Chapter Twenty-Seven
It’s like we’ve stepped into another world. As if we’ve slipped through the wall and landed inside ruins buried beneath the mountain. Chunks of stone, half crumpled, jut upward, the floor half severed like an exploded vein.
My voice is an echo as I ask, “Where are we?”
I notice the shift in gravity then. The way I feel lighter, some of the pressure lifting off my joints.
“The only place I could think to hide us,” Anton responds, “considering Moranya is about to start her weekly ritual, which will take the entire night.”
“Ritual?” I ask, my eyes crawling around the space. Behind us, an identical stained-glass window reflects what little light there is, save for the thin stream slipping through a crack in the ceiling.
Anton steps ahead of me, and I take the chance to make sure his pendant is tucked securely between my breasts. “Yes, a ritual, and no I am not going to tell you anything about it. For now, we are in the ruins of Mercy’s chapel in Ansa, and we won’t be able to return until she’s done.”
Ansa. We’re underneath his palace in Ansa. It makes sense now that I notice the rows of pews, half broken and bent as they are.
A sudden surge of hope runs through me. The Syndicate will convene here in two days. If I can just keep him here, persuade him to meet with them…
Though of course, that still means breaking his curse first. Because now all his memories of the Gathering are false.
But I managed the impossible before.
At least I know how to get him to Ansa quickly. Which is more hope than I have had in the last twenty-eight days.
“Morta’s teeth, Vasalie,” he says, rounding in front of me. “What were you thinking, following me that way?”
“I…I wanted to know where you were going. I want to understand what’s really between you and Moranya.” To say the least. “If our situations were reversed, would you have made a different choice?”
“I don’t think I’d choose to toy with a Fate with power over life and death,” he growls, loping off and underneath a small arch at the far end of the sanctuary.
He’s fuming—more so than earlier. And I can’t help but wonder if it’s just about my sneaking around, or if there’s something more. Did something happen during his conversation with Moranya to make matters worse?
Then I remember his displeasure on those nights I danced when he was missing all day—and clearly with Moranya.
What was the particular nature of their bargain? And why did seizing his memories help?
I trail after him. “Is this…” I glance back at the stained-glass mural, there beside an altar. “The stained-glass window is a portal.”
“Made for me,” he confirms with a sigh. “But we can’t stay here. This place isn’t exactly hygienic, what with the water leaks, dust, and mildew.”
“So anyone can get into Morta’s Lair,” I say. “Just like that.”
“Ordinarily, no, because no one knows where it is or what to look for. I’ve kept it a secret even from Basile.
” He huffs. “It isn’t so different from the one Moranya opened for me in Razam.
You know, the one you used. I admit I’m impressed, though, that you attempted to jump through the window above the bed.
Brave, considering it overlooks a massive drop. ”
So that’s how he escaped. Moranya opened a portal like this one in a place no one would notice. And that’s just it: No one had.
I decide not to correct him.
“Can we…get back through?”
“When Moranya retires, yes.” Still, that fury, even as we move from the sanctuary into a dark corridor. “Fortunately, she is habitual, and therefore predictable. Unfortunately, that means she will spend the next twelve or so hours in her atelier.”
I finally found Moranya, and yet I can’t get back to her. Time is running out. I push down my panic, examining his words. There’s a clue there, if only I can make sense of it. My vision wavers.
“Her atelier,” I say. “That’s the room with all the broken glass, I take it?” I try to fit the pieces together—the atelier, the ritual. Shards everywhere. They fit together about as well as all that broken glass.
Anton doesn’t answer me, though I cling to his arm, unable to see more than a foot in front of me.
He, for his part, seems to know the place by heart.
Up a stairwell, we emerge into another chapel—this one brighter and more modern, with polished marble floors and benches set aglow in an array of fractured colors spilling in from the stained-glass ovals in the ceiling above.
The rest of the space is lined with narrow, clear windows that show the city beyond.
“Perhaps…we don’t have to hide,” I offer. Now that I know where she is, I can finally confront her. “Let me talk to her, Anton—”
“Absolutely not,” he cuts in.
“But—”
“She is not to be interrupted.”
“This ritual,” I say. “What is it?”
“Vasalie,” he says. “We are waiting. That is that.”
Aggravation tightens my throat, but I breathe out, attempting to quell my panic.
“It’s afternoon, by the look of it. No one will be here until dawn tomorrow morning,” Anton says, plopping onto a pew, kicking up his feet to rest on the back of another. “We can hide out here.”
“Hide?” I lift my brows.
His head is resting on the bench, tilted up toward the ceiling.
“You are afraid of being seen,” I gather. “You’re afraid someone might recognize you, and you worry what they’ll say. That they’ll reject you rather than welcome your return.”
“I have not returned.”
“But they won’t know that. Am I wrong, Sire?”
“So I don’t wish to gallivant around the kingdom that was taken from me. Can you blame me?”
I knew he was hurt. I knew he cared. But I thought he had buried all that, let it go. Yet here and now, I realize just how much he aches for his people. For his place in Miridran.
A loose thread—and one I might be able to pick at. Maybe this is exactly what we need. For him to be here, see his city again. He isn’t going to let us return to Moranya, so I’m going to have to make the most of this. Take advantage of it.
There must be some way I can turn this to my favor. And the moment we get back, I’ll confront Moranya now that I know where she is—perhaps after loosening his lips even more.
I’m starting to think riling him might prove more effective.
“No,” I admit, idling by one of the windows. “But I have a hard time believing you are the king I heard so many tales about. That king was one of poetry and fire. He was fearless and clever. Devious, dangerous, witty, and far too proud. It is a shame to see him gone.”
“I am what they made me.”
“We are who we make ourselves,” I say, and that sends a glare slicing back toward me. I don’t care. “You were never one to let anyone else dictate your future. You were a thing of legends.”
Because his reputation, mostly, had been a carefully crafted front. A debauched king with a Glory Court at his beck and call. But really, he had been rescuing those who needed help.
“And now,” I say, “you are a shadow.”
At that, he rises and stalks toward me. “A shadow? I beg to differ, Vasalie. I am an ending. I rule the dead. I alter fates,” he says, hovering over me now—so close his breath warms the tip of my nose.
My back hits the stone ledge of the window.
“And when those who betrayed me pass into my world, I will set them to suffer in the lowest echelons while I laze about in my palace with my chalice and my scepter. Say what you will, but my pride remains intact.”
But I don’t believe him. He didn’t cast Sundar into the Sands. This is yet another front.
I jut my chin, leveling it with his. “You let others warm your bed, and yet you feel lonely when you wake. You drink until you forget the ambition you try so hard to smother. You entertain souls who care little for you, and you for them. The days pass with little meaning. Admit it, Majesty. Deep down, you are bored.”
I spin, unlatch the window, and slide it open, if only to remind him of what he’s giving up—though I hope it might do more than that.
But the effect stirs something in me, too.
A longing I haven’t felt since I broached the steps of my old home.
Only this time, it’s for something I’ve never had, for a place I’ve never seen.
I’ve always dreamed of seeing Ansa. I grew up with stories, heard even more at Anell.
Anton’s home palace—and the entire city, for that matter—is perhaps one of the greatest wonders in the world.
People have traveled from far and wide just to see it, whether they approved of the Eastern King or not.
And it indeed puts Anell to shame. Even the small sliver I can see out the window outshines Moranya’s Realm like the light of a great and blazing hearth against a mere candle’s flame.
The ledge the chapel is set upon overlooks a section of the great city, which is built across the many branches of the River Mercy. Dozens of decadent barges ply those waters, slipping under bridges and around promontories. And then there is the palace.
From what I can see, the palace extends to both my right and my left in stretches of marble and sandstone, rising high and crowned with stained-glass turrets and domes.
Tall, arching windows decorate the sides, as do statues and stonework accented in copper and sea-glass flourishes.
Across the waterway is a plaza bordered by docks and sparkling lights.
Beyond that are stacks of apartments with ornate balconies, rows of colorful shops, and parks and promenades, all teeming with life.
Glass tunnels high off the ground connecting several of the taller buildings like the arc passes on Anell—and if I’m not mistaken, I think I even see some beneath the water.
Then my attention is stolen by a magnificent wooden building, capped with a prismatic turret lit from within that shoots rays of color into the clouds.
The theater. It must be. And if I remember correctly, it’s even considered to be a part of the palace, connected to it by a guarded bridge that runs underneath the waterway.
Oh, I’d give anything to spend days here, exploring every alley and crevice of Ansa. This is Anton’s home. The place he lovingly crafted and honed, its foundation built over the past century by his forefathers.
When I glance back at him, I see adoration written across every inch of his face, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe I need to let go of the Anton who was, and work with the one I have. He still loves his home.
Maybe, just maybe, I could convince him to return.
Maybe he could fix things—just as he is.
But Sadira’s warning looms in my head. The prophecy, the blood it foretells, spilled at his hands. The wars. If he reclaims his crown and takes the reins of Miridran’s army, the prophecy could be fulfilled.
Except I’m not so sure I believe that. The prophecy comes from far-off Fates.
The very Fates who abandoned us, who choose to send messages yet offer no aid.
Anton might have believed it. Sadira and her envoy, too.
Yet at the Gathering, I trusted my instinct in coming to Anton for help.
In confessing to him. Choosing him over Rurik.
Now my instinct is telling me to put my faith in him once more—even if his memories never surface.
But I need him to care.
Unwittingly, my gaze travels over him—the shadows cast by his long dark lashes, the bow of his lips, the contours of his cheeks, his jaw, his clavicle. I lick my lips. Until now, he has lingered beside me, but when he notices my appraisal, he turns away.
I accused him of being bored, and he’s yet to refute me. This feels like admission enough.
Then he says, softly, “You would not be the first to think so little of me. It matters not.”
“That’s not—”
He props himself against a column. Fiddles with his rings.
“I think you are frustrating and unsatisfied,” I say, my fists balling. “But I think much more of you than that.”
“Do tell,” he says with a lazy lilt, not bothering to look up.
“No. I’m mad at you.” I turn away, scan the space. Then it hits me—something Sundar said.
Fates, he even had blueprints in his workshop for that pendant you took. I distinctly remember something scribbled in the margins about Moranya.
His workshop.
I track my eyes across the line of the palace to my right, where it curves with the flow of the river. I wonder if I could find it on my own, if Anton persists in hiding.
“How long must we wait here?” I ask.
“Through the night, most likely.”
“Right,” I say, making my way toward the door. “Well, then. I’ll meet you back here before morning.”
But the moment I grip the handle of the double doors I assume lead out, Anton leaps up to grip my shoulder. “And where exactly do you think you’re going? Do you plan to meet with my betrayers—is that it? Report back?” His brows are a furrowed line.
An idea forms, and I shake him off. “I am insulted if that’s what you think. This—it’s my first time in Ansa. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
“A palace is not a museum. You can’t just roam around.”
“Then show me your city. You must know safe routes we can take.” Like on Anell. If that palace had tunnels, surely this one does, too. He presses his lips flat, but I say, “We have hours to kill, and I am going one way or another—unless you plan to fetter our wrists together or pin me down—”
“I should.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say, glaring.
For a moment, I think he might. Then, begrudgingly, he releases me.
“Join me, Anton. You know this place better than anyone. If you don’t want to be seen, you won’t be. Or would you have me believe otherwise?”
He scrubs his hair, and I almost laugh. Grumpy Anton is not something I’ve seen before. This side of him is new—rough-edged and ill fitting—and rather comical at that.
Only after the world’s most long-suffering sigh does he say, “What is it you wish to see?”
“All of it,” I say honestly. Then I add, cautiously, “They say you were a magnificent inventor. That even your workshop could be considered one of Miridran’s greatest wonders.
Many were caught, even imprisoned, trying to sneak inside for a glimpse of the inventor king’s grand workings. Or are the tales untrue? Contrived?”
“Certainly not,” he bites, his pride winning out. He encircles my wrist with his fingers once more. “Fine. I will offer you a glimpse and nothing more.” He pulls me toward him, releasing me near the door. “And only because you are a persistent little miscreant.”
I think you like miscreants, I do not say.