Chapter 13
Amelia could hear running water. A gentle trickle, almost musical. A fountain, her half-awake mind supplied.
With that realization came another: she hurt…everywhere.
As consciousness took hold, so too did the pain.
It illuminated every inch of her, dull and throbbing in some places, spike-sharp in others. She sucked in a breath that left her ribs twinging, and blinked open her eyes to find they were gummy, her vision blurred.
The closest comparison to her current state was the time she’d been forcefully bucked off a pony when she was twelve.
That was when she remembered that she had fallen, from her drake, and that she’d landed in water.
She remembered the awful, searing pain in her hand, where the emperor had marked her.
Remembered a pale face and slicked-down white hair bobbing above the water in front of her. My lady.
“My lady,” the same voice from her memory said aloud, very close. “You’re awake.” A voice touched with obvious relief—and an obvious accent.
Cassius. The last, most damning and frightening realization of all, and the whole, terrible debacle in Merryweather bowled her over like a runaway hay cart.
Wherever she was, she needed to move, and move now.
She caught a blurry glimpse of a room filled with strange pink light as she hauled herself upright, and then black spots crowded her vision and she could see nothing.
“Careful, my lady.” Hands—Cassius’s hands—caught her, one curled around her upper arm, the other flat and supportive against her back. “Take it slowly. You’ve been through a shock.”
Been through a shock. She’d had a great-aunt long ago, her father’s aunt, prone to swooning.
The moment catastrophe struck—say Amelia came to the supper table wearing dirty riding boots—she would clutch at her chest, and sway in her seat, and someone would rush to fetch the smelling salts, or fan her with a napkin.
She loathed the idea of putting on such a performance, no matter how badly her body ached, and her head spun, and her stomach rolled like an unhappy sea.
So she braced her hands on either side of her hips, felt something soft and giving beneath her, a cushion of some sort, the silk of its cover slick on her palms. She blinked furiously, until her vision began to clear.
Though she lacked the immediate strength to bat Cassius away from her, she tightened the screaming muscles in her midsection so she could hold herself up without his support.
His hand remained on her back, however. Lightly, carefully, but she was keenly aware of its presence.
His other hand appeared in front of her, holding what, after another moment’s blinking, proved to be a cup. “It’s water,” he explained.
She longed to knock it from his grasp. A petty, but satisfying denial of further comfort. But, gods, she was thirsty.
“Water and what else?” she gritted out through a dry throat.
“Only water.” The softness in his tone set her teeth on edge, but she reached, shaky and clumsy, to take the cup.
Water slopped over the edge, and onto her breeches, cold and unwelcome.
Cassius pressed a single fingertip to the bottom of the cup, helped her, and she managed to put the rim to her lips.
The water was cool, and clean-tasting, nothing like the warm, canteen-flavored creek water she’d been swigging on campaign, and after the first sip, she drained the cup in greedy gulps.
He made an aborted noise in his throat she thought meant he wanted to advise caution once more, but refrained. He took the cup from her when she was finished. “More?”
She nodded, and licked a stray drop off her lip.
“Very well,” he murmured, and withdrew, finally; stood.
Amelia rubbed the last bit of crust from her eyes and watched him cross the room toward a sideboard laden with cups, decanters, goblets, and bottles. He selected a silver pitcher, frosted with condensation, and refilled the cup.
While his back was to her, she took the chance to survey her surroundings.
The room was spacious, and sumptuous. Broad flagstone floors covered in layers of rugs so plush they looked as though no one had ever walked across them.
She sat on the edge of an ornate chaise lounge covered in deep red silk cushions.
Similar cushions adorned a bevy of chairs, and a tufted leather sofa.
The same red silk had been used for the pillows and coverlet on the wide bed that sat perched on a dais off to her left.
There was a dining table of carved wood, ringed by eight chairs, lined down the center by iron and silver candlesticks; the candles in them were white, and half-melted, long strings of rehardened wax dripping off their ledges.
Close at hand there were small tables scattered with books, and vases of fresh, too-fragrant flowers.
Beyond, a series of tall, arched windows that went all the way down to the floor, their shutters and red drapes thrown back to allow in the soft pink and orange light of sunset.
Through the openings, she saw a flagstone courtyard, and a marble balustrade.
A fountain, three-tiered, the source of the musical spill of running water.
A bluebird, plumage still dull thanks to the earliness of the season, landed on the edge of the fountain and ducked his head to drink. Three quick sips. Then alighted with a flutter of wings and a chirping call.
In her periphery, she saw Cassius turn from the table, and hesitate, cup held in both hands, one pale thumb tapping against the side of it as he regarded her.
Amelia knew the answer before she asked the question, but still, she said, “Where am I?”
He had the grace, or perhaps good sense, to lower his head, a quiet show of regret. “The capital of your nation, my lady. Aquitaine.”
Her heartbeat accelerated, but it seemed a distant action, as though it was happening to someone else. “In the palace?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“The sun is setting. How long have I been asleep?”
“Only a day, my lady.”
She swallowed with difficulty, despite the water she’d choked down. “Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Because it’s your title.” He sounded baffled. What else would he call her?
She turned to him, then, and was struck by the sadness in his gaze. Big-eyed, and sorry, and, if false, then a bravura performance.
“But I’m your prisoner.”
He shook his head. “No, my lady. Not mine.”
The unmistakeable click of a lock turning came from behind her, and though all of Amelia’s instincts told her to turn and look, she instead gripped the edge of the chaise cushion, and glanced toward Cassius.
Clearly, he’d been locked in here with her, and his reaction would tell her whether that was a reward, or a punishment for him.
As she watched him, Cassius’s head lifted.
His eyes widened, and then went half-lidded as he ducked his head completely.
Before she lost sight of his face, she saw the terror that touched it; subtle, and quickly smoothed, but plain in the smooth, pale lines around his mouth and eyes.
His throat jerked as he swallowed—as he fell into a bow that swept his hair over his shoulder like a spill of fresh cream.
Amelia expected the bold strike of bootheels across the floor, but instead heard the whisper of soft-soled shoes. She half-turned, and was greeted by the sight of a thin wisp of a man rounding the end of the chaise.
He was clearly Selesee, based on his coloring, but there the resemblance to the soldiers she’d fought ended.
Short, slight, with shoulders almost as narrow as his hips, if not for the sharpness of his gaze, she would have thought he was a child, fourteen or fifteen at the oldest. His white hair was cut short, to his shoulders, and held back from his face with an ornate gold band.
His clothing was likewise sumptuous: fitted purple robes belted at his waist with gold, the narrow sleeves stopping short of delicate wrists adorned with gold bracelets.
He wore slippers of soft white leather, and his bracelets jangled like bells when he lifted both clean, fine hands and linked them together when he halted beside her.
He regarded her a long, disapproving moment, then turned his cool attention on Cassius. His voice was high and grating when he said, “You were told to notify me when the prisoner was awake.”
Cassius lifted his head, and his expression was not the peaceable one that he’d shown her and the other Southerners. This was a mask of perfect obedience, devoid of all life and alertness. It was only now, seeing the contrast, that she realized how expressive he’d truly been in her company.
She’d warred with herself about whether or not he was playacting, but this was acting. A practiced and extreme form of it.
“She’s only just awakened,” Cassius said. “I was on my way to ring.” He gestured to a thick, silken length of rope dangling from the ceiling, its end a fat golden tassel.
The newcomer’s eyes narrowed, suspicious, doubtful. “His imminence wants you.”
Cassius went very still.
The newcomer flicked his fingers dismissively. He wore lavender lacquer on his short nails, Amelia saw. “Go. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Cassius shot her a furtive, apologetic glance, and then swept from the room. In a swift and careful gesture, he handed her the fresh cup of water over her shoulder as he passed, and she managed not to drop it.
The door clicked, and then she was alone with the strange little man with the short hair—who unceremoniously shoved a table aside with his foot so he could stand across from her and survey her, arms folded, head cocked, unimpressed.
She wetted her throat with a sip of water and said, “Who are you?”
He gave her the same narrow-eyed look he’d given Cassius, and she didn’t find it intimidating. She’d faced off from soldiers, had taken wine with the emperor himself; the overgrown boy in front of her now was laughable by comparison.
“You’re in no position to ask questions, Miss Drake,” he said in his strange, too-high voice.
“But I’m asking them.”