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2024-10-29 19:42:56Jane tried not to roll her eyes—she’d forgotten the woman was there.
“We,” the princess said, struggling for the word in the common language, “were talking with the weather.”“About the weather,” Kaltain corrected sharply.“Watch your mouth,” Jane snapped before she could think.Kaltain gave Jane a vicious little smile. “If she’s here to learn our ways, I should correct her so she doesn’t sound foolish.”Here to learn their ways, or for something else entirely? The faces of the princess and her guards were unreadable.“Your Highness,” Benjamin said, stepping forward, a subtle movement to keep himself between Nehemia and Jane. “Are you having a tour of the castle?”Nehemia chewed on the words and then looked to Jane, brows high—as if she’d expected a translation by now. A smile tugged on the corners of Jane’s lips. No wonder the councilman was sweating so profusely. Nehemia was a force to be reckoned with. Jane translated Benjamin ’s qu
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“Do you hunt?” Nehemia interrupted in Eyllwe.“Me?” The princess nodded. “Oh—er, no,” Jane said, then switched back to Eyllwe. “I’m more of a reader.”Nehemia looked toward a rain-splattered window. “Most of our books were burned five years ago, when Skull gang marched in. It didn’t make a difference if the books were about cult ”—her voice quieted at the word, even though Benjamin and the councilman couldn’t understand them—“or history. They just burned the libraries whole, along with the museums and universities . . .”A familiar ache filled her chest. Jane nodded. “Eyllwe wasn’t the only country where that happened.”Something cold and bitter glittered in Nehemia’s eyes. “Now, most of the books we receive are from Skull gang—books in a language I can barely understand. That’s also what I must learn while I’m here. There are so many things!” She stomped her foot, her jewelry clinking. “And I hate these shoes! And this miserable dress! I don’t care if it’
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For the next four days, Jane awoke before dawn to train in her room, using whatever she could to exercise—chairs, the doorway, even her billiards table and cue sticks. The balls made for remarkable balance tools. Around dawn, Benjamin usually showed up for breakfast. Afterward, they ran through the game park, where he kept pace at her side. Autumn had fully come, and the wind smelled of crisp leaves and snow. Benjamin never said anything when she doubled over, hands on her knees, and vomited up her breakfast, nor did he comment on the fact that she could go farther and farther each day without stopping for breath.Once they’d finished their run, they trained in a private room far from her competitors’ eyes. Until, that is, she collapsed to the ground and cried that she was about to die of hunger and fatigue. At lessons, the knives remained Jane’s favorite, but the wooden staff became dear; naturally, it had to do with the fact that she could freely whack him and not chop of
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Her focus narrowed to the small, black dot in the center of the target. She steadied her breathing as she cocked her arm, letting her wrist go loose. The sounds of the other Champions faded. The blackness of the bull’s-eye beckoned, and as she exhaled, she sent the dagger flying.It sparkled, a shooting star of steel. She smiled grimly as it struck home. Beside her, Nox swore colorfully when his dagger hit the third ring on histarget, and her smile broadened, despite the shredded corpse that lay somewhere in the castle.Jane drew another dagger, but paused as Verin called to her from the ring where he sparred with Cain. “Circus tricks ain’t much use when you’re the King’s Champion.” She shifted her gaze to him, but kept positioned toward the target. “You’d be better off on your back, learning tricks useful to a woman. In fact, I can teach you some tonight, if you’d like.” He laughed, and Cain joined with him. Jane gripped the hilt of a dagger so hard that
Wrath of the Invincible Billionaire Heir Chapter 165: Wasting Time
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Vincent observed her. “If it upsets you so much, I won’t have it killed. I’ll arrange for a home, and I’ll even ask for your approval before I make a final decision.”“You’d do that?”“What’s the dog’s life to me? If it pleases you, then it shall happen.”Her face burned as he rose to his feet, standing close. “You—you promise?” He put a hand on his heart. “I swear on my crown that the pup shall live.” She was suddenly aware of how near to touching they were. “Thank you.” Jeremy watched them from the floor, her brows raised, until one of her personal guards appeared at the gate. “It’s time to go, Princess,” he said in the group. “You must dress for your evening with the queen.” The princess stood,pushing past the bouncing puppies.“Do you want to walk with me?” Jeremy said in the common tongue to Jane.Jane nodded and opened the gate for them. Shutting the gate, she looked back at the Crown Prince. “Well? Aren’t you coming with us?”He slumped down into the pen, and the puppies immed
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Kaltain’s spine snapped and straightened. She saw Vincent’s face and the crown that sat upon his head. “The prince said that—about me?”The duke put a hand on her knee, stroking it with his thumb. “Of course, then Lady Lillian interrupted before he could say more.”Her head spun. “Why was she with him?” “I don’t know. I wish it were otherwise.”She must do something, something to stop this. The girl moved fast—too fast for her maneuvering. Lillian had snared the Crown Prince in her net, and now Kaltain must cut him free. Perrington could do it. He could make Lillian disappear and never be found. No—Lillian was a lady, and a man with as much honor as Perrington would never harm one of noble birth. Or would he? Skeletons danced in circles around her head. But what if he thought Lillian weren’t a lady . . . Her headache flared to life with a sudden burst that sucked the air from her lungs.“I had the same reaction,” she said, rubbing her temple. “It’s hard to believe someone as disreputa
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Kaltain watched in rage and agony as Lizzy and the Crown Prince of Adarlan danced and danced and danced. Even with a much more concealing mask, she would have recognized the upstart. And what sort of a person wore gray to a ball? Kaltain looked down at her dress and smiled. Bright shades of blue, emerald, and soft brown, her gown and matching peacock mask had cost as much as a small house. It was all a gift from Bolton, of course, along with the jewelry that decorated much of her neck and arms. It was certainly not the dull, drab mess of crystal that the conniving harlot wore.Bolton stroked her arm, and Kaltain turned to him with fluttering eyelashes. “You look handsome tonight, my love,” she said, adjusting a gold chain across his red tunic. His face quickly matched the color of his clothes. She wondered if she could bear the repulsion of kissing him. She could always keep refusing, just as she had for the past month; but when he was this drunk . . .She would have to think of a wa
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Jane groaned as something cold and wet brushed her cheek and moved to lick her face. She opened an eye and found the puppy looking down at her, its tail wagging. Adjusting herself in the bed, she winced at the sunlight. She hadn’t meant to sleep in. They had a Test in two days, and she needed to train. It was their last Test before the final duel—the Test that decided who the four finalists would be.Janerubbed an eye and then scratched the dog behind the ears. “Have you peed somewhere and wish to tell me about it?”“Oh no,” said someone as the bedroom door swung open—Vincent . “I took her out at dawn with the other dogs.”She smiled weakly as he approached. “Isn’t it rather early for a visit?” “Early?” He laughed, sitting on the bed. She inched away. “It’s almost one inthe afternoon! Philippa told me you’ve been sleeping like the dead all morning.” One! She’d slept that long? What about lessons with Chaol? She scratched her nose and pulled the puppy onto her lap. At least nothing ha
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Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
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“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
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Chapter 249: Bad Habits
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
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Chapter 248: Braids of the Table
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
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Chapter 247: Sorting Out the Chaff
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
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He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
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Chapter 245: Next Dimension
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
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Chapter 244: Damages
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
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Chapter 243
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr
