Free Solace Shattered by Anna Steffl Page B

current. His was long gone. What had he pledged? Courage, honor, and perseverance. Hera Solace was courageous. She’d risked her life to try to save his sword. A measure of Degarius’s happiness left him as he remembered the night at Lady Martise’s. How had he rewarded her courage? With anger and suspicion. She once thought him good; what must she think of him now? What a blackguard he was.
    The music stopped. Miss Gallivere darted from the circle of dancers and linked her arm through his. Her breath was warm on his neck. “Change your mind about dancing?”
    He narrowed his eyes on her smirking lips. She was the one who had insinuated about the Solacian and the governor. “Not about dancing.”

    The exhausted dancers kicked through the sand back to their seats and eagerly partook of glasses of sparkling wine. Poor Keithan, Arvana thought as he sat back beside her as if nothing had happened. What a life to be always pretending. If only she could have warned and spared him.
    “We must play a game now. Truth or Torture,” Miss Gallivere said, drawing Arvana to the moment she both looked forward to and dreaded. The one person who would forestall her plan to test Captain Degarius with the relic was gone; the king had left to make appearances at other bonfires along the shore. She doubted he could consent to play her game, but his image, though it was one of his youth, was stamped on Acadian coin. The Scyon might recognize him and learn the location of the relic.
    Arvana raised her voice. “I have another game. One you haven’t played before.”
    “You have a game? It should be quite amusing,” said Miss Gallivere.
    “Perhaps we should hear what the game is,” the princess said. “We can play Truth or Torture next.”
    Arvana rose and prayed for the Maker to forgive the lie she was about to tell and all those that would follow. “It’s a Sylvanian game, a game about what you most deeply desire.” The women twittered with anticipation. “Not your profession or what you’ve been born to be, so gentlemen must remove their coats. Princess, you must take off your coronet. Put your things behind you.” Arvana lifted the headband from her temples and drew the head cloth from her hair. It was a breech of conduct, but necessary to hide her identity. The setting was innocuous enough. Feast of the Saviors bonfires were everywhere in the Easternland tonight, but Keithan’s Acadian reds, Captain Degarius’s black coat, the princess’s coronet, and her own head covering were clues Arvana didn’t want to give The Scyon.
    Captain Degarius, thanks be to the Maker, took off his coat.
    Arvana gave her veil and headband to Keithan, who stowed them with his coat. With an eye to him, she pulled the locket from under her habit and eased the chain over her head. Had Lerouge told him about it after the night in Summercrest’s garden? She doubted it, but wanted to be certain. Keithan paid no special attention to the locket. It was a secret bond between Lerouge and her as it had been between Paulus and Mariel, the Founder. “Here are the rules. Be silent while a turn is taken. During your turn, clear your mind, look into the stone, and see what your heart shows you. After I close the locket—and only after—tell what you’ve seen. At the end, we guess who had the courage to speak the truth. Who wishes to go first?”
    Several eager shouts went out, but Arvana deferred to the princess. She stooped before the girl, raised her hand for silence, and then pressed the locket’s latch. She watched the girl closely, just as the superior must have watched her, and every other novice, when they kissed the open Founder’s Relic to pledge to the Solacian order during the Engagement Ceremony.
    “Oh, how unusual,” the princess whispered but showed no sign of distress.
    Arvana held her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
    After staring into the swirling light for a moment, the princess raised her large, luminous eyes and smiled. Arvana closed