“Part human, part angel?” Eliana turned back to her with a harsh bark of laughter. “Oh, good. That’s better. I am wholly reassured.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Remy mused, chewing on his lip. Excitement lit his eyes, grudgingly warming Eliana’s seething black heart. Soon he’d be pacing, lecturing them like a miniature temple scholar. “Marques had markings on their backs where wings might be. And most of them were killed during the Angelic Wars, before Queen Rielle was even born. I think if El was a marque, there’d be some sign of it on her.”
A sharp rap at the door made them all jump.
Navi turned at once where she sat. “Simon.”
“Not a word to him,” Eliana warned. “Or I swear to you, I’ll rend—”
“Eliana, would you stop threatening me every five minutes? I told you I won’t tell anyone, and I meant it.” Navi hesitated, then approached slowly, one hand outstretched. In her palm lay Arabeth. “Take it. Please.”
Eliana obeyed, snatching the knife away before Navi could change her mind. With Arabeth held securely in her fingers, some of the churning knots in her chest loosened their grip.
“I would like,” Navi said with a small smile, “for things not to be that way between us. I would like us to be friends. For us to trust each other.” She paused and looked to Remy. “If there really are angels in the world, as your brother thinks might be the case…we’ll need to keep close all the friends we can find. Don’t you agree?”
Another, sharper rap on the door. “Ignore me at your peril,” came Simon’s voice.
“You’re an ass!” Eliana shouted over her shoulder.
“I’ve never claimed not to be,” he replied.
Navi laughed softly. “Well? What do you think?”
Eliana shook her head. “I’m not good at having friends.”
“I’ve rather fallen out of practice too. Shall we try to remember how it goes, together?”
“No, don’t worry, I’m happy to wait out here forever,” came Simon’s irritated voice.
Remy burst out giggling, sounding more like a child than he had in long months. It melted the last of Eliana’s resolve.
“I will try,” she said at last and clasped Navi’s hand in her own. “That’s all I can promise.”
Navi smiled warmly at her. “That is a gift. I thank you for it. Now.” She raised her eyebrows at the door. “Shall I let him in?”
“Oh, please, allow me.” With that, Eliana marched over to the bathing room door and flung it wide open with a grin—which promptly dropped off her face when she took in the sight of Simon standing there. Linen trousers sat low on his hips, and he wore nothing else, save a dark-blue towel slung over his shoulder. His ash-blond hair was tousled and wild, and his ruined skin… Eliana couldn’t stop herself from looking at it. Beyond the layer of dirt coating him, thin silver lines and slender patches of skin shimmering with burn scars snaked across his chest and down his abdomen, slipping beneath the waistband of his trousers.
For a moment, Eliana found herself truly wondering what had happened to him—what had burned him, who had cut him—and what he had been like as a child, before the horrors of the world had found him.
“My, my,” he murmured, his blue eyes flashing with unbridled glee. “Never have I seen the Dread struck so speechless. You know how to make a man feel good, I must say.”
Eliana’s mouth opened and shut, her cheeks flaming. Scrambling to think of something clever to say, her flustered mind could come up with nothing better than “Come to catch a peek at me naked, did you?”
She winced.
But Simon only smiled. “Oh, Eliana,” he murmured, his voice no longer playful, “I want so much more than simply a peek.”
With one last, lingering look, he slipped past her into the bathing room, and Eliana was left standing at the door, alone and unsteady, her hand tingling from the brush of his fingers against her own.
It was a strange thing that had so unbalanced her, beyond her lonely body’s reaction to his own. A sensation that sometimes came upon her when Simon was near, and one she couldn’t explain. A sense of the familiar.
Like she had felt when standing on the terrace overlooking Celdaria during her vision of the Emperor—an irrational sense of belonging and rightness.
A sense, she thought, dazed and faintly irritated, of home.
29
Rielle
“I don’t know what either of you were thinking, and God knows I don’t want you to explain it to me. But, if you need a place to hide or flee, know you can always come to me. Not even His Holiness knows of all the secret places in this city and how many of them belong to me.”
—Message from Odo Laroche to Lady Rielle Dardenne
May 24, Year 998 of the Second Age
When Rielle left the House of Night archives the evening after she’d been caught with Audric, her eyes burned from reading far too many books about the physicality of shadows and the life of Saint Tameryn—all so meticulously annotated by Sloane that the sheer size of the woman’s notes rivaled the books themselves.
Rielle’s shoulders ached; her nerves felt as though they’d been sliced open and left hanging, frayed. She could think of nothing but the haven of her rooms and the fresh cinnamon cake Evyline had promised would be waiting on her bedside table.
But at least now, with the shadow trial in a mere two days’ time, the plan that had been brewing in the back of her mind had solidified.
She pulled the archive doors shut behind her, Evyline and two others of her guard flanking her, then turned—and froze.
Ludivine sat in the hallway across from the archives, on an iron-footed settee fringed with fine dark tassels. Her golden hair fell down her back in waves. The gray gown she wore shimmered beneath a field of elaborate burgundy, dark-blue, and russet embroidery: Sauvillier colors.
Rielle could think of nothing to greet her with except “Oh.”
Ludivine stood, a small smile on her face, and held out her hand. “Walk with me, Rielle.”
“I don’t want to.”
Ludivine took Rielle’s hand and tucked it through the crook of her arm. “I insist.”
Rielle glanced back at Evyline, whose hands rested on her sword.
Evyline nodded grimly. She and the other guards would, of course, stay near.
So Rielle took a deep breath and walked with Ludivine downstairs, through the quiet, dark hallways of the House of Night, until emerging into the central chapel. Dozens of worshippers had gathered throughout the room to pray—at the rims of black marble fountains, on floor cushions and prayer benches. Some knelt at the feet of Saint Tameryn’s statue, which stood at the heart of the room. Daggers in hand, she looked up through the open rafters at the deepening violet sky.
At their entrance, everyone in the crowded chapel looked up from their prayers.
The silence was deafening. The whispers were worse.
Rielle planted her heels, determined to walk no farther. “Lu, please don’t do this to me.”
“Oh, come now,” Ludivine murmured. “We’re just going for a walk. What’s the harm in that?”
So Rielle allowed Ludivine to lead her on through the room. At the feet of Saint Tameryn, Rielle and Ludivine knelt, kissed their fingers, touched the napes of their necks. Ludivine murmured greetings to everyone they passed. Rielle tried to do the same, tried to smile, but her words sounded strangled, and her smile felt like it had been fixed to her face with nails.
Once outside the House of Night, Rielle could no longer contain her frustration.
“Are you going to say nothing to me?” she whispered, as Ludivine guided them through one of the outer temple courtyards. Whistblooms, their pollen glowing a powdery white to match the stars, had begun to open along the paved path. “Will we parade about the city in awkward silence until I faint from the stress? Is that t
o be my punishment?”
“Calm yourself and act ordinary,” said Ludivine under her breath. Then, louder: “Good evening, Lord Talan, Lady Esmeé. Aren’t the whistblooms lovely this time of year?”
The courtiers in question bowed their heads, their eyes darting back and forth between Rielle and Ludivine as they murmured brief greetings and glided on through the foliage. Once a few paces away, Rielle heard their furious whispers begin.
Heat crawled up the back of her neck.
“Just a little farther,” said Ludivine softly, but it wasn’t until they’d passed through the outer courtyards of each of the seven temples that Ludivine finally turned them off the temple roads and onto a narrow side street.
Rielle felt weak with relief once they passed into the shadows of the apartment buildings crowding overhead.
“And that wasn’t punishment?” She wiped her face with her sleeve, her hand shaking.
“No,” said Ludivine calmly, leading Rielle down the tidy cobbled road. Patches of soft torchlight from brackets in the walls lit the way. The first Grand Magister of the Pyre had, centuries earlier, designed the torches in the temple district to light on their own at nightfall. “If you’d stop panicking for a moment, you would see I’m trying to help you. And please, put up your hood.”
“Help me?”
“We saw hundreds of people just now,” Ludivine said, raising both their hoods to cover their hair. “More importantly, they saw us. They saw two dear friends, arm in arm, on a leisurely stroll through the gardens. Just as we might have done on any night. Even if seeing us together quells only a fraction of the gossip racing through the city right now, it will be helpful to you, to Audric, and to me.”
Ludivine turned them down a set of narrow steps that led to a lower neighborhood. They kept their hoods up and their faces down, avoiding eye contact with passersby. Evyline and her guard followed close behind.
“I don’t know if my father will ever quite recover from what he saw,” Ludivine muttered, “but I can at least show my support for you, as publicly and as often as I can.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rielle watched her feet descend the steps through a film of tears. “You should hate me.”
Ludivine blew out an impatient breath. “Rielle, look at me.” She stopped them at a quiet landing where the staircase turned sharply right and took both Rielle’s hands in her own. “Look.”
When Rielle met Ludivine’s calm gaze, the terrible twist of pain in her chest robbed her of breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please, forgive me.”
“Answer me this: Do you think I love Audric?”
Rielle blinked, caught off guard. “What? I…”
“Of course I do. We’re cousins and dear friends, and I’ve known him all my life. He’s my family. But do I love him like you do? Of course not.”
Rielle’s mouth dropped open. “I… Lu, what are you talking about?”
“And I know Audric feels the same about me. Do I wish you both had come to me, so we could discuss all of this like civilized people, instead of you rolling about half naked in the gardens for everyone to see? Yes, I very much do.”
Rielle would surely die, right there on the stairs. “Lu, I’m so sorry, really. I don’t know what came over us.”
“Of course you do. You’re in love with him, and he’s in love with you, and you’ve been desperate to kiss each other for years now. It was only a matter of time. Do you know how exhausting it’s been to sit back and watch the two of you dance around each other?”
“He isn’t…” Would the shocks never end? “We’re not…”
“Oh, please. It couldn’t be more obvious than if you rolled around half naked in the gardens, actually. Oh. Wait.”
“Well, sweet saints, Lu!” Rielle rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to us? I didn’t think… I mean, I hoped, but…”
Ludivine’s smile was wicked. “Watching you may have been exhausting, but it was also entertaining. I could hardly resist that. Court is dull as toast most of the time.”
Rielle threw up her hands. “What, and you would’ve waited to tell us the truth on the day of your wedding, I suppose?”
“Oh, I would have long before that.” Ludivine drew Rielle’s arm back through hers and continued down the stairs. “But why ruin my fun? Though I confess,” and here Ludivine’s voice became quite grave, “I regret my choice not to tell you that I knew sooner. I could have saved us all a lot of trouble. And now…”
“What will happen?” Rielle asked as they walked down another quiet residential street. “Now that your father has seen.”
“He will speak to the king, of course,” said Ludivine, “and ensure that the betrothal agreement remains intact.”
Rielle’s throat constricted painfully. “Of course.”
“I don’t expect he will make life pleasant for you. Neither will my aunt, the queen.”
“Have they ever made life especially pleasant for me?”
“A fine point.” Ludivine squinted down the darkening road, looking up and down the rows of tall stone houses. “But, truly, Rielle…please don’t test anyone, not right now. Not with things so tense and fragile. Wait until my father’s temper cools before trying any grand defiant gestures.”
Rielle glanced sidelong at Ludivine, her nerves drawn suddenly even tighter. Ludivine couldn’t know about the plan she was crafting for the shadow trial, could she? “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Be a proper candidate. Obey the Archon.”
“And stay away from Audric?”
Ludivine turned, her face full of pity. “I don’t ever want to ask you to do that.”
“But I should,” Rielle whispered. Her voice felt so thick with sadness that it was difficult to speak. “I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”
“As I understand it,” Ludivine replied wryly, “kissing involves not just one person, but two. If there is blame to be placed, it isn’t only for you to bear.”
Rielle followed Ludivine down a thin garden path. A stone archway choked with flowering vines marked the entrance to a tidy square courtyard. Beyond the courtyard stood a wide black door with a brass knob. A tarnished silver plate nailed into the stone above showed crude etchings of a mortar and pestle and a cluster of bundled leaves. Ludivine stopped beneath the archway.
“My darling,” she murmured, her gaze soft on Rielle’s face, “please don’t let your heart grieve. Do you completely wring out my nerves? Yes, every day. But I love you as much as I ever have. And we will find a way to work this out. I will not see you live your life with a broken heart on my account.”
Rielle pulled her into an embrace so fierce it knocked back both of their hoods. “Is it possible,” she mumbled, “that you’ve taken me to this strange, dark house in the middle of the city to do away with me?”
Ludivine laughed. “After all those nice things I just said, you have to ruin the moment.”
“Perhaps you said all those nice things to get my guard down.”
“A fine plan, but alas, this is not as exciting as all that, I’m afraid. I’ve brought you to Audric’s healer.” Ludivine ducked out from under the archway and crossed the courtyard. “Audric much prefers him to his father’s healers up at Baingarde. He’s a good man. Discreet, no-nonsense. And, for all our sakes, I’d like to know that, going forward, your body is protected. Just in case.”
Rielle stopped midstride. “You brought me here so I could buy a contraceptive tonic.”
“Did you think to buy one for yourself?”
“I…” Rielle flushed once more. “I didn’t. I suppose I was still rather caught up in all the…” She gestured helplessly.
“The kissing?” Grinning, Ludivine knocked on the door. “Understandable. That’s what friends are for: to do the thinking for you when your own mind’s
gone fogged.”
The door opened, revealing a ruddy-faced older man of middling height and weight, with shaggy brown hair, a slight beard, and piercing blue eyes. He held up a candle, squinting.
“Ah, Lady Sauvillier. Good. And…” He looked to Rielle. His eyebrows raised slightly. “And the honored candidate herself. What a night for me. My name is Garver Randell. Garver is acceptable. Follow me.”
Rielle glanced at Ludivine, who hid her smile behind her hand. No-nonsense indeed.
He ushered them inside, through a small entryway and into a quiet room lined with shelves of vials, jars, and labeled boxes. Through a door in the far wall, Rielle saw a softly lit staircase and another, smaller room. The sounds of someone sweeping and a child’s cheerful humming drifted out to meet them.
“My son’s around here somewhere. He’ll fetch it for you.” Garver found a seat by the crackling fire. “If I have to search through these shelves one more time today, my eyes are bound to pop out of their sockets.”
“Here, Father!” A small boy hurried out the lit doorway into the main room, a broom clutched in one hand. “What do you need?”
“A packet of contraceptive powder for Lady Rielle.” He glanced back at her. “I’ll give you a month’s worth. You’ll have to come back for more.”
Rielle saw the boy’s eyes widen at the mention of her name.
“I hope, Garver, that I can count on both you and your son to be discreet in these matters,” she said.
“Do you think I’d be in business, Lady Rielle,” Garver replied mildly, “if I were in the habit of walking around me de la Terre spreading news of what medicines people take?”
“No,” Rielle said, with some difficulty, “I suppose not.”
Garver’s little son had already found the packet in question, packaged it in a small, plain box, and brought it to Rielle.
“Here, my lady.” He held up the box, his cheeks bright red. “That’ll be five coppers—”
“I’ll waive the cost this time,” Garver called from the fire. “You did well at the metal trial, Lady Rielle. It’s the least I can do.”
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