37. Maren
Maren
King Emilius’s private quarters sprawled the width of the tower.
His windows opened only to the sky, deep and wide and at this moment, very blue.
Rich woods hung from the walls and corners like tapestry in a hunter’s cabin, a mahogany mantle, cedar chests, oak beams, walnut panels.
The style of his tables and chairs followed a similar vein, intricate patterns etched long ago, a fine layer of dust that even meticulous cleaning can’t uproot settled within the deep grooves.
Daylight streamed in, and there was no need for candles, but they were lit anyway, wax dripping from grand Ashwood pillars taller than me. Furs drifted across the backs of furniture in every direction, as if a pack of wolves had run through the King’s quarters and stopped to shed their hides.
Yet even with the dauntless sky, the towering windows, the blaring sun and bright candlewicks, the quarters were somehow small compared to Kye’s tower.
Quieter. Colder. I might have been in the same palace as Kye, might have been a simple room away, but the distance became abruptly vast. Hinges squealed behind me, a latch turned—and I was suddenly a trapped bird in a glass cage.
“Making sure she knows the way?” Emilius had said, slapping Kye over the shoulder as if my use for an escort had been a source of humor between them for years. Kye hadn’t smiled. He’d barely acknowledged the King, holding my gaze like a bolt charging across the stars as the door closed between us.
Kye’s knife dangled, heavy against my hip.
Emilius waved toward the room, then cut leisurely ahead in an invitation to follow him. “How is my brother?”
My steps faltered. “Your brother?”
“Yes,” he mused slowly, crossing his arms behind him as he walked. “Nikolaos and Hadrian left two weeks ago to deliver a message from my general to him. I’d been under the impression that you’d gone as well.”
Mihauna in the moon-damned sky. I’d forgotten the rushed story Kye and Hadrian had given Emilius before we left.
Halfway through pulling a chair out for me, the King tilted his head, striking his eyes across me sideways. If his gaze was a sword, it might have sliced me in half. “What did Marcus have to say?”
I’d never been adept with lies. With Ano, I’d never had to be. I set my shoulders back, opting for the closest I could come to truth instead. “I wasn’t present for the military discussions between them.”
Kye, I hissed in my mind. What message did Emilius send you to give your uncle, and what would he have said in response?
Marcus? He sent back. We convinced the King to ask for Marcus’s trackers to find where Rivea has restationed their armies in the mountains.
“I imagine war councils would be boring for an islander,” the King drawled, motioning for me to sit. “What did you do with your time instead?”
I slid slowly into my seat, smoothing the silk of my skirts.
The fine hair at the back of my neck raised, as though sensing someone lurking behind me, danger hiding around the corners of the expansive room.
But I’d listened for the beating of hearts nearby, and the only ones I could locate beyond ours belonged to the quiet footman, pouring volare into the King’s flute.
“I visited Merriam’s Aalton Temple.” My thumb padded silently against my thigh.
I couldn’t stay still when I lied. I didn’t fear Emilius—but I didn’t wish to make an enemy of him either.
His acorn-haired servant poured fresh volare into an elegantly stemmed glass for me, and I reached for it, searching for something to hold onto.
“You would have visited Sundrench then.” Emilius lowered himself into his chair, leaning heavily on his elbows to watch me. “What did you think?”
“I enjoyed the architecture.” It was the only thing I knew about the Aalton Temple—the famously grand construction and the hundreds of bodies rumored to be buried under the stone floor. I raised my chin, lengthened my spine.
He’s testing me.
Testing you? Kye shot back. In what way?
He knows we didn’t head north.
Tell him—
What’s Sundrench?
“It’s beautiful, of course. I’d love your perspective, as someone born on the islands.” The King clasped his large hands, securing his chin amongst his knuckles.
It’s an apse—a big window that hangs over the ocean, Kye answered. At sunset, Aalto paints the water gold, and the glass walls of the temple catch the light.
Emilius raised his brows. He was handsome, though there was something about him I couldn’t name, perhaps the glassy sheen of his eyes or the way wind traveled through his teeth as he spoke, that reminded me of a serpent slithering over the surface of water, its tongue tasting the air for prey.
“I’ve always loved sunset,” I said slowly, turning the glass between my fingers. “In Leihani—”
“Of course”—Emilius smiled as he cut me off—“if you visited Sundrench, you would have walked through the archives. The Aalton Temple in Merriam keeps extensive records of Calder’s history.” He ignored his servant as the man laid a shallow bowl of creamed mushroom before him.
Selena had given me lessons, at tedious length and insufferable detail, in the etiquette of sharing a meal with the royal family.
I’d stubbornly thrust these lessons out of mind and memory, deciding if Kye could bear the prospect of sitting on my rough-hewn veranda in Leihani and picking tuna from baked banana leaves, he could forgive a sideways fork or a spoon used out of order.
Pre-slicing a slab of beef was considered unladylike, so of course I’d sawed mine into as many pieces as I could in those early days, lazily swiping them through sauces and licking my fingers clean.
Painfully aware of how distant those lessons were now, I sat straight and tall like a long-necked goose, waiting for Emilius to select his silver spoon first and fighting against the crease between my brows.
“I walked through the archives,” I said, the words measured and calm.
“You would have seen the painting, then, of the procurement of Leihani as a territory of Calder.”
I stared at the King, unable to blink. I hadn’t felt especially warm since my deal with Darkness, but a rush of heat blew across the back of my neck, the taste of the air stifling.
I, of course, had never seen the painting.
But I’d grown up with the story.
Long ago, Calder had invaded Leihani. Had forced islanders to learn their language, their trades, their customs. Forced the island to live by days instead of nights, to count suns instead of moons, to track time not by the movement of the stars but by the shadows on a man-made dial.
Had introduced money, because that meant they could introduce taxes and tithes.
Had promised to protect Leihani should another kingdom try to invade the islands—then had killed islanders until the chief agreed to sign their acquisition.
My frown won its battle, deepening into my forehead, my mouth dry. A sickening heave crested my stomach like a slow yawn, bilious air caught deep in my belly.
Perhaps realizing I refused to comment on the subject, the King’s eyes widened. “Well? What did you think of the painting?”
His servant lowered an identical bowl of soup before me, but I didn’t see him. My head had tilted forward in the silence between his words and the lapse in sound, and I watched him darkly through the curtain of my lashes, my mouth and jaw as hard as stone.
What’s he saying, Leihani? Kye asked, and I wondered if he could feel the shift in me. If I’d sent it to him without intending to.
The King ladled creamy soup in his spoon, a chimney of steam veiling his ashy eyes. “You probably didn’t have the chance to study the archives, but that acquisition saved the islands. Leihani was starving. Dying from contagious diseases, living under disorder.”
The stem of my glass turned between my fingertips as I watched him, trying to make sense of how I’d walked myself into such a smooth and confusing trap. My mind flicked through responses like the pages in an indignant book, the words smeared and difficult to read.
And how did Calder save Leihani from starvation and disorder, when our fish were plentiful and we had no levies, I wanted to ask. How did you save us from disease, when you took our Noni berries for infection, our Kava for pain relief, our Nettles for cough.
“I had a seven-course meal prepared,” Emilius said. “I hope you brought more of an appetite than a few sniffs over soup.” He stirred the contents of his bowl, a shrewd smile curving his mouth. “The roasted venison and stuffed peacock will be much more filling.”
I skimmed the top of my soup with my spoon, raising it to my mouth.
“How many healthy men reside in Leihani?” Emilius asked.
My spoon paused midair. I leveled him with my stare. “Leihani reports a census every decade. I’m sure your own surveyors would provide a better answer than an island woman’s memory.”
Emilius laughed, unctuous and oily. “The last census was eight years ago. You’ll understand why I value your personal estimation over a dated record.” He lifted his glass of volare, swirling it as he waited.
“Three hundred,” I said, low and flat. “Maybe four.”
“Hmmm,” he mused, leaning back in his seat. His fingers tapped the edge of his armrest, pinky to pointer, a quiet four-drum beat as he regarded me thoughtfully.
I stared back, aware every limb in my body had ossified into hard ridges and bone-white disgust.
The King of Calder sighed under his breath as he stood and walked to a nearby desk, picking up a leather-bound ledger and resting it against his forearm. He licked a thumb, leafing through the mass of pages.
“Leihani,” Emilius read, walking back. “Total population, one thousand seven hundred forty-five. Children, 108. Women, 793. Men, 844.” His steps circled the long table, coming to a stop at my elbow. His hip pressed against my arm, warm.
Leihani, Kye said, a small strike of urgency leaking into the word.
Everything’s fine, I answered, though it felt like plaster had been slathered over my skin. Emilius had strayed from my line of sight, unless I was willing to look up at him.
I was not.
I stared ahead instead, my fingers curved around the ends of the chair, stoking a fire that hadn’t yet lit within me. But every inflection of the King’s words, every reverberation of his heart, and every flick of his tongue hit me like strokes of iron against flint. Sparks begging to ignite.
“Look at me,” Emilius said, the pleasant ring of his voice leveling like a cold, precise knife.
My nails bit into the engraved wood at the edge of the table. I used it to stand, drawing myself tall and straight, laying my shoulders back. My jaw ached with the clench of my teeth, and light fizzled just beyond my fingertips, burning in the air.
“I assume you mean to threaten me,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Before you do, you should know my island never loved me. They probably celebrated my exit from their shores.”
Emilius smiled, though it looked painted on his face, his lips stretched so tight they shone like stained porcelain. “Do you love my son?”
Every response felt like a trap, baited by truth as much as lies.
I had walked into cages before, and I didn’t doubt my ability to break free.
But those two words echoed in my mind like a distant roar lost in the clouds.
My son. Thunder rolled through my veins, cracking and clashing, each pulse of blood a louder roar.
Most humans relinquished a step under the glare I sent at him now. Their hearts beat faster, their breaths becoming shallow. Emilius tilted his head, running his tongue along his teeth, a roaming bump behind his upper lip.
“I don’t care if your island hated you. I care that you loved your island. And I need men, strong, healthy men, to fight for Calder.”
My voice lowered, a whisper laced with poison. “Leihani doesn’t answer to Calder’s wars.”
The King’s gaze traced down my collarbone to my arm. He lifted my hand, rotating it so my thumb stood upright. “Do you know what this is?” he asked as the sapphire of Kye’s mother’s ring glinted between us.
His warm, almost damp grip turned my stomach. “A premonition ring.”
He was so close, his eyes so hungry, I had to turn my cheek slightly, fighting the impulse to wring my hand away from his. “And do you know where it came from?”
“Cressi.”
Emilius’s teeth gleamed. “So he’s told you.
” He turned our hands over, illuminating the heavy black diamond over his middle finger, set with spindly gold prongs like a cage of thorns.
“Nikolaos’s great-grandmother was the daughter of a goldsmith and an alchemist. She learned the craft of each, surpassing the skill of every fine artisan in Cressi, gaining the attention of the Prince of Thieves.
He announced she would be the only goldsmith he would commission, securing her a city of enemies.
One of them burned her shop down, and she escaped the fire with a handful of tools and a face full of scars, her entire alchemist’s laboratory destroyed. ”
He paused, his attention on his black gemstone, mouth softly agape.
“Brido, would you come here?” Ashy eyes slid back to me.
“The Cressians thought her ruined. But the Prince of Thieves brought her into his black market, showed her his stolen artifacts, many of them cursed and blessed by the Fates and our gods.”
The quiet servant strode into the room, halting on the other side of the table.
He clasped his hands at his center, waiting for Emilius.
The King ignored the man. “The Prince offered her a deal. If she could neutralize any danger from the cursed relics without harming the magic inside, he’d restore her shop.
And if she could imbue that magic into jewelry, trap it within gold and silver and precious stones, he’d marry her. ”
“Fascinating,” I deadpanned, pulling my hand from his.
“I’m not finished.” Emilius’s fingers clamped down on my wrist. “Thaan and I have been working together for years—”
Eyes wide, my attention snapped to a fine point at the mention of Thaan’s name. Electricity licked along my skin, cold water dripping from my fingertips as I snaked my opposite hand under the hem of my dress and around Kye’s knife.
He motioned to my chair. “Please sit.”
“I’ll stand,” I ground out.
Emilius’s smile didn’t twitch. He analyzed me in measured silence. “Brido, are you married?”
I’d forgotten the footman, a quiet observer on the opposite end of the room. Brido blinked in surprise, as though he’d forgotten himself as well. “Yes, your Majesty.”
The King adjusted his ring, swiveling the night diamond so that it sat directly over his knuckle like a dark, heavy crown. “Children?”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“How old?” Emilius flexed his fingers.
The footman’s gaze shifted to me and back to Emilius. The artery in his neck ticked. “Seven and three. And we have one more on the way.”
I swallowed, my throat tight with the sharp, bright scent of rising danger.
“Mmm,” the King mused, curling his hand into a fist. “Pity.”