Calantha escorted me to the bath chamber. While my door was no longer locked as if I were a prisoner, my new freedoms apparently still required guards posted at the end of my hall as a precaution, the Komizar claimed, and I had no doubt they reported back to him every single time I so much as poked my head out the door. I also had escorts, who were essentially guards too, everywhere I went. Last night when Calantha walked me back to my room, she hadn’t spoken a word. This morning seemed to bring more of the same treatment.
We entered the dreary, windowless bath chamber, lit only with a few candles, but this time instead of a wooden barrel, there was a large copper tub. It was half full of water, and waves of steam shimmered over the surface. A hot bath. I hadn’t thought such a thing existed here. The sweet scent of roses filled the air. And bath oils.
She must have noticed my steps falter. “A betrothal gift from the clan,” she explained flatly, and she sat on a stool, waving me toward the tub.
I disrobed and eased into the scalding water. It was the first hot bath I’d had since leaving the vagabond camp. I could almost have forgotten where I was if not for Calantha’s baubled blue eye staring at me and the milky one gazing unfocused into the shadows.
“Which clan do you belong to?” I asked.
That got her attention. Both eyes were focused on me now. “None,” she answered. “I’ve never lived outside of the Sanctum.”
This revelation puzzled me. “Then why did you have me braid my hair to show off the kavah?”
She shrugged.
I sank down into the tub. “That’s how you solve all your problems, isn’t it? With indifference.”
“I have no problems, Princess.”
“I am your problem, that much is certain, but even that’s a mystery to me. You both prod me and thwart me as if you can’t make up your mind.”
“I do neither. I follow orders.”
“I think not,” I countered and ran a soapy sponge down my leg. “I think you’re dabbling with a bit of power, but you’re not quite sure what to do with it. You test your strength now and then, bring it out of hiding, but then you shove it away again. All your boldness is on the outside. Inside you cower.”
“I think you can bathe by yourself.” She stood to leave.
I took a handful of water and threw it at her, splashing her face.
She bristled, and her hand flew to the dagger at her hip. Her chest rose in deep, angry breaths. “I’m armed. That doesn’t worry you?”
“I’m naked and unarmed. I’d be a fool not to worry. But I did it anyway, didn’t I?”
Her eye blazed. There was no indifference in her face now. Her lip lifted in a condescending sneer. “I was like you once, Princess. Answers were simple. The world was at my fingertips. I was young and in love and the daughter of the most powerful man in the land.”
“But the most powerful man in—”
“That’s right. I was the daughter of the last Komizar.”
I leaned forward in the tub. “The one who—”
“Yes, the one your betrothed killed eleven years ago. I helped him do it. So now you know, I am quite capable of being bold. Arranging someone’s death is not so difficult.”
She turned and left, and the heavy door rattled shut behind her.
I sat there stunned, not quite sure what to think. Had she just threatened to orchestrate my death? I was young and in love. With the Komizar? What did she think when she found out about our marriage? Was that why she had been so silent? Surely she had more reason now to kill me.
I finished my bath, the luxury of it now gone. I rubbed the sponge over my arms, trying to think only of the baths where Pauline scrubbed my back and I scrubbed hers, how we poured pitchers of warm rosewater over each other, the baths where we laughed and talked about love and the future and all the things that friends share—not murder. I couldn’t quite absorb it. Calantha had helped the Komizar kill her own father.
And yet she hadn’t drawn her dagger on me, even though I saw the rage in her eye. I had pushed her just as I intended, but didn’t get the answer I expected. Still, much was revealed. In the heartbeat of a second, beneath all the scorn that masked her face, I saw a girl, a younger Calantha, one without an eyepatch, who was terrified. A small glimpse of truth.
She is afraid.
Fear and thannis were two things that seemed to grow easily in this kingdom.
* * *
When I came out of the bath chamber, Calantha had left two scrawny smooth-cheeked guards as my escorts in her stead. Apparently she’d had enough of me for one day. I’d had enough of her too. I started to turn one direction, and both guards stepped forward to block me.
“I don’t require your escort,” I said. “I’m going to—”
“We were told to return you to your room,” one of them said. His voice was uneven, and he shifted from foot to foot. The two of them exchanged a wary glance, and I saw a knot of leather at the shorter one’s neck peeking from beneath his vest. He wore an amulet for protection. No doubt the other guard did too. I nodded slowly, noting their cautious expressions, and we began walking in the direction they indicated, one on either side of me. When we reached the darkest part of the hallway, I stopped short. I closed my eyes, my hands splayed on my thighs.
“What’s wrong with her?” one whispered.
“Step back,” the other said.
I grimaced.
I heard them both scramble back.
I fluttered my eyelids open until my eyes were wide and crazed-looking.
Both guards were plastered up against the wall.
I slowly opened my mouth, wider and wider, until I was sure I looked like a gaping cod.
And then I let loose a bloodcurdling scream.
They both ran down the hallway, disappearing so quickly into the shadows I was impressed with their agility.
I turned, satisfied they wouldn’t be coming this way again, and went in the opposite direction. It was the first time I had twisted the gift into a sham since I’d been here, but if I wasn’t going to be handed my newly earned freedoms, it appeared I would have to seize them. There were secrets just steps away that I had a right to know.
* * *
The caverns deep below the Sanctum were quiet. Only a little borrowed light from a lantern in the outside corridor helped me navigate. I entered a long, narrow chamber that had clearly been in recent use. A half-eaten loaf of bread was wrapped in waxed cloth. Books lay open on a table. Numbers and symbols that made no sense to me were scribbled on sheets of paper and gave no clue as to where the strange robed men were from. Several tiny sealed flasks filled with clear liquid lined the back of another table. I lifted one and held it to the light. Their own stock of spirits? I replaced it and searched the dim corners but could find nothing.
This chamber hadn’t been my intended destination, but as I’d passed its narrow portal, a chill suddenly overtook me. There. My flesh crawled. The word pressed heavy against my chest like a hand stopping me. There. I was certain it was the gift speaking, an air current within the room that reached out to me, but when I could find nothing, I doubted myself, wondering if it was only one of the drafts in this cavernous underworld.
I took one last long look at the contents of the room and moved on.
* * *
Aster had been right. This tunnel led only to wet rock and gears, the hidden workings of the bridge. The river roared just steps away from me, and I was already wet from its mist. Its power was staggering and frightening, and I wondered how many lives had been lost just trying to construct a way across it.
My spirits sank when I examined the gears. They were part of an elaborate pulley system with wheels as massive as the one I had seen higher up the cliff at the entrance to Venda. “There’s no way,” I said to myself. And yet …
I couldn’t quite bring myself to walk away. The lowest gear was secured into the surrounding rock. It was a slippery ascent, and the churning river below made me check and double-check every foothold, but my short climb revealed nothing of help. If anything, it only confirmed that we wouldn’t be leaving by the bridge.