Bodyguards (20 page)

She shifted closer to him and
pressed her cheek to his chest.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked
after a few seconds, and even without seeing her, he could tell that she wasn’t
smiling anymore.

Bradan brushed his fingers through
her hair. Her bun had come undone at some point during the night. He liked it
better this way, loose and long.

“I don’t know that I’d call it a
plan,” he said. “But we do have to get ready. After breakfast we’ll find you
something suitable to wear. One of Dame Eleoren’s dresses, probably.”

He could feel her tensing against
him and explained, “You are going to a royal court as the heir of a powerful
family. You must look the part. And we’ll have to give you a crash course on
court etiquette. Well, Aedan will. He knows all that better than I do.”

Her small sigh tickled his chest.
“I’m going to assume court etiquette means I can’t carry a sword?”

An unexpected chuckle rocked
Bradan’s body. He found Vivien’s hand and brought it to his lips for a quick
kiss. “I’m afraid that would be ill advised, yes. But we’ll be there, Aedan and
I. And your bodyguards are allowed to be armed at court. We won’t let anything
happen to you.”

She raised her head to look at
him. For a long moment, she was silent, her expression unreadable. Then she
gave him the tiniest of nods and said, “I know you won’t. I trust you.”

Bradan could hardly have been any
happier if she had said she loved him. He cupped her face in one hand and drew
her to him for a kiss. Breakfast and the king could wait a little longer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The King

This time, when Vivien Passed
Through, she was ready.

Terrified, but ready.

She didn’t stumble, merely stepped
through the portal Brad had opened, so that one second she was in the round
room in the castle—the Passing Room, Aedan called it—and the next she was in a
similar room in Rhuinn’s palace. It was similar in shape, and yet, while the
other room had been solemn and stately with the stone spirals inlaid in the
walls, this one was gaudy, even ostentatious. Gemstones of all colors were set
in the walls in the shape of triangles, with four smaller triangles inscribed
in each large one. Torches burned bright all around the room and caused the
gems to glitter as though they were in full sunlight.

She would have liked to look back
at Brad where she knew he stood one step behind her to her right, while Aedan
was one step behind to her left, but Aedan had drilled into her the do’s and
don’ts of the court. If she wanted to look like she belonged, she had to
pretend her bodyguards were invisible to her. One more reason to be afraid: how
would she know whether she was doing all right or messing up if she couldn’t
look at Brad or Aedan for cues? But her fear was something else she wasn’t
allowed to show.

Aedan had given her a bottle of
perfume and suggested she apply more after at first she had only dabbed some on
her neck.

“The vampires around the king will
pick up on your fear in your scent,” he had warned her. “They have ways of
letting him know what they smell, and he’ll prey on any perceived weakness.”

Even now, all she could smell was
that scent, floral and light, and it didn’t help her mood much. The aroma made
her feel...small, somehow. Like she needed loving arms to pick her up and hold
her close. She suspected that, like the dress and shoes, the perfume had belonged
to her mother. She hadn’t asked; there hadn’t been time while Aedan kept
thinking of new things to tell her about the court or Rhuinn.

She had listened closely, and she
knew exactly what to tell the man waiting by the door, his ruby-toned suit
identifying him as some sort of majordomo.

“I am Vivien Te Celden, answering
the king’s summons.”

On her left, the sound of
shuffling feet spoke of irritation. ‘My king,’ Aedan had wanted her to say, but
Vivien had refused to use the possessive. This man had kidnapped Anabel and
caused her death; Vivien wouldn’t call him her king, not if she could help it.

If the majordomo was offended on
his ruler’s behalf, he did not show it. His face remained blank as he bowed at
the waist.

“Blessings upon you, Dame Vivien
Te Celden. King Rhuinn is holding court in the throne room. Please allow me to
guide you.”

Aedan had provided her with an
answer for that, too.

“Only peasants and those too new
to the court to know their way around are escorted through the palace,” he had
said. “You don’t want to appear like an outsider, not to the king or to the
high families who will be there. Some will wait in the hallways to watch you
from the moment you enter the castle. They will judge every move you make,
every word you say.”

It wasn’t a particularly
reassuring thought.

“That will not be necessary,” she
said in a firm voice.

The majordomo’s expression
cracked, showing alarm. Surely, he had been instructed not to let her wander in
alone. Vivien was already striding toward the door, though, stopping two feet
in front of it to allow Aedan to sweep forward, open the door, go through, and
give a small bow after he was satisfied no enemy lurked in the next room. When
Vivien passed by him, he murmured so quietly that she had trouble making out the
words, “Very good.”

She let out a slow, quiet sigh
with her next breath. She’d passed the first obstacle. The course was still
long, though, starting with the long corridor, so much like the one from the
round room to the main house in her mother’s castle. Vivien took the
opportunity to practice her walk some more. After she’d dressed and put on
shoes that were a little too big, Brad had suggested she walk around for a
while to get used to the whole outfit.

“Even your prom dress wasn’t that
long,” he’d said, with enough confidence to remind her how long he had watched
over her. “And my guess is, it’s been a long time since you wore heels that
high.”

He’d been wrong about that. She
had never worn heels like these, and even though they were only about two inches
high, at first she had felt like she tottered with every step. She was
beginning to get used to them, but she still had to pay attention to the way
she walked.

It didn’t help that the dress,
made of a pale blue fabric that resembled satin, with metallic embroidery along
the full sleeves, bodice, and hem, fell in long folds around her and all the
way to the floor, tangling around her legs when she took strides that were too
long. The dress was a little tight across the stomach and looser at the bust, but
Vivien must have been the same height as her mother, because the dress barely
brushed the floor with each of her steps, as though the length, at least, had
been tailored for her.

When she reached the other end of
the corridor, she stopped again, and this time Brad stepped forward for the
door-opening ritual. When he turned to bow her forward, he met her eyes for the
briefest of instants, and while he kept his countenance and did not smile, his
eyes held all his love, all his strength, and all his confidence that things
would go well.

Comforted, Vivien entered the
palace proper. A hallway stretched on either side of her, at least ten feet
wide, and the ceilings higher still. Vivien didn’t hesitate and started down
her left as though she had been there many times before.

“He’ll either be in the throne
room or the reception hall,” Aedan had said. “I would guess the throne room, as
it’s more formal and he’ll want to impress you. The throne room is easy to
find. Just turn left when you get out of the corridor, and continue down the
hallway until you reach the very end. There’ll be guards on both sides of doors
as wide as this room.”

Vivien could already see those
doors now, far down the corridor. Her throat tightened, and she tried not to
look that far ahead. She’d get there soon enough.

Narrow windows just below the
ceiling featured panes of glass in bright red, green, and blue, so that the
hallway seemed to be bathed in a rainbow. The effect was odd, especially when
Vivien walked past a few people, their faces taking unnatural colors as they
observed her while pretending they barely noticed her, exactly like Aedan had
said. Vivien inclined her head every time she saw someone who wasn’t wearing
the bright red livery of the king’s service, but she didn’t smile, nor did she
slow down, again following Aedan’s recommendations. She wasn’t there to meet
people; there’d be time for that and recruiting allies later.

A long carpet ran down the
hallway, thick and plush enough to make walking in unfamiliar heels that much
more complicated. The same triangle motif was repeated over and over in
brightly colored thread, and again on the throne-room doors, the triangles
engraved in the dark wood. She guessed it was the king’s family symbol, like
the entwined spirals were hers. While she was getting ready, Brad had pulled
the silver pendant from somewhere, but Aedan had vetoed it.

“Wearing that now would be as good
as declaring you intend to reclaim the throne.”

He hadn’t actually said that
there’d be time for that later, too, but she’d heard it in his tone anyway. She
didn’t want to think about that now, not when there were already so many things
she had to keep in mind, so many mistakes she could still make—including
standing frozen and silent in front of closed doors and frowning guards.

Like before, she gave her name and
the reason for her presence there. The guards barely glanced at her, but they
did give Brad a long, gauging look. Aedan, for his part, received fierce
glares. She didn’t need to look at him to know he would return them in kind.

“What if they don’t let you two
come in with me?” she had blurted out moments before they Passed Through, her
nerves getting the best of her.

“Anyone in the court is entitled
to up to three bodyguards.” Brad had assured her, squeezing her hand gently.
“We’ll be there.”

She wished she could hold his hand
now.

A handful of seconds seemed to
turn into an eternity before the guards finally opened the doors, pushing them
in and revealing the throne room behind them. Vivien’s heart skipped a beat, and
she forgot to breathe.

Three or four houses from her
neighborhood on Earth could have easily fit in this one room, yards included.
Rows of stone pillars stood on either side of the room, each wide enough that
three people might have had trouble holding each other’s hands around one. They
tapered slowly as they rose, accentuating the impression of height as they
burst into arches that crisscrossed the vaulted ceiling. Vivien couldn’t have
said if they were the work of talented masons or equally talented channelers;
either way, she was sure a lot of work had gone into building this room—into
making it breathtaking and awe-inspiring, which of course had to be the entire
point.

She tried to appear cool and
unimpressed as she started forward, keeping an even, unhurried pace, but her
thoughts were swirling as she took in more details. Windows surrounded the room
at the junction of wall and ceiling and were draped with yards and yards of
sheer fabric in the same omnipresent jewel colors. The drapes fell almost to
the floor, plain at the top, but heavily embroidered in shimmering thread from
about halfway down to the bottom.

Vivien wished she could stop and
look at the embroidered scenes, or at the paintings hanging between the drapes,
each more than six feet tall and half again as wide. All she could do, however,
was sneak glances without turning her head, all too aware of how many eyes were
on her.

A wide path lay open in the center
of the room all the way to the dais at the other end, but the room was hardly
empty. On both sides, people stood in pairs or small groups between the stone
pillars: women in beautiful long dresses, their hair set in elaborate curls on
their shoulders; men in suits of all colors, all of them talking quietly and
watching her. Behind the groups, here and there, men and women stood still,
dressed all in black, armed, attentive to everything: bodyguards.

Vivien could barely hear the buzz
of voices over her thundering heart. She’d never been afraid of speaking in
public, mostly because she’d always prepared for such occasions. She was
prepared now, too, as much as she could possibly be, but there was something
about being the focus of so much attention when so many things were out of her
hands.

The thought drifted through her
mind that if she tripped now, she would embarrass herself in front of what
looked like at least two hundred people. As though by self-prophecy, her toe
caught the edge of a paving stone, and she stifled a gasp as she struggled not
to lose her balance without flailing wildly. She heard a sharp inhale on her
left: Brad’s. He couldn’t help her now. Her next step was a little hurried, but
she didn’t fall on her face or lose her calm; good enough, she supposed. She
tried to be more careful after that, and also tried not to think about falling
again.

Crossing the hall took almost two
full minutes. By the time she came close enough to the dais to see the people
on it, the crowd had fallen silent, and all Vivien could hear was the sound of
her heels striking the stones in a rhythm as steady as a metronome’s; her
heartbeat was faster.

From the end of the room, the dais
had seemed tall, the throne upon it imposing. Now that she was closer, she
realized they were oversized to fit the room perfectly. Four tall steps led up
to the dais, three feet above the floor. Two guards stood on either side,
dressed in the same black uniform as Aedan and Brad. The ones on the left wore
swords at their sides; the ones on the right, including the woman the king had
sent as a messenger, carried knives.

All four guards tensed visibly as
Vivien approached, their eyes darting from her right to her left and back: they
worried about Brad and Aedan and what they might do more than they worried
about her. They were right, of course. Vivien carried no sword.

Aedan had vetoed that, too.

The throne at the center of the
dais, gilded with a wide triangular back pointing upward, could have fit three
people easily, yet the one man sitting on it managed by his sheer presence not
to be dwarfed by his seat. He was dressed in an opulent cobalt suit with gold
trim, and the thick sides of a long coat spread around him on the throne like a
cape. He looked tall, even while seating. She would have expected him to wear a
crown, but his hair fell unfettered to his shoulders, a blonde so bright it
shone like gold.

For some reason, she had thought
he would be old, but he looked to be in his forties, maybe early fifties at
most. His features were sharply defined, with a strong jaw and bold nose; she
might have thought he was handsome if not for his slight sneer. His fingers
tapped an absentminded beat on the throne’s armrest as he watched her approach.
She wasn’t sure she liked that calculating look in his dark eyes.

She stopped, like Aedan had said,
beyond the second paving stone counting from the steps, and offered Rhuinn the
best curtsy she could manage after having practiced for an endless ten minutes
in front of Aedan’s unforgiving eyes. By the end, she had been ready to yell at
him and make him swallow back his ‘constructive’ criticism.

“King Rhuinn.” She tried not to
wince at the small squeak that slipped in her voice and continued as steadily
as she could. “I am Vivien Te Celden. I am honored to answer your majesty’s
summons—”