Chapter 16
‘What is that thing?’
‘I thought it was one of yours.’
A snort and then a gagging sound. ‘I wouldn’t be caught dead in that.’
An uncomfortable silence.
‘Where did it come from?’
‘There are no signs of anyone being here.’
‘It looks like a torture device.’
‘Aren’t all corsets a type of torture device?’
‘True, but this one is particularly nasty. The more you move while wearing it, the tighter it gets. See?’
‘Oh, ow! What the hell? Why would she put this on?’
‘It’s pretty.’ A new voice.
Another snort. ‘Pretty deadly.’
‘Are you sure this doesn’t belong to anyone here?’
Silence and then a chuckle. ‘You think this belongs to one of us?’
‘Then again I ask, where did she get it?’
‘A peddler,’ I said, my voice weak.
‘Snow.’ Parisar’s voice.
Was it his voice that had drawn me out of the darkness?
I tried to open my eyes and then squeezed them shut again, pain ricocheting through my brain. I swallowed, my throat sore.
‘Here, drink this,’ Parisar said pressing the rim of a cup to my lips.
I took a cautious swallow of the cool liquid and then another. I tried opening my eyes again, squinting at the people gathered around my bed.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘We were kind of hoping you could tell us that,’ Parisar said gently. ‘Sim and Zeyr found you passed out and cut the corset off you. Why were you wearing that, Snow? And what did you mean by ‘a peddler’?’
I tried to sit up but collapsed back on the pillow. I wasn’t ready to be upright just yet.
‘Um…there was a peddler,’ I said, the memory fuzzy.
‘A peddler came here?’ Tain asked skeptically.
‘He said he was lost. He looked like he’d been wandering for days.’
‘I told you to hide if anyone came,’ Parisar said, and I could hear the strain in his voice.
‘He looked terrible. He was starving. I gave him some water and some food, and then he offered to pay me by giving me something out of his pack.’
The memory came clearer now as the pain in my head receded.
‘You chose that?’ Tain asked, disgust plain in her voice.
‘It was the first thing I touched when I put my hand in his pack,’ I said, knowing it wasn’t much of a defence. ‘I wasn’t going to keep it. I tried to give it back and he convinced me to try it on.’
‘He must have been sent here to kill you.’ That was Cor. I’d barely heard more than five words out of her the entire time I’d been with them. Her voice was low and raspy. ‘This is a constrictor knot,’ she said, examining the bodice. ‘The more you struggled, the tighter it would have gotten.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Remembering the way it wrapped around me, strangling my torso. My hand went to my ribs, and I winced when I touched them.
‘You’re going to be sore and sorry for a while,’ Parisar said, his jaw tight. ‘You’re lucky he didn’t break any ribs. As it is, you’re bruised pretty badly.’
‘You’ll need to apply this twice a day,’ Sim said, handing me a clay pot of a strong-smelling ointment. ‘It will help with the healing.’
Parisar looked at the assembled group. ‘Now that we know the princess is out of the woods, let’s have a meal and discuss the news from the castle.’
The group nodded as one and left the room, but Parisar stayed, his eyes intense as they scanned me.
‘You could have died,’ he said, his voice a low growl.
Why was he angry at me? Okay, maybe I’d been na?ve to have trusted the peddler, but did he seriously blame me for this?
‘But I didn’t,’ I replied stubbornly.
‘If Sim and Zeyr had been just a few minutes later, you would have. As it was, you weren’t breathing when they found you.’
I blinked up at him. I didn’t remember anything after I blacked out. I didn’t remember being saved by Sim and Zeyr.
‘Did he do this to your hair too?’ Parisar asked, sliding one of my shortened locks through his fingers.
‘I did that,’ I said. ‘My hair was getting in the way, and I don’t have the skill to tie it up like Tain and Cor.’ I didn’t say that even if I asked them to show me, they wouldn’t have.
I’d wanted to have friends. I’d imagined what it would be like to have a circle of close female friends where we could do each other’s hair and gossip about the various lords in Eudaimonia. This was not that. Tain, Cor, and Sim were the furthest thing from girlfriends who would braid each other’s hair. Plus, they weren’t my friends, either. I wasn’t sure they even liked me.
‘I like it,’ he said, twisting the lock around his finger once more before letting it fall. He took a breath and looked away, his face still hard, his jaw clenched. ‘Do you think you can come out and join us for supper? I need to tell you something.’
I nodded. ‘Can you help me?’
Parisar offered me his arm and with his assistance I was able to get up off the bed, although the pain was more than I’d ever experienced in my life.
‘You’ll need to give the training a rest for a bit,’ Parisar said. ‘Until that bruising heals.’
I looked at him, something just occurring to me. ‘You’ve seen it?’
Two spots of pink appeared high on his cheeks. ‘I needed to check that you didn’t have broken ribs,’ he said.
My face flushed, and I looked away. I supposed it was only fair. I’d seen his bare chest, although seeing the bare skin of a lady’s torso was a bit more risqué.
‘That’s all I saw,’ he assured me.
I wasn’t sure if that helped or not.
The table was sombre as we ate a simple supper. From what I gathered, Sim and Zeyr had found me, and then when the others returned to the camp, they had all been so focussed on me that the usual chores hadn’t gotten done—which meant dinner was pretty much whatever they could scrounge up in the pantry. Pretty much the same as what I had been eating while they were all away.
‘So what news from the castle?’ Cor asked. ‘That is why you wanted us all together, wasn’t it?’
Parisar exchanged a look with Breust and Tain before he spoke.
‘Things aren’t good. There are rumours about the queen.’
‘Rumours? What rumours?’ I asked, surprised. Everyone loved the queen, and I’d never heard anyone say a bad thing about her.
‘The mirror,’ Parisar said, looking at me. ‘The rumours are about the mirror and that your mother …’
‘Is a crazy witch,’ Tain replied.
‘What?’ I exclaimed and then winced at the pain caused by my sudden exclamation.
Parisar sighed and shot a look at Tain, who pretended not to see it.
‘There are rumours that she has become obsessed with the mirror.’
‘But the mirror is…just a mirror,’ I lied.
‘You and I both know that’s not true,’ Parisar said.
I looked at him, shocked. ‘You told them about the mirror?’
He nodded. ‘And there is truth in the rumour. Your mother has become a little obsessed with it. She has been searching the mirror for answers, but that’s not what everyone is talking about.’
‘Then what are they saying?’ I asked.
‘They say the mirror predicts who the most beautiful woman in the kingdom is.’
‘Well that is just ridiculous,’ I replied. Prince Granger had mentioned the same rumour, but I hadn’t thought anyone in Eudaimonia would actually believe it. ‘And why would my mother even care about that?’
Parisar shared another look with Breust and Tain before continuing.
‘They say that up until recently, the mirror told the queen she was the most beautiful in all the land but now…’
‘Now?’
‘Now it says you are,’ Breust said, matter-of-factly.
‘Me?’ I scoffed. I would have laughed except I knew it would hurt. ‘That’s ridiculous. Apart from the fact that the mirror doesn’t say any such thing, my mother is far more beautiful than I am, and even if it was true, my mother would not care. And what has this got to do with anything, anyway?’
‘Everyone knows you were kidnapped from the castle,’ Parisar said, his jaw tight. ‘Elil made sure of that.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What has that got to do with the stupid mirror and its predictions?’
‘There are rumours that your mother was jealous of you and that she was the one who ordered you kidnapped and killed.’
‘WHAT!’ I jumped to my feet, wincing in pain but not caring. ‘That makes no sense!’ I started to pace. ‘What idiot came up with that idea? I mean, even the stupid thing about the mirror. It doesn’t even do that, and it’s not even that accurate with what it predicts.’
‘Unfortunately, the rumours have spread with such fervour that the entire castle and town are rife with it,’ Parisar said, coming to me and reaching out to put his hands on my shoulders to stop me pacing. ‘Because your mother seemed unconcerned with your apparent kidnapping, it only added fuel to the fire. Not to mention she has locked herself in her chambers with the mirror for hours on end.’
‘And my father?’ I asked, hopeful but resigned.
‘There’s been no change in his condition,’ Parisar said gently, rubbing his hands up and down my arms.
‘So what does all this mean?’ I asked. ‘Are the other nobles still in the castle? Are they trying to usurp my mother?’
Parisar sighed and shook his head. ‘The other nobles have left, all except Elil and a group of his men. He is determined to find you.’
That made me happy, if I could find any happiness in this situation at all. Elil was still worried about me. He was still looking for me.
‘So if my mother didn’t order me kidnapped and killed, like the rumours say, then who did?’ I turned to him. ‘You said you heard of a plot to steal me away from the castle and you intercepted them. Who were they? And was this whole entire thing a way to discredit my mother?’
Parisar sighed again. ‘We don’t know who it was,’ he said. ‘We’re still looking into it, but…’
He trailed off, looking repentant.
‘Then who sent the peddler?’ I asked. ‘And how did he know how to find me?’
‘We’re good at covering our tracks,’ Breust said. ‘But it is impossible not to leave any trace. A good tracker would be able to find us.’
‘But why try and kill me?’ I asked.
‘Your father is in a coma, your mother has been deemed unstable at the least and evil at worst, and if you’re dead, there is no one to inherit the kingdom,’ Parisar said.
‘No one but you,’ I accused. ‘You would benefit from all of these unfortunate events.’
Parisar dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Then why are you still alive?’ he asked, lifting his head just enough to glare at me through his lashes. ‘I could have killed you a week ago, but instead I’ve fed and clothed you, and Sim saved your life. Why would we do all that if we wanted you dead?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, throwing my hands in the air and wincing with pain. ‘I don’t know,’ I repeated quietly. ‘None of this makes any sense to me.’
‘All we can be sure of is that someone is trying to kill you,’ Parisar said. ‘Which means you have to stay here a little longer.’
I knew he was right, but it didn’t make it any more palatable. My mother needed me, if only to prove that she hadn’t gone insane with jealousy. But if Parisar was right and someone was really trying to kill me—as evidenced by the most recent attempt on my life—then going back to the castle would be the worst thing I could do.
‘Fine,’ I said, spinning away from him and going back to my seat.