Traces #2
Realization seized my breath. The mysterious bottle in my apothecary, the knowledge about my family, the offer, all of it. It had all been planned from the start.
Rhazien stood to his full height over me and inspected his now healed knuckles as he explained what would happen next. But I only took in a handful of his words. The ringing between my ears was too loud to focus.
What I did hear was fragmented. “New attendants…sleep in my quarters…keep up appearances.”
My nails dug into my palms. Trying to let in a new breath was like trying to exist within a wildfire.
Rhazien was explaining how he and Gorvin would need to rearrange the day’s schedule to make time to deal with the traces Dommik left all over my body when he noticed my struggle.
“Shh, shh, shh.” He reached down and stroked my back, but the contact did little to ease me. “Come now. You’ve been to the Northern Hive. You know there are worse fates than this, Reyva.”
Solstice was composed of three nights of events. Initially, there was to be a reception line to greet court members and traveling guests but—as Gorvin put it—due to my indiscretions, adjustments needed to be made.
Rhazien decided to lean into the narrative that this event could and should be different due to its rarity.
“A spectacle wouldn’t be questioned,” Gorvin had assured his regent.
Hours later, I sat completely naked as my newly appointed attendants painted me with a shining golden resin.
They generously applied the liquid to cover every inch of me before my new Alba—who refused to tell me her name—presented me with a black box.
I slowly peeled away the satin bow. Not that I could move quickly, the golden applicant was beginning to tighten on my skin.
Almost like a mud mask I’d tried once with the ladies of Illica.
I gasped when I tipped the lid of the box back and I sensed the ladies behind me still in their tasks, daring to sneak a glance.
Twinkling back up at me was lingerie made of black diamonds—the same style of gems I wore as a collar during my welcome ball. Back when my life at the Hive seemed promising. Now, these stones, stunning as they were, felt mocking. And I contemplated their intended meaning.
Was this a sincere gift? Something he thought I would enjoy? He couldn’t be that daft.
“You’re meant to wear these tonight,” not-Alba said.
I lifted my brows. “In front of the guests?”
Not-Alba nodded.
“Surely, you must be mistaken,” I scoffed.
“It’s no mistake, Lady Reyva.” Gorvin had entered at some point during the exchange. The steward donned his finest clothes I’d seen to date and dwarfed all of the ladies in the room.
“So, I’m to be paraded around like a whore?” I seethed at him and I was sure I heard one of the ladies gasp at my question from beneath her gray robes.
Gorvin tsked and looked down his pointed nose at me. “No. You’re to be celebrated as the treasure you are to all of us. To what you symbolize.”
Treasure. Symbol. Rhazien’s jewel.
A sickening, sour flavor spread across my tongue.
“I can barely move, Gorvin.” My skin began to tighten and itch beneath the applied golden concoction.
“Correct. Messy business, this particular substance. It can be quite uncomfortable. But that’s the price we pay.”
“The price we pay for what?”
Gorvin tipped his bald head to the side before shooing away the attendants.
Once alone, his hands met at his center and he calmly explained, “We cannot have you bound to His Majesty with the traces of a traitor all over you. This tonic isn’t unlike the one you used before your welcome ball.
It’s just a bit more primitive, but what it lacks in its counterpart’s advanced properties, it makes up for in dramatic flair. ”
I wanted to scrunch my nose, but the paste smeared across my face held my features still.
At that, Gorvin hinged down to my ear and whispered, “You know. You’ve disappointed me. But you’ve gutted him. And I think we both know, a miscreant like Dommik Thorne wasn’t worth it.”
My rage and shame coiled together, vying for dominance. If the solution hadn’t already hardened against my skin, Gorvin would see my snarl beneath the shimmering foundation.
“When will I begin to feel its effects?”
He stood straight again. “I would expect an hour or so. But please, do your best not to make a scene.”
The nerve of the request enraged me. “And what makes you think I’ll just sit and endure this?”
Delight flickered in his discerning eyes, though his mouth remained in a hardened line as he muttered, “You know. I recently met someone very interesting.”
There was a malice to his tone and I gripped my chair as he spoke, knowing everything Gorvin did, he did with purpose. After weeks of watching him use this talent with citizens of the Hive, every fiber of my being knew he was about to say something calculated and horrible.
“Well, technically two people. Two people who I thought were meant to be mother and daughter.”
My heart thudded wildly as I began to understand his meaning. Gorvin hinged at the waist and brought his eyes level with mine.
“But Miss Lydia isn’t Lady Cova’s daughter. Is she?”
My teeth ground together behind the mask I was barely holding over my features. Gorvin’s eyes flashed when the side of my mouth twitched.
His brow flexed. “I thought so.”
He knew. How did he know? Cova wouldn’t willingly provide that information. Had they tortured her? Had they plied her with blood to encourage compliance as they had with me? We’d sworn to take our secret to the grave and thought it best Lydia never knew. Had she found out? That I…I was her mother…
“They’re here?” I snarled as my questions swirled in tornadic panic.
“Yes and quite comfortable for the time being. So long as everything goes to plan…” He stood to his full height again. “I’ll send the ladies back in to finish your preparations. You need to be delivered to the ballroom in thirty minutes exactly.”
It was a cold, unfeeling valediction. A far cry from the warmth he’d extended just a few days prior. Apparently, a rare gift.
The ladies entered and began applying the same resin of a slightly different hue to my arms and legs. They were branding me with elements of Rhazien’s royal sigil. I was surprised the vines and flowers they drew across my skin didn’t melt from the heat radiating through my bloodstream.
Where there once had been an illusion of choice remained only one path forward. The path they chose for me.
As I sat, becoming the portrait of a willing prospect, I had little else to do. So, I let my lids fall closed.
Do your part and they won’t be harmed. That’s what Gorvin meant. The wake of emotional destruction from my recent decisions had already weighed on me enough. And as much as it pained me to comply, I didn’t want to cause any more damage—emotional or otherwise—to anyone else.
Gutted. Rhazien felt gutted. Had his feelings been authentic then? Did it matter now that I’d seen this other side of him?
And Dommik. Rhazien’s knuckles had been so bloody. An image of Dommik's face, down in a dungeon surrounded by his own blood, made me want to bring my hands to my eyes to wipe away the vision. Was he even still alive? Yes. I had to believe he was.
Gorvin, being the careful, purposeful creature he is, didn’t give any indication. At my welcome ball, Rhazien had insisted that Vaspar be publicly punished for going directly against his orders.
I figured it was less likely Dommik would have a public trial for two reasons. With so much celebration, why sour it with a public display of punishment and violence? Although this was a vampiric holiday. I wouldn’t be that surprised if I was proven wrong.
And secondly, because of his offense. The offense Rhazien was actively working to cover up.
The substance adhering to my body would remove all traces of Dommik.
No evidence, no crime, except for the three vampire males who had seen the traces.
And Rhazien had said it himself, he wouldn’t risk the scandal.
No, if Dommik were to be punished, it would be private.
And that…scared me so much more than the idea of going back to the axe.
Pain and damage.
And I was the source of all of it.