Chapter 3 #2
A chill wound its way through my veins as the priest recited his binding words, King Nicosia standing there with a smarmy tilt to his countenance, like a man eating bread while starving children on the street watched.
Princess Eden did not look at him, but all he did was stare at her, into her, and I hugged myself realizing what this would mean, and what he would likely do to her.
This was not a marriage arranged by noble parents for the better of a kingdom; this was the sacking of a daughter abducted from her home, her family murdered.
Did she still think she could sway him? By the way defeat cowed her, I thought not.
The priest’s words were quick and to the point.
He referred to Princess Eden by her full name, but when he gestured to the king, he used the term Otsozia.
I silently formed the term on my lips, the word completely foreign to me.
There was no hand wrapping, no songs, no placing of wedding stones as was custom in weddings .
. . Canseren weddings, at least. The administrations finished in less than two minutes.
When the priest sealed the union by naming the gods in order, King Nicosia grabbed a fistful of Princess Eden’s hair and forced her lips roughly to his.
She cradled her mouth when he pulled away, her teeth having cut her lip.
Cold fear curled up my spine, tempting old memories. He was going to hurt her. Now or tonight to unify them by religion and law. He was going to hurt her, and I had a sick feeling he was going to enjoy it.
I dared not reach out to her as she left the room, dared not speak.
I could not embrace her even if I wanted to, not with the soulbinding gluing me to my guard.
But for the briefest moment our eyes met.
Hers glimmered with fear. I hoped mine did not.
I prayed she saw something of strength, hope, or, at the least, understanding in that brief connection before the king well and truly broke her.
As she passed and my gaze fell away, it came again to one of the narrow shelves near the door, close enough my skirt brushed its corner.
I didn’t really think of it. Had I asked the maid for a set of scriptures, she likely would have given me some. But in that moment, I needed to do something, however small. I needed to act. I needed to learn.
So while my guard murmured to his armored friend, I grabbed an old book off the shelf nearest to my hand level. Pretended to cough badly so I could bend over, lift my skirt, and hook the cover under my girdle. Did my best to conceal the shape with penitent hands clasped before me.
If the guard noticed, he didn’t care, and I made it back to the conservatory without fanfare.
In the middle of the night, when the brazier light had died and the silvery shine of a half-moon between split clouds illuminated my chamber, I awoke suddenly, sure I heard a woman’s scream echoing through the palace. Holding my breath, I listened, but only silence answered.
In the space between sleeping and waking, I felt Renn burn inside me.
It rippled outward from the center of my chest, like a fire-hot stone dropped into a shallow pool. It was pure and precious, fragile and distant, and I pressed both my hands between my breasts, holding it there, savoring the warmth of him.
It was love, unadulterated even by the miles and miles between us. While I couldn’t possibly know for sure, in that moment I was certain he had pieced together this connection between us, and this thrum of adoration so early in the morning was very intentional.
I hadn’t had the opportunity to explain to him the how of healing him.
What I’d sacrificed to do so. Our connection must have been confusing to him, without those answers.
But I would tell him as soon as I was able, should the gods give me the chance.
How desperately I wanted to tell him. To look into the endless azure depths of his eyes, knit my fingers with his, and tell him everything.
I wanted so desperately to hear his voice, to hear him murmur against my hair that all would be well, that he loved me, that we would see each other again.
How long would it take for me to forget the cadence of his speech?
I rose, the draft from the glass especially strong that morning. It frosted in triangular crystals along the window panels’ edges, though the February clouds had receded and allowed Rolys’s white sunlight to shine through, highlighting endless swathes of snow.
Every morning, before I did anything else, I recited the hallways and rooms of the palace, noting any details I could recall, then dowsed on myself.
Two of the crystalline pieces of magic holding my heart together had turned watery, and I coaxed them solid again.
Smoothed and firmed up their sides. I ran my hands over the three green pieces of my lumis left by Ursa, and wondered again, if I’d only had the knowledge, experience, and practice I had now, if perhaps I could have refortified myself from my injury the way I had with my heart, and Ursa needn’t have sacrificed herself for me.
Then again, I’d given of my heart freely; it hadn’t been damaged.
Whether or not that affected the magic, I might never know.
Turning from that line of thought, I braided long nets of iron and fortified the wall around my lumis, enough so that, when I finished, I had to go back to sleep.
When I woke, the brazier was lit, this time for heat and not for light, but whichever servant had come in had not brought me a breakfast tray.
I didn’t change; I had only one shift and two dresses in my possession: the first dress I’d been abducted in.
The second was Princess Eden’s, given to me on the ship.
I wore the first. I combed through my hair and rebraided it while quietly murmuring to Ursa, ever grateful for her stalwart company.
We’d talked long and hard about Wald Whitestone, trying to sort out how he existed at all, let alone in Rodsfell.
Perhaps he’d found a way to escape or bribed a guard to release him.
Perhaps, like us, he had an identical twin, though I found that very unlikely.
While there were two sets of twins in my family—Ursa and me, and then Heath and Pren—they were a rare occurrence, with identical even rarer.
We combed through the possibilities until they grew absurd, and I knew picking at it would do no good, so I did my best to let it go.
After washing my face, I retrieved my contraband from beneath my thin pallet and turned it over in my hands.
The scripture’s spine was so worn I feared I’d dropped pages from beneath my skirt on my walk from the shrine to the conservatory.
Holding it carefully, I flipped front to back, noting some pages nearly pulled from their binding, others crinkled with water damage.
Flipped back to front, past the Rulings of Alm, Wisdom of Priests, Marks of Hem, and Prophecies.
It wasn’t anything in the pages that caught my eye, but the inside of the front cover.
A symbol had been burned into the leather, similar to a cursive Z, but with circles on either side of its unfinished tail.
I traced my hand over the marking. Wondered at it. Had this been gifted by someone who used a strange monogram instead of their name?
I heard footsteps just before the conservatory door opened, giving me barely enough time to shove the book beneath my blankets. King Nicosia entered, dressed simply in black save for his violet cincture. I waited for his retinue to follow, but no guard seemed to accompany him.
I should have been relieved, but the king’s solitary arrival put me on edge. What was he planning?
In his hands he carried a silver breakfast tray—everything in Sesta was silver—and came over to my pallet, taking a pillow off it to sit upon.
It was meant to be an act of friendship, but I did not want Adoel Nicosia anywhere near my bed.
I thought of Princess Eden in hers. Wondered how she’d fared the night.
If someone like King Nicosia, who’d attacked innocent Canseren villages without honor or demand, would brutalize his unwilling wife, and whether or not he’d bother to heal her afterward.
He patted the pillow I’d slept on. “Come, Nym. I thought we’d have breakfast together today, privately. I can call you Nym, can I not?”
I didn’t answer him. I hesitated only a breath before lowering myself onto the cushion, watching his face the entire time.
Were he anyone else, I might have thought him a cheery, harmless man.
But the war aside, this was the same man who had taken me against my will, chained me to a mastiff, and starved and drugged me on a ship.
King Nicosia seemed to have many faces. This was merely one of them.
He gestured to the plate of food. “Eat, please.”
I did. I never knew when or if he’d change his mind about feeding me, so I always ate the food. And if he poisoned me . . . I might be able to clear poison from my lumis in time to survive it. I also might simply pass away and keep all my secrets to myself.
I froze then, a piece of bread halfway to my mouth. Renn.
If putting half my heart in him made me feel his emotions and his injuries . . . would I feel his death, too? Would he die if I died?
I couldn’t know for sure, but the theory only resolidified the fact that I could never allow the Sestan king into my lumis, nor my thoughts.
If he saw the golden thread, if he pieced together my connection to Renn Noblewight, and if he learned what it meant, he could end this war in a single blow.
Kill me, kill the Canseren king. Easy as that.
“Is it not to your liking?”
A shiver coursed through me. “Just thinking.” I forced the bread into my mouth and forced myself to chew. It was marbled with a soft, savory cheese—perhaps the best thing I’d had since my abduction. If only I were in the mindset to enjoy it.