“Khamsin?” Wynter half rose from his chair and leaned towards her.

Crystalline laughter pealed out. “Oh, Wyn,” Lady Reika grabbed his arm as if to pull him back, “remember the time when we—”

BOOM!

Lightning split the sky, so close, the banquet hall went blinding white. A deafening crack of thunder made ladies scream in fright, then burst out in peals of nervous laughter.

Khamsin set down her silver water goblet, which now bore the distinct impression of her fingers melted into the metal. All the ice in the goblet was gone, and the water was steaming. She pushed back her chair to stand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. Please excuse me.”

“Khamsin!” Wynter growled, reaching for her. She skirted his outstretched hand and walked swiftly for the door.

Behind her, the silence exploded in a sudden buzz of conversation, and she heard Lady Reika’s voice asking, “Wyn? What just happened? Did she do that?”

Bella was sitting at the secretary, scratching an ink-dipped quill rapidly over a scrap of paper, when Khamsin burst in. The little maid leapt to her feet and whirled towards the door, one hand clutching at her throat. The other swept out, knocking over the inkpot and spilling black ink across the paper. “Oh, Your Majesty!” she exclaimed. “You gave me such a start.” She started mopping up the inky mess with the ruined remains of her letter and several other sheets of paper. “Is dinner over so quickly?”

“It is for me.” Khamsin headed for the bedroom, tearing off her velvet overdress as she went. She reached for the laces at the back of the satin gown, but the ties were hopelessly tight. “Come help me out of this dress.”

“Of course, Your Majesty, but I need to clean up this mess and wash the ink from my hands before I dare touch that gown.”

“A stain or two wouldn’t hurt it,” Kham muttered under her breath. But she raised her voice, and called, “That’s fine. There’s a storm outside. I’m going out on the balcony to enjoy it.” She pulled open the leaded-glass doors that led to a private balcony circling the castle turret where her bedroom was located. The wind rushed to greet her, cold and hard and stinging with icy rain, but she only spread her arms and lifted her face up to meet it. This storm was strong but not deadly. She’d left the banquet hall before it had become so.

Her skirts whipped wildly around her legs, the pins pulled loose in her hair, and long, curling strands of white-streaked black blew around her. She breathed deep, drawing the chill, fresh air into her lungs, and turned her face up into the sluicing streams of rain. Storms, for all their rage and potential danger, were cleansing and ultimately calming. She gave her temper up to the winds and wished her body could float up and join it. What joy it would be to skate the skies on swirling black clouds or ride the lightning as it raced miles in mere instants.

She stood there for a long while, letting the wind whip at her, the rain soak her through to her skin, until the last remnants of her hot anger had faded away. When she was finally calm again, she went back inside. Bella was gone. Kham poked her head in the main parlor and called to her, but got no response. The girl must have gone to wash up in the servants’ washroom down the hall instead of doing the reasonable thing and using Kham’s bathing chamber.

With a muttered curse, Kham returned to her bedchamber and tried once more to untangle the knotted ties at the back of her bodice. Really, how ridiculous was it that ladies wore fashions they could not put on and take off without assistance? Men weren’t such fools.

She twisted her arms, fumbling blindly with the ties. The rain had soaked the fabric and swollen the cords, making them even harder to unknot. Her chin dropped down to her chest. The wet, tangled curls of her hair fell forward and dripped a steady stream of water on the floor that joined the greater puddle seeping from her gown.

“Summer Sun!” she exclaimed bitterly, giving the ties a furious yank.

“Let go. You’re only making it worse.”

Khamsin froze at the low rumble of Wynter’s voice and the jolt of electricity that jangled across her nerves when his fingers brushed against hers. She stood still, her heart in her throat, while he tugged at the ties of her gown. After a few moments, the ties loosened, and the fabric at the back of her gown parted. She started to clutch the gown to her when Wynter slid it from her shoulders, but she remembered her oath of matrimony and let the gown fall.

His hands went to the ties of the silk underdress, loosing them with similar ease. “Why did you summon the storm?” he asked, as the ties slipped free. “And why did you leave?”

Holding the last flimsy shred of protection to her chest, she stepped away and turned to face him. “You aren’t so blind as that.”

He wasn’t, and he surrendered the pretense without a fight. “She is just a childhood friend, nothing more.”

“She wants to sit on the Winter Throne,” Khamsin countered, “or at the very least, lie in the bed of the man who does.”

“Reika?” He laughed and shook his head. “She’d sooner bed down with a wild wolf. I’m too big and rough for her. She wants a man with poetry in his heart. She’s said so many times.”

“Has she said so since the day you chose her sister over her?”

His look of consternation was all the answer she needed.

There were benefits to living in the shadows as Kham had done all her life, being unseen, unnoticed. One of those benefits had been to watch the court ladies work their wiles on the men, to observe not only what they said to men’s faces but also what they said behind their backs. Khamsin had no doubt Reika’s youthful protestations had been flirtation, intended to call attention to her delicate femininity and instruct Wynter how to woo her.