Page 55 of To Dance with Death

“Eating is for pleasure alone, and left for those in the upper echelons. But enough of that. Please, won’t you sit?”

I oblige, sliding into the chair across from him.

Despite the hunger gnawing at my insides, I feel too awkward to eat. Anton leans back, observing me, with an oddly pensive look. It makes my neck itch.

“Why invite me to dine with you, Your Majesty?”

“You were a dancer. You must have been, with your skill. Where did you train?”

“Miridran, Sire.” I’m half surprised my tongue doesn’t wither at my attempt to reveal that part of my past.

“And yet you are not really Miridranian,” he says, leaning forward to steeple his ring-clad fingers.

I blink at him. Had he overheard that, too? Or had something I said given that away? I reach for a pastry, if only to give my hands something to do. “No, Sire. I am not.”

“Can you stop saying ‘Sire’?”

“No, Sire. Why are you volleying questions at me?”

“Because I am a king and can do what I want.”

“As you feel the need to keep reminding me. It makes me wonder: Are youreallya king, here, Sire?” I keep my gaze impassive.

“Considering I sit on a throne and dole out judgment, I’d say so. Tell me about your childhood.” When I lift an inquisitive brow, he says, “I want to understand whatreallykeeps you in the Abyssal every waking hour, save for when you dance for me. I do not believe that you are searching merely for your stepmother. You are hiding something.”

I’m very good at reading people. Let’s call it a special talent.

My spine locks, but I force it to relax, cursing Sundar in my mind. I knew Anton was going to suspect something, just as he had at the Gathering. And I can’t have him catching on—not when heis unable to hear the truth and not when his allegiance lies with Moranya. Not when he might cast me out because of it.

But I can’t falter beneath his surveillance, so I straighten, collecting my flute. “I love her. Why is it so difficult to believe I’d search every corner of this world until I find her?”

He merely scoffs. “Love is well and good, for all it lasts.”

Love is a fairy tale,he had said. How much he strives to hate it. Discredit it.

“If you really loved her,” he continues, “if you wanted to be with her so badly, you would relinquish your mortal flesh and stay here. Souls have an easier time finding their loved ones should they desire it, and yet you are determined to return to your world hereafter, or so you say. So tell me, Vastianna, what are youreallydoing in the Abyssal? Why do you need to find hernow,rather than wait until you can reunite in death?”

Because love fades after death?I think to say. But he won’t care about that.

“It’s sad, really, that you think so little of love.” I unfold my napkin, arranging it on my lap. “If you don’t want me in the Abyssal, then tell me how to find her codex.”

If I can get him to admit an easier method…

“You know I cannot.”

“Because you are not really a king—not the way Moranya would like you to believe.”

I expect—hope, even—for it to rile him. Perhaps plant a seed of doubt in him about Moranya. Instead he merely says, “Even kings are bound to the laws of their land.”

“But why make you a king in the first place? What is your arrangement with her? Is it anything like ours?”

“Jealous, are we?” His rings clink against his flute as he wraps his fingers around it. He tips the cup to his lips, draining it completely, and then he’s refilling it to the brim. “I assure you, our arrangement is one of a kind. You still haven’t told me how you made it into Morta’s Lair to begin with, by the way.”

“I don’t see why I should, Sire.” Not that I could if I wanted to.

“You are steadfastly evasive,” he says. “It’s slightly infuriating.”

“And you are wasting away here. Also infuriating.”