Impossible that my personal guards should have abandoned their post.
I scanned the hall, one that led only to my suite of rooms, in the tower that belonged entirely to me, finding no one there at all. Never in my entire life and reign had that been so. A prickle of unease crawled up my spine and I ventured out a few steps, thinking I might call for someone. Shouts rang out from farther down the bend of the stairs, along with the clang of weapons. Then a cry of pain.
Sawehl and Ejarat save me—those were the sounds of fighting.
I hastened backward a few steps; then the pounding of boots thundering down the hall alarmed me into picking up my skirts with one hand, holding the crown in place with the other, and sliding on the slick floor back into the dubious safety of my rooms. I don’t move fast under the best of circumstances and these were far from ideal. Wheeling around to shove the door closed, I found it suddenly too heavy to move. Leaning my weight into it, I looked down the hall and gasped at the sight that greeted me.
Con, racing down the hall at top speed, still in my father’s black, a sword in one hand and an incongruously pink silk bag in the other. His long, dark hair flew in the wind of his passage, like the wings of a great black bird, face fierce. He seemed to take up the entire hallway in his furious race, but I glimpsed Sondra running at his right flank and Ambrose at his left, carrying his staff and seeming to fly the way his draping robes covered his feet. Merle indeed flew at the vanguard, streaking past me into my rooms.
In vain I struggled to shut the door that had closed easily thousands of times. Then Con was upon me, knocking me back as he shoved the door wider to admit his bulk. Seizing me by the arm, he caught me in time to stop me from falling ignominiously on my ass. Once Ambrose and Sondra plunged into the room, he released me and shut the door, turning the key in the lock and pocketing it.
Scanning the room, he spied a trunk and hefted it, carrying it to set before the door.
“We need more than that,” Sondra said.
“I’ve got it,” Ambrose said, giving me a distracted smile. He strode over to the door and touched the emerald on his staff to the lock. “No one will be able to open it until we’re ready.”
Con turned his scalding frown on the wizard. “I thought you said this was the way out.”
Ambrose smiled happily and bowed to me, Merle spreading his wings to mimic a bow also. “It is,” Ambrose chortled. “Her Highness is your way out. I’ve told you that repeatedly. Both of you. You’re clearly destined for each other, so alike in your obstinacy. Forgive us the intrusion, Your Highness.”
Con spun to me, as if just remembering my presence. “Are there other doors?” he demanded.
“Other doors?” I repeated faintly, with great astonishment. I realized I clutched my missive to Anure in hands gone sweaty with fear and edged away from him. He noted the movement and smiled grimly.
“Search for other entrances,” he told Sondra, who saluted and obeyed immediately, heading for my inner chambers.
I found my voice and my spine. “You can’t go in there,” I asserted.
She tossed me a look over her shoulder and disappeared through the doorway. I turned to Con. “None of you can be in here. These are My private chambers,” I stressed. Ejarat help me if Anure learned of this. My physical virginity wouldn’t matter to him if he heard I’d been alone and vulnerable to marauders.
“Oh yeah?” Con grated out, pacing from one window to the next. “Maybe you should arrest and imprison us. Oh wait—you already did that and it didn’t stick.”
Impossible. “How have you escaped?” I demanded. “Where is Syr Leuthar?”
Con flashed a grin, all teeth and stark violence. “Dead.”
“Dead?” I repeated. I seemed to be doomed to parrot everything he said like an addled idiot.
“I killed him,” Sondra offered, striding back into the room, showing me a bloody knife. I recognized the pink gown I’d given her as a peace offering—one of Tertulyn’s from last season—but it looked as if she’d soaked it in blood and lost half of it along the way. “I cut his throat,” she added, pantomiming drawing the blade across someone’s neck. “That shut him up. No other entrances, Conrí.”
“You killed the emperor’s emissary,” I hurled at Con. Sondra was his to command. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“I did. Why—were you fond of him?”
“You…” My careful plans, years and years of delicate maneuvering, shattered around me, making chaotic ringing sounds in my ears as they fell. “You can’t kill the emperor’s emissary!” I ended up shouting at him.
He regarded me with a smirk. “You seem too awfully fond of telling me what I can’t do, Lia. It’s done. Wrap your mind around that and let’s save the meaningless shouting.”
I wrapped my fingers into tight fists. Never in my life had I longed to punch someone as I did him in that moment. “I told you not to call Me that.”
He glanced at my fists and up to my face with a mocking smile. “Care to take a swing at me, Your Highness?”
“Perhaps give her a moment, Conrí.” Ambrose came to my side, carrying a glass of the brandy, and offered it to me. “Here, this might help.”
“Thank you, I’ve had enough already,” I replied in a brittle tone.
“Drinking in the afternoon?” Con made a tsking sound. “The depravities of the Flower Court know no end.”
I laughed at that, rounding on him. “Oh, you innocent. If you think a glass of brandy in the afternoon is depraved, a little time in My court will cure you of such naïveté.”
His brows lowered in a scowl and, because it was there, Ambrose holding out the glass with a gentle smile, I took the brandy and carried to my desk. Lowering myself to the chair, I sat and sipped, trying to regain my balance on every level. Scant minutes ago, I’d had a plan. Now I had … worse than nothing.
I needed to wrap my thoughts around this turn of events. Leuthar dead, in my palace, through violence. Oh, Ejarat, save me! “Blood,” I said, lifting a now shaking hand and pointing it at Sondra’s sodden gown. My thoughts whirled too loudly for me to hear Calanthe’s voice. Surely if She’d woken, She’d be louder. “You spilled Leuthar’s blood. In violence.”
Sondra glanced down at herself, plucking at the silk and holding it away from her body, then giving me a confused frown. “Well, yeah. That’s how killing people generally works.”
“Where?” I demanded. “Inside the palace?”
“Lia,” Con began with an impatient sigh, “we have more important—”
“Nothing is more important than this right now,” I cut in, my words whipping out hard and fast enough to make him raise his brows in surprise. “Where?”
“In the tower prison cell,” Sondra supplied crisply. “We also killed a few guards. Mostly Imperial Guards. Your people we tried to disable where possible.”
“So you haven’t been outside,” I clarified. Standing and taking my brandy with me, I went to the window—the one farthest from Con—and scanned the area. All looked peaceful. The orchid ring seemed undisturbed. Closing my eyes, striving for mental quiet, I stretched my senses to touch the place where Calanthe lived in my heart, murmuring to me. She seemed quiet, the songs of the birds and whispers of the fish going as usual, unaffected by this turn of events. I opened my eyes and turned back to the room to find Con and Sondra staring at me in wary befuddlement and Ambrose with alert interest. “Have. You. Been. Outside?” I asked, slowly and precisely.
“No,” Con replied, biting off the word in annoyance. “We’ve been imprisoned in your fucking tower and fighting to get out. What about you? Are. You. Insane?”
24
Lia stared at me with such vivid rage, her eyes seemed to have darkened to thunderous gray. No longer the color of soft rain, they warned of storms, the kind to kill an unwary man. Oh yeah—Ejarat in all her power as Mother Nature. Maybe that’s why they covered her in all that formal makeup, to mask the true face of the goddess.
“How dare you,” s
he said, very quietly, her anger all the more intense for how softly and precisely she shaped her words. “You stupid, foolish man. You toy with forces beyond your imagining and then laugh it off. I should’ve sunk your ship the moment you entered My waters.”
“Why didn’t you?” I shot back. Forget my imagination. She was no goddess, only a woman, and I refused to let some petty queen and pawn of Anure’s intimidate me. “I think you couldn’t. You with your pretty dresses and pretty ladies prancing about on your pretty island. You only wish you had the ability to stop my army. But no.” I advanced on her. She didn’t straighten—the woman was never anything less than ramrod-straight, as if that stick up her ass went straight up through her crown—but she drew herself together. In a fighter, I’d expect that kind of gathering to telegraph an attack. In Lia … who knew? “You couldn’t fight me any more than you fought off Anure. Isn’t that what you Calantheans do—roll over for whoever threatens you?”
“Conrí,” Ambrose said. “I think there may be more here than meets the—”
I cut him off with an upraised hand. Lia and I needed to reach an understanding. “I’m here and I think I’m in charge now. You couldn’t even keep me imprisoned. So don’t throw around your empty threats. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re my hostage—and you’re getting us off this cursed island.”
She had the audacity to roll her eyes at that. A dramatic gesture, with all those sparkling crystals on her lashes and the black paint outlining her eyes. The jewels pasted in a triangle at the corner of one eye winked at me, adding to the mockery. “Oh, I’m your hostage, am I?” she cooed, making it sound ridiculous.
I opened my arms, showing her the bagiroca and the sword, both bloodstained. Since blood bothered her so much, I might as well use that to advantage to intimidate her. But she didn’t even flinch. “Yes,” I said, to make it perfectly clear. “You are my hostage and if you think I won’t knock you senseless to make you compliant, think again. I have people to consider.”
“Consider this, Slave King,” she hissed. “You are in My rooms, in My palace, on My island, surrounded by My people. Seems to Me that you’re still trapped in a place where all the power is Mine. You won’t make it out of here alive.”
Pounding came on the doors, followed by shouts. Lia smiled, arch and serene. “And the balance of power shifts even more. Give yourself up and I’ll—” She broke off, a rare frown folding itself between her brows.
The shouts and pounding continued, but the door didn’t so much as shudder. Ambrose had promised it would stay shut and Sondra had guaranteed that was the only door, so I’d trust in them.
“What, Your Highness?” I asked mockingly. “Not sure what you’ll do, after all? Seems like I’ve disrupted your plans.” A carefully folded envelope made of paper painted with flowers lay on the desk. I set down the sword on the desk and poked the envelope with finger so it rotated. I couldn’t read much, but I recognized Anure’s name when I saw it. “What’s this—a letter to our dear emperor? And here I thought you would be traveling with us.”
“My plans hardly matter now,” she bit out. “You’ve murdered the emperor’s emissary along with who knows how many Imperial Guards. You realize that’s an act of treason, right?”
“Sweetheart,” I replied in the same tone, “I commit treason every time I draw a breath.”
“No doubt. But you’ve just taken Me—and the last independent kingdom—along with you. You’ve dragged us into a war that will be our destruction and act like it’s a great joke.” She threw up her hands and went behind her desk, sitting again and picking up the brandy glass, staring into it. With her lashes lowered, I couldn’t see her eyes very well, but I almost imagined the sheen of tears. Surely not possible from the ice queen.
I tossed the envelope to Ambrose. “Read that.”
“Why don’t you just ask Her Highness what it says?” Ambrose inquired, giving me a reproving look.
“Because I don’t trust her,” I explained. “Just read the cursed thing.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Lia said on a sigh.
“I’ll just bet it doesn’t.” Why I wanted to know, I couldn’t say, but I’d learned to follow my gut on such things. “I’m game, though. What does it say?”
She gave me a hard look, spinning the still-full brandy glass between her fingers like she might toss the contents in my face. I smiled a little, almost wishing she would.
“It’s plans for the wedding,” Ambrose related. “You have a beautiful script, Your Highness. Mostly about etiquette, making it the event of the century.”
“How long it will take for a worthy wedding gown to be created,” Sondra added, reading over the wizard’s shoulder. She looked at Lia. “Weeks just to find the right embroidery thread—really?”
“Wanted your special day to be perfect, did you?” I ground out. “So you could dance on our graves in your fancy dress.”
Lia set the glass down hard enough to splash the brandy. “Oh, for Ejarat’s sake! Are you really this obtuse? I was stalling for time. Leuthar wanted Me on the ship with you this afternoon. I planned to send this to Anure, then convince Leuthar that I had to stay or insult the empire with a lackluster wedding. It would’ve worked, too, if you hadn’t gone and killed him!”
“Oh, now you call him by his name, after chastising me for not using his title?”
“I think we’re past the point of formality—or being concerned about giving insult by using the man’s name when I’m responsible for his emissary’s murder.”
“True. Seems to me we did you a favor,” I retorted. “You don’t have to get on the ship now. Much more direct method.”
Her mouth fell open, then curled in a sneer very unlike her usually composed expression. “Don’t you dare pretend you’ve done Me any favors. You and your futile rebellion have jeopardized everything I’ve worked and sacrificed to accomplish. I’ve lost every advantage I ever had. All these years of stringing Anure along, convincing him I was his ally, that I’d be his bride, all wiped out in a moment of impulse because Sondra lost her temper.”
“Truth be told, I was pretty much looking for any excuse to cut his throat,” Sondra inserted cheerfully. “I would’ve done it no matter what.”
A muscle ticked in Lia’s jaw, the only evidence she was gritting her teeth. A loud boom hit the outer chamber door. A battering ram, most likely.
“The door won’t last long,” she pointed out.
“Actually it will,” Ambrose replied absently, still reading the letter. Lia had written pages. “They’d do better to knock the walls down around it, but hopefully it’ll be a while before they think of that. This letter is quite brilliantly done, Your Highness. Playing on Anure’s longing to be truly of the royal set. Deft and clever. It likely would’ve worked.”
He handed her the letter and she took it calmly, but crushed the delicate paper into a ball with a fury that made me think she wished it was my neck. “Small comfort now,” she muttered.
“Stop acting like this is such a disaster,” I said to them both, unaccustomed guilt making me impatient. “We should all be happy not to be on that cursed ship.”
Lia tapped her long, jeweled nails on the desk, eyes focused on them as if she might find a solution there. She looked the same as when I saw her earlier, though indefinably mussed. She had her usual poise, her face a smooth, composed mask, but when she finally met my gaze, her eyes sparkled with the glassiness of fear, shadowed with despair.
“I never planned to be on that cursed ship,” she declared, but her voice wavered. “And I tried to keep you two off it,” she said to Ambrose and Sondra.
“But not me,” I said, sounding more bitter than I meant to. “You would’ve handed me over to Anure’s torturers with a smile.”
She transferred her gaze back to me, eyes almost metallic in their hard silvery glint. “With a smile? All right then. Yes, I’d smile because I’d be protecting Calanthe. One man’s life means nothing to Me compared with that.”
<
br /> Particularly yours, she didn’t have to say. Her words shouldn’t have stung, but they did. I thought I hadn’t been kidding myself about her lack of regard for me, but apparently I had nursed some sort of delusion that we’d discovered a kind of kinship, a shared understanding.
Unreasonably angry, I leaned my hands on her spindly desk and deliberately loomed over her. Not that she’d give up a shred of pride and shrink away from me. Instead she lifted her chin, eyes glittering with regal defiance.
“And the rest of the world can go up in flames as far as you’re concerned,” I snarled. “You’ve had the power to help so many and you’ve sat here in this palace of flowers and done nothing because you don’t care.”
“That’s right.” She firmed her mouth, pressing her lips before continuing. “All I care about is Calanthe. If I had to kill you with My bare hands to save My realm, I would.”
I cast a dubious glance at her hands. “I dunno, Your Highness. You might break a nail.”
“Like My ladies did when you tried to attack Me in the throne room?” she asked coolly. “Only a fool would underestimate us twice.”
“Stop calling me stupid,” I growled.
“Aww,” she cooed. “Does the truth hurt?”
“When you two are done flirting,” Sondra broke in, “we really should come up with a plan.”
Lia and I both turned to glare at her. Sondra smiled back thinly. “Eventually, they will think of coming in another way to rescue their queen and we’ll have lost our advantage.”
Lia folded her arms, an elegant and intricate gesture that didn’t disturb the fresh flowers on her gown or the orchid ring. “Seems I simply need to wait. Unless you plan to kill or rape Me.”
“What?” I spat. “You think that I would—” I broke off, unable to finish the sentence.
She raised one eyebrow. “You do have a reputation.”
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