His voice is so tight that I look up to try to read his face. It’s hard and determined. We stare at each other for a long moment.
I need to fill the silence, to explain, so I say, “I know I’ll marry for the benefit of Joya d’Arena, and my own feelings will not be a consideration. So it’s silly to hope . . . but I can’t help it. . . . That is, I hope I marry a good man. Like Alejandro. I know he didn’t love me, but he was my friend.” The sigh that escapes is almost like a sob.
His eyes flash with something—pity, maybe—and he reaches down, grabs my hand. His thumb sweeps across my knuckles as he says in a gruff whisper, “I can’t imagine there is a man in all of Joya who is good enough for our queen. But if such a man exists, we will find him. I swear it.”
I swallow hard. “Thank you.”
The mayordomo rushes unannounced through the doorway. Hector drops my hand and lurches to attention.
“Your Majesty!” the mayordomo pants. “He’s here. Lo Chato from the Wallows. Do you still wish to grant immediate audience? You’re scheduled to see Lady Jada next. I could ask her to wait.”
My startled reaction has dislodged my crown, and it slips down my brow. I pull it off, wincing when strands of hair are yanked out by the roots. “Did Lo Chato come alone?” Even saying the name gives me a shiver.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
I set the crown on the edge of my desk. I hate that I am not big enough, not strong enough, to wear it. “Then send him in,” I whisper.
He bows and exits the office.
“Be ready,” Hector says to the guards, and hands move to scabbards; eyes shift toward the door. With a metallic whisk, Hector draws his gauntlet daggers. A smart choice, since his position between my desk and the wall gives him little range of motion for a sword.
The mayordomo enters and says in a clipped, formal voice, “Your Majesty, I present Lo Chato of the Wallows.”
A figure glides into the room. He is impossibly tall, and he wears a long black cloak with a deep cowl that shadows his face. He drops to one knee, bows his head, and waits silently.
“Rise,” I say, hoping he doesn’t notice the tremor in my voice. I place a fingertip to the Godstone, hoping for a tickle of warmth, or even a chill—anything to indicate whether the person before me is friend or foe. But I feel nothing.
The cowled man straightens.
“Remove your hood.”
He raises his hands, and I already know, even as he slides the hood back from his head—by the pale peach of his hands, the preternatural grace of his movement—what will be revealed.
Eyes as green as moss, a face so sharply delicate as to be catlike, waist-long hair the syrupy gold of honey.
It takes only a split second for my guards to ring him with swords. Hector steps in front of me, daggers in defensive position.
The man before me carries himself like an animagus. My forearm throbs with the phantom memory of a sorcerer’s claws lashing into my skin, and I stare at his hands, expecting to see clawlike points embedded in his nails.
His nails are cracked and encrusted with dirt, but they are free of barbs. And unlike the uncannily perfect animagi I encountered, he has faint lines across his forehead; a patch of dry, peeling skin across his nose; and weary, bloodshot eyes. Not blue, those eyes. And his hair is not white.
Not a sorcerer, then. I breathe deeply through my nose, savoring this feeling of relief.
Still, an Invierno has been secretly living in my city, leading a group of my own people.
The mayordomo stands just out of range of the guards’ swords, gaping at the creature he escorted in. I say with a steadiness that surprises me, “The secretary will return soon from an errand. Please head him off. And tell no one, not even Lady Jada, the nature of my current appointment.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He departs gratefully.
I gesture to one of the guards to close and bar the door.
The Invierno regards me calmly.
I’m not sure how to proceed, so I say, “Thank you for coming.”
“Your Majesty commanded it, and I obeyed.” He speaks perfect Plebeya, without even a trace of the clipped impatience I’ve heard from animagi.
“Why would an Invierno feel compelled to obey me?”
“I am Your Majesty’s loyal subject.”
Not likely. “Is Lo Chato your name?”
“A title.”
“Do many Inviernos carry the title of ‘Lo Chato’?” I ask, too tentatively.
“We have more Chatos than you have condes,” he says.
I don’t want to call him that. Not ever. “And your name?”
“My name, in God’s language, means ‘He Who Wafts Gently with the Wind Becomes as Mighty as the Thunderstorm.’”