Chapter 2
The drug knocked me out for hours at a time; when I managed to dowse away some of its oily touch, I’d wake a little sooner, pretend to be asleep, and rebuild what Nicosia had torn down.
I found it curious, how my lumis would accept this massive basalt wall, while my previous experiment—mimicking existing pieces of myself with magic—fizzled into nothing.
I thought, perhaps, that this wall wasn’t trying to replace part of my lumis, only protect it, as a bandage protected a wound.
Or my body or my magic recognized the wall was a need, and therefore allowed it.
If I ever got out of this hell, I could study it further.
I didn’t have the strength now to do anything more than survive.
Nicosia permitted the drugs to wear off the last day on the ship, allowing me to take in the sight of Sesta across Salm’s Rest and glimpse Princess Eden before a soldier forced more of the noxious stuff down my throat.
One could sail from Cansere to Sesta across the Midly Strait in a day, but Nicosia had sailed up the east coast instead, in the ocean separating Sesta from Antsan—I assume to make easier escape from Cansere, but perhaps sailing made for easier traveling to the Sestan capital, Rodsfell, even in the winter.
I didn’t wake again until I reached Rodsfell.
I dowsed away numerous bruises and sores on my body from riding in a wagon, but other than being manhandled like a sack of potatoes and forced away from maintaining my heart, I didn’t seem to have been otherwise harmed.
Princess Eden had been placed in the armored carriage ahead of me, where King Nicosia rode.
What value did he place on her life compared to my own?
Yet I determined he likely didn’t want us together, period.
He was a smart, conniving man—he didn’t want us planning anything, or worse, offering comfort to one another.
A passing dragon was obliging enough to give me the date.
Two and a half weeks had passed since Adoel Nicosia took me from Speth.
But Renn lived. I knew he lived; I could feel it.
Half my heart nestled in his lumis, and his lumis branched across the fourteen hundred miles now separating us.
I felt him as though he was part of me, similar to the way Ursa was part of me, but no matter how I tried to speak to him or send my thoughts through that golden line, I could not communicate with him.
If he ever heard me, he did not reply—at least, not in a way I could hear.
Surely that sensation of fullness I’d felt on the ship had been in response to the depth of my hunger.
I wondered if Renn had sorted out the connection as well, and if he’d eaten extra in hopes of comforting me.
While the thought brought me peace, it also renewed a constant ache in my chest, the one I felt when not terrified of my future and the men around me, when not occupied scheming my escape or otherwise asleep.
It was a dull ache, but now it spiked, like a cleaver coming down through the center of my heart.
I wanted only to see him again, to touch him, to tell him I love him.
I took deep breaths and blinked rapidly, steeling myself for what was to come, for surely this was only the beginning of this unknown journey. I feared it would be a long one.
Rodsfell was a contrast to Rove. It was large, yes, but the city buildings and houses seemed to squat, nestled close to the ground to better weather the cold.
Great blankets of snow lined everything—eaves and roofs, tree branches and garden walls.
Dark pebbles dotted the cobbled roads to provide better traction for wagons and carriages.
Blue mountains and rows of dark pine forests looked painted onto the northern horizon, and thick winter clouds clogged the sky, making the whole sight gray and sad.
King Nicosia did not live in a castle, as the Noblewights had, but in a palace.
It was larger than Rove Castle, long and spired, its windows glinting even in the muted sunlight.
From a distance it seemed to be carved from ice itself, but as we neared, I realized it must have been white granite, perhaps marble.
Closer, I saw flourishes of silver on its face, a true boast of wealth in stark contrast to the rest of Rodsfell.
Three rows of high fences separated the palace from the rest of the city.
The first was made of thick, blocky stone.
The second of tall spikes of wrought iron.
The third also iron, but twisted into a semblance of elegance, its large gates painted in silver and boasting the likeness of a dragon.
After passing through the fences, the wagon stopped.
King Nicosia approached one of the soldiers, simply touching him on the wrist for a moment before walking away.
Speaking to him mind-to-mind. The soldier, with two silver stripes on his collar to denote his rank, cut through my bonds, then helped me to the ground.
My flimsy slippers instantly sank into the snow; the king’s men had absconded with my cloak and boots.
Perhaps these shoes had been Princess Eden’s as well.
The touch of darkness, colder than the snow, snaked between my shoulders. I glanced up at the soldier. He looked hale enough. I could have checked, but found no kindness within me.
“You’re going to die soon,” I whispered.
He glanced at me with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t speak.
I stood there, shivering, for about five minutes until the king returned.
“I will escort you personally, Miss Tallowax,” he offered, his most charming grin plastered onto his face.
He grasped my upper arm to guide me forward, and I instinctively shifted away, though I knew I would fare better if I at least put on an act of warming up to him.
Still, I did not like men touching me, not since Ford, and I corrected myself too late.
The king seemed unperturbed and walked toward the palace, slowing his step to match mine. I spied Eden being escorted by no fewer than five soldiers, but they took her around the side of the palace. She went without fuss, silent, head bowed.
“Rodsfell Palace is nearly seven hundred years old,” King Nicosia explained as we approached, guards opening the heavy double doors for us.
“It’s been added to over the centuries, remodeled, but its bones are old.
This entry hall is the original, the marble quarried in our Songrift Mountains to the north. I’m sure you saw them as you came in.”
I didn’t reply, but since he had invited me to look around, I did so. Thoroughly. The better I knew the layout of the place, the easier it would be to escape. King Nicosia either had a lot of confidence in his security, or he truly believed he was going to sway me to cooperate with him.
He led me through the Great Hall, gesturing toward a ballroom, a throne hall, and a gallery before leading me up narrow stairs, pointing out more halls and drawing rooms. Up the stairs again, now focusing less on rooms and more on décor—the bust of Emperor Frensige, a painting he’d had commissioned of the sunset over Salm’s Rest, imported rugs from Antsan, our neighbor to the east. I tried to memorize passageways and rooms, noting which doors were left open and which were shut, but as we ascended yet another set of stairs, something remarkable caught my eye, and I couldn’t help but ask about it.
“Who is she?”
Across the stairwell, in an east-facing wall, were three large stained-glass windows, easily ten feet tall if not more, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the first. It lit up like a gem with the cloud-choked sun, and upon it curled the body of a woman, as though she were leaning forward, her face large in proportion to her body.
Her eyes were silver and seemed to look straight at me, and her black hair swirled around her, ribbonlike.
White lilies occupied the corners of the window.
King Nicosia smiled. Genuinely, I thought. “That is the goddess Zia, of course.”
His answer gave me pause. I knew Sesta worshipped the same gods as Cansere.
Six of them, each a child of the last. But only one of those gods was a woman: Zia, the youngest, to which most assigned anything not already given to other gods.
Usually feminine things, such as fertility.
I’d seen representations of her before—there was one in the all-gods shrine in Rove Castle—but never such an artistic rendering of her, and never without the other gods present.
To see such singular focus on the goddess in this place . . . it confused me.
King Nicosia wore the violet cincture of Zia as well, looped around his waist. He was the only man I’d ever seen sport it.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes,” I admitted, because I wanted the king to like me to better my circumstances, but I found my answer to be true. Yes, it was stunning. Yes, something about seeing the glorification of a deity of my own sex affected me.
“That is Antaniat Felide, the gods-touched from the stories.” He pointed to the third window, as if I should know the Sestan story he referred to. I did not. The window depicted a dark man with topaz eyes, one hand reaching heavenward. “And, of course, you recognize the other.”
The center window, placed higher than the other two, depicted a pale man with dark hair and green eyes, staring forward, grim, as though judging all who passed. It bore a likeness to Nicosia. That it was placed higher than both a goddess and a gods-touched legend did not surprise me.
We continued up the stairs, and at the top, I asked, “Why not Hem? He is the god of kings.”
“Hem is the greatest grandfather and, of course, revered,” King Nicosia answered, leading me down a long corridor. “But I have always felt closest to Zia.”
I did not know what to do with such an answer.