Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Raul
I remember hearing Lorenzo play when we were kids, before he had any gift. The way he’d get caught up in the melodies he could create with his own two hands seemed like a little piece of freedom.
Now, as the court circulates in the hall of entertainments, the strains of music that wash over me sound even sweeter than they did back then. All the same, my stomach clenches tighter with each new song.
They’ve turned into a reminder of how the emperor will take anything we can do and twist it to his own advantage.
Lorenzo doesn’t want to be playing for these pricks. He doesn’t even like any of them.
But he’s still going, song after song, because not capitulating would lead to something even worse.
Bastien comes up beside me where I’m standing by one of the tall windows, out of the way of the roving crowd. He considers Lorenzo’s pose on the performer’s platform several feet away and frowns. “It’s been nearly two hours now, hasn’t it?”
I nod, my teeth setting on edge. Tarquin set Lorenzo up with his vielle the moment we came here after dinner and hasn’t given him more of a break than a minute to have a brief drink.
As we watch, Lorenzo’s bow glides to the end of the current song. His arm wobbles as he lowers it. His face looks drawn.
He glances toward Tarquin, who’s pontificating to his advisors and other high-ranking nobles by the front of the room. I can’t make out much of the emperor, but I catch the quick wave of his hand: the universal gesture for Keep going .
Lorenzo’s mouth tightens. As he raises the bow again, something about his posture makes my own body tense.
He strokes the bow across the strings, sending notes so bright they practically shimmer out into the room. The melody winds through the crowd.
And Lorenzo’s knees buckle.
A shout of alarm breaks from my throat even as I launch myself toward him. Bastien dashes after me.
The collapse seems to slow through the blurring of my adrenaline, or maybe Lorenzo is still aware enough to catch his fall a little. But then his eyes roll up, the instrument tumbling from his fingers?—
I dive forward just in time to shove my hand beneath his head so his skull smacks into my palm rather than the hard wooden platform. I barely register the twinge of pain.
“Lore!” I say, patting my other hand against his cheeks. “Hey! Can you hear me?”
His eyelids flutter. Bastien drops down beside us, his expression taut. “He pushed his gift too far. He should see a medic.”
Lorenzo reaches up to snag my arm with his fingers. He manages a firmer blink and then a shake of his head.
Ignoring him, I straighten up to scan the room for any of the imperial medics who might be in attendance. If there’s one around, they should at least take a look at him.
Instead, my gaze stalls on our other foster brother. Neven’s face has hardened into a mask of fury as he stares in our direction.
The kid’s gaze jerks to the emperor, who’s barely given Lorenzo a cursory glance after the fall. Neven is too far off amid the court nobles for me to hear his voice, but the movement of his lips is emphatic enough for me to decipher his words anyway: “Fucking bastard.”
He hurtles toward Emperor Tarquin.
My heart lurches. “Neven,” I hiss to Bastien, and jump off the platform, leaving him to help Lorenzo sit up.
The head of pale blond hair is weaving through the crowd at an aggressive pace. I’ll have to shove my way through to reach him before he gets to Tarquin, and then it’d be a scene anyway.
But at least not a scene that would see Neven executed.
I’m shouldering between a couple of barons when an unexpected voice brings me to a halt.
“Prince Neven!” The chandelier light gleams off Aurelia’s bronze-brown hair where she’s moved to intercept the kid. Between the shifting bodies that block most of my view, I make out a swift flash of her smile. “I’m so glad our paths crossed. I was hoping you could lend me that book you mentioned from your recent studies before you turn in for the night.”
What I can see of Neven’s expression is utterly baffled, his confusion momentarily fracturing his vengeful rage. I don’t know what answer stumbles out of him, but Aurelia gives an impressively easygoing laugh.
“It’s all right. I’m sure you have a lot of responsibilities to keep track of. I could walk with you now—I was about to take my leave for the evening as it is.”
She nudges him toward the doorway. Whatever Bastien said to calm his animosity toward the princess obviously sank in, because the kid doesn’t try to bite her head off instead of Tarquin’s. She manages to get him out the door without any blood spilled or even insults hurled.
I have to clamp my jaw to stop myself from gaping. That woman is nothing short of a force of nature.
Why did she even intervene? I can’t believe Neven really did offer to lend her a book—or that anything from his studies would interest her when she has access to the entire imperial library.
Bastien and Lorenzo join me, Bastien still gripping Lorenzo’s arm to steady him. They stare toward the doorway.
“I talked with her about Pavel,” Bastien says quietly. “She’d already heard a little of the story… She knows how much it matters to us to make sure Neven doesn’t get into trouble.”
So she took it upon herself to step in when the rest of us were too distant. Simply because she could.
After everything I’ve seen of her, I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, an ache expands through my chest from throat to gut, like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
I force myself to turn back to Lorenzo. “Are you all right? We can still demand a medic?—”
Lorenzo makes a hasty gesture that amounts to, I’m fine. Just need to rest.
The regular court musicians are already assembling on the platform, apparently directed there by Tarquin. So fatherly of him to show absolutely no concern for the foster son he pushed to the point of fainting. Much more important to make sure the nobles don’t have to go without music for more than a minute.
I bite back my own rage and help Lorenzo out into the hallway.
After Bastien and I have escorted him to his bedroom and confirmed that he isn’t going to crumple again, Bastien says goodnight with a grimace and trudges into his own chambers. I hesitate outside mine for a few seconds and then stride back the way I came.
My knock on the door to Aurelia’s room brings no answer. Where else would she go?
I know she’s ended up in the library before, but a glance into the maze of decaying paper reveals no sign of her. I’m wandering the halls, caught up in a restless tension I can’t expel, when I glance out a window and spot her pale dress amid the garden hedges.
Of course. The princess of the wild north likes to roam—as far as our imperial jailers will let any of us wander, at least.
By the time I make it to the gardens myself, Aurelia has meandered past the fountains, hedges, and beds of flowers to the edge of the woods. She pauses there, considering them as if unsure whether she dares to venture into the thick shadows between the trees.
I can’t blame her for hesitating after the violent reception that met her the last time she walked that far.
At the rasp of my steps over the path, her head jerks around. She turns to completely face me, the lavender silk of her dress swirling around her perfect curves.
Seeing her now after all I’ve watched her endure, it’s hard to believe I ever thought she looked soft . The steel inside her shows in everything from the set of her eyes to the firming of her posture as she braces for my approach.
Why is she studying me so warily? I thought we’d parted on reasonably warm terms the last time we spoke. She welcomed my attentions, if only for a short time.
Of course, the last time she saw me, I was fawning over one of her competitors right next to her.
The memory turns my stomach, and not only because of the role I played in it. Watching her sway and slur her speech with the addling of the wine, her careful composure crumbling… It was almost as awful as when Marclinus literally stripped her bare of any possible defenses.
But she held on to her iron will throughout. Aimed her ire at the only safe targets she had and managed to play the eager fiancé to Marclinus.
Gods above, I’d have liked to punch his arrogant face in.
She shows no sign of drunkenness now. From what I noticed, she didn’t touch the dinner wine.
Her voice is absolutely steady and clear, if quiet. “What do you want?”
There’s no hostility to the question, but I can’t say it’s remotely friendly either.
I stop a few paces away and offer a crooked grin. “It’s a lovely night. Who wouldn’t want to take a turn in the gardens? It’d be even better with a little conversation.”
Aurelia’s eyebrows arch. “So you came over simply hoping to chat?”
Her tone remains impassive. She’s definitely not pleased with me at the moment, whatever’s going on in her head.
If we’re going to hash out the problem, I’d rather move completely out of view of the palace. I motion toward the nearby trees. “Perhaps I could accompany you into the woods, since they’ve sometimes proven treacherous. ”
The corners of Aurelia’s mouth tighten, whether because of my company or my reference to her beating, I can’t tell. She whirls with another ripple of her airy dress and walks into the shadows without waiting for me to escort her.
I follow her in silence. The forest around us is still other than the occasional rustle of the leaves overhead and the buzz of passing insects.
When we’ve ventured far enough that I judge it safe to speak, I lift my voice just loud enough for her to hear. “Thank you for stepping in with Neven tonight.”
Aurelia stops. “It looked like he was about to get himself into trouble he might not be able to get back out of. And I understood why he was angry.” She glances at me. “Is Lorenzo all right?”
The concern in her voice is the first definite emotion she’s shown. Jealousy I’m not sure I have any right to feel jabs through my chest and draws me closer to her. “Tarquin’s been pushing him to use his gift too much, but he should be fine once he’s had some rest. Neven wouldn’t have been fine if he’d thrown a fit about it.”
My lips curve into a softer grin. “I’m starting to think you’re not so much a lamb as a shepherdess.”
I was hoping to provoke a smile in return, but she only offers the same impenetrable expression. “I help where I can.”
Anger prickles up alongside another wave of jealousy.
This is all Marclinus’s fault. He ordered me to be a puppet in his psychotic trial; he humiliated both of us.
And he’s going to be the one who has her in the end.
It isn’t fucking right . After what he’s put this woman through, the only thing he deserves is a knife in the gut.
I take another step toward Aurelia, reining in my roiling emotions as well as I can. “You know I didn’t want to be a part of his idiotic test. I didn’t want to be fawning over her with you right there.”
Aurelia shrugs, but heat flashes in her eyes. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve fawned over plenty of ladies when I wasn’t around. I’m not sure why my proximity should make a difference.”
“None of that mattered. It was performing, just like you said.”
“And what do you call what you’ve been doing with me?” she demands.
It isn’t the same. I don’t want the others. I’ve never wanted any of the simpering ladies of Tarquin’s court the way I’ve been burning for this fierce and yet caring woman in front of me.
I saw the full depths of her strength when she fought her way through that wretched illness to cure herself. I knew she’d convinced even Bastien that she wanted to protect our countries as well as her own.
But nothing prepared me for watching her stand up to Marclinus the other night, utterly naked yet unshakably determined, risking her life to save a woman she met only weeks ago. Outmaneuvering the imperial heir in his own sick game.
When her spot remained empty at the breakfast table the next morning, when we realized Lady Fausta must have done something to her—the memory of the anguish that surged up inside me makes my gut shudder all over again.
None of the words I could use feel like enough to convey all that emotion. A strangled sound escapes me.
An urgency I can’t contain—to show her how much she matters, to make her see—propels me forward.
Grasping her waist, I push her up against the nearest tree and plant my lips on hers .
Gods help me, this is a kiss worth all the waiting, all the sniping and sparring of our chaotic flirtation. Her mouth sears against mine, her lips parting like an inevitability. She clutches the collar of my shirt, but only to yank me closer.
I flick my tongue over the seam of her lips to coax them farther apart, and she opens to me. A whimper works from her throat that has me hard in an instant.
The things I want to do with this woman—the things I could do out here in the woods with no one to see?—
Her hands ball against my chest, and then she’s shoving me away.
I let go of her and back up a single pace, heat still flooding my body from our embrace. Even in the dimness, I can see the flush that’s risen in Aurelia’s cheeks, the hungry widening of her eyes.
With a quiver of my gift, I know just how damp her drawers are.
Why is she putting a halt to what we’re both craving?
The words tumble out, harsher than I intend. “We’re not done.”
Aurelia crosses her arms in front of her. “You don’t get to decide that. Not unless you think you’re going to force the issue as Marclinus prefers to.”
The comparison cools my lust while raising my hackles. I wave my hand toward her. “You want this. You’re panting for it.”
“It’s been made very clear to me over the course of the past several days that what I want has little bearing on anything at all.”
Her voice is tart, but the truth behind those words cuts right through the core of me. My anger dwindles too.
I meet her eyes in the darkness, searching for the gleam of defiance and passion I know she still has in her. “It matters to me. I mean that. Not as any kind of ploy, just because it’s true. You deserve better than anything that prick can offer you. I’ll still believe that even if you never kiss me again.”
Her face tightens. “How can it matter when I can’t choose anything else in the end anyway?”
The faintest quaver runs through the words, a hint of sadness that wrenches at my heart.
Before I can come up with an answer, Aurelia brushes past me and strides off toward the palace.
All I can do is stare after her, feeling more beaten than any opponent in the arena has ever left me.