Chapter 24 #3
That evening was the start of the Salt Festival, and there was another obscene frock laid out on my bed, this time an ice blue color covered in silvery crystals reminiscent of the uniform Kiyan and the Salt Guards wore.
I had begun to dread every time I had to get ready for dinner, bile rising to my throat as I dressed in the latest outfit the Viceroy had chosen for me.
To accompany the dress was a mask covered in crystals, giving the impression that my face was crusted in salt as well as my dress.
My lip curled when Gul tried to put the mask on my face and over my spectacles.
It wouldn’t fit and when she tried to remove my spectacles in favor of the mask, I swatted her hand away.
In the end she snorted and tossed it on the bed.
I had become a tool to be used by the Viceroy, just like I had been for the Citadel. Let him look at my real face when he used me. I certainly wanted to be able to see his.
At dinner, the Viceroy wore his own mask made of crystals, the silver frame of a scorpion gracing his face.
His eyes swept my outfit as I was led to the table, narrowing on my spectacles on the edge of my nose.
Kiyan was already seated beside him, and blinked rapidly when he saw me, turning his head away the moment I sat down.
“Any developments today?” the Viceroy asked, his voice smooth and affable, a too-pleasant smile on his face that set my teeth on edge.
I knew I had to be careful with handling him, the same way I spoke to the excavators from the Citadel, who looked down at me like I was a slug beneath their boots.
So, I did the same thing with him that I did to the excavators—attempted to bore them to death.
“The book on engineering in the ancient peri world was fascinating. The tunnel system might help us when we find the vault, as the book I found discussed that it was quite complex. And there were some details about a portion of the vault being underwater, which has an added challenge,” I said, my voice monotone as I spooned more black chickpeas onto my plate.
The Viceroy leaned back in his chair, a frown creasing his brow as he tried to follow my words.
When he didn’t respond, I continued. “In order to prepare ourselves, it’s probably a good idea to research the vault system as much as possible.”
“In preparation for Azari’s wonderful traps,” Kiyan said with a humorless smile, not looking at either of us, filling his own food onto his plate.
That cleared the confusion on the Viceroy’s face. A sly smile curled his lips. “The River Court should know all about Azari’s traps. They were after all, defeated by them.”
Kiyan stabbed his roasted river crocodile so hard I thought his plate would crack in half.
“I’ve heard there might be an alarming number of death traps that await us. Queen Azari was from the Court of Vultures, after all.” The Viceroy chuckled at his own joke, though I wasn’t entirely sure of the context.
I had dug up and studied ancient fae relics, but I didn’t understand the social hierarchy and inter Court relationships, at least not yet. Nor did I know why Kiyan suddenly looked like he wanted to overturn the table over.
Traps in fae vaults were nothing I hadn’t survived before. The memory of the pit filled with spikes from the previous vault entered my mind, and a shudder ran through me.
“Cold?” The Viceroy asked, but his voice held no concern, instead it was like he were asking the question because he was fascinated with a human feeling anything at all.
“More like dread,” I said, thinking about how close I’d come to dying alone in a pit where no one would ever find me.
“Scholars aren’t meant to be adventurers.” He gave me a thin smile, his eyes cold. He and Kiyan both had dark eyes, but where Kiyan’s reminded me of tree bark, or freshly dug earth, the Viceroy’s were like an endless black pit.
I wondered if the Viceroy had ever felt anything like dread or fear. I wondered if he had any feelings at all.
He was handsome, but I still remembered the brightness in his expression when he threatened to torture me, the delight in his face as he spoke of it.
He did have feelings, just the wrong ones for the wrong reasons.
My gaze slid back to Kiyan, who had begun skewering his meal roughly, the most emotion I’d seen from him since he’d seen Queen Azari’s haath phool on my wrist.
“But some might say scholars are in the best position to find lost relics,” the Viceroy continued. “They often know how to retrieve them and have access to the research needed to both find them and avoid vault traps.”
“That’s because most of the relics aren’t lost,” I said, turning my attention back to the Viceroy. Kiyan had stopped cutting his meat and angled his head towards me, as if to hear better.
The Viceroy narrowed his eyes, his mouth flattening. “What do you mean by that?”
“Scholars are meant to be the protectors of history. Ensuring that they stay safe,” I continued, measuring my words.
“Most of the relics aren’t meant to be found.
They are hidden deliberately. They are part of the vaults and burial grounds of ancient ancestors, and it’s our job to keep them where they’re meant to be. ”
And why I had to rebury as many as I could to stop the Citadel from taking them.
A lot of scholars at the Citadel had similar thoughts to me—it was difficult to pour so much time and effort into studying ancient fae vaults that were just going to be torn apart by the Empire.
But I forgot who I was talking to this time.
Kiyan lifted his head and stared at me. The Viceroy looked more than amused—his smile had turned sharp like a blade.
“And you think they should stay hidden?”
My chest tightened with dread as I realized I had spoken too freely.
“Don’t tell me you are sympathetic to the rebel cause?” His eyes held a hardness that had me shifting in my seat. My problem was, I had no idea what the rebel cause was. But after what I had seen of the Viceroy, I sympathized with them more than not.
“No.,” I answered truthfully. “First and foremost, I’m interested in studying these ancient objects. But I understand why they are hidden and protected.”
The Viceroy scoffed. “The rebels want to keep them hidden. They know that revealing them will mean they stand no chance against our power. That they won’t be able to withstand me after I find it.
” The Viceroy’s eyes took on an unholy glint.
“And that with it, I will be able to find their protected fortress, their protected royal family, and destroy them all.”
An unsettled sense of foreboding washed over me. I was starting to realize that I actually didn’t know the power Queen Azari’s crown had. The only thing I had thought about was taking down the wall and bringing magic back to the human world, but it sounded as if it did much more than that.
Silence stretched out between us until music began in the background, causing a momentary distraction.
The way Kiyan reacted to his comment made the silence even heavier. Tension rolled off him in thick waves. His shoulders were rigid, his face frozen except for the angry tic in his jaw.
The Viceroy’s hand touched mine, and I looked down.
It was the first time he’d really touched me, and a frisson of shock ran up my spine.
I wanted to shrink away from him, given that I was trying to get him on my side, so I held myself still instead.
I’d expected him to be warm, like his general demeanor had been at dinner, but instead his hand was cold, and his voice low and ominous as he murmured in my ear.
“The Red Jasmine Rebellion wants to thwart me, but they don’t know about you, do they? The rebels don’t know that with you, I’ll finally be able to find the crown, and lay waste to them all.”
He lifted his hand from mine and stared out at the revelry. “Drink. Dance. We will leave in a few days, after the Salt festival.”
Leave in in a few days.
I tried to search my feelings for why I didn’t feel the relief I expected, knowing we were that much closer to finding it.
Instead, I followed the Viceroy’s gaze to the celebration in front of us, the courtyard beyond the dining hall filled with masked courtiers spinning around the dance floor in a violent explosion of color.
Lay waste to them all.
His words reminded me of the Angrezian Empire, reminded me of Empress Lorna’s power over Astolans.
Despite their belief in the civilization they brought, they were more savage in their actions than we could ever be.
My food turned sour in my stomach and I excused myself from the table.