Chapter Thirty-Two
Now that the water has cooled, so too has my heat-induced flush.
I take my time, gliding along each plane and angle of his body—his shoulders, his chest, his arms one at a time. It’s difficult not to linger, to admire every sculpted inch of him, and the softness in between. I move behind him, finally, and rinse his hair, running my nails along his scalp.
I feel him melt underneath my touch.
Today has changed something for the both of us. But I am careful not to crack it, fragile as it is. So I resist the urge to climb into his lap. Burrow into him and never let go.
When I stand, the rush is fast, and my knees fail, my vision blinking black. I feel myself being scooped up, carried. He wraps a towel around me, then grabs one for himself, too. The room, despite the modest hearth, is cold, and so when he lays me down in bed, he curls around my shivering form.
I let him, welcoming his warmth, the feel of his weight. His arms, heavy and sculpted as they are, remind me of how safe I am.
Yes, I feel safe with him. I always have—even when I shouldn’t.
“Say you will stay with me in Morta’s Lair,” Anton says against my neck. “Vow it.”
“You wish me to die?” I ask incredulously.
“Quite the contrary. The both of us can grow old there and accept Moranya’s hand when the time finally comes.” He says it sleepily, the last words fading into a yawn. “What more do you need?”
I can’t sacrifice the world for my own happiness. But my mind latches on to one particular phrase.
The both of us can grow old there.
“You wish to spend eternity with me?” I breathe.
His breath ghosts across my jaw, his murmur a low rumble I feel underneath my skin.
Doesn’t he know that’s love?
I curl further into him, a new hope fluttering in my heart.
Bells chime throughout Ansa the next morning, like a symphony from the heavens.
The sky is pastel with the sunrise, the crescent rocking softly with the river as the craft emerges from underneath the theater, Anton standing by the prow. He waits until the end of the line, then veers us back on track behind the rest.
This morning, I woke in his arms with his breath on my neck, his offer still dangling behind the lids of my eyes.
Stay with me in Morta’s Lair.
I can’t, not like this. But he feels like he’s becoming mine again.
Like Moranya’s clutches are loosening, if only a little.
Like all the places she hardened within him by stripping his memories are softening beneath my palms the way I might work loose a clump of sand.
When we forced ourselves to rouse and face the day, we dressed in the clothes Aimes had provided: Anton in a fine linen tunic and leather trousers, complete with a hooded, nondescript cloak, and me in a casual, pale pink cotton bustier with cinched sleeves and matching skirt.
To the idle observer, we are upper-class patrons, our clothes fine but not enough to draw attention.
I also managed to slip the pendant and the pages back into my bustier while Anton wasn’t looking.
After, we bid Aimes farewell, but not before he once again dropped into a bow.
“We wish for your return, Sire. All of us.”
I hadn’t missed the way Anton flinched. The slight sheen of guilt that even now—even here—still lingers. He misses Ansa. He misses his people.
He misses things he doesn’t even yet fully understand.
Now we navigate a path around a bend, the city waking street by street. As the buildings taper off and we slide underneath a final bridge, the western side of the palace comes into view, as does the storm far behind it—swaths of purple smeared with rain.
Tomorrow the Syndicate meets in Ansa.
“We will have to sneak through the western wing to get back to the chapel,” Anton says, helping me off the boat, the both of us leaping in sync onto the dock—which is still empty this early in the morning.
But his walls are down, his heart within reach. If I can stall, get him to spend time in his palace, he’ll realize that this is where he belongs. He can be here tomorrow, for the meeting. If that fails, I stew on what I might say, because I have to convince him.
He takes me around the palace wall where the river sweeps farther out and a lush garden sprawls wide and thick with greenery.
It’s almost unkempt, but purposefully so.
Wild, with an array of flora that aren’t indigenous to Miridran.
This, too, reminds me of the Sky Garden, the domed glass expanse above the sea where Anton had vegetation carted in from across the north—trumpet flowers from Razam, bright violet and the size of my hand; carpets of gold anthem glories from Zar that rise on stems tall as my knees.
Floral thickets hug the walkway, the draping of night willows an arch above our heads.
“What are those?” I ask, referring to the baubles that hang from the boughs at intervals overhead.
“Those,” Anton says, “are ornaments that catch the sunlight and fragment it across the garden in the areas the sun cannot reach.”
And indeed, upon the passing of a cloud, drops of light spear through the leaves above, making the canopy shimmer, as if the stars themselves are cascading around us.
Anton directs me off the stone path, near a large white wisteria that rises past the thicket. It’s larger than any I’ve seen before—perhaps another import. “Follow me.”
To my surprise, he hops onto a small knob on the tree trunk, using it as leverage to pull himself up and onto a larger bough. I stare at him, incredulous. “You want to climb a tree?”
“Trust me,” he says, offering a hand as I tentatively, skeptically, mimic his steps.
Once I’m with him, he sets his hands around my hips, helping me up yet another branch, and so on until we’re halfway up.
Pale petals feather the closest turret, perhaps twenty feet to our left.
“This was my preferred escape from the palace when I didn’t wish to be seen. No one else knew about it.”
“You really did drive Basile mad, didn’t you?”
His head snaps to the side, and he shoots me a look I can’t read. But then my hand slips from the next branch, bark scraping my palms raw. Quickly, he grabs my wrist and steadies me until I find my footing.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “The palace is too far. We couldn’t possibly jump.”
“We don’t have to.” Anton releases my hand, balancing on the bough and using the branch above to steady himself. Then, to my utter shock, he leaps—
And lands on…air. Or it seems that way, though of course it’s glass.
Spinning, a satisfied little grin curves his lips. “It’s perfectly safe. Come.”
I summon my courage, draw in a deep lungful, and throw myself toward his open arms. He catches me, steadies me as I land, then pries open a window and helps me climb in.
Inside is a library—one of many, he tells me.
But this is the one he used most, and I immediately understand why.
A large stained-glass dome, painted to mimic the garden outside, filters in rainbow hues of light across the crescent of shelves that wrap half the room.
Stairs curve around them, offering access to each tier.
We’re in one of many nooks, and on the other side are more shelves, except those are behind walls of glass.
“Historical records,” he says. “Dating back to the foundation of Miridran and beyond.”
He tugs a book from its place, and the shelf opens inward into a tunnel, which should not surprise me in the least. It almost feels as though we’re adolescents, sneaking about a palace, afraid to be caught in some forbidden dalliance.
Oh, how desperately I wish that were the case.
“Before we return,” I say, “show me your bedroom.”
“My, Vasalie,” he says with a crooked grin. “Rather forward today, are we?”
I shrug a shoulder. “My curiosity knows no bounds.”
“I suppose I can oblige—if you promise to behave.”
“I promise no such thing.”
“Miscreant.”
These tunnels are darker, more dated, but we aren’t in them for long. As it happens, we weren’t far. A minute later—up two sets of stairs that leaves me breathless though he takes them slowly on my account—and we finally enter a quiet marble hall.
Near the end, he pushes through a set of rounded double doors that are, unsurprisingly, an opaque glass mosaic. But his grin wavers as he steps inside. “Let’s see if my so-called friend took over this, too.”
Spirals of dust curl into view, and it’s clear that Gustav never did, in fact, take up residence here.
I could have told Anton that.
His room is surprisingly serene. The bed, on a raised dais, is swathed in deep sea-green velvet and silk.
Clear, vine-fringed glass windows curve between stone arches on one side, offering a grand view of the river and the theater beyond.
In fact, if I squint, I can make out the black stone spire we slept under last night.
Past Ansa, the tips of the southern mountains spike upward and slant into rolling, green hills.
Then there’s a desk and a sitting area near another window-circled nook.
But my attention is pulled toward a raised section of the room to my left upon which stand three stone busts, each displaying a gilded robe or outfit, the heads capped with magnificent yet varied crowns.
It isn’t until I’m standing before the last one that I realize it’s the bust of a woman.
The crown atop is a gem-encrusted circlet arching upward to a point, where an emerald anemone blooms at the center.
Gilded leaves decorate each side, too, just above the ears.
“It would have been for my wife,” Anton says. “This one was to be a coronation crown. One of many I designed myself.”
Like the crown he’d given me on the isle, armed with two crystal daggers at its apex. My heart sinks a little, recalling what he told me about the princess.
I touch a finger to a petal.
He had wanted a wife—maybe more than anyone realized. Perhaps that’s why all of this hurt him so much.