Chapter Thirty
I shiver down to my toes. But I can’t help asking, even as my chest might burst, “So you will be taking the one I try to withhold?”
“Absolutely not,” Anton says, lashes fluttering down at me, before he puts a few inches of space between us. “I will never take anything by force—not even what I am owed.”
Like his kingdom, I think.
“Then I don’t understand. Why make the bargain?”
“Because you wanted an excuse to kiss me. Don’t bother denying it,” he says, grinning in a way that thieves away any response I might have had.
He toys with the rope, and all the while, I touch two fingers to my lips as if I could replay what just happened.
That kiss…
There was meaning behind it. Like it gave voice to many unspoken words, and now I am supposed to make sense of it in a language I barely understand.
“We will need to find somewhere to stay tonight,” he says, hopping off the crescent and onto the stone landing. “Moranya will not have finished yet. We can return come morning.”
“We don’t have any quatra,” I say as he offers me an arm, pulling me toward him as I leap from the crescent.
“There’s one place we won’t need any,” he responds.
Rain greets us in an unfriendly fashion not long after, pelting the cobbled roads and the back of my hands as I try to shield myself from it.
A storm snuck in while we were underneath the theater, and now it tears from the clouds in a shroud of gray as we make our way down a busy alley.
Horses hurry past, hooves splattering through rapidly filling potholes.
Patrons huddle under cloaks, all trying to escape the weather to find their way home.
A carriage breezes by, large wheels sending a spray of water and mud over us both. The cold of it sets me to trembling. Sluiced and shivering, I lose purchase on my next step and land in a puddle.
The emotions bundled tight within my chest shake loose.
Tears burn my vision, but then a laugh erupts—perhaps at the absurdity of it.
Then Anton is there, wide-eyed. He pulls me up and gathers me close, as if he could shield me from the rain that has since tilted on its axis, slanting with the wind.
At last, we find our destination. The building is nondescript—a black turret of rounded stone squeezed between a row of shops, cafés, and vine-laced apartments.
A swift bang on the brass knocker, and the door screeches open.
A man in his fifties or so appears, crisp and refined in a dark uniform rimmed in copper.
At the sight of Anton, he snatches his spectacles and swipes them across his sleeve, blinking when he gets a better look.
“My King,” he rasps. “Is it really you?”
“I am no longer your king—” Anton attempts, but the man falls to his knees.
“You will always be our king, Sire,” he says. “Even the King Regent made certain of that.”
The King Regent.
Gustav.
“I am certain he’s told everyone whatever it took to stanch any talk of rebellion,” Anton says. “In any case, this awning is not providing much of a shield, Aimes.”
Aimes leaps to his feet, ushering us into a small but elegant mahogany-paneled entryway along with a slew of apologies.
“What can I do for you, Your Majesty? By the Fates, you’re soaked.
A hot bath, perhaps? I’ll send for the launderer to wash and dry your clothes.
I’ll have night robes sent up immediately along with fresh linens, soaps, and bathing oils. ”
“Thank you, old friend,” Anton says. “But first, I must request your silence. I do not wish my whereabouts to be known.”
“Surely you know where my loyalty lies,” Aimes says. “The same can be said for most around here. Let discretion be the least of your worries. Shall I send you to your old room?”
“Is it vacant?” Anton asks, not bothering to acknowledge Aimes’s proclamation. But I can tell by the puff of his breath, the way he fidgets, that it means more than he’d like to admit. Perhaps it’s good that we’re here. He needs the reminder that his people love and miss him.
“As if I would lend it to anyone but you,” Aimes says, then dips his head toward me. “Will the lady be joining His Majesty? We have one other room available, but it shares a bath with the adjacent hall.”
“She stays with me,” Anton says. He doesn’t look at me. I have half a mind to demand a room of my own just to spite him—if only for being so arrogant, so charmingly insufferable—except that sharing a bathing chamber with strangers who might wander in sounds slightly anxiety-inducing.
After calling a few orders into a back room—for linens, hot water, and laundry—Aimes fetches a key from behind the small, standing desk, then hands it to Anton with a dip of his head.
“What is this place?” I ask as we climb a tightly coiled staircase to the right of the desk.
“A refuge,” Anton says, pausing with me when I take a moment to breathe, to let my heart calm its pace. “But there is a reason I like it.”
I find out why when we reach the fourth floor—the top floor. Anton sets me on my feet—he’d scooped me up despite my protests after noticing my fatigue on the third landing—and places me down again just past the threshold.
As I take a moment to orient myself, my gaze crawls across the circular expanse, which, if the vaulted ceiling is any indication, is the entire top floor.
Even so, the space is relatively small and unlit save for a single candle, and the threads of jeweled street light pouring in from the giant stained-glass Palladian window straight ahead, which encircles a large tub built into the far wall.
Everything else—the walls, fretwork, garniture, and vaulted ceilings—is dark wood.
Thick beams divide the bed from the bath, and bracket both the closet and the basin.
“One bed,” I whisper under my breath, panic already setting my hands to tremble. A bed we’ll have to share after a kiss like that, and I am already so very weak.
“While we wait on our accommodations, I’ll grab dinner,” Anton says, snatching a matchbook to light the small candle on the single nightstand. “There’s a pub two doors down. Superb seafood chowder.”
The moment he leaves, I dig for the pages I stole still hidden in the bodice of my dress, worried I’ve soaked them through in the rain. Luckily, however, while the pages are moist, the damage is minimal thanks to the thickness of my corset.
I walk to the edge of the bed and sit near the candle’s flame, flattening the pages on my knees.
The first page is riddled with sketches, and my eyes are immediately drawn to the mirror in the center.
It’s handheld and somewhat ornate, though common enough that I might find it on any noble’s vanity.
I trace a gentle nail along the scribbles.
There’s no doubt who penned them, what with the embellishments.
Even so, it’s difficult to make out, save for the title on the page.
Mercy’s Mirror.
The rest looks to be notes about its origin. Theories, perhaps. Or tidbits he’s learned from Moranya? I squint and read further, despite the smudging of some of the words.
…was gifted to Mercy by the Fate of Dominion…
I pause. Do a double take.
The Fate of Dominion.
The Unknown Fate—the Fate Mercy was said to have seduced in order to create the Lair of Souls, though no one knew who he was, deeming him as such.
Anton figured out his identity. But how? So little is known about the Fates. Most knowledge has been lost to time, and the few prophets that remain can only theorize. So perhaps Moranya had told him that, too.
Swallowing, I move on.
…when directed at one who holds considerable power, the mirror can absorb, or perhaps trap, that power. It grants the wielder the ability to then wield that power on their own behalf…
My heart thuds.
The Fate of Dominion gifted Mercy the mirror.
But why? Had she seduced him for it? Then, it was said, she stole his power to create Morta’s Lair.
I saw for myself how she ushers in the dead by wrapping an illusion around herself and tricking them to take her hand.
None besides Eremis, and then Anton, figured out how to thwart this.
So presumably this is all part of her stolen power.
However, it was unknown to Mercy that a Fate’s power is tied to their soul. Another smudge, something I can’t make out. I flip the page. In the corner is the outline of a glass shard, shaped almost like an oblong hexagon. Like a coffin, even. I attempt to make out the writing.
Shard acquired from the Temple of Zur, passed down and carefully guarded by a generation of prophets. It is said to be a shard from Mercy’s mirror. More were found later, which I have acquired.
The next bit reminds me of what Anton said when he fetched me from Moranya’s clutches.
A Fates-touched object holds a remnant of their power.
But then he goes on to write…In theory, the shard would have a fragment of the Fate of Dominion’s power, but only with testing can we observe how much.
The next page, or several, looks like the schematics for the necklace I stole from Anton, the one he flaunted in front of Moranya. He said it would…dispel her illusion. He even wanted me to use it—tried to give it to me. Look for the nearest source of light.
The pendant was made from the mirror. It can dispel Moranya’s disguise, which he explained. It can undo her illusions. The Fate of Dominion gave the mirror to Mercy, but why? And what caused it to crack?
What, exactly, had happened on that fateful day?
As luck would have it, the next page reads Known Facts at the top, followed by a bulleted list.
I hold my breath and read.
Four years into Queen Mercy’s reign, the Fate of Dominion was sent by the Fates to destroy the world, deeming it too war-ridden to be worth saving.
While there, he met and fell in love with Mercy and decided to stay his hand. In turn, Mercy came to love him.
So she hadn’t seduced him? They fell in love?
Quickly, I keep reading:
Fearing the Fates would send another to do what he did not, the Fate of Dominion created a mirror that would allow Mercy to drain a Fate’s power—and trap them inside in the process.
Mercy knew that the Fate of Dominion had the power to both birth and destroy realms. Meaning, he could create realms where the souls of mortals could be at peace, rather than cease to exist. So tortured by their loss, Mercy decided to use the mirror on him, thinking only to borrow his power to create the Lair of Souls.
However, in the process, Mercy accidentally pulled too much power from the mirror at once. The mirror cracked—trapping her Fate inside forever with no means of escape.
Written across the bottom, in bold letters is:
Now Mercy wishes to free the Fate of Dominion. This must never be done. Having been imprisoned for centuries, he will seek to destroy our lands once more in recompense for his entrapment.
I pause, my heart freezing. This is what Moranya wants from Anton.
She wants him to repair the mirror. Is this why she handed him her realm? Perhaps she hoped to convince him to agree. Maybe the bargain she struck was less about me and more about getting him into her lair, since he had never accepted her hand otherwise.
Furthermore, because of Mercy’s trap and the power she stole, the Fates have stayed away, fearing the same might happen to them. I suspect this is the reason they have reverted to prophecies—a way to pass along omens and warnings at a distance without involving themselves.
So this is why the Fates abandoned us. They fear Moranya.
And yet we are supposed to fear them, along with whatever divinations they send our way?
I know Anton believed the prophecy even after learning this—enough that he asked Sadira to lock him up because of it.
Yet I have been watching him rule, which is the very thing we were afraid of him doing, and still his good heart remains despite all he believes was done to him.
And he hasn’t agreed to repair the mirror—at least, I don’t think so.
Perhaps his logic around it still stands.
No matter how bitter he is toward the mortal world, he doesn’t wish to see it destroyed.
We were wrong to fear him.
He was wrong to fear himself.
Besides, what if that fear is the very thing that would otherwise make the prophecy come true? If I leave him in Moranya’s clutches, he might eventually agree to what she wanted. But as of now, he has not lost his humanity.
I have to get him away from her, have to convince him to return.
I believe in him, wholly and completely. Him, rather than the distant beings who sent a Fate to destroy us. And it’s time I act on that faith.
My hope is not in restoring his memories, though I wish to. I don’t know if the curse can even be broken. But that doesn’t matter anymore.
The Anton I have now is more than enough.