The atmosphere in the Imperial Bedchamber had shifted from the sated, golden warmth of a new engagement to a cold, pressurized vacuum. The silk gown Vera had worn to dismantle a Duke lay discarded on the marble floor like a dead skin—a relic of a woman who had briefly believed she could play at being a noble.
Vera stood before the floor-to-ceiling mirror, but she wasn't looking at her reflection. She was feeling the weight of the reinforced leather vest as she pulled the laces tight across her chest. The familiar scent of cured hide, oil, and the metallic tang of hidden daggers acted like a tonic, sharpening her emerald eyes into twin points of lethal focus. She checked the hidden sheaths at her thighs, sliding the sapphire-ice daggers—weapons forged from her own tempered resonance—into place with a rhythmic snick.
"You are not going."
