Chapter 79
Chapter
Seventy-Nine
I stare at Riza, at her familiar, worn face. Her words sink in, but I can’t make sense of them. They float in my head, dancing and circling like flames at a bonfire.
They sent Prince Nemeth to the tower to seduce you and win you over to Darkfell’s side.
Impossible.
Isn’t it?
I think of our interactions in the tower. How we’d both wanted nothing to do with each other at first. How Nemeth had saved my life and I’d found it puzzling. How annoyed he’d seemingly been at sharing space with me…until we’d fallen in love. How he wouldn’t touch me unless we were mated. He’d insisted .
And then I think of the time I’d woken up to hear him talking to the altar, “confessing” to the gods.
How he’d openly admitted to me that he’d spied on me at his brother’s command.
All those little memories flit through my mind and fill me with terror. Have I been betrayed? Played like a musical instrument by the person I love most in this world? But if that’s the case, why did he save me so many times? Why did he let the intruders attack him in order to protect me if it’s all a farce? His wing was torn. He’d thought he’d never fly again.
He’d done that for me. Sacrificed himself for me.
Time and time again, Nemeth had shared his food with me, even when it meant we’d both go hungry. How could this possibly be his plan? I shake my head. “You’re wrong. He loves me.”
Riza bites her lip and glances up at Tolian.
“Prince Nemeth was sent at a very young age to the Alabaster Citadel so he could learn how to be the Royal Offering,” Tolian says, voice neutral. “A short time ago, it was decided that Nemeth was too scholarly to woo a princess. That the Princess Meryliese of Lios viewed him as a friend and not a potential lover. So he was sent home and Ajaxi was to take his place in the tower. For whatever reason, they changed their minds a month prior to the solstice, and Nemeth was sent back to the Alabaster Citadel once more as the offering.”
Ice spreads through my veins. Nemeth had mentioned that.
“His training at the citadel included courtship and human wooing customs,” Tolian continues. “How to please a female. I’m told he wasn’t a good student at these particular lessons, preferring to read war poetry instead, but I’m sure some of it sank in.”
I think of the onion he’d made me, studded with peppercorns. He’d acted like it was such a silly custom. He’d asked me to tell him about our customs…had he already known them? Was he just toying with me?
“Apparently Ivornath was quite happy when he learned you were sent in place of Meryliese. It was rumored that Meryliese was cold and temperamental and you were considered…”
He pauses.
“Easy?” I ask, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice. This isn’t true, I tell myself over and over again. It’s not true. It’s all a lie to pull me away from Nemeth. To turn me against him.
“Yes,” Tolian says. “That you were a less, ah, virtuous sort. That you enjoyed flirting games. My spies tell me that the brothers instructed Nemeth to be standoffish for a time, because that would intrigue you and then you’d fall into his arms?—”
“Stop. Please, stop.” I close my eyes. I’m dying inside. I’m dying, because all of the little things Tolian says that were part of their plans are matching up with my memories, and I’m withering, my heart turning to ash in my chest.
Nemeth loves me. He does.
“They wanted you on their side in case of war,” Tolian continues, heedless of my plea. “A Vestalin princess sympathetic to Darkfell’s cause would be a blow to the Liosian king. It would sow doubt amongst the commoners. It would bring them to our side. You have always been a tool that the First House intended upon using, Princess Candromeda. I am sorry to be the bearer of such messages, but they are the truth.”
Messages.
Nemeth wouldn’t let me see the messages from Riza. He wouldn’t tell me why, either.
He knew.
He’s been hiding me ever since we arrived here. It’s like a knife in my heart.
“He’s always been their creature, Candra. I’m sorry.” Riza’s gaze is full of sympathy. Her hand brushes against her mate’s. “I didn’t realize you trusted him so. I thought you were with him simply because you had no other options. That you were using him and not the other way around.”
I flinch at her words, because I feel incredibly stupid. I’ve always prided myself on being flirty and seductive, winsome and appealing despite my barrenness that makes me so ineligible for marriage. That it didn’t matter because I could make men want me regardless…and yet I’ve been completely taken in by a scholarly Fellian who pretended to be reluctant.
Pretended to be falling for me.
This is why he didn’t want me to see Riza. He didn’t want me to know everyone was laughing behind my back. “I need to talk to Nemeth.”
“Wait,” Riza blurts, jumping to her feet. “Please, Candra. Before you return to his side, I must beg a favor of you. Don’t tell him of our plans. Don’t tell him that you’ve spoken to me, or to Tolian.”
“If First House knows that Second House is plotting against them, we will be executed for treason,” Tolian says in a grave voice. “And if I am killed, there will be no one to protect Riza.”
My friend trembles, her eyes pleading.
As if I could sell her out? As if I have not dreamed of seeing her again, hugging her? Do they truly think me so capricious? But I suppose I have been in the past. That spoiled, gossipy Candra of old seems so very far away. Now I am simply tired. Tired and defeated.
My mate is using me. He doesn’t love me.
My sister is a shell of herself, her children gone.
My kingdom is in ruins.
All that I have left is Riza. “I would never put you in danger,” I vow to her. “You have my word.”
She gets to her feet, searching my face as if seeking her answers there. As if she doesn’t believe me. “Will you join us, then? Join Second House to take down First House? With a Vestalin on our side, we can convince the people that Tolian and his house are truly with us. If we let First House stand, Ivornath’s madness will destroy us all.”
“I can’t let Nemeth be hurt,” I confess. “Even if this is all a lie, I still care for him. I still need to talk to him. There’s more at stake than just my life.”
And I run my hand over my rounded belly to show her just what I mean.
Riza nods in understanding. “Ajaxi and Ivornath must be destroyed. Nemeth can be exiled.”
“But—” Tolian begins to protest.
He’s silenced by a shake of Riza’s head. “If nothing else, he can be sent back to the tower.”
My heart aches at the thought of Nemeth, alone and miserable in the tower once more, without room to spread his wings and fly. How can I have so much sympathy for someone who has hurt me and used me at every turn?
I still love him, and I hate that about myself. I want to be as cold and hard as Erynne…but I can’t.
I wonder, absently, what the goddess will do if there are no Fellians of First House to fulfill their half of the Royal Offering. If there are only Vestalins left. I suppose if there are no Fellians left in First House, no one can be sent to the tower…
Except my child. I rub my belly, hating that their fate has already been decided. “I’ll speak to Nemeth tonight and will let you know my answer in the morning. I will let you know if I am with you.”
“If you are not, I fear we are all doomed,” Riza says.
She might be right, and yet I cannot make a choice without speaking to Nemeth first. I must find out from him if all that Riza says is true…and I will find my answers, I suspect, in what he does not tell me.
A short time later, Tolian returns me with a quick teleport back to Nemeth’s quarters.
There is still no sign of my mate, and my heart aches with the realization that he is going behind my back…or so it seems. They could be wrong, I reason. Nemeth’s actions might be lumped in with Ajaxi and Ivornath, but perhaps he’s not working with them and that’s why they sent him back to the tower.
There could be any number of reasons as to why Nemeth was sent to the tower, and they don’t necessarily have to do with me. It could be anything, I tell myself. Anything at all.
And if Nemeth would just be straightforward with me, I’d feel so much better. I’d trust him again. Truly, all he needs to do is throw me a bone. Just one. Just a morsel.
I put the stone back in the teleport circle and pace around the room restlessly. I can’t explore the rest of the house, so I’m more or less confined to our bedroom, and I hate it. I hate that it makes me feel trapped, like when we were in the tower. I hate that it makes me feel as if I’m an afterthought in Nemeth’s life. Like I’m a pretty bird to be caged until it’s time for me to sing.
I hate all of this, so much.
Eventually, the door opens down below, and I all but fly to the edge of the bedroom and peer down. “Nemeth?”
“My mate.” His voice is as warm and delicious as ever, and my heart aches painfully. In the next moment, he’s behind me, pulling me away from the ledge, and his arms go around me. “Do not stand so close to the edge, milettahn . It would break me if you were to fall and hurt yourself.”
He nuzzles the top of my head, as loving and sweet as ever, and I want to cry with the agony of it. Why is he so good at pretending, if he truly doesn’t care for me? “I’m glad you’re back,” I manage. “Where did you go?”
“Where I always go,” Nemeth says, a hint of wry humor in his tone. “To stand at my brother’s doorstep and beg for an audience.”
I turn in his arms, trying not to frown. “He still won’t see you?”
He shakes his head. “Being stubborn. Ivornath grew up knowing he was to take the throne, and it made him impossible to budge when he had an idea in his head. Acquiring the throne has made him less willing to listen, and aging even more so. Willful fool.”
Nemeth strokes my cheek, his expression full of the same humor and intelligence I’ve grown to love over the past few years. I see no deception there, no distaste, only the same affection he’s always shown me. Maybe Riza and Tolian are wrong. Maybe my sweet Nemeth has nothing to do with Ivornath’s plans.
“I’ll try again tomorrow,” Nemeth promises me.
“What if we leave?” I say brightly.
His mouth turns down at the corners and he tilts his regal head at me, as if he’s misheard. “Leave?”
I nod. “It’s clear we’re not wanted here. What if we leave? Just head back out and go back to the way things were before when it was just you and me? We can fish—I’ve gotten pretty good at catching my own dinner—and we can grow mushrooms. We can live off the coast or even head back to the tower, though we won’t have to stay inside forever. We can just come and go as we please!”
Nemeth stares at me, hard. “Candra…”
I grip his hand in mine. “Please, Nemeth. Say you’ll go with me.”
“What about your sister? What about the people enslaved here?”
He’s stalling. I know he is, and it breaks my heart. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to leave. I don’t want our child born here. I’d rather go back to the tower. Please.”
My mate’s bright green eyes fill with pain, and he slowly shakes his head. “We cannot, Candra. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think it’s the best thing for our child. There are physicians here. Herbalists. Midwives. You need them for our baby. And even if you can forget about your people, I cannot. Things are just as wrong here as they were back in Lios. It’s my duty to do what I can. Once I get to see my brother?—”
I fling his hand away. “I thought you loved me.”
I know I’m being dramatic, but more than anything, I need him to show that his allegiance is with me. That I matter above all else. That nothing has changed and we’re still in this together, the two of us against the world. I need him to prove to me that Riza is wrong wrong wrong , because my heart is shattering into a thousand pieces with every moment that passes.
Nemeth’s expression is defeated. “You know I do, milettahn . But I cannot abandon the people here for my own selfish wants and needs. Can you?” He grips my shoulders, forcing me to gaze at him. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you would be content with abandoning all those here in Darkfell. All the humans. All the Fellians who have nothing to do with my brother’s machinations. You would abandon them?”
“That’s not fair.”
He shakes his head. “None of this is fair. And yet it is the fate we have been given.”
I stare up at him, mutinous. “Fine. If you want to stay, then get me in to see your brother. The king.”
“I’ve been trying to see him?—”
“No, not you. Me. Let me talk to him.”
Nemeth’s jaw sets in that stubborn way of his. “You’re not going to see him until I have.”
“Then I guess that answers that,” I manage to say, my voice light despite my heartbreak. Tonight has proved one thing to me. Riza was right. Nemeth has some plan with his brothers, and he won’t let me in on it.
Whatever he might feel for me falls secondary to duty.
The rest of the day is full of tension. We’re silent over our meal, and afterward, I declare a headache and take to bed. It’s not as if I can go anywhere else, after all. I pretend to sleep, the covers pulled over my head, while silent tears trickle down my cheeks.
I’m going to allow myself a tiny bit of crying, but that’s all. If Nemeth has used me, I can’t trust him. If I can’t trust him, then I have to make my own plans.
I have to think about my baby. I have to think about my people. It feels strange to say that to myself. I’ve never been the most devoted of princesses, not in the slightest. But Nemeth is right that there is something wrong here. He just refuses to see that it’s his brother.
So I have no choice but to work around my mate.
He holds me that night, his hand on my belly, and our child kicks and flutters in my stomach, reminding me that I have more to think about than just myself, than just Nemeth. The baby inside me is going to need a safe place to live, and I don’t care if that place is Darkfell or Lios.
Right now, neither one is safe. Darkfell is full of plague, slavery and intrigue, and Lios is full of mud and empty of people and food.
“Give me another day,” Nemeth whispers into my hair as I pretend to sleep. “We must go carefully when we approach my brother.”
I nod. As if I have a choice? In a strange sort of way, I do know that he’s trying.
I just don’t know if it’s enough. If he’s lying to me and deliberately stalling, dragging our feet could mean the death of so many Liosians. Even if he’s not lying and his brother truly is pushing him off, we cannot afford to wait.
I go to sleep that night with the terrifying word “purge” echoing in my head.
It’s a tense breakfast the next morning. I glare at Nemeth over the food.
“I cannot today,” he tells me, his expression grim but determined. “I must speak with my brother first. I will not put you in front of Ivornath before I know if you will be safe or not. I cannot get the sight of Lionel’s dead body out of my mind. I will not let that happen to you.”
I hate that he sounds logical. It’s almost believable. If I didn’t know what I know now, I’d be a much happier woman. A fool, but happier. “May I have the letters that were sent to me, then?”
He gets to his feet. “We’ll talk about those when I return.”
“Am I your prisoner?” I ask him. “Am I no longer your wife? Your mate? Because right now, I feel like a prisoner, Nemeth.” I gesture at my surroundings. “Even a golden cage is still a cage.”
He moves to my side. I don’t get up from the table with the strange stools, and continue to mutinously glare at him from my spot by our breakfast. He strokes my cheek with his knuckle, sighing. “I know this is difficult. I wish you could understand.”
“Then tell me,” I exclaim. “Tell me what’s going on so I can understand.”
“I’m trying.”
“Are you? Because I feel like you’re keeping secrets from me. Why can’t I go with you to the palace? Why can’t you let me see those letters? Why won’t you tell me what the red symbols are on the doors? Where is everyone? Why won’t your brother see you? What’s he hiding?”
Nemeth flinches at my torrent of accusations. “Once our safety is secured, then I’ll explain it all. I promise.” He leans down and presses a kiss to my brow. “I’m sorry, Candra. Give me one more day.”
“Do I have a choice?” I gesture at my surroundings. “It’s not as if I can go after you.”
“Think of this as the tower, and we are yet in waiting once more,” he offers.
“In the tower, we didn’t keep secrets from one another, did we?”
Nemeth is silent, and at that, my heart breaks. He leaves, and I pick at my food, no longer hungry. To think that I’d been thrilled to eat anything such a short time ago and now my heart is so heavy that I can barely bring myself to eat the expansive plate of food in front of me.
How is it that we were so happy in the tower, and yet the moment we’re around others, everything turns to dragon shite? It’s unfair.
I finish my meal and remove the stone from the teleport circle. I suspect Tolian will come again today, or at least bring a message from Riza. If they’re lying to me, they’re very good lies with far too much truth embedded in them for me to be able to pick out the differences. I know Riza, though. I’ve known her since I was a child. She wouldn’t lie to me. Not about something as important as this.
So either she’s being lied to as well, or Nemeth is the one not speaking the truth.
Tolian appears in the teleport circle a short time later. I’m dressed and waiting for him, and when he holds his hand out, I take it. It feels like a betrayal of Nemeth…and yet I have no choice.
If Nemeth is hiding things from me, it’s my duty as the mother of his child to find out what those things are. I have to make sure that my baby is safe.
This time, we don’t return to the seaside villa. To my surprise, Tolian takes me deep inside the mountain, to a strange storage building that reeks of mushrooms and sour wine. Barrel after barrel are stacked to the ceiling here, and as I look around, Riza appears from the shadows.
“You came back,” she says, relief in her voice.
“I worry that you’re right,” I confess, hugging her.
“I hate that I am.” Riza gives me a miserable smile. “More than anything, I want your happiness, but I cannot remain quiet if I know that he’s lying to you.”
I nod, not trusting my voice. Glancing around the storage building, I sigh. “So what now?”
“I want you to see for yourself what’s happening to the survivors of Lios,” Riza tells me. She opens a bag and pulls out a cloak and a scarf. “You need to see how they’re being treated. You need to see our fates if we don’t rise up.”
I slip the cloak on over my clothes, noticing that the patterns on it are similar to the ones Nemeth wears on his breast and on the buckle of his belt. The sigil of Second House, then. Riza covers her face with the scarf and indicates I should do the same. “We won’t be allowed to move through the city without a covering. Even Tolian would not be able to save us from a beating if we were caught. We are considered plague-bearers.”
Ugh. Right. I cover my face as instructed, and when we’re ready, I follow her out.
We move through the city quietly, walking through what must be a main thoroughfare. Again, I’m reminded eerily of Lios, the empty streets there and the echoing palace. The streets here are empty as well. When we do see someone, they hurry away and keep their distance. Up above us, the occasional Fellian flies overhead, but it’s still far too quiet.
So many doors are marked with red, too. It’s terrifying to see.
“Once the air here was filled with wings,” Tolian says in a low voice. “You would look up and see a hundred people in the air at any time, moving from house to house, or crossing to the harbor. Now it feels abandoned, and I worry the goddess will not stop taking lives until the mountain is completely empty.”
“There,” Riza says, steering me. “The field up ahead.”
We pause near a stone fence, turning to see a field up ahead. It is well-lit, with the bright magical lights studding the fields and giving the pale plants some light to grow by. Walking the rows are human women, their mouths covered as they pick what look like grapes. The women look tired and thin, and their clothing is ragged. As I watch, a woman falls to the ground, only to have a Fellian overseer roughly grab her and haul her to her feet. He shakes a whip in her direction and I have to turn away.
“The women work the fields because there are not enough healthy Fellians to do so,” Riza says in a low voice. “And because the plants here are fragile and growing through false light and not the sun, the fruit and vegetables are puny. A farmer must work twice as hard to get the same amount of food. Now, of course, he has human slaves to do so.”
I purse my lips. “What about…when I was captured, one of the men said that women were serving the Fellians in their beds. That the noblewomen were taken to a district for whores and were being forced to pleasure men for food.”
Her unhappy look tells me everything.
“We are not bad people,” Tolian says. “But the war has soured many hearts on Lios and its people. The king should put a stop to the abuse of the human slaves, but he is silent, and so the worst run rampant with abuse because there is no one to stop them. Many are not inclined to help humans, either. The plague is far reaching. Last night, Fourth House was struck down, and they cast their humans into the streets. I’m sheltering them at Second House, but I worry that the next group of humans will not be so lucky.”
I turn to Tolian. “And how did you decide that this was wrong? How did you come to this when your people seem to think it’s all right?”
He gives me a faint smile and glances over at Riza. “I fell in love.”
That makes me ache all over again because Nemeth fell in love with me, and yet it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. “All right,” I say, resolute. “What’s the plan?”