Chapter Six
The next morning, following a breakfast porridge, an attendant informs me that I am to get dressed and join the king. Immediately, the food rises in my gut.
I take my time, if only to stall, inching my stockings slowly up my legs, then buttoning my layers of shirts. My dress goes on next, with a drab green wool surcoat overtop. When I can delay no more, a guard escorts me to the war room once again.
As always, my father is an oppressive presence, his crown making him seem taller than he is. Instead of poised on the throne, however, he’s pacing back and forth, his head tilted upward as if to look down on the room.
I hate that age has not weakened his posture—that he hardly looks a day older than when I ran away, save for the graying of his hair.
For a time, I am comforted by the presence of the Brisendali council—Sofya included—but my father quickly orders the end of whatever session they were holding, dismissing them. Color leaches from my cheeks as the room drains of council members, one by one. I swallow the knot inching up my throat.
I can’t even remember the last time I was alone with my father. I always had Emilia, and then, at thirteen, I ran away. My fingers itch for the dagger that was taken from me yesterday, but even with it, I couldn’t hope to defend myself against him.
Instead I brace myself for whatever form of punishment he deems fit for my performance in front of the Syndicate, when I told the truth about him.
Yet all I hear is a low, “You will retract your confession.”
I slice my gaze to his, where he stands by the window, his hands tucked into the pockets of his doublet. It looks strange on him, this finery, when all I’ve ever seen him in are those rigid, angular uniforms.
I say, “I will do no such thing.”
“I know your whore-of-a-king is in Razam,” he growls.
“I will find him, Vastianna, wherever they have him. I am offering you a single mercy—which you will take, because without it, you will have nowhere to turn. So before the thirty days are up, you will withdraw your accusations against me. Do that, and I will see that you keep your position at court. You will be provided every luxury. I will deny you nothing. Refuse, however, and I will see you hanged when this is all over—as a traitor to Brisendale.”
“I called you a murderer in front of the Crowns. I think we’re past me believing any offer to forgive me.”
He shrugs as if it’s no matter. “You will, of course, admit you lied at Anton’s behest. You will claim you were manipulated.
Blinded by lust. That you fabricated a story to be with him, and that it was only once you returned to us that you came to your senses.
You will say that he is in Razam, secretly helping them prepare for war.
That it was Anton himself, dressed as a Razami, who drew the knife across Rurik’s throat.
So yes, Vastianna, I can forgive you publicly if you make it believable. ”
But if he was so confident in finding and killing Anton, then he wouldn’t have need of my confession.
“You still fear him,” I say, narrowing my eyes. He worries he won’t find Anton in time, and I’m certainly not going to tell him about the curse.
“Hardly,” he says. “But it would spare me a great deal of trouble. If you confess before the thirty days are up, the Syndicate won’t have need of his presence. I will be granted the permission I seek to take my revenge.”
His revenge? A raging heat burns my cheeks. “You are the greatest fool to ever live if you think I’d help you after what you did to Emilia!”
And Marian.
And Aesir, groomed as she was.
And everyone else he’s trampled on to get here.
He marches toward me and snatches my jaw, his grip punishing.
“Foolish, arrogant little brat. Just like Emilia. Her skull cracked so easily, like the shell of an egg.” Trembling, I try to jerk away, but his hand moves around to my scalp.
He yanks my hair back so that I’m forced to look up at him.
My heart rate soars, skittering into a jumbled rhythm.
“Know this. I have never lost. Your boy king, his embarrassing court, and those Razami pests…they will all fall.”
“I want you to know something, too,” I say despite how my voice shakes, despite the way fear pierces me to the marrow.
“I am the chink in your armor. The loose thread in the tapestry you’re attempting to spin and hang on the walls as proof of your victory.
I will be the one to unravel you. You cannot stop me. ”
At that, he shoves me away. I stumble, my knees slamming against the floor as he says, “Think carefully about your options. Cross me, Vastianna, and you will not survive it.”
I take a moment, picking myself up, my palms stinging. I pull in a breath, waiting for my vision to clear of stars. Nausea clings to every rung of my ribs.
And though I shouldn’t provoke him further, my anger is incandescent now, even as I know I will pay for my words. “I have already survived you.”
A blink, and then he’s dragging me from the war room, past his guards—past the few council members who linger in the hall.
I catch Sofya’s concerned eyes, but then we’ve whipped past her, too, and down another set of corridors until, finally, we are back in the north tower.
My vision spirals—and more so as he yanks me up each stair, until finally we reach the landing.
“If you had complied, you might have spared your missing king. Now he will die, and it will be because of you.” He shoves me back until my feet lose purchase.
I stumble into my room, catching myself on the bedpost. “Guards, have the Razami princeling and the Master of Revels thrown into the holding cell in my personal quarters.”
His personal quarters, not the dungeon, so all that happens here will be a secret—even from his own council. “You—you can’t do this!”
“You have one day to change your mind. Else I will make sure you’re there to hear them suffer.”
He slams the door and clicks the lock, leaving me inside.
This—this is why he agreed to let Sundar and Copelan stay in Brisendale.
To use them against me.
I leap to my feet and slam against the door, shouting—to no avail. Even so, I don’t stop. “I will tell the Syndicate everything, you hear? Your days of silencing women are over!”
His footfalls recede down the stairs.
Frantic, I whirl and race to the tapestry, yanking it back.
Barreling inside the stairwell, I descend the stairs as fast as my feet can carry me, but the scuffle below is already echoing as an outraged Sundar demands to know why he’s being apprehended—and Copelan, too, when he argues on the prince’s behalf.
I reach for the handle of the door, but pause.
I can’t stop this from happening. And if they catch me here, I will lose even more freedom. But I won’t let my father get away with this.
So I remove my hand. I painstakingly climb the stairs and wait, counting down the minutes.
I have one card to play—the only way I can think to protect them.
The dinner they serve me in my room later is strangely extravagant.
Loaves of stone-fired bread sliced into ovals and smattered with plum preserves beside thick rounds of sausages glistening with a drizzle of honey.
A cup of root vegetable stew. Baked pears smothered in cream and layered with berries for dessert.
I know why.
My father wants me to feel the guilt of dining in luxury while knowing my friends are hungry and alone behind the bars of a cell. I manage only a few bites before I shove back the tray, sick with worry. I’m sure he anticipated that, too.
I can only hope he doesn’t anticipate Sofya.
When the maid brought my dinner in, I noticed Silas outside my door, now that the rotations have changed.
I summon him, on the pretext of taking my untouched dinner away, and ask him to send for Sofya. He tells me it is too dangerous; she can’t be seen coming back here now that the tower is more heavily guarded.
“Then pass a message along to her,” I beg. “Tell her Prince Sundar and the Master of Revels are both in my father’s personal holding cell.” I explain my encounter with my father as quickly as I can. “Please, she must tell the council. He must be held accountable.”
My father is doing this without their permission, and if they find out, surely they will stop this madness, what with the Syndicate watching more closely than ever. He will have to release Copelan and Sundar.
Otherwise my father might ascertain Anton’s location.
All he needs to do is torture it out of Sundar—a job he’ll make swift work of in secret.
If Sundar doesn’t break, he’ll use Copelan—or perhaps torture the both of them to get what he wants.
Then once he learns of Anton’s whereabouts and has him assassinated, he need only wait for the clock to run out, knowing that Anton can’t appear before the Syndicate.
I’ve done all I can do, save for praying that Sofya moves quickly. That the council does, too.
Because Anton might not be able to evade death this time when I have his pendant.
Fear closes in as swiftly as the dark. I sit in the stillness of it now, not bothering to light a candle as the room plunges into shadow.
We have no way to break Moranya’s curse before the thirty days are up.
I have no way to make it back to Razam to try, now that I am trapped.
And my father will find Anton.
At first, I dismiss the chill as a draft from the window—which was repaired while I was with my father earlier. It isn’t until the hairs on my arms lift that I feel it—a presence, like the one I felt last night.
Then a voice, soft as it is, echoes into the abyss of my mind.
Locked away again, are we, Vastianna?
My spine straightens, yet there’s no one in the darkness. No contours, no light. Nothing reflected in the window, in the mirror above the basin. Slowly, I rise to my feet. The presence is thick and pervasive.
I feel Illian the way I would a cloud blocking the sun—a sudden absence of warmth.