The hedge maze led to a walled garden, with a wooden door inset. The captain pounded on it with the meat of his fist. A lady pretty as a butterfly opened it, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting I recognized from the day before. She looked me up and down, wide eyes alight with interest, then stepped aside for the captain to lead me in—not incidentally making sure I couldn’t come too close to her. I opened my mouth to point out that I’d bathed and she needn’t worry about me smudging her fancy gown. Then closed it again, thinking of Sondra’s expectant gaze.
Who knew exercising discretion would be harder than waging war? Just another challenge. Right.
Queen Euthalia waited, sitting on something I couldn’t see because of her overflowing gown. She’d looked as if some artist had arranged her there, a sculpture to be a centerpiece in a lovely but austere garden—all the better to display her in her spectacular glory.
The captain led me in, but the other guards remained outside the door. The only door in the sheer, high walls. Even with the manacles I could scale them, but not so fast that the guards couldn’t catch me. Oh well. I wasn’t supposed to be looking for avenues of escape anyway. I was supposed to be wooing this unearthly-looking woman while chained like a dog. This ought to be interesting.
“Why is he chained?” Queen Euthalia asked, sounding weary and vaguely bemused. She raised arched brows so the jewels at the corners twinkled.
“Your Highness.” The captain bowed deeply, yanking me down to my knees as he did. I was stronger and could’ve resisted, but—prideful me—I didn’t think having him beat me would add to my attractiveness in the wooing process. At least the plush grass cushioned the fall. “This prisoner is dangerous. We sought to protect You from—”
“Did I order him to be chained? Let Me help you with the answer to that. No, I did not. Take those cursed manacles off him and leave us.”
The man wanted to protest. I could see it in the set of his chin and the vibration of tension through the chains he held. But he clearly didn’t dare vocalize it. With quick movements, he unlocked the manacles, whispering fast and ferocious to me. “If you so much as move wrong, we’ll cut you down. We’ll be watching. Don’t think—”
“Thank you, Captain,” the queen broke in, her tone a blade of ice. “I’ll call when I’m ready for the next.”
He bowed again and strode out the door. She waited until the latch snicked, then a beat longer. “You may stand,” she said, “or sit. Or pace.” Was that a bit of dry humor there? “However you’d be most comfortable,” she added, with a wave of a hand, the orchid on her finger fluttering as she did.
I stood, rubbing my wrists absently. “Thank you,” I said.
“No need to thank Me,” she replied. “I promised no chains. It won’t happen again. Not while you’re on Calanthe. We are not barbarians here.”
That wouldn’t stop them from chaining me again the moment we left the island, bound for Anure’s even worse captivity. I took the opportunity to study her. Even up close she looked flawless. She wore pale purple, her hair several shades lighter and studded with deeper violet flowers, some trailing over one shoulder in glossy ringlets. The gown dipped low between the high silvery wings of stiff lace that framed her slender white throat, revealing delicate collarbones and a rounded bosom I quickly yanked my gaze from.
The hair had to be as fake as the lashes, also light purple and tipped with crystals. Her eyes had stayed the same—large in her piquant face, and still reminding me of rain, a pale gray, almost colorless. This close I could see darker flecks of deep blue in them, and a ring of sparkling silver at the edges.
Ambrose had said she was in her mid-twenties, but she looked younger. More like a girl in her teens under the heavy costume of her role. And she seemed different, here in this garden, alone with me. Not so … rigid. Though her erect posture never wavered. I wondered if it ever did.
The perfect bow of her pink mouth quirked and she raised one brow. “Have you looked your fill?”
“You are very beautiful,” I said. There. A compliment to start the conversation. Sondra would be proud. Especially that I reined back the remark that I’d like to see her without the costume. I would—but not the way that it would come out sounding. What was the woman like, under her masks?
“Why did you want a private audience, Conrí?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard my compliment at all. Probably she heard more lavish praise and so often, it had become like background noise to her.
Hearing my true name from her lips made me feel more stripped than losing my armor and weapons had, and I stared at her, unable to think clearly.
“That is your name.” She raised her brows in question, though she hadn’t posed it as one.
“Not a name anyone knows or uses,” I replied tersely.
“The Lady Sondra does.”
“Because she won’t stop,” I muttered. I’d forgotten Sondra spoke my name when warning me not to attack the queen. Not much got past this keen-eyed woman.
“Excuse me?” The queen’s perfect brows—and the glinting jewel beside one—went higher.
Better to go on the attack.
“What about you—do they call you Euthalia in conversation?”
“No.” She lowered her brows in an elegant frown. “No one but His Imperial Majesty is allowed to address Me by My given name. You will address Me as Your Highness.”
“Euthalia is a mouthful,” I commented, deliberately disobeying that edict. If she had me executed for it, at least I’d avoid whatever Anure had in mind. “And I don’t want to call you by what the imperial toad does. I bet they called you Lia when you were little.”
She gave me a long look. “I begin to see the self-destructive troublemaker in you that enabled you to defy His Imperial Majesty.”
“Why do you care what my name is?” I was genuinely curious.
“Because calling you the Slave King is an insult,” she bit out. “Surely you realize that, Conrí.”
I studied her. Her clear eyes held anger, but not for me, I thought. She might be insulted on my behalf, which was … extraordinary.
“I have no kingdom,” I explained slowly. “I have been a slave and the people who followed me first were all escaped slaves. There’s no shame in being king of people strong and greathearted enough to survive that.”
She considered that, lashes lowering so the crystals glittered. “I see. But I’ll still call you Conrí.”
“Call me Con,” I said, surprising myself, then grinned when she looked up. “And I’ll call you Lia.”
Narrowing her eyes, she huffed out a sigh. And suppressed that smile again. Could I truly be amusing her? “Say that around anyone else and you’ll find yourself lacking a head.”
“Better that than having Anure slowly carve me to pieces.”
“You call His Imperial Majesty by his given name, too. Do you not have reverence for anyone?”
“No,” I replied, my voice harder than I intended. “Not since my father died.” I added that to soften the denial, then regretted saying so much.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded sincere. “Who was he? That is, what realm did you come from?”
“Is that why you called me here, to ask about my personal history?” I returned the question. Not the right tack at all. Sondra and Ambrose would’ve had me answer. We could’ve bonded over our dead fathers, both kings of old. Absurdly, however, I found myself wanting her to like me without all that. And where that impulse came from, I had no idea.
“No. You’re right—your personal history is yours and changes nothing, regardless.” She tapped her nails together in her lap. They seemed to be crafted of metal, jeweled and coming to long points like the curved thorns of rose vines. She seemed to come to a decision. “I have a somewhat unorthodox proposal for you, Conrí.”
“Con.” She might not know that the rí was an honorific in Oriel, but better to save her the embarrassment if someone else did know and called it out.
She pursed her lips, growing
impatient. “This is important.”
“What proposal?” I asked, keeping the hope—such a foreign sensation—out of my voice. Could Ambrose have worked more magic than getting me this audience and she’d save me the trouble of this ridiculous quest for her hand in marriage by proposing to me?
“Yes.” She studied me, her gaze frank and appraising. “I know the man you brought with you is a wizard. Don’t ask Me how I know. I won’t answer. But this wizard—”
“Anure says wizards don’t exist,” I pointed out, mildly disappointed that it wouldn’t be so easy. But then, nothing ever was. Why I enjoyed needling her I couldn’t say, except that she kept surprising me and I wanted some of my own back. Also, it was fun. I absorbed that with some astonishment.
She’d paused at my interruption, lips parted, and exhaled a quiet breath of irritation. “I want to keep this wizard—”
“Ambrose,” I supplied.
“Thank you.” She sounded both aggravated and amused, though her face revealed none of it. “I want to keep Ambrose on Calanthe.”
Not at all what I’d expected. “So keep him. You are the queen here and I’m your prisoner, as you’ve made abundantly clear. I can hardly stop you.”
She pursed her mouth over her first response, gave me a more considered one. “His Imperial Majesty’s emissary, Syr Leuthar, will no doubt wish to escort you to Yekpehr. While he wasn’t in court yesterday, people will inform him that there were three of you. I can hardly provide him with one prisoner when he expects three.”
“One?” I seized on that. Did that mean what I hoped?
“If I can keep Ambrose on Calanthe, I should be able to keep the Lady Sondra, too. Saving her life should be enough temptation for you.”
A tempting offer indeed. Ambrose could possibly take care of himself—vanish off the ship in a puff of smoke or some such—but if I could save Sondra, set her free … “Why would you do this?”
“Ambrose could be useful to Me. As they officially don’t exist, wizards are not so plentiful that I’d willingly lose such a treasure. I would give him sanctuary here. And he’d be free to leave, of course, once it’s safe for him to emerge from hiding, though I hope he’d stay.”
“And Sondra—what value does she have?”
Lia gave me a hard look. “Don’t pretend to Me that she means nothing to you. The relationship between you is obvious. And everyone has value, Con.”
She flinched at the harsh bark of my laughter. I couldn’t help myself. “That’s a pile of utter shit, Lia,” I said, kind of loving that she gaped at me, her painted lips parting in shock, the expression animating her face. How would she act if I kissed her? Would she call the guards or would she … I shook my head. No idea where that impulse came from. No idea why it suddenly seemed deeply appealing.
But I edged close as she recovered her poise, and she didn’t yell at me for my rudeness as I’d expected. “You can laugh all you wish, but I do believe in that. Everyone has value.”
“Even me?” My voice came out a bit rough, despite the potion, and I suddenly, desperately wanted her answer. She gazed back at me, her eyes silvery with some emotion her face didn’t show.
“Even you,” she replied, her voice breathier than it had been.
“Then offer me sanctuary, too,” I coaxed.
“I can’t.” She ground out the words, surprising anguish in her voice, especially since none of it showed. “If I’m very clever, I can find substitutes to take Ambrose’s and Sondra’s places—if you agree not to betray the game—but you are far too … distinctive. My courtiers haven’t stopped talking about you, in great detail. No disguise could convince the emissary that someone else is you. Besides, you are the one His Imperial Majesty wants. I cannot stop it.”
“But you can,” I insisted. This wasn’t what Ambrose wanted me to do, but I had to seize the opportunity. She’d softened from the woman who’d coldly captured us the day before. When your enemy shows weakness, you must take advantage as the opportunity may never come again. Besides, she didn’t want to do this. I could feel it in the thrum of her voice, see it in the unhappy turn of her lush mouth. “Don’t turn me over. I have an army, and ships. Throw in with us. I’ll teach you about our secret weapon and you will help us take down Anure.”
If I thought I’d shocked her before, it was nothing compared with her expression at my words. I could swear I caught a glimpse of pained hope. Perhaps not, because she quickly shuttered it with a mask of furious indignation.
She stood, abruptly, her elaborate skirts swishing against my thighs as she brushed past, the silk catching against the roughened skin on my hand. My fingers twitched, wanting to touch more, to reach for her. Then she was away, leaving only a cloud of subtle fragrance, like a flower that bloomed only at night.
She began pacing the confines of the small garden. No wonder she suggested the activity to me—she moved with a restless grace that clearly helped her regain calm. When she turned back to me, she’d composed herself, once again cool and remote. I’d only seen her sitting before this, and it bemused me to note she stood at least a head shorter than I—once I mentally subtracted the pile of hair and sparkling crown. Her regal bearing and intense presence made her seem so much taller. At least I dug out enough discretion not to mention it to her. Without all the trappings, she was likely slight enough for me to pick up and cuddle in my arms like a kitten.
And just like one, she paced up to me, fire in her eyes, so close I scented the warmth of her skin along with the flowers. “You dare speak to Me of treachery?” she hissed, leaning in more. I doubted anyone outside the walls could hear our conversation, but she whispered it anyway. Where I lacked any ability at discretion, she’d made an art form of it, not forgetting even when overcome by affronted anger.
“Oh, that’s right,” I goaded her. “You’re engaged to Anure, aren’t you? Are you in love with that vile toad?” I heaped scorn into the word. About as far from dishing compliments and romance as possible. Good thing Sondra couldn’t witness this.
To my surprise, Lia’s righteous fury faded instantly. Instead she studied me, cool and canny. She’d dropped the last mask—the non-physical kind anyway, as the formal makeup hid the subtleties of her expressions—and the real woman looked at me, her intelligence like a lethal blade.
“You’re no fool, Conrí,” she said softly. “Don’t treat Me like one.”
And I saw it all in that moment, the game she played as deftly as I planned any of my schemes. More so, as Anure didn’t see her for the dangerous enemy she was. Her silver eyes glittered like a mirage of water in the desert, her beauty like the distracting flash of jewels on an enchanted sword. She used all of it like camouflage, as all the best assassins did.
And we were the same under the skin, both reckless in pursuit of our hopeless causes. I saw Ambrose’s point now, that I had to persuade her to give up what had to be a suicidal plan. The urge to seize her and kiss her assailed me with renewed hunger.
I couldn’t. It would be an unforgivable breach. Boorish even for me. I’d never learned elegant court manners, but I had to pierce that hard shell of hers, make her see.
I hadn’t gotten this far by playing by the rules.
I leaned in, setting my hands on her narrow waist to keep her there—though I knew she’d refuse to give up ground to me—and brushed my lips against one delicate shell of her ear. She shivered, catching her breath.
“What’s your endgame?” I asked, very quietly, inviting her to confide. “Marry him, then slit his throat in the marriage bed?”
19
I groped for a response to this man’s astonishing nerve. His hands burned through the layers of silk and boning at my waist, the brush of his lips against my ear sending glittering shocks of awareness over my skin. He was big—I’d known that, but this close he seemed like an oak tree. The strength palpable in his grip, he held me in a way that made me want to lean in, to taste more …
Think! I told myself viciously.
&nb
sp; How had he guessed so much? Because I’d slipped, foolishly taunting him not to underestimate me when I’d built all my strategy on making sure men thought me no more than ornamental. I needed to extract myself from his hands and my mistakes.
I’d bungled this entire interview. Something about Con—I’d never think of him with that vile Slave King epithet again, even if he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in claiming it—made me lose all my cautious habits. It was more than seeing him look so striking in my father’s clothes, though that sight had blown through me like a sudden gust of wind off the ocean, full of cold spray and old emotion. It didn’t help that he cleaned up unexpectedly well. Never handsome by any stretch, but Con was … imposing. So unlike any man I’d known, and yet so cursedly familiar.
I hadn’t had a conversation this honest with another person in … maybe in my entire life. For all that we feinted with each other, using words like rapiers to probe the other’s weaknesses, and despite the terrible stakes, part of me had been enjoying it.
I was also infuriated, terrified, and frustrated.
And aroused. I’d never felt more alive.
It shouldn’t be exhilarating that he’d guessed my plan. The endgame, as he called it. What I thought of as my last resort, should it come to that. If Anure cornered me sufficiently to force me into marriage, I’d go willingly—to all appearances—and take him from this world with me. That plan wouldn’t save Calanthe, however. Until I found an heir the orchid ring would accept, I couldn’t let that happen. As always, I was alone in this battle.
Con had pulled back, just enough to stare into my face. His golden eyes, so like the wolf’s of my nightmares, burned into mine, seeing too much. They held the same challenge, the same plea, that the animal had in my restless dreams. I should’ve taken warning from them. It might be too late that I hadn’t.
We stood so close I’d thought he’d been about to kiss me. A startling and extraordinary insight—and I had no idea what I’d do. I should’ve stepped back long since, but that would be giving up ground. And now he had his hands on me. I could order him away, but I doubted he’d meekly obey. I shouldn’t find that enticing.
The Orchid Throne Page 18
