by Jayne Faith
“No servants?”
“No servants. Until I let you in, Akantha and I were the only living creatures who had entered this apartment in four days.”
I shook my head a couple of times. “So what’s next? What are you planning to do with her?”
“I have my people amassing evidence that she’s been having an affair. If she tries anything, I’ll expose her and call off the engagement.”
“Has she? Been sleeping with someone else?”
“Yes,” he said, with a matter-of-fact lift of one shoulder. “She uses sex to gain power.”
“Have you?”
He gave me a questioning look.
“Have you been sleeping with other women? Can she come back at you with the same accusation?” I asked.
“She could try, but there would be no truth to it.”
My brows lifted.
Just then Calvin’s voice came in my ear. “Still all clear?”
It hadn’t been ten minutes. Calvin was jumpy. I touched my earpiece. “All’s well.”
Then I turned my attention back to my brother. “So you’ve been a one-woman man? Out of character for you.”
He made a soft sound, a sort of rueful, humorless laugh. “I’ve had plenty of women in the past, sure. But when Akantha and I agreed to marry, I stopped all extracurricular liaisons. Not that she cared one way or the other.”
Suddenly exhausted, I lowered myself heavily onto a nearby divan and propped my elbows on my knees. “I find it hard to believe that will be enough to keep her quiet.”
He tipped his head. “If I broke off the engagement and made sure to thoroughly shame her in the media, she’d likely lose her position as Mistress of Tournament. The position is up for reelection in less than two months, before the next Tournament. She craves power like it’s air, and she’s a drowning woman. She’ll do just about anything to keep it.”
“Why did you agree to marry her in the first place?” I asked quietly.
He snorted and shook his head once, but I caught the discomfort in the shifting of his eyes. The silence drew out for a couple of seconds, and I was just about to demand an answer when he spoke.
“She convinced me that together she and I could dethrone you.” He held up a hand and rushed on. “Trust me, that’s no longer my plan. I wouldn’t take the throne if you presented it to me on a diamond plate with a side of gravy. Like I told you, I know I’m not fit to be Lord. I know that now.” His voice became so soft I had to strain to hear. “My purpose lies elsewhere.”
“Oh?” I said, genuinely curious. “Care to elaborate?”
“My destiny is tied to Maya’s,” he said. Again, he rushed to explain. “Not like that. I swear I will not try to claim her for my own, and I would never harm her. It’s not like that, it’s . . . well, I don’t know exactly. All I know is that the stars have something in mind for me. Saving her from the flame was part of it, but I don’t believe the stars are finished with me yet. You’re not supposed to know I was involved in that scheme, but clearly you already do, so there’s no sense in pretending.” He half-heartedly lifted a hand and then let it drop.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’d intended to speak to you, to express my gratitude for what you did. I do not know how you did it, but I’m deeply, eternally grateful.”
His eyes flicked around the room, and I realized my sentiment was making him uncomfortable. He blew out a long breath. “You were right when you asked me to figure out a way to help her. I was meant to work behind the scenes.” He quirked a sly half-smile at me. “And I’m damn good at it.”
I tipped my head back and gave a short laugh. “I can’t argue with that. Is there something I can do to help?”
He shook his head. “Better if you stay out of it as much as possible. I wanted you to know what was going on, but it’s best if you leave it all to me.”
“You’ll have to release her soon. The Priestess and I need to meet with her and settle the matter of Maya’s disqualification from the Tournament.” I peered at him for a moment, trying once again to assess his state of mind. I needed to make sure I wasn’t just getting swept up in some sort of lunacy, letting him convince me that he had things under control if it wasn’t truly the case. “Jeric, are you . . . sure about this?”
He pressed his fingers together and brought his fingertips to his lips, looking almost prayerful, before lowering his hands and raising his eyes to meet mine. “I know that in the course of our lives I’ve done very little to earn your trust. I’ve been cruel. Terrible. You have every right to question my motives, and lately even my sanity. I wouldn’t blame you at all. All I can do is swear to you I’m of clear mind, and I’m not trying to undermine or sabotage you, Toric. I’ve never felt such a sense of purpose in all my life. I feel . . . reborn.”
He spoke the last couple of phrases haltingly, and his face reddened a bit with his admission. I detected no deviousness, no calculation.
I stood and went to him, clapped my hand on his shoulder, and looked him straight in the eyes. “You’ve already gone a long way toward proving your worth. Stay the path, Jeric.”
I believed his words and the sentiment behind them were genuine, but I wasn’t so naïve as to think he’d permanently changed. Not yet. But I was hopeful.
Jeric said he planned to negotiate with Akantha and release her by morning. The Priestess and I would meet with Akantha immediately after, allowing her as little time as possible to conspire any new schemes.
12
Maya
WHEN I’D AWAKENED after blacking out, for a moment I’d thought the bridge and the flame, the floor disappearing under my feet, the excruciating pain . . . they were all just vivid remnants of a terrible dream. It was the smell—the unmistakable sharp, bitter stench of singed hair—that told me it was no dream.
And there was still pain, but it was far-off, lurking beneath the medicated haze that made my brain feel fuzzy and my nerves dulled.
I kept my head still but rolled my eyes to the side, blinking in the dim light. It was cool and quiet, as if I were underground. In a cave, maybe.
When a face floated into my field of vision, it took me a slow moment to grasp that it was real.
“Jeric?” I tried to ask, but it came out an unintelligible croak.
Something touched my lips. Deliciously cool. I drank greedily from the cup he offered me, but he took it away before I could drain it.
“Not too much,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “I don’t want your stomach to wage a revolt.”
I cleared my throat. “What . . . where am I?”
He gave me a wink. “It’s a secret.”
“But I’m alive,” I said, as if I could convince myself by saying it aloud.
“Broken collar bone, some burns, and a bit of hair claimed by the flame, but yes. You’re very much alive.” A slow grin broke over his face. “You’re probably not feeling terribly lively right now, but you survived your own execution.”
I blinked several times as scenes from the bridge flashed through my mind. “You tunneled me through a portal.”
He was fiddling with something on my arm and glancing at something else next to the bed. I started to turn to look, but pain flared and I froze.
“Keep still, you’ve still got a lot of healing to do,” he said. His eyes met mine. “I raised a portal through the flame, you’re correct. Clever, eh?”
“Does Lord Toric know?”
“He knows you’re alive, but not how. That was between me and the Priestess.” He reached over and I heard a click. “Now, you need to sleep. Rest easy, Maya. You’re safe here.”
I wasn’t sure if I could believe him, but I had no choice. Everything seemed to blur and slow to a crawl, and a black mist crept inward from the edges of my vision. I gave in to the darkness as it wrapped me in its embrace.
*
Jeric handed me a mug of steaming broth. I cupped my hands around its warmth and brought it eagerly to my lips.
“You wouldn’t t
hink I’d want something warm after the flame,” I said after a long draw from the mug. “But I’m so cold.”
Jeric had pulled a chair near my bed. “It’s the rapid healing. Your body has been working hard, and it hasn’t any energy to spare for warmth.” His face was serious and tight as he watched me.
I drank again. I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, but after Jeric woke me and gave me a moment to come back to my mind and body, he’d explained that he couldn’t let me sleep any longer. I had an appearance to make.
“When you sneak into the fire pit room, don’t forget to dust yourself with ash,” he said. “Remember, it must look as if you crawled out of the pit.”
“Raised from the ashes. Like a phoenix.” I couldn’t help a grin.
He nodded and his lips began to widen, but grim seriousness took over again before he could fully return my smile.
“Don’t worry,” I said, feeling the need to reassure him. “You’ve set it all up perfectly. You worked the miracle, and now I’ll sell it.”
“It shouldn’t take long for someone to find you. Just act disoriented and go along with the workers. I hope their first instinct will be to call for a medic. If they make a move to alert the police, just try to stall. We must avoid you getting taken into custody again. The Priestess will arrive as soon as possible to help circumvent that.”
The plan went off without a glitch. I played my part, wide-eyed and ash-streaked. I hadn’t expected Lord Toric to arrive on the scene before the Priestess, but the look on his face made my breath catch in my throat. His astonishment and joy and relief were so profound—echoing my own emotions—my heart seemed to take flight. When he saw me lying on a gurney next to the fire pit and our eyes met, that was the moment I truly knew I’d been rescued.
My reaction to seeing Lord Toric took nothing away from what Jeric had done, and I knew I owed him my life. I gave him all the credit for saving me—it was his ingenious plan that kept me from dying in the flame, and then his nursing and care that saved me from my injuries—and I found I’d developed a deep feeling of gratitude and fondness toward the Lord’s brother.
By the time Lord Toric visited me in my Temple quarters later, I’d had plenty of time to recover and felt as good as new. The women of the Temple made me comfortable and treated me with care and respect. I knew there was some debate going on among them about whether my survival of the flame was a bona fide miracle, and I hoped the High Priestess was gaining ground in making it officially so. Not that I truly cared about miracle status—it was purely about survival.
After Lord Toric’s visit, I turned on the media streams. My Temple quarters gave me access to the news, and I’d already watched the streams for hours, fascinated.
When another visitor came, I expected one of the Temple initiates with clothing or food, but it was Clarisse.
She looked me up and down and then stepped forward and pinched my arm.
“Ow!” I rubbed the spot where she’d pinched me.
She shook her head once. “You really are alive.”
I snorted. “Happy to see you, too.”
She gave me a devilish grin as I let her in. “How does it feel to be a miracle?”
“I’m not a miracle.” I corrected her. “It was what happened to me that was miraculous.”
She folded her hands piously, lifted her gaze skyward, and fluttered her eyelids. “Oh, so demure and virtuous,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
I slapped lightly at her wrist, but I couldn’t help laughing. After all the fussing, Clarisse’s irreverence was refreshing.
She followed me into the sitting room and flounced onto a settee. Tilting her head, she peered at me curiously as I went to pour bergamine juice for both of us. “So how’d you do it?”
“Do what?” I asked innocently.
She rolled her eyes as I handed her a glass. “How did you survive? I saw you drop,” she said, her voice lowering and her eyes becoming sincere. “I saw the flame claim you, Maya. All kidding aside, I can hardly convince myself that I’m sitting here talking to you.”
I sipped my juice and then held my glass in my lap with both hands. “I thought I was going to die. When I came through alive . . . believe me, no one was more surprised than I was.” I couldn’t tell her any of the real story, of course. I couldn’t even hint at it.
She regarded me silently for a moment. “If you’re out of the Tournament, what’s next?”
I shrugged and let my shoulders drop. “I don’t know for sure that I’m out, but I have no idea what they’ll do with me. I’m an Earthen woman. The only place for Earthen women on Calisto is the harem.”
“True,” she said. “If you were an Earthen man, you could become a royal servant, but . . . maybe you’ll just have to join the harem.”
I tried to picture it, entering the harem after everything I’d been through. It had been my aim at the beginning. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. My aim had been to win the Tournament so that I would survive. To save Mother and Lana from the pain of receiving notice of my death.
But my feelings for Lord Toric had put a large kink into everything. At first, falling in love with him had made me want to win that much more, so that I could be near him. But later I’d realized that joining the harem would be more a heartbreak than a victory because he could never truly be mine.
I shook my head. “I have no idea what will happen. What would you want if you were in my place?”
She arched a brow. “Hmm . . . I’d go straight to the top. Wife of the Lord. An Earthen miracle wed to the Lord—now that would give the Calistans something to gossip about.”
“But he has to marry a Calistan woman. He’s already well into the process of finding a Calistan wife.” My chest tightened. I still hated thinking about Lord Toric taking a wife.
She lifted a palm and gave me a sly look. “They’ve already broken rules for you. Not just rules, but laws. Maybe it’s not as outlandish as it sounds.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “You know what? You’re right. I have nothing to lose by suggesting it.”
“When you’re Queen, you must invite me to tea at least once a week.”
I laughed. “Done.”
I would have bet money—if I’d had any to wager—that Clarisse was recalling how our relationship had begun. I certainly was.
“And what of your sister?” she asked.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure what she meant. Then I remembered the favor she’d done for me. “I haven’t had a chance to speak to Jeric about it.” I snapped my mouth shut, realizing I couldn’t reveal that Jeric and I had seen each other very recently. But I mentally kicked myself—how did I fail to ask him about Lana while he was nursing my injuries?
“I take it he hasn’t sent any further word regarding my sister?”
“No.” She peered at me sharply.
There’s no way she could have guessed that Jeric had saved me from execution, but her scrutinizing look made me nervous all the same. I really needed to speak to him.
“Would you ask him to come to me?”
“Another favor?” Clarisse harrumphed.
“I know, I know,” I said. “Look at it this way. If I’d died in the flame, you wouldn’t have been able to collect payment on the favors at all. Now I’ll owe you double.”
“Hm,” she said. “That’ll be very useful when you’re Queen. And I think it’s more like triple at this point.”
I shot her a withering look. “Ha.”
Clarisse left me, and I went back to flipping between news streams, watching in a state of wonder as my own face flashed on the screen. I was the topic of many of the top stories, and somehow it made me feel more like an outsider than ever. Reactions to my survival of the flame ranged from calls for my deification to demands that I be dropped from the bridge again.
“If it was truly a miracle, she’ll survive a second time,” said a Calistan man with a mop of cream-colored hair hanging over his dark grey-toned face. “I say we should give her to t
he flame twice more. If she survives three times, we’ll know the stars meant it to be so.”
I shivered involuntarily at the thought of facing the flame again. I’d believed I was going to my death. The terror of those few moments still played through my mind throughout the day, and it was as if it had soaked into me, constantly in the background and working its way deep into my bones. It would be a very, very long time before the memory did not make my heart skip and my chest constrict.
I knew I should be grateful to be alive, and not a second passed that I wasn’t. But still, the trauma of the experience had left me feeling jumpy and fragile. I tried not to let it show. I needed the support of the Temple, and I needed to appear strong in front of the priestesses who were caring for me and watching over me. With the entire nation talking about me, I couldn’t let my façade slip, even for a moment, because I had to assume anyone who came into contact with me might gossip. I could confide in the High Priestess and Lord Toric, I felt sure, but I didn’t want to cause them any worry over my mental state because they were both under a great deal of pressure and scrutiny. It was all an effort, though, and I was glad to be cloistered away in the Temple and mostly left alone.
That night after dinner, I had another visitor.
Jeric stood behind Tullock in the doorway, his hands clasped contritely in front of his waist and his eyes intent.
“I cannot allow you to be alone with him,” Tullock said to me. “He insisted that you would want to see him, but if that isn’t true, I will take him away immediately.”
Tullock half-turned, as if to take Jeric’s arm and forcibly remove him.
“No, no.” I held up a hand. “He is welcome here.”
Calvin appeared behind the two men. “I’m checking with Lord Toric.” He touched his earpiece and muttered a few words.
The time when I’d believed Jeric was a threat to my safety seemed very long ago, but obviously the guards did not feel the same way. And clearly Lord Toric had not changed his order to keep his brother away. Surely Lord Toric’s feelings toward his brother had shifted at least a little, though. I hadn’t told him outright that Jeric had saved me, but Lord Toric had appeared to infer it on his own.
