It didn’t take long before Vincent and Jane arrived at The Crimson Candles Residential Area.
That was the name of the wedding’s location.They finally made it to the venue after a long distance drive.The decor was everything and even more, just like Vincent had demanded.Vincent parked the car in the parking lot where the other cars were parked.Earlier on, Vincent had invited elite guests to the wedding.Even without entering the hall, he knew that most of them were already seated in the hall seeing the numerous luxurious cars that were lined up in the parking lot .Affluent men and women with connections worth keeping.Afterall, all the budget that went into this luxury wedding wasn’t for nothing.It was also an opportunity for people to make more connections.Mr. Issac was not excluded.Vincent invited him because he thought that Mr. Issac needed something to take his mind off ofTequila time during wedding receptions was regarded as a cherished tradition that gives off an extra dose of merriment and excitement during celebrations as the evening gradually unfolds itself.The sun began its descent, casting a ray of warm golden glow over the venue of the wedding reception.Giving an overview of the transition as the sun went down, replacing the serenity of the vicinity with the enchanting allure of the evening.The air was filled with chatter and laughter as the guests mingled and merry with one another.The bride had gone to change into something more befitting of an after party of such occasion while the groom was busy with the other guests in the garden.Elizabeth walked into the garden wearing a stunning blue evening dress that captivated the attention of many.Afterall, she was the bride.The gown had a one shoulder design with a high slit which went almost all the way up.She adorned this look with gold jewellery.A gold necklace and a gold bangle on her
Jane used her eyes to scan Elizabeth from head to toe making sure that she noticed, which she eventually did.Seeing this, Elizabeth drew out a seat and sat down exactly opposite Jane.All of a sudden, she instantly felt uncomfortable and immediately stopped one of the waiters around to bring her a drink.“Since Elizabeth really wanted to play such a game on this day…….Then let it be!”“What was that?!”“With a slight smile on her face, Jane shrugged and picked up her glass of wine to take a sip from it ”Nothing much”Almost immediately the man in a plain black suit returned to their table “There you go Ma’am”The waiter dropped Elizabeth’s wine like she requested, as he gave a slight bow before leaving their table.Their table went silent for a moment as tension rose between the both of them.“I see that you have quite an enthusiasm for colours in gold” Jane said as she continued staring at Elizabeth.“I love how you so easily pointed that out”“You see…….I’m just trying to develop a
Jane’s blood boiled with rage hearing what Elizabeth had just uttered with a mere shrug.“How dare she!”This wasn’t funny at the slightest.It didn’t even come out as a joke to her.She should’ve just completely ignored Elizabeth and let her go the very minute she walked up to her table that evening.Jane was so pissed at Elizabeth's words.She just wanted to throw her that punch that she was explaining to Vincent a few weeks ago.“How could she have said that?!”That was such an unruly thing to say.With the Look on Jane’s face, it was crystal clear to Elizabeth that she had hit the right spot.She had finally hit the hammer on the head of the nail.Now Jane knew exactly how she felt whenever she referred to her as a gold digger.Watching this brought a smile upon Elizabeth’s face.Jane knew that she couldn’t be mad at neither Elizabeth nor Vincent, it was in the past and they were actually dating back then.But she didn’t have to bring that into the present.“Watch your mouth Eliza
Right before they left the parking lot of the wedding venue, someone had been watching the supposed conversation between Vincent and Jane the entire time.She wanted that to happen and that was exactly what she got.This gave Elizabeth a great feeling of satisfaction on her special day.I was like the icing on a cake…..The ice cubes in her milkshake!At least, this previous conversation between them would take a long while for Jane to digest. Now who had the upper hand in this situation?As the black range rover pulled up into Ms. Anna’s residence, it drove straight into the garage.The moment Vincent stopped the engine, Jane immediately helped herself out of the car and proceeded quickly towards the building without saying a single word to Vincent.It was already very late and Jane just wanted to sleep on the entire incident that had transpired that day.She didn’t even want to attend the wedding in the very first place, talkless of speaking to Elizabeth.She had plans to avoid Eli
Vincent got out of the room and went down the stairs to look for a phone charger in the main parlour.He would just borrow it for the night and then return it the very next morning to the exact same spot he found it.Like a scavenger in the night, he continued to walk around the house quietly, with light footsteps.Searching for a charger at every switch he could lay his eyes on.After a while of searching, he finally found one but unfortunately, it wasn’t the same type as his.The model of his phone was completely different from that of the charger and its port couldn't fit the one in his phone.He then decided to go check his car for a chord since the head of the charger was fine.Vincent went back to his room, picked his keys, hurried through the stairs and went straight to where he had parked his car in the garage earlier.He opened it and searched the entire place to find no charger at all.He always had one or two spare chargers in the car, what happened to them?Or did Samuel t
The night he got in from the wedding, Vincent totally forgot that the last thing he had was food from the wedding and a few glasses of wine.The inviting smell of breakfast along with the loud rumbling of his stomach reminded him about that.With a wide smile on his face, Vincent hurried down the stairs as he followed the smell of breakfast while slowly walking down to the kitchen.Suddenly, the smile on his face vanished the moment he stepped foot into the kitchen.He had totally forgotten that the place was not his house, the chef was not Ms. Marie and he wasn’t the only one living there at the moment.Vincent stopped in his tracks the moment he entered the kitchen to see a familiarly curvaceous figure in a short black romper which complimented her pale skin perfectly.“She’s around?!”She had on a pair of grey coloured crocs and tied up her hair in a messy bun.Apparently, Jane didn’t go to church that morning, she was too tired to.And besides, she woke up thirty minutes later tha
“He was probably just having his revenge by ignoring me the way I did to him yesterday……” Jane thought inwardly to herself as she keenly watched him chew every single bit of muffin.She felt guilty and she probably deserved whatever she was getting and the rest that was to come.She just couldn’t wait to show Elizabeth…….She was so looking forward to the day that she would finally get to deal with that witch using her own two bare hands.Elizabeth was the least of Jane’s problems at the moment but she was still the root cause.She knew that Vincent was childish and had a childlike nature but she didn’t think that he was petty.In the past, he had always been quick to apologise even when she was wrong by putting aside his ego and their differences and asking her what the problem was, trying to sort out things between them.It was her turn.Afterall, there is a saying that goes thus, ‘everyday for the thief, but one day for the owner’That Sunday was the one day she had to swallow her e
“Are you lying?” Vincent questioned Jane with both eyes squinted as though he was struggling to peek at something.The place fell silent for a short moment.Jane couldn’t say yes and she also couldn’t say no at the same time.Elizabeth wasn’t exactly the cause of her anger but at the same time she was.Jane shook her head indicating to Vincent that she was not lying but in fact speaking the truth.“Okay then, if you say so” He agreed, still having a sting of doubt in his mind.This made Vincent more eager and curious to find out what went on between Jane and Elizabeth in his absence at the wedding reception.Jane heaved a sigh of relief the moment she finished tidying up her baking space.She had done the dishes and put them away where each and every single one of them belonged.At least she had gotten one thing off of her chest, two more to go.The first one was the apology she had just made to Vincent while the other two were breakfast and of course…... .Elizabeth.Elizabeth and Sam
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
“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.”
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
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
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
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
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
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
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