Burning Glass (10 page)

He stared without blinking, with the steady eyes of a man intimidated by nothing. In contrast, I seemed to have collected a dozen lashes on my eyeballs for how they twitched and glanced about. I strained to focus on anything but him—when I saw only him. The flush of heat stubbornly clung to my cheeks.

A servant brought me a bowl of creamed beet soup. I took up my spoon straightaway, grateful for the distraction. But even with my vision centered on the murky purple liquid, I felt the weight of Valko’s stare. His aura spun around mine, curious, mildly annoyed, and, above all else, no longer bored. How lovely for him.
I
, on the other hand, was left with my own mess of emotions and, worse, trapped in one of those rare moments I couldn’t borrow, blend into, or be blinded by another person’s energy.

I drew into myself and avoided the fleshy elbows of the noblewoman beside me. I kept swallowing my soup without troubling to cool it. I waited for Anton to look at me. I waited for Valko to stop. When my bowl was empty, I set down my spoon and clasped my hands below the table as I fought not to wring them.

Valko lifted two fingers and whispered something to the servant who came to his side. The servant took a silver platter of meat from the emperor’s table, stepped off the dais, and wove around the first table to the second—to me.

My stomach spasmed. My mouth clamped shut. At last, the flush left my cheeks. My blood drained away with a sickening prickle. All heads in the room revolved to watch that silver platter approach me. With a flick of his fingers, the emperor had done what I’d sought to avoid all evening—draw attention to myself. And in the worst way possible. In a way that couldn’t please him. Because I would not eat that meat.

The servant stopped before me, and his heels clicked together. I wanted to crawl under the table, rip open the floor, burrow a hole through the frozen earth until I found the Romska camps. I could hide in the woods with Tosya, who always made me feel safe. “His Imperial Majesty, the Lord Emperor and Grand Duke of all Riaznin, favors you, Sovereign Auraseer,” the servant said.

The room perked up with interest once my title was revealed. A flurry of whispers emerged from the nobles like a flock of hidden birds. Just as quickly, everyone hushed as they waited to see what I would do. A distracting swell of energy lanced the edges of my awareness. I didn’t entertain it. I forced myself to glance at the meat. Instinctively, my nose wrinkled. Roast swan. The head still intact. The beak open and stuffed with stewed figs. The bird’s eyes were seared shut. It looked like it was crying.

My lips parted as I struggled to form words to respectfully decline the offering. I managed a small squeak. The candle nearest me flickered and dripped a bead of wax. The guests’ curiosity closed in around me. Valko’s gaze never wandered.
The room was silent. Not even the clink of a knife against porcelain disturbed the quiet.

The servant’s brow gleamed with sweat. He darted a nervous glance over his shoulder to the emperor. The portly lady beside me lifted her napkin to her mouth and whispered, “You rise, take the meat, and then you bow, child.”

I swallowed. My tongue felt like paper. “Thank you,” I said to the servant, disregarding the woman, “but—”

He dished me a serving, cutting off my protest. My hands went clammy. Perhaps if I did as my neighbor suggested, everyone would go back to their meals and not bother to see if I took a bite.

I stood slowly and lowered in a curtsy. My unbound hair fell in front of my shoulders. How foolish of me to think it would be enough to satisfy the emperor.

He gave me a minuscule nod, but his mouth remained a straight line.

I sat back down. Wished for the nobles to return to their private conversations. Hoped Valko would be bored again.

Vapors of emotion crowded the air. Anger and envy and curiosity threaded around me like the laces of a corset, squeezing out my breath. I turned a pleading look to Anton. Mercifully, his gaze was upon me, but his hands were also white-fisted on the table. I tried to sift out his aura, interpret something from him and find a way out of this. Couldn’t he whisper something to his brother to explain my peculiarities—what eating this meat would do to me?

He did not. As his hands curled tighter, he gave me a nod, almost like a command.

My shoulders fell as disappointment spooled through my body. He wasn’t my ally. Once and for all, I needed to beat that into my head. I couldn’t look to him for my rescue, like some fool of a maiden in a children’s story.

I slid a morsel of meat onto my golden fork. My hand trembled. I opened my mouth, and the swan flesh touched my tongue. A burst of pain flowered above my heart. Vertigo gripped me. My emotions were a tumble. They flashed from soaring abandon to earth-rending sorrow and wrath. And for all that, I held my muscles rigid, forced my teeth to thrash the meat, to swallow it, to become one with the misery of death.

Satisfied, the nobles looked away and resumed their chatter.

Valko grinned. His face was blurry through my watering eyes.

I didn’t let the tears fall until he grew bored of me. Until he turned to the general at his side, who said something that made him toss back his head with raucous laughter. My brows drew together. Was the emperor mocking me?

His merry mood heightened as the evening wore on, long after I’d swallowed the last excruciating morsel of meat. I’d never witnessed someone shift so quickly from one mood to the next. As more dishes were passed and more spirits drunk, as entertainers and jesters collided and stumbled over one another in rehearsed madness, the emperor clapped and laughed louder.
Veins bulged at his forehead and neck.

Some part of his lightheartedness rang falsely. I kept swiping my tears, amazed and furious that his aura—which I’d first absorbed so easily—was now distant and strange. I couldn’t relate to his humor. His mother had just died and been buried. Why wasn’t he despondent, when that emotion was so largely what I felt? Could all this suffering be my own?

The swan flesh lingered like poison in my bloodstream and only made my mourning intensify. How could I laugh like the emperor when I knew a convent’s worth of Auraseers had burned to death behind doors I’d locked? Did I really think if Valko forced a smile, I would as well?

Then I realized—perhaps the emperor’s sentiment wasn’t humor. Perhaps it was a mask. A mask for his own mourning. And perhaps a small part of his deception was meant to disguise his bafflement over me. A mere girl was now sovereign Auraseer, a position more important than all the ranks of guards standing in perfect formation outside the windows of this room.

A bit of peace descended on me, a bit of power. I clung to it. I didn’t spare Valko or Anton another glance. And later, after the emperor had retired for the night and as I crossed the great hall at the beckoning of a nobleman who wanted to meet me, the prince stepped in my path to finally acknowledge my existence. His brows were hitched together as if in pain. All I thought of was the way he’d left me at the palace porch, how he hadn’t intervened on my behalf when the emperor’s meat was brought before me.

“Sonya . . . ,” Anton began, not quite knowing what to say.

I startled with exaggerated surprise, as if I’d just noticed him. “Oh, forgive me, Your Imperial Highness! I had no idea you were here, nor indeed that you were still living.”

His eyes narrowed in offense, then he released a heavy sigh. “You should understand that—”

I walked around him, cutting him off. I didn’t care to listen to all the reasons why I was too lowly to be publicly acquainted with him.

I marched out of the great hall, and I didn’t look back.

T
HAT NIGHT, AFTER MY MAIDS LEFT,
I
STOOD
AT THE THRESHOLD
between my antechamber and bedchamber and debated on which room I should sleep in. The box bed seemed to stare like a dark creature waiting to devour me whole. I could always lie down on one of my couches. But then all the gilding and ornamentation in my antechamber might suffocate me just as surely as the cramped interior of my bed. At length, I gathered my blankets and pillows and arranged them on the floor beneath my window. Perhaps the winter clouds would relent and permit me a glimpse of the hidden starlight.

Removing Yuliya’s figurine of Feya from the travel satchel, I set it on the windowsill and said a prayer, not out of faith, but because it would please my friend. The swan’s death still trickled remnants of sorrow through my body. I supposed I should be grateful. That agony had done more to ground me among the nobles’ auras than any thoughts of Anton or musings over
the emperor. This was why the Auraseers at the convent chose a painful form of emotional release, why the ceiling of the box bed was gouged with Izolda’s claw marks. Nothing cut to the core of things like physical suffering.

I smoothed the ends of the black ribbon tied around my wrist. Yuliya’s burial rites would be tomorrow. Hers and everyone else’s. I would miss them. My heart beat a mournful rhythm.

I glanced at the blood spatter on the base of the wooden Feya. I had been careful not to touch it thus far. But now I wouldn’t resist its call. Still on my knees from prayer, I reached up and closed my fingers around my friend’s dried blood.

Blinding pain tore through me. I cried out and doubled over onto the cool planks of my bedroom floor. Gasping for breath, I stared at the knots in the grain as racking sensations worked their way through my body. Once I recovered, I sat up, gritted my teeth, and touched the statue again.

I shook and whimpered and forced myself to hold it longer. When Yuliya’s pain began to ebb to euphoria, I let go. Perspiration wetted my brow as I gripped the idol a third time.

On and on I repeated this, only allowing myself to feel the darkest parts of my friend’s death. If I touched her blood enough times, perhaps I’d feel a small measure of the pain every Auraseer and sestra endured as they died.

I never saw the starlight. Hours later, I lay splayed on my side, my breath faint, my heart slowed. My limbs tingled and mimicked Yuliya’s blood loss. Tears pooled from my eyes as I
reached once more for Feya. She rested toppled over, an arm’s length from me. I stretched out, fingers trembling, almost touching her. Blackness crowded my vision. I caught the edge of the statue with my fingertip, but then my hand fell and the goddess rolled away. My eyes fluttered shut.

I didn’t dream of Yuliya or the burning convent. I dreamed I failed the emperor. As I was marched to the chopping block, Tola stood on the palace porch dressed in the too-large robes of the sovereign Auraseer. When the ax arced down for my head, my last glimpse of the world was Anton’s dusk-blue cape, billowing as he turned away.

A gentle rapping on my door awakened me. The clouds were soft with gray morning light and thick with the promise of snow. I rubbed my head, as if that could scatter the lingering anxiety from my dream.

The rapping came again. I leaned up on my elbows. “Come in.”

The door opened a handbreadth. In popped the heart-shaped face of a girl maybe a year or two older than me. “I’ve brought your breakfast, Sovereign Auraseer.”

I sat up completely. My nightgown was a mess of wrinkles from all my writhing last night. “My name is Sonya.” I couldn’t bear the custom of everyone addressing me by my title. The girl curtsied in assent. I studied her, the way her eyes drooped in the corners, not with fatigue, but in a way that spoke kindness.
I took an immediate liking to her.

She opened the door wider, and her bowed lips curved in a timid smile, but I knew better. Vitality surged through my limbs, my back. The kink in my spine from a night spent on the floor was forgotten, as was my sorrow. This girl was brimming with
life
. I drank it in like I’d just crossed the desert sands of Abdara.

“I’m Pia,” she said, stepping into the room. “Your serving maid,” she added, and then rolled her eyes. “But I’m sure you already knew that.”

I released a small laugh. I couldn’t help it. Her happiness bubbled through me. “I can only feel your aura, not your station.”

She giggled back. “I meant my uniform.” She gestured to it like the evidence it must be to anyone with a noble upbringing—to anyone who had ever been
served
before. But to my eyes, all that differentiated Pia’s clothes from my personal maids’ was that the skirt beneath her apron was blue, not dark gray, and her hair kerchief was tied back in a different fashion.

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about palace life,” I admitted, “let alone which maid does what or the colors she wears. Lenka nearly bit off my head last night when I requested something particular about my food.”

“Well, I can help you with that.” Pia rocked back on her heels. “And never mind Lenka. She’s all salt and sour milk. I gave up trying to make her smile ages ago.” She slid back a loose pin holding her kerchief in place.

I watched everything Pia did with fascination. Something about her reminded me of Yuliya, but I couldn’t place it. Perhaps
it was simply my hope of having a friend at the palace. One friend had been enough at the convent. One had been enough with the Romska.

Pia smoothed her apron, growing a little self-conscious under my stare. “There’s tea in your sitting room and a sweet bun.” She bobbed her head over her shoulder to nudge me toward it. “Lenka will come in a quarter hour.”

I stood and untwisted myself from my blanket.

“Did you really sleep down there?” She raised her brows.

I frowned at the box bed and gave her a dark look. “Wouldn’t you?”

She snorted, then walked over and picked up my blankets and pillow. “Well, let’s at least hide the trail. Lenka thinks it’s a great honor to sleep in that bed.” Pia stuffed her load past the bed’s small door. “We don’t want her forcing you into a corset today out of vengeance.”

“You know about that?” I followed her into my antechamber where a samovar of tea and the promised bun were waiting on a lacquered tray inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“Rumor spreads fast here. It isn’t every day we get a new Auraseer, or a girl who would dare present herself to the emperor without pinching in her waist and pushing up her curves.” She chuckled. “I couldn’t wait to meet you.”

I felt color stain my cheeks. I appreciated Pia’s open attitude toward me, but I doubted anyone else in the palace found my eccentricities so endearing. I sat on the couch and bit into my bun as she went to pour my tea. “What else have you heard?”

Pia tipped back the samovar when my cup was half full and glanced at the door leading to the hallway, as if Lenka might walk in at any moment. She bit the corner of her lip. “Is it true Prince Anton brought you here on a white stallion?”

“Yes,” I said carefully, “though it was a mare.”

She sighed and sank beside me on the couch, obliterating what small level of formality remained between us. “Was it very romantic?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was told you rode
together
on the horse.” Her eyes searched mine. “He’s handsome, don’t you think? And his story is
so tragic
.”

“Tragic?” I lifted my cup. Did she mean the loss of his mother?

“You know . . . how he was raised thinking he would rule Riaznin one day.”

I choked on my tea. “Oh?”

Pia’s brow creased. “You really don’t know?”

I shook my head and clutched my throat so I wouldn’t cough again. “Isn’t Valko the older brother?”

She scooted in closer. “Yes, but the boys grew up separately. There was always someone trying to assassinate or usurp Emperor Izia. So to protect his dynasty, he sent the princes to live far apart from each other—and from Torchev. Valko was only six when he left the palace, and Anton just five.”

“Why not keep them together?”

She shrugged as if it was simple. “To make sure there was
still an heir in case one of them was killed.”

I gaped at her. “But why did Anton think he would be emperor?” For some reason my heart pounded faster. “Both boys lived.”

“No, they didn’t. Not according to the tale Anton was told—that all Riaznin was told. For years, the people of the empire believed Valko’s carriage was overtaken on the road to his hidden manor. He was discovered, and he was murdered.” Pia’s eyes were as round as my tea saucer.

I searched her aura for any lurking humor and found none. “That’s impossible.”

Enraptured by the horror of it, she touched my arm. Her energy heightened and pulsed through my veins. “Another boy was murdered in his place.”

“Wait . . . I
do
know this story. The changeling prince?” The Romska had a song about it. Tosya used to sing it to me. I’d assumed the tragedy happened long ago, when Riaznin was young. I hadn’t even been sure it was true.

Pia nodded. “They say the murder was staged to protect Izia’s eldest child, so that no further attempts would be made on his life.”

I was beginning to understand. “Meanwhile Anton thought he was the heir.”

“Until his father passed away, and Valko claimed the throne. Then Anton realized the full weight of what his father had done.”

I set my cup down and leaned back, processing the
incredible story. By his actions, Emperor Izia had made it clear Anton’s life was less valued than Valko’s. Any would-be assassins would have sought out Anton out as a child, while the true heir remained safe.

I thought of every moment I’d shared with Anton, remembered his underlying bitterness whenever he spoke of his brother, his despair over the death of the dowager empress. Their time together must have been precious and brief. How often had she been able to visit him in his seclusion?

Pia settled back beside me. “Thus the tragic prince.”

I fidgeted with my nightgown and folded a length of the skirt into pleats. “How can anyone be sure Valko isn’t the imposter?”

“No one can be. That’s why his life is so endangered, why he was almost assassinated, though his poor mother died in his place. It’s why
you’re
so important. Whenever he is in the nobles’ favor, they insist he is Izia’s eldest son. He looks so much like his father, the same distinguished brow, the same confidence. But when he is difficult—which is often,” she added under her breath, “the debate continues over the changeling prince.”

The door opened from the hallway. Lenka entered but halted when she saw my servant and me reclining side by side on the couch. Pia sprang to her feet and tidied her kerchief.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lenka frowned at Pia. “Haven’t you finished your breakfast?” she added, turning on me.

I shrugged, already bristling from her irritable aura.

“Well, it’s too late now,” Lenka said. “I’m to prepare you at once to attend the emperor.”

I exchanged a glance with Pia. My mind was still awhirl from all she had told me.

“You can take that tray back to the kitchen,” my head maid said to Pia, who gave me a sorry look that I could not finish my meal. “Go on.” Lenka clapped at her.

I was about to roll my eyes, when Pia did it for me. My mouth sealed shut as I suppressed a laugh. Did she have to leave so soon?

Once she walked out the door, her liveliness drained out of my body. I slumped and felt the ache in my spine and the loss of Yuliya. My gut twisted at the prospect of having to spend more time in the emperor’s presence.

While Lenka laid out my dress, undergarments, stockings, and slippers, my gaze wandered over the fine furnishings of my antechamber and the barrenness of my bedchamber beyond. Izolda had left a strange mark in her wake. She was almost as mysterious as the tale of the changeling prince. Had Izolda, as an Auraseer, ever determined what the nobles could not—if Valko was Valko, the authentic heir to the empire? Had she ever sensed any deceit in him that could prove otherwise?

The bigger question was, could I?

I spent the day in the emperor’s shadow, and the next day and the next, until weeks passed and I feared I would vanish into
smoke for how little I was spoken to, how easily I was forgotten. It was almost as if Valko was going out of his way to prove his disinterest after my clumsy acceptance of his shared meat.

The nobles followed the emperor’s lead where I was concerned. The novelty of the new sovereign Auraseer was fleeting. I was reduced to the new female trailing the emperor to meeting after meeting, meal after meal, sitting in a corner and struggling not to fall asleep. Valko’s apathy leaked into me like a disease, and the fatigue of it all made my footsteps heavy. I did not even have the mystery of him to stimulate me anymore. If he was anyone other than the eldest son of Emperor Izia, he hid the clues with a master’s precision.

In the wake of the dowager empress’s death, I searched for any valid threats from the nobles, not just the dark grumblings I felt when the men lost too many rubles in a game of quadrille, or when the young wives of the dukes tossed the emperor secret glances, only to have Valko stare back at them impassively. The duchesses’ eyes would slit like cats’ or droop like puppies’, their auras half tempting me to inwardly scream or heave a sigh. None of it was enough to make me think anyone was capable of causing Valko harm. If they were, surely I’d feel it on impulse. I’d scream or do something more than feel the drudgery of my existence. Nothing seemed capable of moving me. Valko’s energy, indifferent though it was, held the power to rein mine. And late at night, when I couldn’t sleep or bear the torture of touching Feya’s statue, I found other ways to sustain my misery.

I took to walking the palace corridors after midnight, as I
had done in the convent when Yuliya was sick and I had no one to keep me company. During my days here in Torchev, at least the emperor’s apathy could keep me distracted from my guilt over the deaths at the convent. But at night, in my solitude, I was left to the full throes of my remorse. If I was honest with myself, perhaps my exhaustion and gloom was just as unbreakable as the emperor’s. Maybe his energy combined with mine to form an iron fence no other auras in the palace could penetrate. At least it stopped me from wanting to curl up in a ball every time I dined with the assembly of nobles in the great hall. As for the dreaded prospect of being forced to eat meat again, that excruciating experience had yet to repeat itself.