28 Imogen
Imogen
I was whisked deep into Vuoria’s halls before I ever managed to spot Theodore. My group of guards, along with Aleka and Markis, were led by a regally dressed servant down a corridor that took us toward one of the western turrets.
We worked our way down the dark, labyrinthine passage, and despite my prickling worry and the weakness the mountains set into my muscles, I couldn’t help but wonder after the sparse, draftiness of the place.
Knowing the wealth and might of the Obelian empire, I’d expected opulence, but this palace was a worn stronghold, seemingly lost to time.
It didn’t showcase wealth or prioritize beauty.
“Strange, isn’t it?” I asked quietly to Aleka, who walked beside me amid the guards.
“What is?”
“Do you think the empress stays here often?” I stared at the bare floor, at the empty, blackened walls. “It seems… rather simple.”
She looked around as if for the first time, noting the details of the place—or lack thereof.
The small, high windows; the particularly narrow, winding stairways.
Even Fort Linum’s interior felt vast and marginally warm in comparison to this.
“It’s not odd for a sovereign to have a stronghold alongside a more opulent home. Surely you know that.”
Nemea hadn’t. He’d abandoned his keep by the sea for Fort Linum the moment it had been built.
Even with Aleka’s nonchalance, I could not shake the ill feeling coursing through me.
Perhaps it was the mountains themselves that had me off kilter.
My joints had started to ache; my lungs felt atrophied from the thin air.
“Does His Majesty have a stronghold? A place he retreats to other than Genevreer Palace?”
Markis hiccuped behind us.
I caught Aleka’s thoughtful scowl before she smoothed her face again. “No. Varya’s landscape and palace location has always been sufficient.”
“I see.”
As we were led up yet another dark stone staircase and down a tunnel of a hallway, I only felt more poorly.
A deep ripple shuddered through me, and my body flashed hot and then cold.
Having grown up in the mountains, I had never realized how greatly they affected me.
I’d never known anything other than the fatigue, the dizzy spells, the weakness, and I had not known what it was to feel truly hale until I’d left.
Head suddenly spinning, I stopped short before a small open doorway. Aleka took my arm as I swayed. “There now.” She looked over her shoulder to Markis. “If you would?”
Markis stepped in close, body fully against my side. He fumbled, hands dragging up my waist, as he took my arm. He gazed down at me with a mean, lecherous look. “I’m all right.” I yanked my arm away from his hold. “Just the mountain air.”
The door we’d stopped beside was rough-hewn, the iron hinges craggy.
I swiped my clammy hands over the silk of my bodice and stared unblinkingly into the long, narrow room beyond.
It was a throne room, but there was no gilding within.
No crystal, no fine fabrics. Torches leapt beneath the high-hung windows.
Even Nemea’s throne room had been clad in sheets of valuable, polished marble, but the rugged stone within this room was as unkempt as the rest of the place.
The chamber was entirely empty save for a remarkably tall dais at its far end, constructed from planks of worn wood.
Atop the towering dais, looking entirely out of place, sat the most opulent throne I’d ever seen.
Diamond encrusted, and coated in painstakingly cast silver and gold, the chair looked like it belonged in a different world altogether.
Even the deep-blue velvet that covered its seat glinted like it had been stitched through with dark sapphires.
Aleka followed my line of sight and chuckled. “There you go,” she mused. “A bit of that shine you were looking for.”
As if tugged, I took a stumbling step inside.
The servant who had been leading the way cut through my guards to stop me from entering. He smiled from ear to ear, but his voice was high and pinched. “Shall we continue on? Dinner will be held in the throne room soon, but I must see you to your rooms at once.” He gave a quick bow. “Your Majesty.”
“Y-yes,” I said, “that’s fine.” But that glittering throne still held me in its thrall.
“Very good,” said the servant, bouncing impatiently on his toes. “Right this way.”
We continued on, and when we reached what felt like the farthest end of the fort, the servant took a turn into a little antechamber that cradled a bank of doors within its curving walls.
“A chamber for you, Marshal,” he said to Aleka, opening the nearest room for her.
“And you, Steward. And finally, a chamber for you, Your Majesty.” He threw open a door beside Aleka’s.
“Forgive us, in our surprise, the fires are not yet built, but servants are on their way now to see to your every need.” He gave a grand bow, flourishing the tail of his blue woolen overcoat.
“You are most welcome. I’ll leave you to rest and will retrieve you for feasting shortly. ”
Aleka strode into her room promptly, without glancing back.
Markis did the same, closing his respective door resolutely.
I slunk into my room with my mind and body still reeling.
The chamber was small but comfortable. The bed’s canopy hung from the high ceiling and was draped in yards of inky velvet and brocade that reminded me of the night sky.
Upon the mattress sat a pile of pure white furs.
But the rest of the chamber was as bare as every other surface in this place.
There were no rugs on the cold stone floor, no decorations above the mantel, no tapestries warming the walls.
This place had been made tolerable enough for short, infrequent visits—nothing more. So why had we been brought here?
I scrubbed my hands and face with the frigid water in the washbasin, while my mind buzzed with questions. When a knock came at the door, I jumped. “Enter.”
One of my guards opened the door, and four Obelian servants rushed in, two carrying wood and wine. The other pair carried a trunk between them.
“What is this?” I asked, as one of them tended the hearth and the other poured me a cup of wine.
“Furs, Your Majesty,” one of the servants said, eyes on my toes. “Coats and gowns. We were told to dress you for your station and the season.”
I stopped my hands from reaching for the little vials of draughts that sat in the hidden pocket of my skirt. I’d forgotten about them entirely. “Thank you,” I said, “a coat will do nicely.”
One of the servant women opened the trunk. “We brought you a fine gown too, Your Majesty.” She pulled forth a dress of heavy velvet. It was trimmed in ermine and gold, studded in dark jewels.
But the rich details were lost on me, for all I could see was the deep-red color of the velvet, pouring over the lip of the trunk like a great wave of blood. Nemea’s color.
“Her Imperial Highness was adamant,” she said, shyly. “She said the gown would match you.”
“Serafi red,” I said without taking my eyes from it. I ran my hand down the front of it, noting the subtle way the red jewels were clustered down the center of the bodice… from the sternum to the groin.
I sucked in a cold breath. All of this had been done on purpose. Our arrival had not surprised the empress in the least. She’d planned and was carefully laying out her pieces. I needed to learn precisely what game she wished to play. “You can leave.”
They carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. Coming toward me, hands reaching for the laces of my bodice. They groped at my skirt, tugged at the fastenings with snapping little hands. “We’ve come to help you dress, Your Majesty.”
I swatted at them, prompting one of them to yelp. When they reared back, I took the red gown in my fist and heaved it from the trunk. “I said leave.”
As the servants rushed out, my guard closed the door behind them, and I slid the lock home.
I’d never held a gown so heavy, and it took my whole body’s effort to throw it atop the bed.
I started on the silk laces of my own gown, peeled the bodice from my shoulders, and when I moved on to the ties that held up my ample skirt, I went still.
The fire roared, but it couldn’t touch the new chill that enveloped me. Frantically, I patted my right hip, my left, the small of my back. I felt over my right side again.
“No.”
One of the vials of severing draught was gone.