents and all kinds of things. In a moment that was part bitchy and part worried embarrassment that the other students would find out, she’d told Delora about her father having “mental days” and how, even after years and years, he still required special healing and isolation.
Delora had sworn not to tell anyone, had even suggested referring to it as his having a funny turn because there was someone in every family who had a funny turn now and then, and no one would think it was serious. And no one would wonder what was involved in this “special healing.”
Jaenelle Saetien looked around her room and sighed. She’d have to go down to the book exchange all by herself and pick up all those books and supplies. It didn’t matter that she could use Craft to vanish the books and call them back in when she returned to her room. Someone should have offered to help her. They would be helping Titian settle in and buy her supplies.
But you didn’t want their help.
Which wasn’t the point. Or was it the point?
She felt like she couldn’t breathe at the Hall. It was too big—and not big enough. Her father was so important but rarely acted important. And her mother! Mannish in her manners and dress. That was what Hespera and Borsala told her people said about Surreal. Was it any wonder that her father slept alone so many nights or went to Ebon Rih for the “special healing”?
Oh, he still had times when it was obvious that he wasn’t quite right, but he was always more relaxed after spending a couple of days in Ebon Rih, and now that her sophisticated friends had made a few observations about what men and women did together, she wondered if they were right when they hinted about what sort of healing could make him relax that way.
It certainly wasn’t anything her mother was doing.
But it was more than that. It was her name that had begun to chafe because it was a constant reminder of the most important woman in her father’s life—a witch who was all things wonderful and never ever did anything wrong and was so perfect, it made her want to puke.
Not that anyone at the Hall or in Halaway said anything about the Queen who had been her father’s first wife. Not to her, anyway. But because of the name, they made the comparison—and found her wanting. As long as she lived where the Queen had lived, she would be found wanting.
Maybe she didn’t know who she was or who she wanted to be. But the one thing she did know, and the biggest reason why she wanted to get away from the family and attend this school and be with these new friends, was she was sick and tired of being compared to Jaenelle Angelline.