“I’m out.” Demi folded her hand of cards to the laughter of both Jarron and Nigel, along with Adam who’d joined them. “I fear you’re all too accomplished for my competition.”

“Nonsense,” Adam said. “You threw that game. I was watching!”

Laughing, Demi got to her feet. “I shall go and bring refreshment. You boys keep playing.”

“Boys,” Adam said with a leer toward Jarron, who’d lit a bowl of herb and was waving the smoke toward his face. “Hear you how she describes us, brother?”

Jarron looked up and snagged her wrist, pulling her close for a kiss. The herb and wine had relaxed him further even than the game and companionship of his old friend and the new one. “Stay.”

“If it pleases you,” she said at once, nuzzling at his cheek. “Though I tell you, a fresh pitcher of wine and some meat pies would please you even better.”

Jarron looked at the men across the table from him. “You see? She knows. Always knows. Like magic.”

“You’re a man, brother,” scoffed Adam, passing the cards to Nigel, who shuffled. “She needs no magic to determine what might please you.”

This was truer than Demi would ever admit aloud, but Jarron snorted and released her. “You think my gender makes me so easily learned?”

“You’ve a cock and balls and a stomach. That’s what we are. Men. Our pricks and our bellies lead us, always.” Adam shrugged and nudged Nigel, who’d partaken of quite a bit of wine already.

“I could eat a meat pie,” Nigel said solemnly.

Adam looked at him. “I’m sure you could.”

Jarron looked from one to the other, then at her. “Hear you the disrespect my supposed brother-of-the-heart provides me?”

“He loves you,” she said into his ear and licked at his lobe so that he shivered. “I’ll return in less time than you think, sweetheart.”

Jarron nodded, attention already back on the game. Boys, she mused with a small laugh as she took her leave of the table and moved through the library into the larger room where the buffet table had been set up. First, though, she needed to use the privy. The social hall was kept overwarm for her taste, particularly since the temperature was regulated to suit the lords and ladies in lighter dress than she wore. She’d drunk quite a bit of wine, herself.

The small privy chamber featured only a wastechair and a sink, both of which Demi utilized swiftly. She cupped a stream of water and dabbed her face with it, looking at her reflection in the looking glass. She wore little cosmetic, just a hint of lip paint and a touch of liner at the corners of her eyes. She turned her face from side to side, making sure her appearance was suitable and appropriate. People would talk no matter what she wore or how she presented herself, and though the only opinion that ever mattered was her patron’s, she was sensitive to Jarron’s distaste for stares. It would shame him should she behave in any manner unfitting for a queen, for though that would never be her place, it was the one into which he’d put her in all ways but the crown and the ring upon her finger.

This sobered her suddenly as the world slid a bit beneath her slippers. She was a little drunk, a little blurry from the herb she’d not smoked herself yet had breathed on Jarron’s kisses. Too many vices she’d been perhaps unwise to permit herself. She looked at herself, hard.

“He does not know me,” she said aloud.

The words stung. She drew a deep, shaking breath and bent over the basin, thinking she might gag. She breathed, deep and slow. Deep and slow.

Invisible Mother, if a flower is made more beautiful by its thorns, grant me the ability to make the right choices so that I might be made better by my flaws.

There were many, Demi knew. She’d been given a second chance – redeemed, and given the name to prove it. She was no longer that thieving kitchen slag running from the King’s Lion and his cubs. She’d worked hard to learn kindness, compassion, generosity. To become a Handmaiden, bound to providing solace. That didn’t mean she was perfect.

Jarron didn’t know her, not really. She was still a pretty doll to him, a blank slate. She was his looking glass, reflecting what he wanted to see. And that was fine and well, it was important, it was her duty and her purpose and her pleasure, too. The Mothers had sent her for a reason, and Demi was fair grateful to have been chosen. But she knew that no matter how much Jarron petted and kissed her, or what sweet names he called her, he did it because of what she represented to him and not who she really was.

It was better than naught. Better than memories built into fantasy so grand no man could ever match them. The Mothers-in-Service had sent her to him for a reason, and though Demi would never be so bold as to assume she could ever know the Mothers’ purpose, she knew enough to wonder if their reason had been as much for her sake as for his.

She’s spent too long away from him. He was comforted in the company of Adam and now of Nigel, but Demi thought Jarron might still need her at his side. Besides that, she’d promised refreshments, and Adam had been right. Men were often led by their pricks and their bellies in equal turn. They’d been at cards for a quiverful of chimes, with naught but a light supper before that. Jarron would need to eat.

She didn’t make it more than three steps out the privy chamber door before a large masculine body pressed her up against the tapestry-hung wall. Demi gasped, but a long-fingered hand had already pressed over her mouth. She went still, not struggling. No sane man would dare harm a Handmaiden, especially not one in service to the king.

“Hello, sweetheart,” said a familiar voice. “It’s been a long time.”

Erekon. The King’s Lion took his hand away and replaced it with his mouth – not kissing. Not quite. His breath moved over her face as his lips moved with his words. When Demi turned her head, his mouth caressed her cheek as he spoke.

“Truth, I never thought to see you again.”

“Nor I, you,” she said.

Her heart thumped. This time, when the world slipped sideways beneath her toes, it was not from too much drink. When she breathed, deep and slow, his scent filled her nose and mouth. She could taste him. She shuddered, closing her eyes.

She didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling. She could hear it in his voice. Erekon had a cruel smile that cut as often as it caressed.

“You’ve changed,” he whispered.

His body still pressed against her. His hand closed tight on her braid at the base of her neck, holding her from moving though she was too wise to try and flee. His knee nudged between her thighs, pressing her through the layers of their clothes.

“You’re beautiful. Who’d ever have guessed it?” Erekon said into her ear.

She opened her eyes, then. Looked straight at him. “You play at astonishment.”

His smile faded. The dark eyes flashed. “The Order has treated you well. Redemption.”

She put her hands up, against his chest, pushing, and he stepped away. “You play at insult as well, Erekon? You’ve naught over me now. You know that.”

“Even if I tell your new lover he’s pitching woo on a kitchen slag who stole from his family?”

She lifted her chin, staring him down, and watched him assess her reaction. She surprised him, she could see, though any who didn’t know him as well might not have seen it. “Jarron sent for a Handmaiden, and he got one. Whatever I might’ve been before, I am no longer.”

“He doesn’t know you.”

Hearing her own words on Erekon’s razor-edged tongue, Demi flinched. “No.”

“Think you lying to him is the best way to give our young king his solace? Is that what they teach you in the Order? No wonder you’re so accomplished a Handmaiden, if such practices are common.”

Demi had faced detractors aplenty, those who didn’t understand or approve of the Order and her calling. Erekon was different. His words hit her in all the soft places she’d long ago thought to shield with her training and the conviction of her faith. He’d always known just where to wound her…and how to heal her, too.

She studied him. The silver streaks in his dark hair. The lines around his eyes. He was still a handsome man, though time had made its mark.

“You should let me go,” she told him quietly. “I’ll not tremble for you any more.”

“No? Not even if I tell your patron the truth about you?”

“I’ll tell him myself if I think it will soothe him, Erekon. I’m not keeping it a secret from shame.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Not entirely.

Erekon’s low, silky laugh had once been able to twist her stomach for a different reason than it did now. “No?”

“He agreed to take who the Mothers sent him. That was me. The fact that I once lived here…of who I was…”

“Think you he’d care not to know you were the wretch for whom he begged his father’s mercy? That he’s the reason you ended up in the Order instead of prison or a grave? Think you true, Notsah, that he would not care, if he knew?”

“Nobody’s called me that in a very long time. I’m not that girl any longer.”

“No,” Erekon said softly. “Now you are Redemption. But whose?”

“Not yours,” she said, and pushed past him with her heart pounding. Palms sweating.
She made it back to Jarron’s gaming table with her hands full of meat pies and ale. A smile on her face. Her legs steady. Erekon might think he could threaten her, but there was somewhat he’d forgotten.

He didn’t know her any more than Jarron did.