The Chosen One (The First Book)

Chapter 19

The palace went on doing what it does.

Nobody spoke to me about the north. Whatever had happened in that gallery had happened between two people in an empty corridor, and the palace had no idea, and I found I did not want it to.

They pour the southern wine at dinner. It is sweet the way syrup is sweet, and it stays on your teeth afterward. I drank it the first night because everyone else did. I have not finished a glass since.

Somewhere between the fish and whatever followed the fish, a servant took my glass away and put down a different one.

I had not asked for anything. Nobody had spoken to him in front of me.

I tried it. Dry, cold, and it tasted like something that had been a grape instead of a sweet.

I looked down at the table. The Queen was talking. Julian was making Rosalie laugh.

Cassian was already looking at me. Just long enough to see whether I had drunk it.

The meal ended. Chairs went back. The room began the long business of leaving in the correct order.

He stopped beside my chair on his way out.

"Was that you?"

"The Verrian is drier."

"Everyone else drinks the southern."

"Everyone else is being polite." A beat. "You never finish it."

He was moving again before I had anything to put against that, and by the time I did, he was four seats down and being spoken to by his mother.

Twenty days of full glasses. He sits at the other end of a table long enough to lose a person.

Eliza would have said something clever about it. I did not tell Eliza.

⸻

I did not sleep.

I lay there and thought about a glass, which is a stupid thing to lie awake over.

Twenty days. A man at the far end of a long table had been keeping count of what I did not drink, and tonight he had done something about it without asking me first.

Nobody has ever watched me like that.

I got up and went down to the east garden.

I sat on the edge of it and put my hand in the water. It was cold enough to hurt. I left it there anyway.

At home the nights are louder than this. Wind, dogs, something in the hen house that always turns out to be nothing. Here the loudest thing is a fountain that somebody built to be quiet.

I do not know how long I sat there. Long enough that my hand stopped feeling like mine.

Then, at the edge of my eye, something moved.

They were past the second hedge, on the bench where the path turns. The fountain was between us, so they had not heard me.

Eliza's back was against the stone arm of it. Julian had one knee up on the bench beside her hip, and he was kissing her.

He worked down. Her jaw, then under it, then her throat. Her head went back against the stone. One of her hands was in his hair. The other was flat on his chest.

He got the shoulder of her dress down without appearing to have used his hands for it. Then the other one.

I looked for four seconds. I know because I have counted it since, over and over, in the dark.

I could not make myself stop.

My body had gone somewhere ahead of my head, the same way it did through the wall, and there was no wall this time and nothing between us but water.

He lifted his head.

Not because he had heard me. Because he had known for a second or two already, the way animals know.

He looked straight at me through the dark.

He didn’t stop. He didn’t flinch. He held my gaze across the garden. A slow, subtle amusement curled into the corner of his mouth, even as his tongue continued to stroke Eliza’s skin.

He knew I was there. He knew I was watching. And he didn’t care.

My breath hitched. I jerked my gaze away, staring at the mossy ground near my feet. But my curiosity was pulling me back. I looked up again.

Julian was still watching me. He had slowed the movement, making it languid and deliberate, a performance meant for an audience of one. He smiled against Eliza’s breasts, a small, knowing smirk that acknowledged my presence.

He pulled away from Eliza, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He stood up slowly, adjusting his cuffs, and turned toward me. Eliza slumped against the hedge, her chest heaving, her skirt still bunched around her waist, looking dazed.

Julian walked across the garden with an easy, predatory grace. The gravel crunched under his boots, loud in the silence. He stopped a few feet from the fountain, looking down at me where I sat.

"Trouble sleeping?" he asked. His voice was rougher than usual. I stood up.

"The air was stifling inside," I said, my voice steady despite the racing of my heart.

"I needed some air."

Julian tilted his head, his eyes roaming over her face. "Some air," he repeated. He stepped closer, invading my personal space.

"At this hour?"

"I was sitting by the fountain," I corrected, taking a half-step back. The rim of the fountain pressed against the back of my legs.

"I didn't see anything."

He smiled.

"You saw enough." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper, dragging his thumb across his lower lip in a way I refuse to describe further.

"That's what eyes are for."

"I was leaving."

"Why?"

"Because I was sitting alone in a garden, and then I wasn't."

That made him laugh quietly.

He stepped closer, just enough to make me stop.

"You didn't leave when you saw us."

"I was surprised."

"That must be it."

His hand lifted, but he stopped before touching me. His fingers hovered beside my face for a moment before falling again.

Behind him, Eliza had stood.

She was fixing the shoulder of her dress.

He looked pleased.

Eliza looked less so.

"Go back to her," I said.

His eyes flicked toward Eliza and then returned to mine.

"She'll still be there."

I moved to step around him, but he shifted, blocking my path. He wasn't threatening, just playful, enjoying the game.

"Don't run off on my account," he said. "Eliza doesn't mind. Do you, Eliza?"

He looked at me a moment longer. Then he leaned in, just enough that I could feel him say it.

Eliza was still beside him.

I looked at her.

He got a little closer, leaving Eliza behind him once more.

"You always run when things get interesting."

"I don't think this is interesting."

"No?"

Eliza made a small sound behind him.

"Julian."

He turned his head.

"We should go." She whined.

"Should we?" Julian said softly. "Another time, perhaps,"

Eliza's expression changed.

Only slightly.

But I saw it.

Then he stepped back, made me the smallest bow I have ever received, and went back down the path.

He said something to Eliza I could not hear. She laughed.

She was still looking at me while she did it.