Hundreds of voices echoed the toast, and each one carried a different poison — jealousy, admiration, fury, desire, calculation, fear — and Jolthar stood on the dais and drank with them, and his smile did not waver, and his hand did not shake, and somewhere in the storm of his mind, the voice of Asurani whispered something that might have been a warning or might have been laughter.
-
The feast continued.
The sixth course came and went. The seventh. The eighth. Desserts of honeyed figs and rosewater ice and cardamom custard in golden bowls.
The string ensemble played. The wine flowed. The conversations resumed — quieter now, sharper, every whisper a dagger, every smile a calculation, the entire hall rewiring its allegiances around the single, seismic fact that the new Count of Tekkora was now bound to the Imperial House by two marriages.
Selma returned to the east tables and sat beside her mother in silence.
