“Master Rosec,” said Alucard, with a bow. “It has been too long.”
“Indeed,” said the vestra. The truth was, the Rosecs were the only royal family who did not keep a permanent home in London. Instead they held their own court in the north, though they knew better than to call it that.
Master Rosec gestured to his children. “My son, Oren. My daughter, Hanara.”
The boy, Oren, gave a nearly perfect bow, but there was a mocking flourish to it, his mouth twisted in a private grin. The girl, Hanara, bowed her limbs, but not her head, those black eyes hanging on Alucard as she sank and rose again.
“You know, I was a good friend of your father’s,” said Sol Rosec.
Ten years dead, but the mention of Reson Emery still made Alucard stiffen.
“I was sorry to hear of his passing—”
“That makes one of us.” The words came sloshing out before Alucard could stop them.
Behind his father, Oren snorted. Hanara arched a brow. Sol only frowned. He made a show of scanning the crowded hall. “And where is your older brother, Berras?”
Alucard flinched at the name. “I fear you have missed much of recent events,” he said, “in your time away from London.” He made sure to lean on the last word. “My brother is no longer welcome at court.”
Rosec’s black eyes raked over Alucard. “Pity. To see a great house fall into such … disrepair.”
Alucard’s fingers tightened on his glass. He imagined squeezing the air from the old man’s lungs. It wouldn’t be hard—Sol Rosec’s own magic had once been a burnished red; now it was little more than a pale pink thread around his shoulders. He was dying. Alucard wondered if he knew it yet.
“Father.” Oren was leaning forward. “Shouldn’t we give our blessings to the king and queen?”
“Of course,” said Rosec, and with that, the three departed, and were soon mercifully swallowed by the crowd.
Alucard did not abandon the hall at once. No, he endured another hour, smiled and joked and made pleasantries until his face hurt, and then at last he escaped to the gallery above, told himself it was not an escape at all, simply a chance to get a better view.
From here, the bodies below became a tapestry, one he could read as easily as the threads of magic in the air around them.
The king and queen, ablaze in gold.
The royal guards and servants, dressed head to toe in crimson.
The ostra and the Faroan emissaries both in white, though the latter’s clothing was cut differently, wrapped close against their skin.
A single Veskan moved through the crowd—not a representative from the foreign court, but the youngest prince, Hok, now being raised by the London Sanctuary. He apparently spoke Arnesian well enough to pass for London-born, but the shock of the young man’s fair skin and white-blond hair stood out easily in the crowd.
The green pool that must be Mirella Nasaro skirted the room, still looking for her son.
The three black-clad Rosecs grouped together like drops of ink.
The new queen’s family, the Loreni, dressed in violet, grey collars shaped like crescent moons around their necks.
Alucard took in them all, but even once he scanned the entire hall, he found himself still searching. For a slash of silver. A swath of blue.
For any sign of his brother.
Of course, he wasn’t there. Berras Emery had not shown his face in almost three years, not since the night Osaron’s poison swept through the city. The night their sister Anisa died, and Alucard had burned fighting the magic that Berras let pour into him like drink.
Not that there had been much love before that.
Theirs was a wreckage tallied in years. In split knuckles and broken bones, in venomous words and exile plots. In their mother’s absence, and their father’s shadow, in everything Alucard was and Berras wasn’t.
And yet, despite it all, he had still expected Berras to come, if for no other reason than to make a scene. If he closed his eyes, he could see his older brother, dark hair swept back and head held high, wearing the family colors with a pride that Alucard had never been allowed to feel. He could see Berras’s eyes, a blue so dark it read as black when he was mad. Could hear the scrape of his voice as he took in the chalice and sun at Alucard’s throat and said, “Well, at least he put a collar on his bitch.”
Alucard clutched the sigil until the silver bit into his palm. His vision blurred and he closed his eyes against the sudden threat of tears. Sound wafted up from the hall below, and yet, somehow, he still heard the priest’s white robes whisper toward him on the balcony. Felt his presence before he turned and saw the tendrils of the Aven Essen’s magic, pale threads dancing in the air.