Rise Of The Black Sovereign

Chapter 7

The transport dropped Kael back into the garden behind the Vale estate just as the sky was starting to lighten at the edges, the storm finally thinning into a cold gray drizzle.

He moved quickly and quietly. Along the hedge line. Past the side door the household staff never bothered locking before sunrise. Up the narrow service stairs instead of the main ones. By the time he reached his room, the device under his collar was already tucked away, and nothing about him looked like a man who had spent the last several hours standing in a command tower floating above the clouds.

He stripped off the damp coat, hung it and lay down to sleep.

Xena found him the next morning in the east hallway, already dressed and working through a data slate propped against one arm.

"You're up early," she said.

"Habit." He replied.

"We have the tailor at noon." She glanced at him, assessing, the way she assessed everything. "The Council expects formal portraits before the wedding. If we look unprepared, my uncle will use it as another excuse to delay the approval."

"Then we won't look unprepared," Kael said.

The tailor's house sat at the center of Ashfall City's merchant district, three floors of pale stone and tall windows, the kind of place that measured its clients by the weight of their family name before it measured their shoulders. Kael had never set foot inside it before. He didn't need to. He knew exactly how a room like this would look at him, and he was right.

The attendant who greeted them at the door did a poor job hiding her surprise when she realized who stood beside Xena Vale.

"Lady Vale. And... Lord Draven." The pause before his name lasted half a second too long. "We weren't informed you'd both be attending together."

"We're getting married," Xena said, without looking up from her slate. "It seemed practical."

They were shown upstairs to a private fitting room, mirrors on every wall, bolts of dark fabric already laid out on a long table. Kael stood still while a second attendant measured his shoulders, his sleeve length, the line of his back, murmuring numbers to an assistant who wrote them down without once meeting his eyes.

He didn't mind the silence. He'd had worse rooms stare through him before. Then the door opened without a knock.

"Well," Darius Kane said, stepping inside like he owned the building, "this is a coincidence."

Kael didn't turn immediately. He finished letting the attendant mark the last measurement before he looked over.

Darius stood in the doorway in a half-finished fitting coat of his own, the fabric pinned along one shoulder, clearly mid-appointment somewhere down the hall. Behind him, Lyanna stood in a pale gown still gathered with fitting clips at the waist, her hair pulled back, looking every bit the bride the Kane family wanted the city to see.

"We're here for the same reason you are, apparently," Darius said, glancing around the room with open amusement. "Though I imagine our appointment was booked considerably further in advance."

"I'm sure it was," Kael said evenly.

Lyanna's eyes moved over the room, over Xena seated near the window reviewing a swatch of fabric without any particular urgency, over Kael standing in his half-fitted coat with the quiet stillness he always carried now. Something quickly passed over her face.

"You're really doing this," she said. "The fittings. The formal portraits. All of it."

"It's a wedding," Kael said. "This is usually how it works."

"How convenient, that you learned the process so quickly." Darius stepped further into the room, studying the fabric laid out on the table with the air of a man comparing it unfavorably to his own. "Tell me, Draven, did you pick this yourself, or did someone have to explain which fabric costs more than your old apartment?"

"The fabric was Lady Vale's choice," Kael said. "I didn't ask the price."

"No," Darius said, smiling, "I imagine you've gotten quite comfortable not asking prices lately."

Xena finally looked up from her swatch, her expression calm, unbothered. "Lord Kane. I wasn't aware the Kane family needed an audience to pick out wedding fabric."

"We don't," Darius said. "We simply didn't expect to share the building with you today."

"Life is full of small surprises," Xena said, and returned her attention to the fabric.

Lyanna hadn't stopped looking at Kael.

"You look different," she said quietly, almost to herself.

"I feel the same," Kael said.

"I don't believe that." She replied.

"You don't have to." Kael told her.

Darius's smile thinned at the edges, catching the shift in the room even if he couldn't name it. He stepped between them without seeming to, turning his attention fully back onto Kael.

"I almost forgot," he said. "Did you receive the invitation? My family's gathering. Three nights from now."

"I did." Kael said.

"And?"

"I'll be there," Kael said.

Something flickered across Darius's face, like he'd expected hesitation and gotten none. "Good. I think you'll find it educational. My father's gatherings tend to remind people exactly where they stand in this city." He glanced once more around the fitting room, at the fine fabric, at Xena's calm indifference, at Kael's unreadable composure, and something in his expression hardened. "I'd hate for you to forget it, now that you're playing dress-up in a room this expensive."

"I won't forget," Kael said. "I never do."

The two men held each other's gaze for a long moment, the kind of silence that said more than either of them was willing to put into words. Behind Darius, Lyanna had gone still, watching the exchange with an expression Kael couldn't quite place anymore.

The attendant cleared her throat gently, breaking the moment. "My lord, if you'll allow me to finish the sleeve—"

"Of course," Kael said, turning his arm back toward her without looking away from Darius until the very last second.

Darius's smile returned, thin and deliberate. "Three nights, Draven. Don't disappoint me."