Chapter 21
AIMILIA
Aimilia had never been happier to be clean. Although she could do without her uncle.
The second she’d made it back to her room in the palace, the sky dark as night washed over them, she’d taken advantage of the basin and washcloth in her room to clean herself up as much as possible before falling asleep the second she’d hit her bed.
She was awoken to furious knocking at daybreak, and she opened the door and was embraced by her uncle.
The first words out of his mouth were, “You’re lucky your mother isn’t here. ”
Aimilia winced as the full force of the aches and bruises she’d been ignoring hit her from her uncle squeezing her. “I take it everyone knows it was me?”
Somehow when Nikias had held her after coming out of the tunnels it hadn’t hurt. She hadn’t known he could be that gentle.
“Yes. It’s all anyone is talking about. That and…” Uncle Cyprian pulled back, releasing her. His eyes landed on Nikias’ cloak, filthy now from having covered her on the way back to the palace. It sat on the floor next to her dirtied clothes.
“I don’t want to hear it.” Aimilia abandoned the doorway to step back into her room. “I’m a hero, can’t you just give me one day to bask in it?”
“You know His Highness ordered you were to be left alone until morning. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have waited this long,” Cyprian said.
Aimilia refused to look at him as she walked over to her curtains and drew them back. “I wasn’t good company last night.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes, Aimilia. Clearly, even though you might act it to aggravate me, you are smart enough not to make an enemy of him. Whatever apology you gave him seems to have worked, and you’ve come to your senses, so now we just have to hope he will—”
Aimilia whipped around. “Come to my senses? I assure you I have always had them. Nikias is the one who has been forcing me to be his partner while judging the exams, giving me no choice but to be in his presence and be seen in his presence by everyone! His petty, controlling display has changed nothing.”
“Everyone saw you leave the stadium in his cloak.” Cyprian glanced at the window before narrowing his eyes at her. “Do you mean to tell me you did so with no intention of accepting him? Have you no thought to your reputation? Making yourself look like some she-wolf?”
“I would have looked like a she-wolf if I’d walked out of there without it.” Aimilia gestured to the pile on the ground. “My clothes were ruined. Remember when I was crawling through the collapsing tunnel system to save fifty novices?”
Cyprian took a step toward her. “If you refuse Nikias again, I will see to it myself House Mitis will wipe their hands of you.”
Aimilia shot him a grin. “Really? You think you can disown me when I’ve just made myself a hero? I think the last thing House Mitis needs is to dissociate with me.”
Cyprian snapped his mouth shut. His face was turning as red as his hair, but he made no response. He couldn’t.
She lifted her chin and pointed to the door. “Now, get out. You’re clearly here because you think my only use is in who I marry. If I’d died down there, you’d only be mourning the fact that I was never queen.”
“Aimilia—”
“Out!”
Finally, he obeyed and Aimilia sank back onto her bed. She looked over her arms at the scratches and bruises still lingering, the aches nagging at her now that Cyprian was no longer a distraction.
She let herself drift off into a light doze as the ghost of Nikias’ gentle but fierce embrace chased her. His words echoed in her ears.
“Just because you didn’t think she was worth marrying doesn’t mean I agree.”
Aimilia dozed until a Solitus servant interrupted her, bringing her breakfast, and Aimilia managed to scrape up enough energy to wolf it down before collapsing back into bed, thoroughly beaten and exhausted.
“I don’t mind the distance.”
She was awoken again at midday with another meal and this time a healer.
The servant set the tray of food down on Aimilia’s nightstand with a note beside it while the healer immediately had Aimilia get up to undress so she could start on all of her minor injuries that weren’t feeling so minor all piled on top of each other.
She was still groggy from sleep and Nikias’ voice haunting her throughout, so she didn’t think twice about it, complying with the healer’s sharp, brusque commands. At least, she didn’t start thinking until she saw the healer make a note in her book.
“Wait, I didn’t send for a healer,” Aimilia said as the woman turned back and started on a scrape on Aimilia’s thigh.
The woman’s vitae lit the air and she didn’t look up as she worked. “My orders came from His Highness.”
Oh.
Aimilia instead turned her attention to the food beside her.
She’d done nothing but sleep and eat so far that day, and she was still famished.
Part of it came from the healing she was undergoing as the healer sped up the natural healing process—it took not only vitae, but some of Aimilia’s physical energy as well.
She started with the grapes, easy to eat with one hand and not disturb the healer’s work.
As the healer moved up to Aimilia’s side, she picked up the note and unfolded it, expecting Nikias’ handwriting and annoyance at whatever it would say. Instead, she saw an elegant, looping script that always sent chills down her spine.
Queen Clelia’s handwriting.
The healer was on the side those little bruises had been on. Thankfully Aimilia had taken care of those before anyone could see them. Anyone other than the other women in the bathhouse that day.
Aimilia skimmed through the note, hoping the healer didn’t take note of the dramatic tempo change of her heart.
Clelia wanted Aimilia to come to her and the king’s quarters that afternoon and bring with her the “wonderful vitae-enhancing tea” for the king so they could thank her for her service and bravery.
As fresh bruises disappeared under the healer’s hands, Aimilia set the note down. She couldn’t refuse. And if Clelia was looking for suspects, Aimilia making the tea properly and serving it again should help keep suspicion off her.
The note wasn’t clear on whether Nikias would be there. She’d promised not to be alone with them again, but what choice did she have?
Hopefully Clelia wouldn’t raise a hand against the previous day’s hero, but Aimilia wouldn’t put it past her.
Aimilia kept staring at the note. She’d always known these things weren’t as simple as they appeared, but it was one thing to know it as an outsider, looking in and trying to best help Gavril, and it was another to be living it.
Nikias thought he could convince her to willingly subject herself to this for however much longer his parents lived? Worse, he thought he could protect her when he’d never been able to protect Gavril?
And he thought she’d marry him and risk enduring it because she wanted him?
Aimilia tilted her head to the side to let the healer look over the scar of the bite wound on her shoulder, but her eyes never left the note.
Nikias suffered from delusions of the grandest kind.
And yet… still his voice was in her head.
“When I remarry, it will be to you, and when you marry me, it will be because you want to.”
Once the healer was gone and Aimilia was exhausted all over again, but less achy, she got dressed and devoured the rest of the food brought to her.
When she looked in the mirror, she still looked worse for wear, pale with dark circles creeping in and a few faint, inconsequential scratches left that would be gone in the morning.
She picked up a comb and started making something presentable of her hair.
She didn’t have long. With the amount of time it would take her to get dressed, then properly prepare the tea, if she wanted to be on time she couldn’t waste a second.
Thankfully, or maybe unfortunately, not long after she stood in front of the door to the king and queen’s suite with a tray holding the teapot and cups in her hand as she knocked with the other.
“Come in, Commander,” Clelia’s voice answered.
Aimilia turned the knob and used the tray to push it open, pausing in the doorway to give a small but appropriate bow without dislodging the tray. “Your Majesties.”
“Come, have a seat. I have so missed this wonderful little drink, and it’s just the thing we all need after yesterday,” Clelia said.
Aimilia looked up, taking in the room as Clelia directed her to come and set the tray down at the low table where King Nero was seated, lounging with several pillows around him, so it was functionally no different than being in bed.
Aimilia took the seat farthest from him as Clelia sat in the chair beside him. Aimilia immediately began pouring the tea. King Nero cleared his throat, and Aimilia’s hands shook right as she pulled the teapot back, keeping it from spilling.
They didn’t know. They didn’t suspect.
Right?
Or was Queen Clelia doing her own investigating now?
“I have been told it is you we have to thank for all the novices’ survival yesterday. You saved the next generation of commanders,” King Nero said, dark eyes focused wholly on her as she steadied her hands and moved to pour the next cup.
She kept her gaze on the cup. “It was my honor to be able to serve Imperia in a time of crisis.”
“As you did when my son was forced to negotiate with the filth.”
Aimilia took a deep breath, pulling the spout up before the hot liquid spilled over. “I was honored His Highness selected me to be there for the negotiations. I never expected he would have selected me, given my youth.”
“It was a curious decision to be sure,” Nero said. His voice was low and rumbling, but weak.
Aimilia started pouring the third cup. What was this about? Why were they bringing up the negotiations? Did they actually want to thank her? What information did they want from her?
Then the door flew open, and Aimilia spilled some of the tea as she startled to see Nikias striding into the room, a dark look in his eyes. She fumbled with a soft towel to wipe it up as Clelia shot out of her seat. “Nikias, son, I thought you were busy dealing with the work on the stadium?”
His gaze landed on Aimilia as she finished cleaning up the mess. “Not too busy for family. Or Aimilia’s tea, when she can be convinced to make it.”
Nikias crossed the room quickly, moving a chair so he could sit right beside Aimilia.
The queen and king had wanted something with her outside Nikias’ presence and now she’d have no idea what it was.
But on the other hand, Nikias was here. So she was a little safer than she’d been a moment before. She pushed the cup she’d just poured into in front of him.
He gave a small, strained smile and a nod as he took it, the long, deliberate look he gave her saying everything he couldn’t in front of them. He was at least committed to his promise not to let her alone with them. And she was going to get an earful for not keeping her promise.
She stayed silent as Nikias engaged his parents in a cold, short report of everything going on with the stadium now.
She picked up her cup, moving to sit back when Nikias’ free hand came to rest on her knee, a small gesture many might miss, but no one in the room did.
Aimilia kept a tight grip on her cup as she sipped it, cursing Nikias as the warmth of his palm and his fingers softly curling over her peplos seeped into her skin.
No one said anything.
Aimilia certainly couldn’t push him off and make a fool of him in front of his parents. Well, she could, but it wouldn’t help her.
She’d stopped paying attention wholly to the conversation, barely registering who was speaking as she was completely distracted by the weight on her knee, pinning her down even though she was already frozen. What was he implying to them? What did he want them to think?
If he thought he could trap her—
No. He’d claimed she would want to marry him. Did he think enough of this kind of behavior and she would be tempted enough that she would forget about the rest of him that came attached?
The ghost of his embrace whispered that might actually work.
Alternatively, was this display purely for his parents?
A warning to leave her alone?
More importantly, she needed to find out what they’d wanted from her in the first place.
As the last of the tea was finished, and Aimilia could feel some of her energy having returned thanks to its properties, she formed a tentative plan.
It might not work. She might not get anything useful. Getting caught could get her killed.
Still, she was going to try.
Aimilia watched as the last of the tea was finished and her excuse to make her exit came.
Temporary exit anyway.
Nikias was midsentence as she began packing up the cups back onto the tray and he cut himself off. “Let me help. I need an official report from you anyway about yesterday.”
Aimilia was half out of her seat, grabbing the handles of the tray. He wanted to escape with her? Well, that wouldn’t do.
She wanted to know what they would say when he confronted them about cornering her; specifically she wanted to hear if he already knew what it was about or not.
Time to think quickly on her feet. “I’d be happy to write my report. I admit, even with the tea replenishing me some, I’m still quite exhausted and for accuracy’s sake, it’d be much better if I had a little bit of time to collect my thoughts on paper.”
“That sounds like a much better idea, doesn’t it?
” Clelia rose from her seat and moved to the door.
“Besides, there’s still much you need to report to us about, son.
You might as well stay and we’ll take dinner here.
A more intimate style, but after such an attack it’s important to keep family close, son. ”
Nikias’ expression shifted into that cold marble Aimilia always hated. Completely unreadable.
“Of course, Mother.”
He stayed where he was, just watching Aimilia go.