Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tuscany
Kong stays with me while I eat, waiting until my ladies are knocking at the door to leave through the secret exit.
It’s Brook’s leisure day, so when I swing open the door, it’s Essen and Ana who await my invitation.
“Good first-light, my queen,” Essen says softly, avoiding my gaze.
I step aside, gesturing inside. “Please come in.”
Entering with arms full of blankets, lotions, and ointments, she starts her Purpose immediately, checking my mattress, then the contents of the trash can beside it, looking for—secrets, probably.
Ana walks in after her, circling around to the sofa and table, the small tray of protein bites now empty.
She smiles at that. “You ate your bites, my queen.” Ana sounds genuinely relieved. “Do you want more? Have we found a new favourite?”
“Yes.” I bite my lip, wondering how they will taste without Kong between my thighs. “They were lovely.”
Moving around to the dressing vanity, I sit and meet my eyes in the mirror. I blink. I look… different.
Ana appears behind me. “Shall I pull your hair up and cover it for your bath or do you wish to wash it today? It feels lovely and soft. I don’t think we need to.”
In the mirror, behind me, Essen continues around my room, inspecting and judging, I presume. I frown at her. “What exactly are you looking for, Essen? When you fuss around my room each first-light?”
She freezes, slowly turning to look at my reflection. “My apologies, my queen. What do you mean by fuss?”
“You inspect. It’s unsettling. What are you looking for? I demand to know what you could possibly be searching for under the sheets and in the trash can?”
“Blood,” she says, expressionless. “Empty bottles. Tissues.”
“Blood?” In a knee jerk response, I turn on the bench to face her dead-on. She is making sure I am not taking a man. “So, you can go straight to Master Cairo and advise him whether I’m keeping my vows of celibacy?”
She sighs hard. Disappointment and anger both dual along her breath, confusing me further.
“No, my queen.” Her brows pull in over glossing eyes.
“I am checking to make sure you’re not hurting yourself, that the trash can is not stuffed with tear-soaked tissues, that your bed looks slept in, so I know you were not under it all night, sobbing and taking sedatives in your little space! ”
In my little space— Ugh! I shoot to my feet, defensiveness surging through me. “So you can tell Master C—”
“So I can care for you, my queen!” she blurts out, both of her hands balling into fists at her sides. “It is my Meaningful Purpose.”
She steps toward me, but I’m too shocked to speak, lowering myself to my seat. Her words have slapped me to silence.
“I take it very seriously,” she goes on.
“And because you’re still Tuscany to me, the annoyingly squeaky girl from my Collective, and becoming the queen does not change that.
I have been doing this for years. Every first-light, the first thing I do is check these things.
The only person I tell is Lord Bled. We both want you to be healthy and happy. ”
“Bled…” I mutter.
“We write to each other,” she admits as if now she can’t stop talking.
“Often. You saw us. You know we are close. I sometimes visit him on my leisure day. It takes an entire day to get here and all night to get back to The Estate to be at your door in the first-light, but I do it to spend a few hours with him. We talk about you, then we are intimate, because it’s fun and easy and feels phenomenal. ”
Ana is completely still.
I blink at Essen. “Oh.”
“Now, you know.” She shrugs. “I have broken protocol. I have spoken out of turn and been disrespectful.”
“Oh.” Turning back to the mirror, I stare through my reflection, trying to absorb this information, trying to sort my feelings. Essen isn’t always spying and judging? To the contrary, she cares for me?
All this time?
Did The Trade do this by design— separate me from others or did I do this?
Did The Trade isolate me? Make me feel alone when I never truly was?
They separated me from womanhood, then from reality.
Did I try to get help… I can’t remember.
Did I reach out to Rome or Essen or Bled and ask them to help me?
I don’t believe the words ever came out.
I accepted my circumstances—my Trade. I wanted to be queen so strongly, so loudly, that The Cradle shook with my desire.
I took my vows, skipped through my Rite, gloated and smiled.
How could I possibly admit that I was wrong? All of a sudden, a victim?
How could I?
I lift my hand to my throat, pressing my fingers to my pulse, sensing the rhythmic beat, grounding myself.
After a few moments of pause, I focus on her reflection as she folds a sheet in the silence her truths created. “You travel an entire day to spend mere hours together?”
“Yes.” She sighs. “I do.”
“He must have some skills,” Ana murmurs with mischief in her voice, a cadence that aids in dousing the tension.
Essen pales, looking up from her pile, but when Ana giggles and I lift a brow in question, her shoulders loosen. “He does.”
I want to say that I saw and—heard—everything. He did seem… skilled. Yet, even in this heavy, candid moment, I don’t feel equal. We are not. We never will be. I spent a decade being carved to keep me from ever feeling at ease with others.
Still, I don’t want her honesty and loyalty to go unnoticed. “If you want to take leisure days in twos or even threes, then you should just ask me.”
“That’s not how it’s—”
“Done,” I cut in. “I know. But I’m the queen, and you’re my Army, and I say, if you wish to take two leisure days in a row, you may.
Just ask.” As the words pour from me, I’m reminded of how proud Kong was the last time I changed the rules without requesting permission from the Trade Master or Rome. I lift my chin. “So, do you wish to?”
Startled, she frowns, considering.
Ana nods. “Psst, take her up on it.”
“Her is the queen,” Essen scolds, flustered. “Well, yes…” Essen can barely look me in the eye. “Two leisure days in a row would be quite useful.”
I stand. “Very well. I will see you receive two leisure days in a row moving forward.”
After that, I use the enormous Xin De-sized bath, not the shower. I don’t want to wash away his presence; every little bead of water on the glass is a reminder of him. I’m sure he’s outside the front door now. My Guardian. I thrill at the notion.
This feeling of freedom, of being a woman, is exhilarating, yet on its back is a heavy sense of dread. It can’t last. I know that. But we can’t go back to the way things were, either…
When I enter my suite wrapped lazily in a white towel, Dear Three is there, having laid out an assortment of dresses and capes on the mattress.
“For your birthday party tomorrow, my queen,” Dear Three chirps. “I have a selection for you to choose from.”
I inhale courage, looking the garments over, and try to forget that the last time I selected a dress for a ceremony in my honour was for my Rite.