Chapter 20
Capitolo Venti
Saturnino took Ravenna to his chambers. His hold never faltered, and while it wasn’t painful, there was no give.
No mercy. She could not escape him if she wanted to.
It was only when they reached a tall wooden door made of oak that he finally released her.
Ravenna used her thumb to rub circles on her skin.
She felt his gaze sweep over her dispassionately, until he caught her trying to warm her wrist.
“Does it hurt?”
Ravenna shook her head but kept her attention on the intricate heraldic emblem carved across the door’s surface. An armored bear guarding a tower, the arrows at his back within easy reach. She very much felt like she was about to enter the lair belonging to a protective and furious predator.
Saturnino pushed the door open. “Inside.”
She’d never been inside a gentleman’s bedroom. “This isn’t proper.”
“We’re beyond that,” he muttered.
Ravenna walked inside and flinched when he slammed the door behind her. He strode around her, his pale fingers unbuttoning his doublet. Ravenna gaped at him before quickly averting her gaze. Her eyes landed on Ombretta sprawled across Saturnino’s canopied bed.
“I can’t get rid of her,” Saturnino said.
His presence loomed over the room, over her, like a winter storm covering everything in frost. She rubbed her arms, but the cold had seeped through the fabric, through her skin, and touched bone.
“Are you cold?” he asked softly.
“Always, around you.”
Saturnino walked to the marble fireplace, the focal point of his room.
Classical scenes from mythology were carved into the stone, complementing the decorative tiles lining the hearth.
Bronze andirons in the shape of snarling bears held the logs in place.
Saturnino pushed the embroidered fire screen to the side and kneeled in front of the fireplace.
He struck flint against steel, and seconds later dancing flames warmed up his chambers.
“Better?”
Ravenna nodded.
Saturnino stood and removed his doublet, throwing it onto a plush upholstered chair.
His manner reminded her again of a prowling, restless bear, but something out of a folktale, the ones she heard from travelers who explored bitterly cold lands.
They returned with myths about Norsemen, about bears with pale white fur, mysterious beasts that roamed free across the far north in the frozen Arctic.
Ravenna’s gaze returned to the flames dancing in the hearth.
She was no longer shivering; her wool cloak now felt too warm. Suffocating.
To undress was unthinkable. She darted a peek at Saturnino. Standing out in the cold, he had been furious. But now he was almost … considerate. She never knew which Saturnino to expect at any given moment.
Ravenna narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being nice?”
“I’m allowed to be nice.”
“When it suits you,” she pressed.
Saturnino sat on his bed, the plush mattress giving under his weight. The black cat immediately tried to sit in his lap, but he firmly pushed her aside and began unlacing his boots. “Maybe I don’t know what to do with you.”
Ravenna scoffed. “That’s not it.”
He tugged off both boots, then straightened.
The maids had already prepared his room; oil lamps flickered with narrow, twisting flames, and the corner of his deep blue bedding had been pulled back.
She tried very hard not to think of him lying down in that bed.
The idea sent a curious and alarming frisson down her spine, reaching to her toes in her too-tight boots.
“No?”
“I think you plan every move you make, several steps in advance,” Ravenna said. “Do you know that in my mind, we are sitting across from each other, a chessboard in between us?”
An indescribable expression stole over his face.
Ravenna knew she would never be able to define it.
Again, the curious sensation crept over her, but this time it swam deep in her belly, as if she’d drunk a potent glass of wine.
It settled over her, made her head spin.
She fiddled with her cloak, wishing she could take it off.
She needed air. She needed a clear mind.
“Who’s winning?” he asked.
“Have a guess.”
His face returned to its usual lines of boredom. “I think you might be.”
Her fingers stilled, but then she rolled her eyes. Another one of his tactics to disarm her. “One way or another, you always planned to catch me.”
“I have you right where I want you,” he said. “And you don’t even know it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Consider the sculptors who came before you and what happened to them,” Saturnino said.
“I can hardly forget when you take care to remind me. Repeatedly.”
Saturnino’s black hair spilled across his brow, giving his beauty a subtle boyish quality. But it didn’t diminish the smile curving his mouth, sharp like his blade, and just as unapologetic. “We are all of us ruthless creatures.”
Ravenna blinked. That sounded like he was saying his whole family had killed people. “So you all—”
“Yes.”
Ravenna flinched, the air in her chest feeling tight. She wanted to yell, wanted to scream, but she brought her emotions to heel. It was one of her greater talents. It wouldn’t serve her to fall to pieces in front of him.
Saturnino crossed his feet, leaned back on his hands.
Ombretta curled around his right thigh, resting her head on his knee.
This time he didn’t push her off to the side.
She thought again of the white bear reposed in his frozen cave, only his dark eyes alert.
They latched on to her, piercing and unsettling, a beam of dark green, terrifyingly intelligent.
She would have to fight hard to keep her secrets, bargain be damned.
But she was desperate to learn his.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To properly motivate you,” he replied lazily. “Tell me, is it working?”
He can’t kill me yet, and neither can his family. I am safe.
She glowered at him. “Well, it certainly makes me angry.”
“How are you getting messages?”
Ravenna jerked her head back. The question had come from nowhere. “I don’t—”
“We have a bargain,” Saturnino said in a hard voice. “Don’t lie to me.”
“The last note was left on my pillow,” Ravenna said, thinking quickly. “I don’t know who put it there.”
“A kitchen maid, most likely. Give me the name of the man you met tonight.” He raised his eyebrows and waited for her answer with diabolical patience, having all the time in the world to interrogate her.
“He’s never given me his name. And I’ve never asked. It hardly matters when it’s His Holiness who has me in his thrall.”
“It matters a great deal,” Saturnino said. “You will get his name for me.”
“Impossible.”
“I want it by the time I return.”
“You’re leaving?” Relief coursed through her.
But the rest of his words registered, and her stomach lurched.
The courier’s stern face swam in her mind.
He would never give up his name. Not if anyone asked nicely or threatened to take it by force.
He would die with his identity known only to himself.
“Never say that you will miss me?”
“Stop teasing me.”
“Why? It’s fun, and you make it so very easy.
” Saturnino stood, and drew close to her, close enough for her to see the smooth texture of his skin.
Unblemished, unlined, despite the long years of his life.
His fingers skimmed the inside of her wrist, the lightest touch.
“I think it’s time you understood me, Ravenna. ”
“I understand you fine,” she replied stiffly.
“No, tesoro mio, you don’t.” He gave her a cold, humorless smile, but there was something brittle in it. Something not quite as effortless as he wanted it to be. “I have seen everything, have been everywhere.”
“Have done everything,” Ravenna added.
“That’s right.” His voice was smooth, polished, detached. But she didn’t miss the flicker of something underneath it. He was motionless, tall and jaded, the whole of his attention fixed on her. Yet she could feel the weight of what he wasn’t saying. His control. His restraint.
And suddenly, that restraint infuriated her.
What a waste. Her temper flared, giving her courage to press, to corner him, to force him to see her. “I wish you’d let yourself care,” she whispered. “To let yourself feel, to have hopes and dreams.” To be human, she thought.
“I lost those a long time ago, Ravenna,” Saturnino said.
“What happened to you?” she whispered. “What ruined your trust in humans?”
Now it was her turn to wait. She didn’t move, she didn’t blink. Every line of him looked perfect, carved from stone. He was still touching her, a single point of contact that seared. Then, with agonizing slowness, he let his fingers fall away from her wrist.
“Life makes monsters out of men.”
“I don’t believe that.” Ravenna shook her head. “That isn’t true.”
“Oh, no?” Saturnino asked. “I know of a young woman from a small village, driven by duty and kindness, but now her eyes conceal secrets and lies, and if she isn’t careful, there will only be a shadow remaining of the woman she once was.”
She gaped at him. “What are you—”
“To avoid any misunderstanding, I was talking about you.”
“That isn’t fair,” Ravenna gasped, the fragile veneer of her resolve cracking. He had seen right through to the very heart of her, and it stole her breath.
“Everyone has a price. Everyone can be bought.”
“I wasn’t bought,” Ravenna said. “I was threatened.”
She couldn’t think straight as the weight of her choices bore down on her like stone.
She was here to save her family, her neighbors, herself.
But she didn’t think of how it would change her.
Scalding heat gathered across her chest, stole around her ribs.
The horror of the night caught up to her.
Again, she had used her magic against a human being.
She had killed. It was in defense, but that didn’t make it any less awful. Nightmares would plague her dreams.
Saturnino stared at her with a narrowed gaze. “You did what you had to do.”
“I know.” Tears burned twin paths down her cheeks.
He tenderly caught a tear with his finger and brought it to his mouth.
Her lips parted in surprise.
“I’ve never been able to cry,” he said.
She blinked up at him. “Ever?”
Without looking away from her, he dipped his finger into his mouth, tasted her grief. His voice was soft, softer than she’d ever heard it. “I wasn’t casting judgment. I was proving my point.”
“I’m doing what I have to,” Ravenna said. “All the lies I have told, the ones I will tell, are to protect the people I love.”
“As long as you don’t lie to me, then I don’t care what you have to do.
” Saturnino drew the hood of her cloak forward, covering her head.
The cool pads of his fingers brushed against her temple.
He continued in a soft, mesmerizing whisper.
“There is one thing that has always been out of my reach. One thing I want above all else.” He leaned forward, his expression intent and ferocious. “And you, Ravenna, can give it to me.”
Dull amazement gripped her, as if his words were reaching across to her from a great chasm. What power did she have that could give him what he wanted desperately? What could that thing be?
She licked her lips. “I don’t—”
“The Nightflame, Ravenna. I need it.”
“Magic doesn’t seem to bother you,” she retorted. “Why can’t you carve it out?”
“You know so little about your own magic, bound as it is to the Nightflame,” Saturnino mused in a quiet voice. “The stone around it protects the pietra magiche. If I were to force my way in, it would destroy the gemstone. It has to be you.”
He grasped her shoulders.
“You are either helping me to get what I want, or you are standing in my way.” His dark green eyes pierced hers. “Please, do not make an enemy of me.”
She splayed her hands, thankful her cloak covered her trembling, and lied to him. “I’m not your enemy.”
For some reason, her words seemed to amuse him. He gave her a slow, enigmatic smile, fine lines fanning from the corner of his eyes. “Ravenna, tesoro, I consider all humans enemies. Even you.” His eyes narrowed. “Especially you.”
He dropped his hands, crossed the room to the door, and dropped a light hand on the golden latch. “It’s time you went to bed.” His expression turned mischievous. “Unless you’d like to join me in mine?”
Ravenna could only stare at him, someone she was attracted to but did not trust. In that moment, she might have despised him. “I would not.”
He opened the door for her. “Then off you go.”
Ravenna crossed the room, resenting his beauty, his position, his demands.
His power.
“You have three days,” he said softly as she slid past him. “Don’t waste them.”
She paused, one foot still within his chamber. Then she glanced at him from over her shoulder. “Thank you.”
He arched a brow, puzzled.
“For saving me.”
His face was cool, dark, aloof. “It served my interests.”
“Maybe so,” Ravenna said as an insistent feeling in her belly told her that he wasn’t being entirely truthful.
“But it didn’t serve your interests to save me from experiencing pain at the hand of another.
You could have let them have their way with me, beat me further.
But you prevented that from happening. Thank you. ”
The corners of his mouth turned downward with the slightest hint of prickly dismay. If she hadn’t been standing close to him, she would have missed it. She gave him a beatific smile and then reached forward to shut his door before he could have the last word.
He got it anyway. She had only taken a few steps when he said, “Three days.” It didn’t matter that he was on the other side of the door, didn’t matter that he couldn’t look at her. The words were like a terrible spell, curling around her in a tight, icy grip.
Ravenna lost her smile.