Burning Glass (26 page)

I thought of Pia succumbing to the emperor’s kiss—
Pia
, who was devoted to Yuri. “Valko only wants me because I pull back. I’m a game to him.”

“It doesn’t matter the reason, whether it has to do with you or with me.”

My heart gave a funny little jump. “What do you mean with
you
?”

He shut his eyes, as if catching himself. A cascade of warmth flooded into me, distracting me from the magnitude of Anton’s request. It shivered across my skin and awakened me with sensation. The prince opened his eyes to look at our joined hands. His own softened over mine. “Valko lusts for power,” he said carefully. “I believe his desire for you equals his desire for Riaznin.” His gaze lifted and roamed over my face.

He hadn’t answered my question, not directly, but at the moment I didn’t care. The way he was staring at my lips made me feel beautiful, priceless, wanted. I inhaled a shaky breath and tried to steel myself back to what we were talking about. I couldn’t think of a thing to say except that I could never accomplish what he was asking of me.

“My failure in this will mean my death, and the death of everyone I care about.”
Tola, Dasha.
They wouldn’t last long here.
You.
I searched Anton’s eyes. This impossible plan also put his life at stake. Valko would discover his involvement, I
was sure of it. I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing him any harm.

“Why didn’t you dance with me at the ball?” The words tumbled out of my mouth of their own volition.

His gaze flashed up to mine, his aura echoing my own surprise with myself. “It’s late,” he said. “We can talk more tomorrow night.” He let go of my hands, but I caught his back.

“Why?”

“Dancing with you would have been inappropriate,” he said matter-of-factly and looked away.

I angled closer and tried to force him to look at me. “It was more than that.”

He set his jaw. “Because it would upset Valko, and I knew he would exact his anger on you as a result.”

“He wasn’t there.”

“There were eyes and ears enough for him.”

I supposed I could understand that, but—“There is no one with us now.”

Anton frowned and his brows hitched together. His aggravation warred with the warm feeling still sliding beneath my skin. Cocking a sardonic half smile, which looked false on him, he asked, “Are you asking me to a midnight waltz?”

“Don’t make light of me. I’m not a child.”

His smile dropped. “No. You’re an
Auraseer
.” His tone was so accusatory, I knew I’d discovered the meat of the matter.

“You don’t trust my feelings?”
For you
, I wanted to add, but I was too swollen with hurt.

His hands in mine went stiff. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“From
yourself
?”

He lowered his gaze to the floor. “From any emotions that don’t belong to you. You suffer enough as it is.”

I let go of his hands. Frustrated tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to break something. Find a mirror and shatter it to prove it wasn’t me and wouldn’t make me bleed. As difficult as it was for the prince, he’d just admitted that he cared about me—and not in the brotherly way I’d always tricked myself into believing, but the achingly beautiful way that made me want to fold myself into him.

I didn’t. I backed away, my tears spilling over. “Suffer?” I bit out. “This”—I gestured to the space between us—“this is suffering.”

“Sonya.” He gave me a pleading look.

“You don’t trust me!” I wiped at my cheek. “You don’t even believe I’m strong enough to have my own feelings. How can you even
think
to ask me to betray the emperor, to risk my life?” I looked up at the ceiling and tried to see past it to the gods. Perhaps they could make me understand him. “How is it you believe I don’t care for Valko in that way, yet you somehow also believe I don’t truly care for you?” I paced the room and shook my head.
Care
wasn’t the right word, but I couldn’t think past the betrayal I felt to find a better one.

Anton dug a hand through his hair. His eyes were wide and lost. “I respect your freedom,” he tried to explain. “I want you, above all, to be free.”

“You think I’m the helpless girl you brought back from the convent. Maybe you’re right!” I laughed and threw up my hands. “Maybe I still am. In that case, you’ve made a grave mistake by confiding in me. How do you know I’m truly committed to your cause? I could be feeling
your
steadfastness to these ideals,
your
loyalty. Is that enough for me to see this through?”

He sighed, his sadness pulling at my own. “Not all of my concern for you goes both ways, Sonya. You know I believe in you.”

I stopped pacing. “No, I don’t. Not truly, not fully. And
everything
should go both ways, even when it comes to Valko. You speak of respecting freedom, but what of his? What liberty is he given if I force his choice, assuming I’m miraculously able to do so?”

Anton spoke slowly and struggled for words. “Revolution always comes at a cost. As far as I can see, this is the least detrimental price we can pay.”

I rubbed at my face and tried to wash away the emotions overwhelming me. An unattainable task. Too many things fought for space in my mind. A trade of freedom for freedom—at too much risk, too much pressure. And all this asked by a prince who, in the end, didn’t have faith in something as simple as my feelings for him.

“You’re right.” I tugged the panels of my robe together. “It’s late. I should go.” I moved to the door.

“Sonya . . .” Anton’s voice rang with misery.

I left through the midnight-blue door without saying good
night. Once alone in the tapestry room, I lay on the bed and watched the moonlight shift across the woven forests and meadows on my walls, but felt none of their beauty bring me peace.

How many times had I pushed aside my feelings for the prince? Even Pia could sense them without my gift for reading aura.
I
was the one who had been blind, always seeing myself below Anton, unworthy of his regard, only noticed when I needed protection. The truth was I’d fallen for him long ago on a snowy journey to the palace, before ever meeting his brother. And if deep in my heart I believed I wasn’t Anton’s reflection, despite how many times I’d berated
him
for not believing the same, I knew the one thing the prince couldn’t trust about me, the final wedge and wonderful truth between us.

He’d fallen for me, too.

T
HE NEXT DAY
V
ALKO HELD A COUNCIL MEETING.
T
O MY
surprise, Count Rostav was in attendance, as well as Anton. I took my usual seat between the royal brothers, while the count sat across from us. His great mop of hair made his head appear larger than the heads of the councilors seated beside him.

I shifted uncomfortably. A disconcerting energy had formed between Anton and me since last night. For once, I was just as studious as he was at avoiding his gaze. I had an equally difficult time looking at the emperor. My treasonous conversation with the prince was enough to condemn me, even if I never acted upon it.

Fortunately, Valko was so impassioned that he seemed oblivious to my awkwardness. He delved at once into his detailed plan to conquer Shengli. It was met, at first, with grumbles and wary glances from his councilors, but slowly, over the course of the afternoon, they became intoxicated with his
vision for a grander Riaznin. Valko had even commissioned an artist to draw out a map without a border separating us from our neighboring country.

Upon the map, the existing townships in the cold and barren stretches of east Riaznin were illustrated with the additions of luxurious, onion-domed buildings, fortified city walls, and irrigation channels from the rivers of Shengli, which fed us new and green farmlands. Surrounding them were noble estates and bunches of little blotted figures representing Shenglin serfs, numbers scrawled above their heads ranging from the hundreds to the thousands. Closer to Torchev were towering convents and universities, centers for study of all kinds—religion, art, mathematics, philosophy. There was something here to appeal to anyone.

“Councilor Ilyin,” Valko said, grinning at the aged man across the table, “isn’t your eldest grandson a budding physician? Does he have to contend with the nobles’ archaic abhorrence to medicine? Some still believe drinking a glass of aqua vitae with a peeled clove of garlic will cure any ailment.” He chuckled with a shake of his head. Leaning forward, his eyes sparked with zeal. “What if every city had a medical lodging where for a fair price someone could receive the unparalleled care of an educated doctor? Wouldn’t that trump sweating out one’s maladies in the local hothouse?”

Councilor Ilyin’s lips pursed. His gaze returned to the map.

“And what of you, General Lazar?” The emperor looked to the sharp-cheeked man seated two chairs from Count Rostav.
“You have often lamented the state of our navy and said we could better defend ourselves against Estengarde by utilizing the Artagnon Sea. How many times have you told me we should bypass the Bayac Mountains altogether to settle our quarrels with the Estens?”

General Lazar grunted. “Too many to count, My Lord.”

The emperor nodded with sympathy as he accepted the general’s censuring tone. “We have never been able to afford a resplendent navy, not with the expense of maintaining an army massive enough to fortify the sheer breadth of our nation.” Lifting his brows, Valko held up a finger. “But if we conquer Shengli, our resources will double, our empire will flourish with more wealth and prosperity. Then we can reinforce our navy—build it up to unrivaled size and daunting strength. Don’t you see?” Valko smiled. “We could do better than merely defend ourselves against Estengarde. We could
conquer
it from the seas. And you, General Lazar, would captain the undertaking!”

The general scratched the back of his neck, all traces of his disgruntlement gone as he stared at the rendering of a conjoined Riaznin and Shengli. In his mind, he must be erasing the dotted border between our empire and Estengarde, as well—that and pinning another silver badge on his regimentals.

He wasn’t the only one evaluating Valko’s proposal in a new light. Every councilor’s gaze traveled over the map with growing hunger.

Soon no one had any qualms about lowering the draft age or partitioning a large percentage of our Torchev military to
bolster our forces for the Shengli invasion. No one but Anton. His words last night rang through my mind:
Revolution always comes at a cost.

Valko’s dream of Riaznin was the emperor’s own kind of revolution, but his came at the expense of war. The earth would soak up the blood of millions, no matter which country prevailed in battle.

Anton’s hands were folded together on the table in a picture of calm reasoning, but his knuckles were white and his aura white-hot. “Assuming Riaznin could rise up to be the marvel of the last millennium by actually defeating the Shenglin,” he said to Valko, his voice cool and even, revealing only the finest grain of contempt, “what is in this for the woman who loses her husband and her sons for this shining empire you have shown us? What is in it for those who fight and come out victorious, but have no rights? The nobility need not fear. They are exempt from military service, so they will flourish and build up their estates.” He waved a hand over the map. “They will attend your universities and dine in your great hall, while those who
sacrifice
for you”—his voice rose and lanced through his mask of complacency—“will continue to do so through taxes your nobles aren’t required to pay. Those who give the most for their empire’s glory will remain in ignorance because they’ll have no means to educate themselves.”

The emperor, who had been in the midst of pointing out the new road he could pave from Torchev to Gensi, paused to level a narrowed gaze on his brother that turned my bones to ice.
“The people are already divided,” Valko said. “They will always be divided. We need a thriving noble class to set an example.”

“Of what?” Anton shrugged. “Something they can never attain, neither by bloodline nor by wealth?”

Valko didn’t reply. His coldness invaded my aura and threatened to frost my breath.

Anton looked to Count Rostav. “Wouldn’t you agree, Nicolai?”

The count blanched and shifted in his seat. His eyes darted to the other councilors before landing on Valko. Nicolai swallowed and cleared his throat. “I appear to be the exception. My title came by my father’s merits in his service to the empire, not by his wealth or ancestry.”

They were fine enough words, fine enough logic, but they contradicted the shame pulsing off the count in waves. He wouldn’t return Anton’s disappointed stare, but he spared me a guilt-ridden glance. He knew I must feel him out for the coward he was.

“There!” Valko grinned at the count. “You see, Anton? The system isn’t flawed. Those who are truly superior will always rise to the top.” My blood warmed as the chill abated, but I didn’t feel relief. I knew, in the end, I could never do enough “rising” for Valko. I had no wish to marry the emperor, but it bothered me greatly that he would never see me as an equal, despite his professions of admiration.

“In fact,” Valko continued, “that is why I’ve invited Nicolai today. His father was a champion in the Five Years’ War. I was a
child at the time, but I know my history well. Count Rostav the First rose in the ranks to become a lieutenant-general. Many believe his actions changed the tide of battle and gave us the winning edge over the ‘undefeatable’ Shenglin. If you remember, brother”—Valko cast a haughty glance at Anton—“Riaznin proved to be a marvel then as we drove out our intruders and reestablished our border.” The emperor sat down in his chair, his aura greedy as he focused on the count. It scraped the lining of my stomach with pangs of endless appetite. “Perhaps he shared with you some of his tactics,” he said to Nicolai.

Everyone turned to the count, who paled a further shade. Two seats beside him, General Lazar flared his nostrils and my skin prickled with gooseflesh. No doubt the general didn’t appreciate someone else giving the emperor advice in his stead, for that was surely what Valko had implied Nicolai should do—assist him in battle strategy.

The count proceeded to mumble a rushed account of the Five Years’ War and his father’s victorious moments, surely nothing Valko didn’t already know himself. It was clear Nicolai was holding back. I felt it in his aura, the heightened sense of confinement and anxiety in him, like the world was shrinking in from all sides until we balanced on the pinnacle of a mountaintop. One slip in the wrong direction would be fatal.

Strangely, Valko wasn’t frustrated by the count’s lack of forthcomingness. In fact, the opposite was true. A smug grin tickled the corner of his lip every time he shot a glance at Anton. The prince remained silent for the rest of the meeting,
his brows drawn tight as he regarded the count, a member of his trusted circle.

I regarded Nicolai. What part was he playing in Anton’s revolution? I hadn’t thought to ask the prince last night about the count’s involvement—or Yuri’s or Feliks’s. I’d been too concerned that Anton was devising a people’s revolution at all. And now he’d asked
me
to participate,
me
to perform the most critical and impossible task of convincing the emperor to abdicate his throne. I hadn’t told him I would—or even that I could, for that matter—but did he still expect it of me?

I tested the energy between us and gave the prince a long look, one he didn’t return. He couldn’t. Not here. As for my daring, I only hoped the emperor would interpret my motive as my incredulous opinion of his brother.

In truth, I wasn’t daring at all, nor did I think Anton’s concerns for the Riaznin’s future far-fetched. Perhaps I surpassed Nicolai in cowardice. Like him, I also hadn’t defended the prince this afternoon. Is that what Anton wanted me to do? Use my ability to slowly curb the emperor’s fixation on Shengli and his indifference to those meant to be sacrificed for his vision of grandeur? Was I to do this here, publicly in front of the emperor’s councilors? I could scarcely conceive of controlling Valko, let alone manipulating the emotions of everyone present.

When the meeting was over and I was dismissed, I walked back to my rooms and opened the casements to let in some much-needed fresh air. As the conflicting auras in that stained-glass room left my body and I returned solely to my own
thoughts and feelings, my shame lifted somewhat. I remembered my other reasons for not committing to Anton: his lack of complete faith in me and my qualms at the prospect of stripping Valko of
his
freedom.

I entered my antechamber and passed through its riches to the bare solace of my bedchamber. I pulled Tosya’s book of poetry out from beneath the mattress of the box bed and read several passages. When I still felt undecided about helping Anton, I knelt before the windowsill as if at the foot of an altar. Yuliya’s statue of Feya, goddess of Auraseers, looked down at me from the simple wooden planes of her face. I didn’t touch the blood spatter, I prayed with a devoutness that was foreign to me. I had been raised by the Romska to believe a common energy bound all souls together, not any deities. Still, I prayed. All I had known was energy—aura—and I needed something more to guide me now.

I tried to quiet my mind and prayed until the sun went down, but no answers reached my heart. I was still undecided.

Someone knocked on my outer door. The noise startled me to my feet. Lenka would come any time now, but she always entered without invitation. I crossed through my antechamber and paused in front of the door. Curiosity and anticipation tingled through my skin and brought a smile to my face. Only one person could make me feel happiness so easily. I pulled open the latch. “Hello, Pia.”

“Hello.” She gave a mischievous grin. In her arms, she
balanced a tray laden with bread, cheese, and a steaming bowl of soup garnished with spring herbs.

I arched a brow. This was more than her usual evening snack. “Did the kitchen staff not tell you we had dinner served in the council room?”

Her smile broadened and she giggled. “Who says this is for you?” She glided inside and set the tray on my tea table. “I’m always hungry when there’s something
salacious
going on.”

I shut the door. “What are you talking about?”

She sat and patted the spot to her right. I joined her, distrusting the sly giddiness dancing along my nerves. Her anticipation was more than what customarily preceded her usual snatches of gossip.

She dug into her apron pocket and procured a letter. The sealing wax was flat with no embossment. She waved it in front of me and waggled her eyebrows.

“Is it from Yuri?” I asked. I couldn’t think of what else would cause her to act like this.

Her smile revealed all her teeth. “It’s from Prince Anton.”

My heart lurched at his name. Then it fell. “He wrote to you?”

“No, you oaf!” She smacked my arm with the letter. “He wrote to
you
, and he asked me to deliver his missive.”

My heart reared up, pounding so hard it sent a rush of blood to my cheeks. “Oh.”
Why?
Why would Anton send me a letter when he could simply knock on the door to the tapestry
room in an hour? I took the folded parchment and held it in my lap, my finger idly bending one corner.

Pia waited all of three seconds, then exhaled with impatience. “Oh, read it now!” She bounced in her seat.

“Did he say what it contained?”

“No,” she admitted. “But, it’s the
prince
. Sonya, he wrote you a
secret
message! Don’t you think that’s romantic?”

Before last night, her question would have triggered an eye roll. But now her rosy vision of Anton and me was one I hoped for, too. What would Pia think if she knew the prince had seen me more times than I’d like to count in nothing but my nightdress? Unfortunately, the truth would disappoint her. Anton would never act on his feelings for me, nor would he ever trust in my feelings for him.

“I’m sure this letter has nothing to do with romance, Pia.”

“Prove it to me.” She grabbed my wrist. “
Please?
Nothing exciting has happened all day.”

“Wasn’t last week’s ball enough excitement to tide you over?” I asked. She’d told me how Yuri had given her quite the passionate kiss after their stolen dance together. I couldn’t help but wonder if it finally outmatched the one Valko gave her months ago.

“Yes, well, now Yuri is gone for a fortnight on some recruitment errand for the emperor.”