Oli
Oli cleared his mind as he waited for Rosârah Zeroah to show him one of her memories. They sat side by side on the edge of the same longchair in the training room, eyes closed, alone but for the two maids and three guardsmen congregated near the door.
“Begin at any time,” he said.
“I’ve already done so!” Zeroah cried, her voice laced with frustration. She sighed and lowered her voice. “I’ve been trying.”
She wasn’t trying hard enough. “Concentrate on a single memory. See it in your mind.”
“I have been doing just that for the past half hour.”
Oli opened his eyes and found her staring at him, brows creased. “You must be weary. Let us take a short rest.”
“I’m not tired, Your Grace. I’m simply incapable of what you are asking.”
How could he convince her to believe in herself? “If you have the power to draw forth memories, surely you can plant them as well.”
“Only your memories have passed between us. Perhaps you are the gifted one.”
Now there was a ridiculous thought. As if he ever would have shown anyone the humiliating moments she’d pulled from the depths of his mind. “You have an incredible gift, rosârah. We simply must discover what triggers it.”
“You are mistaken, sir. You pulled me into your mind. You showed me those things.”
“I would never!” he yelled.
Her eyes widened. He’d frightened her.
“Forgive me, lady.” Oli fought back his frustration, not wanting to upset her further. “Let us stop for today, but please focus on your memories whenever you can. Only by practicing will you discover the range of this gift.”
“If you insist.”
Oli got the distinct impression she would not practice at all. It annoyed him greatly that she seemed to have already given up, but what could he do?
He stood and helped her to her feet, but when he tried to release her, she squeezed his fingers. “May I ask you a question, Your Grace?”
“Certainly.”
“I wish to take Miss Vivia as one of my lady’s maids.”
Mention of the kitchen maid left him abashed. “I’m sure that would please her.”
“I had thought so too, but when I asked, she rejected me outright due to the fact that she was soon to be employed elsewhere.”
Vivia was taking a new position? “Elsewhere?” he asked.
Zeroah glanced away from his eyes. “As your concubine.”
So surprised was Oli by this suggestion, he laughed, but the censure in Zeroah’s golden stare quickly sobered him. “I assure you, lady, I’ve made no such offer of employment to Miss Vivia, nor will I. I seek no such companion in my life.”
“She’s under the impression that you love her.”
He tugged his hand free, shocked that Zeroah Barta would dare broach such a topic. Perhaps if he ignored her, she would realize how very rude—
“Do you? Love her?”
“Your Highness, I will not discuss my personal life with you or anyone.” He couldn’t fathom why this conversation was taking place.
“Well, she loves you. And if she is locked in a misunderstanding with you, I cannot secure her employment. You must have said something to give her the impression—”
“I have never said such a thing to any woman. Vivia means nothing to me.”
“Then you must tell her so,” Zeroah said. “So that she might accept the position.”
Oli did not see why any of this was his problem. “Is there no other lady in the castle who might fill this role?”
“I don’t need another lady’s maid, Your Grace. I wish to be Miss Vivia’s friend.”
“A queen and a kitchen maid? Friends?”
“According to the Book of Arman, the One God shows no partiality. To him a king and a servant are equals.”
“What’s your point, lady?”
She scowled, and emotions surged off her, anger and confusion and disappointment. “I don’t know.” She walked toward the door, then turned back to face him. “You have always treated me with the utmost respect and kindness. Why not treat Miss Vivia the same?”
Simple. “Because she is not a queen.”
Zeroah pursed her lips, as if collecting her thoughts. “I see,” she said finally, nodding once. “Then you are not the man I thought you were. Good day, Your Grace.” She walked away, leaving him standing beside the longchair, completely bewildered.
Convinced that he might have lost Zeroah’s good opinion, that night when Vivia came to Oli’s chamber, he fully intended to send her away. She showed up with a bottle of wine, however, and baked apples wrapped in sugar-dusted pastry. He couldn’t resist the aroma and invited her in.
They sat before the fire, and as they ate, he watched her closely, trying to discern what, if anything, he felt for the girl. Curse Zeroah Barta-Hadar to the Lowerworld. The woman had gotten into his head, and not with her mind-speak ability. Now he must rid himself of Vivia and be done with it.
“Rosârah Zeroah told me she’s asked you to serve as a lady’s maid,” he said.
Vivia’s eyes grew wide. “She spoke to you about me?”
“She did,” he said slowly.
She lit up. Her eyes and smile—even her posture—seemed almost giddy. “She said you and I are equals in Arman’s eyes. She also said I should chase after my dreams.”
Off all the interfering . . . Two could play at this game. “Then you must take the position with her. It would be far more enjoyable, I’m sure, than working in the kitchens.”
She cocked her head, like a puppy trying to understand. “But, Your Grace, it’s not my dream to be a lady’s maid. I . . .” She picked at the peel of her apple. “Why don’t you have a concubine?”
This was her plan? To hedge her way to the point in the most roundabout way possible? Oli didn’t have the patience. “I would think such a thing would displease you.”
Her eyes glistened in the low candlelight, but she offered him a quivering smile. “Maybe I don’t want to be a maid forever. I have dreams, you know.”
“So you’ve mentioned. Vivia, if you dream of serving as a lady’s maid, I’m happy to put in a good word with Rosârah Zeroah. But if you hope to become my concubine . . . don’t.”
Her smile faded. “Don’t?”
“Woman, hear me well, because I will not have this conversation again. This was only ever going to be a dalliance. I have no aspirations beyond teaching boys to become men and serving this realm as best I can. I seek no name for myself, no fortune. I’m a cursed man and will not yoke myself to another with any permanence.”
“Because you’re cursed? Or because you don’t want to?”
“Both. I am what I am. If you can’t accept that, I understand. Few can. Because few live so low as I do. You seek a better life? I applaud you. Find someone who can give you what you want.”
“But I want you.”
“You can have my body all you want, my dear, but the rest of me belongs to Gâzar. I pledged it to him long ago, and I’m afraid he will not give me up.”
She frowned. “The queen says we all belong to Arman—that you only need to make an honor pledge and the Father God will accept you.”
Comprehension tingled up his spine. Zeroah had been preaching to Vivia about her god. “Yes, well, she’s half right. A man can make a pledge to any god, but the gods don’t like to share. And once they own a soul, they keep it.”
“That’s a terrible outlook.” She rose from the chair, glaring. “You lost half an arm, but you live like you’re dead. It’s pathetic!”
“You think dead men teach children by day and serve at their king’s command?”
“Oh, shut up!” She wiped tears from her cheek. “Don’t speak to me again.”
“If you wish.”
She stomped her foot. “You know very well I don’t!”
His heart sank. He’d let this go too far. He didn’t like to make women cry. “Vivia, I’m sorry
to be such a disappointment. You truly deserve better than this.”
“No.” She strode to him, her expression tortured. “You don’t get to break my heart and be charming.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, lady.”
“Stop it!” She hammered one fist against his chest, then the other, and suddenly she was pounding with both. He let her have it out, until she struck his shoulder, where his father had stabbed him. At the sharp pain, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against his chest.
“Calm down,” he said.
“Let go!” She let loose a scream, so high-pitched and desperate, it jolted his heart.
“Stop that!” He had to calm her down before her hysteria brought the guards. He pushed into her mind. “Vivia, calm yourself.”
She stilled.
At first he didn’t trust her obedience. She was pretending. The moment he released her, she’d start screaming again. But she held still for so long, amber eyes watching him, he finally released her. She remained silent. Unmoving.
How strange. Concern crept upon him that he’d magicked her somehow. Woes! Could Zeroah have been right? Had he such power?
If so, perhaps he could make things right for Vivia, take away her heartbreak. He took hold of her hands and concentrated on her thoughts. “You don’t love me.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she began to cry. Oddly enough, she didn’t speak or move. Was it because he’d told her to stop?
Perhaps he could alter her memory. He closed his eyes and voiced her. “Remember when we met.”
The memory played across his mind as if it were his own. He saw himself in the great hall. Vivia filled his goblet with wine, and he complimented her on her dress. They talked for several minutes. He knew what was coming. She would be called away, but when she returned with his meal, he would ask her to visit his room that night. He let the memory play out. And when the moment came, he focused on Vivia’s mind.
“You cannot hear him. It’s too loud in here. He’s asking you to sit beside him, which of course you cannot do. Decline politely, then get back to work before you are seen talking to him. His kind like to make trouble.”
To Oli’s surprise, the Vivia in the memory did just as he suggested.
He tried another memory. “Remember our first night together.” The scene ran through his head. She was in his chamber—had brought him a berry trifle. “Go back,” he voiced. “When you were on the stairs.”
The memory shifted until Vivia was ascending the circular stairs. She stepped off on the fourth floor, and Oli placed himself in front of her.
“Good evening,” he said. “Where are you going with that stunning dessert?”
“I was bringing it to you,” she said.
“Were you? I am flattered. But I’m leaving this moment on an urgent errand. Perhaps you could bring me one at dinner tomorrow night?”
Her expression sank, but she curtsied, said, “Yes, lord,” and started back down the stairs.
Oli continued to bring forth memories of their encounters. He changed each one, growing steadily troubled by his power. Zeroah had been right. This had been his magic all along, and while Zeroah had used his magic to help him, here he stood using that same power to manipulate.
It couldn’t be helped. Vivia would be better off having forgotten him. She could take a position as Zeroah’s lady’s maid and learn all about the One God. Lead a good, respectable life.
When he finished, Oli sent Vivia out the door with one last altered memory of having drunk two bottles of wine. He watched her stagger down the stairs and hated himself anew for the self-absorbed cur he was.
He closed the door and fell into bed. He lay flat on his back, sick with the realization of what he could do. He tried to sleep, but all he could think about was how angry he was that Zeroah had complicated his life.
What right had she to meddle in his private affairs? To tell Vivia about Arman’s love? He supposed a woman that pious must go around proselytizing to any who would listen. What maid would dare deny the queen her ear? But to tell the maid that her dreams mattered and to chase after them . . . Fool, idealistic woman. This wasn’t a world that granted dreams. Zeroah should know that more than most, considering every member of her family was dead. How she continued to go about her days smiling and believing Arman was good was beyond his comprehension.
He fetched the bottle of wine from the tray Vivia had left behind, drowned his woes in drink, and eventually fell asleep.
Oli’s dreams that night took him back in time to the bowels of Castle Everton, where his father had inducted him into the Lahavôtesh at age ten. Moon Fang had branded him and forced him to bond with a shadir to keep from dying. Even when Paliki took away the pain, the creature still taunted him, called him a baby for crying.
As the little boy wept, a woman appeared before him. Goodness radiated from her, melted the coldness inside Oli, and made Paliki fly away.
She knelt at Oli’s head and stroked his hair. She was all warmth and goodness and freedom. “Do not be afraid, child. Arman is greater than this evil. He will protect you.”
Rosârah Zeroah.
Oli woke with a gasp. The heat of Zeroah’s touch faded to a sweaty warmth. He pushed off his blankets and sat up, head pounding from too much wine.
She’d done it again. Inserted herself into his memories and—No. He recalled all that had happened with Vivia. The memory magic had been his all along. He must have pulled the rosârah into his dream.
Why her, of all people? And why show her his childhood humiliations?
The answer came quickly enough. He’d never known someone so kind. He was drawn to her compassion. And the fact that she’d healed some of his pain.
Woes, he must find a way to stop this. It was far from appropriate and—
“Your Grace? Are you hurt?”
Oli reeled, shocked to hear Zeroah’s voice in his mind. “Why would you think that, lady?” And why had his addled brain answered at such an hour?
“I was dreaming,” she said. “You were a child, in some cultic ceremony. And when I awoke, I felt you in my mind. You seemed agitated.”
For some reason, he answered truthfully. “My childhood was not an easy one.”
“Was it the Lahavôtesh? I didn’t realize they inducted children so young.”
“They didn’t,” he said. “My father made a deal to induct me early.”
“Did your mother know?”
“She did.” He pictured her then, beautiful, proud, and bitter that her children would never rule. “She was a princess, one step from the throne. She liked Father’s ambition.”
“I well understand living under a parent’s ambition. It’s not an easy childhood when so many expectations are laid out in rigid order.”
Her words ministered to the life he’d lived, and he suddenly felt a surge of affection for this woman who had somehow managed, after all she had been through, to be kind and empathetic to someone as toxic as him. The feeling so surprised and disturbed him that he quickly tried to offend her.
“You’ll be pleased to know that Miss Vivia and I have parted ways.”
She did not answer at first, and Oli wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she said, “I am never pleased by heartbreak, Your Grace, though I did enjoy the opportunity to speak with her again.”
Fear shot through Oli’s chest that he might be found out. “You saw her? When?”
“Last evening in the kitchen. She was not herself. I’m worried she might be dependent upon opiates of some kind. Have you known her to partake of such things?”
Oli released a trembling breath. “Too much wine, perhaps, but nothing more,” he said, horrified that he might have somehow broken Vivia’s mind. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but I am weary and must wake early for school.”
“Good evening, Your Grace. May your dreams be pleasant.”
“Yes. Yours as well.” He drew up his shields and fortified them, but try as he might, he could not find sleep again
that night.
Mielle
Mielle and her staff had transformed the great hall. The tables had been pushed against the exterior walls and filled with food and drink. Mielle had stationed the minstrels and the royal band in one corner of the great hall and had done her very best to make use of the decorations that once had hung on the walls of King Echad’s reception room in Castle Everton. She’d draped the blue and gold fabric around the edges of the ceiling and brought in the thrones from the tiny receiving chamber that normally housed them. Mielle didn’t think Trevn had sat on the soft blue velvet since the coronation. Perhaps today would be the day?
Considering he was barely speaking to her, perhaps not.
Ever since the fight he hadn’t been sleeping in their chambers. Hawley confessed that Trevn had asked him to make up a pallet in the antechamber off the council room. The king of Armania sleeping in the equivalent of a closet. To avoid his traitorous wife.
“Mielle, it is time.”
Zeroah, looking glorious and slender in a beaded black gown, nodded toward the entrance. A family had crossed the threshold of the great hall and was headed toward the dais.
Mielle fingered the shell on the soul-binding necklace and hurried toward the throne with Zeroah. “He’s not going to come, is he?”
“You must always hope,” Zeroah said. “You apologized, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” But she hadn’t. Not really. The realization flustered her, and she stepped on the hem of her dress, nearly tripping herself. Oh, tuhsh. She forced herself to walk the rest of the way, slowly, to move like a queen. “People wait for their queen,” Brelenah continually told her, yet when Mielle sat on her throne beside Trevn’s empty one, she didn’t feel like royalty. All she felt was Trevn’s emotions through the soul-binding—the combination of his concern and his trying to mask it. He still cared for her. She must find a way to prove to him she cared too.
“Here comes Joret Vohan, the Earl of Idez, and his wife, Countess Cabena,” Zeroah voiced to Mielle as the first family headed their way. “Lord Idez is on the Wisean Council. Their sons are Sir Ransen and Master Enko and—oh!” A smile lit up Zeroah’s face. “They brought their daughter, Lady Madara, though it seems she left her son behind.”
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