Burning Glass (12 page)

“There was blood on the threads,” I said, “and through them, I felt her dying aura.”

Valko’s brow hitched. “What do you mean?”

“I am gifted—or cursed, however you may see it—with an enhanced ability to feel the last energy of someone’s soul if I touch them—their flesh, their hair, their blood.”

His eyes narrowed. “The meat I offered you from my table?”

“Yes.” I felt him descending back within the realm of stability. I needed to keep him there. “Also the fur on my robes and headdress, which is why I never wear them.”

“Their deaths pain you?” he asked, a note of sympathy in his voice that, for a moment, rendered me silent.

“Yes,” I replied softly.

“You felt my mother’s pain?”

“Yes.”

His gaze lowered to the floor. Behind me, Anton placed his hand on my arm. Something sad and lovely graced my heart at his touch, but I resisted it. I couldn’t lose focus. I gently batted him away without turning my gaze from the emperor. “Were you with your mother when she died?” I asked him.

“He was,” Anton answered. “And so was I.”

I inhaled with understanding. “Then her last feelings were for both of you. And they were neither bitter nor accusatory.
They were not shocked with betrayal nor filled with the malice of vengeance.” My voice wavered with emotion. “They were filled with the most beautiful and tender love I have ever experienced.”

The wind whistled outside, rattling the intricate panes of the window. The stained glass formed the picture of a coat of arms, and on it, a blossomed rose inside a red sun, the symbol of the Ozerov dynasty, their family. My breath came easier. The emperor and Anton’s heads were bowed. For now, the storm between them had blown over.

Councilor Ilyin—the eldest, with a streaked white beard, but sharp and youthful eyes—broke the silence. “Forgive me, Sovereign Auraseer, but the fact that Empress Katarina loved her sons cannot absolve them from involvement in her death. She would have not known who poisoned her cup.”

I shot him a penetrating glance. Did he mean to stir up Valko’s suspicion? To what end? For all I knew, this old man laced the poison himself. Why, any of them could have. I was only beginning to understand the hidden agendas at the palace and my role here.

To search Councilor Ilyin’s aura, I studied myself, my body, for what I absorbed of any of his intensified physical reactions. A headache flowered at my temple and I had a pain in my hip. As for my emotions, they only revealed the old man’s fatigue and dwindling patience. Nothing hinted he might be guilty of murder.

“The prince is innocent,” I said resolutely. I hoped to
frighten the councilor, to halt him in whatever game he might be playing. He was likely a better artist at concealing his aura than any noble at court.

“How do you know?” Councilor Ilyin asked, as if condescending to a child.

I stepped closer to Anton. “I spent two days with this man fresh after the death of his mother. I had every opportunity to see into the depths of him, just as I see into you now. Prince Anton did not kill the empress, nor seek to harm the emperor. Neither does he wish to take his brother’s crown.”

The words tumbled out of my mouth, fierce and unyielding, whether I knew the truth of my latest claim or not. I wasn’t sure why I insisted on defending Anton, only that I felt in my bones that he needed to live. I wouldn’t have anyone endangering him.

“Young though I may be,” I said, “I am the emperor’s Auraseer, and you must learn to trust my word.”

In my periphery, I felt Anton’s gaze, solemn and amazed.

Councilor Ilyin’s aged lips pursed, but he didn’t badger me any further. The emperor, the prince, and I awkwardly took our seats, while everyone did a masterful job of pretending nothing had gone awry. The meeting continued, moving on to the issue of immigrants from Abdara and the question of yet again raising the taxes on imported goods. The cord of tension was still taut between the two brothers, but at least more flexible.

I spent the rest of the meeting under the weight of the emperor’s stare. I wondered how he saw me now—in painted light, golden dust motes floating above my head, as I had seen
his brother, or as a new threat to his throne and a new ally to Anton? From the way my skin flushed with fire and ice, from how my heart beat quickly then seized up in my chest, I feared I wasn’t merely one simple thing any longer. I wasn’t a girl to be forgotten, a girl dismissed to a corner.

I’d captured the keen interest of the emperor, for better or for worse. And only time would tell if I’d made a mistake by coming out of hiding.

“
T
HEY THINK
I
’M AN IMBECILE.”
P
IA SHOVED THE
LAST FORKFUL
of apple sharlotka in her mouth. We both sat on the floor of my antechamber so we wouldn’t spill any dusting sugar on my velvet couches. Instead, it sprinkled from our plates into the weave of my nightgown and Pia’s apron. She’d surprised me with the late-night treat just as I was on the brink of my nightly penance with the statue of Feya.

“I’m sure that isn’t true.” I licked a morsel of cooked apple off my finger.

“It is! You don’t understand. Even Yuri’s mother can read. Her husband taught her.”

Pia had spent the last half hour rehashing her ill-fated visit to meet Yuri’s parents earlier this afternoon when she had a rare day off of work. Apparently Yuri’s father was a tutor in Torchev for a nobleman’s three daughters. The eldest was Pia’s age and also smitten with Yuri. Her father promised to pay
for Yuri’s commission to become a second-ranking colonel in the infantry, a rise in station that would make him eligible for the nobleman’s daughter’s hand. This offer was exceptional to Yuri’s humble parents, but Yuri remained adamant in his plans to court Pia, who was convinced his parents saw her as only a lowly kitchen maid.

She sighed and scraped her fork against her empty dish. “I should have brought the whole cake.”

Taking her plate away, I squeezed her hands. “If they could feel a
tenth
of who you really are, they would have no reservations about you marrying their son.”

“Yes, well, do me a favor and sneeze on them. Maybe some of your ability will transfer and they’ll see me as more than an illiterate tart.”

“Tart?” I laughed and tilted my head. Then I quickly sobered. “Do you mean . . . ? Have you and Yuri—?”

“No!” she said, quickly glancing away. Her aura warmed, and the heat rose to my cheeks the same time hers stained red.

I studied her, while I failed to suppress a grin. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not!” She pulled back so our hands were no longer touching. Her energy waned at the broken connection, but from the strong urge I had to tuck my knees to my chest and burrow into myself, I sensed she was concealing something.

“I can feel what you’re feeling, you know.” I wiggled my fingers in the air like I was working dark magic.

She managed to simultaneously giggle and groan with exasperation. “It’s impossible to be your friend!” Her dimples
deepened, and she gave me a playful shove in the shoulder. “I can’t hide anything from you.”

“Friends don’t hide things,” I replied, as if this was the root of all wisdom. “Or at least they go about hiding them together. Friends
share
secrets.”

She groaned again and buried her face in her hands. Some of her hair tumbled loose from her kerchief.

I nudged her leg as I felt some of her humor give way to trepidation. “It’s all right, I won’t tell anyone.”

She looked up, rubbing her still-flushed cheeks. “Very well. But you must never let Yuri know.”

I frowned. “You mean it wasn’t him?”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “I have no idea how I even caught Valko’s eye.”

My jaw unhinged. “Valko?” Had I heard her right? “His Imperial Majesty Valko? The lord emperor of all Riaznin Valko?”

Pia’s eyebrows peaked in a way that said
guilty.
“It was months ago. I doubt he even remembers my name.” She wrinkled her nose. “I
hope
he doesn’t.” Retrieving her plate, she collected the leftover dusting sugar onto her finger and sighed. “I really should have brought more cake.”

I considered her. The tingling in my palms revealed her anxiety, but my heart didn’t pang with unrequited love. “So . . . you don’t care for him?”

With all the solemnness Yuliya used to give in prayer, Pia said, “I love Yuri.”

“And you
never
cared for Valko?” I couldn’t place why I needed to know this. Perhaps the role of being the emperor’s guardian made me feel this rush of protectiveness for him. Is that what I was feeling? Protective?

She shrugged. “I’m required to esteem him as any servant must dutifully regard her monarch—surely the same way
you
regard him.”

I picked at a minuscule tear in my nightgown. How
did
I regard the emperor? He was arrogant, that was a certainty. Indifferent to others. He also had a reserve of dark passion; I saw it in the council meeting earlier today. Of course he sought out someone bright like Pia, the same way I did. “Then why did you give yourself to Valko?” It was all I could do to not reach out and feel the pulse of my friend’s wrist to determine if her quickening heartbeat was overpowering mine, or if my own primal curiosity was to blame for the heat prickling through my body making my toes curl and flex.

“Give myself?” Pia burst out laughing. “Oh, Sonya! It was a
kiss.
”

A strange sense of relief washed over me and eased the tension from my muscles. “You mean . . . that’s all that happened between you?”

She nodded. “And only once, I promise!” Biting her lip, she leaned forward as if this were her darkest confession. “You know Yuri holds my heart, but I’ll admit even he has never kissed me with such rapture. You don’t understand how breathless the emperor can make you feel, how flattering it is to have
his sole and private attention, how his gentle esteem causes you to imagine yourself the equal of his high rank and importance. I don’t know what I would have done if Lenka hadn’t walked in on us!”

I snorted. “No wonder Lenka has it out for you. If you’d told Valko ‘no,’ you would have saved yourself the wrath of the most contemptible woman in this palace. Besides, even an emperor can’t have everything he desires.”

Pia arched a brow as she considered me. “Would
you
have told him no?”

My pulse fluctuated again. Perhaps the sweetness of the cake had reached my bloodstream. “Of course.”

“Hmph.”

A soft knocking came at my door. Three raps, quick in succession. I startled. Pia’s eyes popped wide. Had Lenka returned? She’d already dressed me for the night and brushed out my hair. Besides, she always just walked in. My antechamber didn’t have a lock.

The rapping came again, a little louder and faster. I stood while Pia scrambled to collect the dishes onto her tray. Lenka would be furious that Pia had come to pay me a visit, even though it wasn’t against any rules I could think of. But when I placed my hand on the door latch, my insides flooded with an energy distinctly
not
belonging to my head maid.

Once Pia was standing, tray in hand, I cracked open the door and set my eye to the gap.

My breath caught, for it was Anton who stood outside, his
face lost in the shadows between two pools of light from the corridor sconces. His kaftan was gone, though he still wore his boots, reaching above his knees, his loose shirt haphazardly tucked into his breeches. His hair was mussed as if he’d spent the last hour running his hands through it. I’d never seen him so distressed, so
human.

“May I come in?” he asked. His voice, naturally rich and low in timbre, always rumbled with volume, making it scarcely possible for him to whisper.

I hesitated, my hand floating to the ribbons at my nightgown’s scooped neckline. Wasn’t it improper to let a man into my rooms when I was alone? Especially a man I was still angry with for going out of his way to ignore me. But then I wasn’t alone. I glanced back at Pia. A huge smile broke across her face.
Anton?
she mouthed. I fought an eye roll.

“Please, Sonya,” the prince said. When I returned my attention to him, he glanced toward the emperor’s rooms. “Let me in. I must speak with you.”

The pained look in his face twisted the fibers of my heart and made me relent. I groaned with frustration for allowing myself to pity him, but that didn’t stop me from stepping back to grant him entrance. He strode past me and shut the door behind him. Then he noticed Pia. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” He gave her an awkward little bow of acknowledgment. I bit down a grin that he should excuse himself or be flustered by a maid.

“I was just leaving,” she replied, and dipped into a curtsy. Anton opened the door for her and as she exited, she waggled
her eyebrows at me in the brief moment before he shut the door again.

This time I did roll my eyes.

Anton proceeded to pace about my antechamber. He rubbed at his jaw and mouth. He raked his hands through his disheveled hair. I stood barefoot in the center of the room, my nightgown fluttering as his movements stirred the air. His gaze was cast on the floor, on anything but me.

“What is it?” I asked. Now that Pia’s radiant aura was gone, Anton’s swept into mine. My nerves tangled together. I didn’t know if I should sit or stand. I had the growing urge to hide away in my bedchamber, but I couldn’t make myself leave. Why was the prince so distraught?

He wandered to my tiled furnace and absently kicked at the grate. His breaths came quickly. His fingers clenched into tight fists. My emotions expanded then contracted in a dizzying cycle I couldn’t interpret.

“Anton?”

He whirled on me, eyes on my gown, not my face. “How could you be so foolish?”

I flinched. “What have I done?”

He laughed forlornly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can never defend me to Valko like that, do you understand?” He turned back to the grate and kicked it harder.

My lips parted in astonishment. My mind churned sluggishly to comprehend his anger. “I only spoke what I knew to be true. Would you have me be false?”

“I would have you take care for your life!” His voice rose, and mine rose with it, grafting onto his heated emotions.

“You should take care with yours! The emperor accused you of murder today—of treason. Even princes hang for such a crime.”

“I did not kill my mother.”

“I believe you! I also want your brother to believe. I want peace between you.” A heaviness, like a full winter’s snowfall, fell over me. Anton finally met my gaze, the anger snuffed out of him. Something about his helpless expression and the depth of his sorrow made me forgive him for ever disregarding me. Why would he come here like this, be so upset, if he wasn’t concerned with my well-being?

“Sonya, don’t you see?” he said. “I will never have peace with my brother. And you cannot make it so.”

The fire snapped behind the grate. Embers flickered in the air. I wrapped my arms around myself, but not because I was cold. I felt hurt. No matter how much I felt the prince’s concern at the moment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I displeased him. I tried not to let it affect me, but that was becoming impossible. Today, as he spoke in the council chamber, I saw a measure of his greatness, his devotion to the welfare of Riaznin. He would make a fine emperor, though it was treasonous to think it. Was it wrong that part of me wanted to be just as great, just as noble in the cause of helping the empire, in helping anyone—even him? So despite my bitterness at his barging into my rooms to tell me I’d disappointed him yet again, his words stung.

“Why did you come here, Anton? Why did you say I must take care for my life?”

His eyes, having found mine, didn’t leave. They glowed warm and soft, illuminated by the candles. He shifted closer, and my heart pounded—in warning, in yearning, in the pangs of his frustration with me. He stopped only inches away. I swayed a little on my feet, caught between wanting to step back or move forward into the swirl of energy surrounding him.

“My brother craves power,” he said. “Above all, power over me.”

I struggled to grasp the meaning behind his words. His scent drifted nearer, dark and masculine, yet also fragile like dried pine needles, like a bed of kindling. All he awaited was a match.

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked, my arms still wrapped around my chest, my fingers curled around my elbows.

Anton’s brows gathered together, rife with the pained look he wore a moment ago. My stomach tightened and warmed, as if I’d tasted something bittersweet and wanted more of it. Pulled by invisible threads, my gaze dropped to his lips. The warmth within me blossomed. A rush of blood trailed up to my neck and face. My balance faltered again. My eyes flitted to his, brown and deep and full of endless mystery.

Did this overpowering feeling come from him? Or was this me, enamored beyond reason with a prince whom I never ceased to annoy and disappoint? I searched his gaze. Did he still see me as a burden, the Auraseer he so reluctantly fetched from the convent?

The tendons in his neck remained taut as he swallowed. “Valko has asked that you attend him tonight in his rooms.”

My nerves flashed with ice. My hands trembled. My heart pounded in alarm. “Why?” I asked. My thoughts rushed to the conversation I’d just shared with Pia—how the emperor’s charm had been irresistible to her. How she didn’t want to stop kissing him.

“My brother craves power,” Anton said again. His next words came softly, the whisper that had eluded him earlier. His eyes looked lost, helpless. “You should not have defended me, Sonya.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t comprehend any of this. “And he gave
you
this errand to summon me?”

He shook his head miserably, in denial of the truth. “Yes.”

I stumbled back and turned away, my legs stiff and stunned. “What does he expect from me?” I had to be the youngest Auraseer the palace had seen in a century—perhaps ever. Had Valko found more carnal uses for my position? A wave of nausea washed through my gut. Anton hadn’t answered my question. “Tell him I am ill,” I commanded.

“That won’t satisfy him.”

I spun around, my nightgown swishing at my ankles. “I did not come here for this!” I shook with rage. “He owns enough of me.” A sob broke through my words.

“Then don’t let him take more.” Anton’s jaw locked.

“How?” My palms pressed to my temples with desperation. “How can I deny the
emperor
?”

Tola’s and Dasha’s faces haunted me again, as they always
did when I wanted to run away and never return. I couldn’t fail in my duty, however sordid it was becoming.

“Did you do what I asked of you?” Anton asked. “Did you find a place within yourself, belonging to no one else?”