Calantha escorted me back into Sanctum Hall. There were pockets of laughter when I tripped on my sack dress. The Komizar took the rope belt away, saying it was a luxury I would have to earn. Yes, there was always more to take, and I had no doubt he would find things I didn’t even know I valued and take them away piece by piece. I’d have to play the role he was painting for me for now, the pathetic royal getting her comeuppance.
I saw the Komizar’s goal achieved, mirrored in the gawking faces that closed in around me. He had made me utterly ordinary in their eyes. Kaden pushed through a circle of governors who crowded around. Our eyes met, and something wrenched tight in my chest. How could he do this? Had he known I’d be paraded as an object of scorn—and still he brought me here? Was loyalty to any kingdom worth debasing someone you professed to love? I tugged on the sackcloth dress, trying to cover my shoulders. He pulled me from Calantha’s clutch and away from the ogling eyes of the governors into the shadows behind a pillar. I pressed against it, grateful for something solid to lean on. He looked into my eyes, his lips half parted as if searching for something to say. Worry etched his face. I saw that he had wanted anything but this, and yet here we were—because of him. I couldn’t make it easy for him. I wouldn’t.
“So this was the life you promised for me? How wonderfully charming, Kaden.”
Lines deepened around his eyes, his ever-present restraint tested. “Tomorrow will be better,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Servants hurried past us carrying platters piled with dark warm meats. I heard the brethren and governors muttering their hunger, and the low growl of heavy chairs being dragged across stone as they swarmed toward the table in the center of the room. Kaden and I remained planted behind the pillar. I saw one kind of sorrow in his eyes and felt another kind in my heart. He would pay for this like everyone else—he just didn’t know it yet.
“The food is here,” he finally murmured.
“Give me a moment, Kaden. Alone. I just need—”
He shook his head. “No, Lia, I can’t.”
“Please.” My voice cracked. I bit my lower lip, trying to muster some scrap of calm. “Just so I can adjust the dress. Spare me some dignity.” I tugged the fabric back over my shoulder.
He cast an awkward glance at my hand clutching a fistful of fabric at my chest. “Don’t do anything foolish, Lia,” he said. “Come to the table when you’re finished.”
I nodded and he reluctantly left.
I bent down and ripped at the hemline, making a tear up to my knees, then tied the excess fabric up into a knot. I did the same at my neck, tying a smaller knot at my chest so my shoulders would remain covered. Hopefully the Komizar wouldn’t consider knots a luxury too.
Dignity. My skin chafed under the coarse fabric. My toes ached with chill. I was dizzy with hunger. I didn’t care a whit about dignity. That had been taken from me long ago. But I did need a clear, unfettered moment. That much wasn’t a lie. Was such a thing possible here?
The gift is a delicate way of knowing. It’s how the few remaining Ancients survived. Learn to be still and know.
Dihara’s words swept through me. I had to find that place of stillness somehow. I leaned back against the pillar, hunting for the quiet I had found in the meadow. I closed my eyes. But peace was impossible to come by. What good was a gift if you couldn’t summon it at will? I didn’t need a quiet knowing. I needed something sharp and lethal.
My thoughts tumbled, angry and bitter, an avalanche of memory past and present, trying to find blame, to spread it around to every guilty party. I conjured a sip of poison for each one who had pushed me here, the Chancellor, the Scholar—even my own mother, who had knowingly suppressed my gift. Because of them I had suffered years of guilt for never being enough.
I opened my eyes, shivering, staring at the stained stone wall in front of me, unable to move. I was thousands of miles from who I was and who I wanted to be. My back pressed closer to the pillar, and I thought that maybe it was all that held me up—and then I felt something. A thrum. A pulse. Something running through the stone, delicate and distant. It reached into my spine, warming it, strumming, repetitive. Like a song. I pressed my hands flat against the stone, trying to absorb the faint beat, and heat spread to my chest, down to my arms, my feet. The song slowly faded, but the warmth stayed.
I stepped out from behind the pillar, vaguely aware of heads turning, whispers, someone shouting, but I was hypnotized by a thin, hazy figure on the far side of the hall, hidden in the shadows, waiting. Waiting for me. I squinted, trying to see the face, but none materialized.
A strong jerk pulling me to the side broke my attention, and when I looked back, the figure across the hall was gone. I blinked. Ulrix pushed me toward the table. “The Komizar said to sit down!”
Governors and servants alike were watching me. Some scowled, a few whispered to each other, and I saw some reach up and rub amulets strung around their necks. My eyes traveled the length of the table until they stopped at the Komizar. Not surprisingly, he looked at me with a grave warning plastered across his face. Do not test me. Had I caught their attention with a simple unfocused stare? Or when I squinted to see someone hiding in the shadows? Whatever I did, it didn’t take much. The Komizar may have had zero regard for the gift, but at least a few of them were hungry for it, looking for any small sign.
The regard of a few bolstered me. I proceeded forward, leisurely, as if my torn sackcloth dress were a regal gown, lifting my chin and imagining Reena and Natiya beside me. My eyes swept one side of the table and then the other, trying to look directly into the eyes of as many of those present as I could. Searching them. Bringing them to my side. The Dragon wasn’t the only one who could steal things. For the moment, I had the audience he so greatly treasured, but as I passed him to take my seat, I felt my chill return. He was the stealer of warmth as well as dreams, and I felt an icy sting at my neck, as if he knew the purpose of every move I made and had already calculated a countermove. The force of his presence was something solid and ancient, something twisted and determined, older than the Sanctum walls that surrounded us. He hadn’t gotten to be the Komizar without reason.
I took the only empty seat left, one next to Kaden, and instantly knew it was the worst place to sit. Rafe sat directly across from me. His eyes were immediately upon me, cutting cobalt, bright against the grim, full of worry and anger, searching me, when all he should have done was look away. I gave him one pleading glance, hoping he understood, and I averted my gaze, praying to the gods that the Komizar hadn’t seen.
Calantha sat next to Rafe, her baubled blue eye staring at me, her other milky blue eye scanning the table. She lifted the plate of bones, skulls, and teeth that had been set in front of her and sang out in Vendan. Some of the words I had never heard before.
“E cristav unter quiannad.”
A hum. A pause. “Meunter ijotande.”
She lifted the bones high over her head. “Yaveen hal an ziadre.”
She laid the platter back on the table and added softly, “Paviamma.”
And then, surprisingly, all the brethren responded in kind, and a solemn paviamma was echoed back to her.
Meunter. Never. Ziadre. Live. I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but the tone had turned grave. A chant of some sort. It seemed to be said by rote. Was it the beginning of a dark barbaric ritual? All the frightening stories I had heard about barbarians as a child came flooding back to me. What were they going to do next?
I leaned close to Kaden and whispered, “What is this?” Calantha passed the platter down the table, and the brethren reached to take a bone or a skull.
“Only an acknowledgment of sacrifice,” Kaden whispered back. “The bones are a reminder that every meal is a gift that came at cost to some creature. It is not taken without gratitude.”
A remembrance? I watched as the platter was passed and fearsome warriors reached into the pile and attached bleached fragments to the slitted tethers at their sides. Every meal is a gift. I shook my head, trying to dispel the discord, to erase an explanation that didn’t quite fit the space I had already created for it. I recalled the gaunt faces that had looked into mine as I passed through the city gates and the fear I had felt at hearing the bones rattle at their sides. My first impressions had planted dark thoughts of bloodthirsty barbarians showing off their savagery.
I didn’t realize I was scowling until I saw the Komizar staring at me with a smug grin twisting his mouth. My ignorance was exposed, at least to him, but I had also caught his subtle observance of Kaden. A slow, casual perusal. It still ate at him. Kaden had followed my orders and not the Komizar’s.
When the platter of bones was passed around me to a governor, I reached out and grabbed a bone. It was a piece of jaw with a tooth still anchored in it, boiled clean of every scrap of flesh. I felt Rafe watching me, but I was careful not to look his way. I stood and pulled a raveled string from my hem, then tied the bone and tooth around my neck.
“Can you recite the words too, Princess Arabella,” the Komizar called out, “or are you only good at creating a show?” An invitation to speak to them in their own tongue? He had unwittingly played into my strength. I might not have known what every word meant, but I could repeat every one. A few would do. “Meunter ijotande. Enade nay, sher Komizar, te mias wei etor azen urato chokabre.”
I spoke it flawlessly and, I was certain, with no hint of an accent. The room fell quiet.
Rafe stared at me, his mouth slightly open. I wasn’t sure if he understood or not, but then Calantha leaned close to him whispering the essence of the words: You’re not, dear Komizar, the only one who has known hunger. The Komizar shot her a condemning glance to silence her.
I looked at the long line of brethren that included Griz, Eben, Finch, and Malich. Their mouths, like Rafe’s, hung open. I turned back to the Komizar. “And if you’re going to address me with ridicule,” I added, “I’ll ask that you at least address me correctly. Jezelia. My name is Jezelia.”
I waited, hoping for a reaction to my name, but there was none—not from the Komizar or anyone else. My bravado plummeted. None of them had recognized it. I lowered my gaze and sat down.
“Ah, I forgot, you royals are rich enough to have many names, just like winter coats. Jezelia! Well, Jezelia it is,” the Komizar said, and lifted a mocking toast to me. Laughter rolled off tongues that only seconds ago I had silenced. Jests and more mocking toasts followed. He was accomplished at twisting moments to his purpose. He left everyone thinking about the excesses of royals, including their many names.
The meal began, and Kaden encouraged me to eat. I forced down a few bites, knowing that somewhere deep inside, I was starving, but so much already swirled in my belly, it was hard to feel the hunger anymore. The Komizar ordered Rafe’s hands unchained so he could eat and then waxed eloquent on how the other kingdoms were finally taking proper notice of Venda, even sending royalty and their esteemed cabinet to dine with them. Though his tone was flippant and drew the laughter he sought, I saw him lean toward Rafe more than once and ask about the Dalbreck court. Rafe chose his words carefully. I found myself watching, mesmerized, noticing how he could go from shackled prisoner to shining emissary in a heartbeat.
Then I noticed Calantha lean in, pouring him more ale, even though he didn’t ask for more. Was she trying to loosen his lips? Or was she attentive for other reasons? She was beautiful, in an unsettling way. An otherworldly way. Her colorless hair fell in long waves past her bare shoulders. Nothing about her seemed natural, including her long, slender fingers and painted nails. I wondered what position she held here at the Sanctum. There were other women in the hall, a few seated next to soldiers, many of the servants—and the slight figure I had seen in the shadows—that is, if it was a woman. But Calantha possessed a boldness, from her bright eye patch down to the delicate chains that jingled around her waist.
I was stunned to see Rafe smiling and playing up the role of the jaded emissary who only sought the best deal for himself. The Komizar soaked it up, even if he tried to maintain distance. Rafe knew just which words to drop and when to hold back with a measure of vagueness, keeping the Komizar’s curiosity piqued. I wondered how the farmer I had fallen in love with could have so many sides I hadn’t known. I watched his lips move, the faint lines fanning out from his eyes when he smiled, the breadth of his shoulders. A prince. How had I not even suspected? I recalled the scowl on his face that first night I had served him at the tavern—the bite of every word he spoke to me. I had left him at the altar. How angry he must have been to track me down all the way to the tavern—which meant he was also skilled. There was so much I still didn’t know about him.
I glanced at the Komizar, who had fallen quiet, and found his eyes fixed on me. I swallowed. How long had he been watching me? Had he seen me staring at Rafe?
He suddenly yawned, then leisurely slid his hand across the leather strap on his chest. “I’m sure our guests are getting tired, but where should I put them?” He explained at length that since they didn’t take prisoners in Venda, they didn’t have actual prisons, that justice was swift even for their own citizens. He weighed his various options, but I sensed he was leading us down a path he had already mapped. He said he could shove us both back into the holding room for the night, but it was damp and dreary, and there was only one small straw mattress for us to share. He looked at Kaden as he said it. “But there is an empty room not far from my own quarters that’s secure.” He sat back in his chair. “Yes,” he said slowly, as if thinking it through, “I’ll put the emissary there. But where should I put the princess where she’ll be secure too?”
Malich called from the other end of the table. “She can stay with me. She won’t go anywhere, and we still have a few things to discuss.” The soldiers near him laughed.
Kaden pushed his chair back and stood, glaring at Malich. “She’ll stay in my quarters,” he said firmly.
The Komizar smiled. I didn’t like where this game was leading. He rubbed his chin. “Or I could simply lock her up with the emissary? Maybe that would be best. Keep the prisoners together? Tell me, Jezelia, which would you prefer? I’ll leave it up to you.” His eyes rested on me, cold and challenging. Had my glares at the emissary been real or contrived? There’s always more that can be taken. He was looking for something else I valued besides a rope around my waist.
My hands trembled in my lap beneath the table. I squeezed them into fists and straightened them again, forcing them to comply, to be convincing. I pushed back my chair and stood next to Kaden. I lifted my palm to his cheek, then drew his face to mine, kissing him long and passionately. His hands slid to my waist, pulling me closer. The room erupted into hoots and whistles. I slowly pulled away, looking into Kaden’s surprised eyes.
“I’ve grown comfortable with the Assassin after the long ride across the Cam Lanteux,” I said to the Komizar. “I’ll stay with him, rather than that treacherous parasite.” I shot Rafe one last glare. He returned it with a glance of cool rage. But he was alive. For now, he was something not worth taking from me.