Burning Glass (31 page)

“Bring forth the soldier,” Valko said. “You will have your reward.”

Behind Bartek’s oily grin, I felt his twinge of discomfort. “Yes . . . about that. Yuri is still at large.”

Valko’s brow furrowed. “You said this bounty regarded him.”

“It does. You see, I’ve captured
another
person—not a known fugitive, but I’m confident you will reward me, Your Imperial Majesty, once you learn she is just as treasonous as her lover.”

My face prickled as my blood drained away. “Whom do you mean?” I asked him. The aura of the nobles in the room blazed with censure at me, but I didn’t care that I’d spoken out of turn. My heart seized in my chest. Bartek couldn’t be implying what I thought.

He put two fingers to his mouth and released a shrill whistle. The nobles jerked back. Some covered their ears. Behind the long line of peasants, someone whimpered as she was roughly ushered inside. I tamped down my awareness, too afraid to let myself sense her aura just yet.

Feya, don’t let it be Pia.
Let Yuri be a scoundrel and have another lover. Only don’t let her be my friend.

Two brutish men, traveling companions of Bartek, dragged a young woman forward. Her head hung, her brown hair masking her eyes. Bartek yanked her up by the chin. Her hair parted around a heart-shaped face. My body turned to ice.

Pia.

A purpling bruise marred her left check. Fear overwhelmed her aura and made my hands tremble, my throat thicken. A tear slid down her cheek and stung my eyes.

“What have you done to her?” I gasped, rising to my feet.

When I made a move to descend the dais, Valko commanded, “Sit down, Sovereign Auraseer.”

I whirled on him. “But it’s
Pia.
You know her.” He had singled her out months ago and tried to seduce her. “She’s harmless, and she needs our help. That man”—I pointed at Bartek—“cannot be trusted!”

The bounty hunter’s braids swung as he let go of Pia. She collapsed and a small cry escaped her. “Rumor spread that this girl went missing this morning,” Bartek said coolly, as if he hadn’t heard me at all. “I caught her outside the city walls.” He grunted a laugh. “She didn’t even think to travel off the road.”

The emperor’s gaze swept over Pia without emotion as he spoke to Bartek. “You’re very bold to presume I’ll pay a bounty for someone I’ve never found guilty.”

Heart pounding, I moved closer to Valko’s side.
He is handling this well. He will see she is innocent.

“I did not
first
think her guilty,” Bartek admitted. “I sought this girl out as a means of tracking Yuri. She revealed nothing as to his whereabouts, but she did confess to aiding his friends in the palace. They used her room for secret meetings.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. This couldn’t be happening. Pia . . . accused of treason? And by a bounty hunter, of all people? I took in my friend’s skirt, bloody at the knee. The way she held her arm at a funny angle. No doubt Bartek used torture to glean his information.

Valko’s aura darkened another shade. His boredom transformed into something ugly. “Whom did she aid?” He positioned himself on the edge of his throne. Not knowing what else to do, I set my hand on the emperor’s arm below the shoulder and hoped to distract him with a calming touch. But he shrugged me away, his aura bristling with the sting of needlelike lances. “Did she give you any names?” he prompted Bartek again.

“She insists Yuri never told her.”

My shoulders sagged with relief. For one terrible moment I thought the bounty hunter might say
Anton
. Thank the gods Yuri never shared with Pia any more of his revolutionary scheming. I inhaled a deep breath and lifted my voice to the bounty hunter. “I do not see why this maid is guilty of anything. For all she knew, she was granting her room so Yuri’s friends could play a game of cards.”

Some of the nobles scoffed in disdain at me. Once again, I’d broken custom by speaking in the emperor’s place. I didn’t care—not about them or any foolish rules of etiquette. What
was happening to Pia was wrong. I couldn’t stand idly by.

“Sonya.” Valko’s voice held an edge of warning.

“This man is foul!” I replied defensively. “I know his methods, and he must be in desperate need of coin to stoop so low that he would torture a maid for false information.”

“Quiet!” Valko said past gritted teeth.

“But that maid is—”

“Quiet!”
His voice rang into the dome above us. Everyone fell silent—the murmur of the nobles, the rustle of weary peasants. They all startled at the man who held dominion over them, the man who should be holding dominion over
me
. “I forbid you to speak another word! You are my
Auraseer
. Your duty is to warn when
I
am in danger, not when someone else is!”

I recoiled and jerked my head away, then balled my hands. Awaiting Valko’s verdict, I turned pensive eyes on Pia. Her head was bowed, her cut-up mouth moving in a rapid, silent prayer. As her desperation compounded my own, I could no longer endure my inaction, despite Valko’s fury with me. I fell to my knees at his feet. “Please, My Lord, let her go. She has done nothing wrong.”

He looked down his nose at me. “Get up, Sonya,” he hissed. “If you were anyone else, I would have you publically lashed for your insubordination.”

“I don’t care if I suffer.” I took his hand and pressed a kiss to it, trying to do anything I could think of to reach his mercy. “Just believe that she is innocent.”

Roughly exhaling, Valko rolled back his shoulders and
cast his gaze to Pia. I tried to unearth any compassion buried beneath his apathy. What did he feel when he looked at her? Did he even remember they’d shared a secret kiss? Did he have any pity at all?

With my hands over his, I tried to use my ability to persuade him. I labored to place in him all the love I had for Pia, her sweetness and laughter, her bright smile and the heart she gave so freely.

His deliberation continued as he tapped a finger on his armrest. Each beat suspended in time.

One, two, three, four.

“Take her to the dungeons,” Valko commanded his attending guards.

I shut my eyes. His words fired like a cannon ball to my chest.

“No!” Pia wept harder.

I spun around, watching in horror as two guards apprehended her. Her bloodshot eyes rounded like a deer’s in the moment an arrow pierced its hide.

I revolved to the Valko. “Please! She is—”

He backhanded me.

I released a gasp of amazement and blinked in pain as I touched my smarting cheek. Had the emperor really struck me in public?

His nostrils flared as he fought to compose himself. Adjusting the sleeves of his kaftan, Valko addressed Bartek. “I will give you one hundred rubles. However, from this time forward,
you will let the law dictate whom you are permitted to seize into custody.”

The bounty hunter prostrated himself in a low bow, the picture of humility now that money was guaranteed him. “I thank you for your generosity, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“You are dismissed.”

Bartek bowed again and tossed me a smirk without bothering to glance at the broken girl he left in bonds. He sauntered out the way he came.

As the palace guards dragged Pia away, she whirled to give me one last pleading look.

My heart ached past endurance. I stumbled off the dais and rushed toward her.

A group of guards emerged in my path. I tried to push past them, but they formed an impenetrable barrier. Beyond their shoulders, I watched helplessly as my friend was taken from the room, her cries descending into sobs of despair.

O
NCE
V
ALKO DISMISSED ME,
I
RACED BACK TO MY
CHAMBERS
and hurried through the doors—red, lavender, evergreen, and midnight blue—but Anton wasn’t in his room. I couldn’t wait for him. Something had to be done. Hurrying back to my room, I hefted the box bed back into place on its casters just before Lenka entered my antechamber. Her aura still reeked of arrogance. She’d played a part in this. I knew it.

“Did you report Pia missing?” I asked before she had a chance to speak. She drew nearer and reached for the laces at the back of my dress. I shifted away. “Did you?”

She lengthened her wiry neck. “That girl is beneath you. I don’t understand why you concern yourself with her.”

“She is my
friend
.” Something Lenka most certainly was not. “And now she in the dungeons, thanks to you.”

My head maid’s lips pursed with a sunburst of wrinkles. “Pia had a simple duty to perform in the palace, but she grew
too self-important. She thought she could fritter away her time with you and come and go as she pleased. It’s time she learned her place. I merely told the guards she had gone without permission.” Lenka shrugged a bony shoulder. “It isn’t my fault she is facing the consequences of being a traitor.”

“She isn’t a traitor!” I pressed the heel of my hand to my temple, where a deep ache pounded through my skull. “It’s you who doesn’t know your place. Pia doesn’t answer to you. You had no business interfering!”

“
You
are my occupation,” Lenka retaliated. “Pia put you in danger. But I didn’t report you, did I?”

I studied her, the sly bending of her aura. “You knew I left last night.”

She clasped her hands in front of her apron. “Your note never reached the coals to burn.”

Everything came back to me. The way her eyes flickered to the furnace after I’d tossed Anton’s letter behind the grate. She’d never seen Pia give me the message, but she must have discerned her involvement when I later wore her clothes. That noise Anton and I heard in the kitchens had been Lenka.

I frowned at her. “Why did you protect me?”

“Because you are
Sovereign Auraseer
, blessed by the gods and born to serve the holy emperor. You are young, but you can be molded. You can be great like Izolda.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. “Do you think Izolda idealized this life?” Grabbing her arm, I ushered her back to the box bed. “Look inside. Those are the marks the
blessed
gift
left on her soul!”

Lenka didn’t peer within. She must have known what was there. “Izolda never complained of her lot. She understood the honor of sacrificing for a noble cause.”

I wanted to rattle my maid until some sense knocked into her brain. Pride was at the core of her. It always had been. “You think if I rise, you rise with me. If only you could see everyone on equal footing.”

“Such talk is revolutionary,” she spat, as if that word was enough to clap her in irons.

“It shouldn’t be.”

Her lips formed a hard line. She wouldn’t speak to me anymore—not about this. She reached once again for the laces on my dress, and once again I angled away. “I will not change into my nightgown,” I declared.

Lenka arched a brow. “Do you intend to sleep in this?”

“I intend to speak with the emperor.”
And I won’t cross his threshold unless I’m fully clothed.

She huffed a sardonic laugh. “You really think he will receive you?”

Oh, my poor, miserable maid.
She
was the simpleton. She claimed to see so much, but she missed everything. “He
will
receive me,” I said.

Despite how I’d publicly defied Valko today, I knew he would forgive me, just as he did after I lost him the Estengarde alliance. His forgiveness would permit me into his rooms, and there we would frankly speak of Pia without an audience to
amplify the emperor’s pride. I would save my friend. I had to.

Guards were stationed outside Valko’s door. He hadn’t sent them away because he hadn’t plotted my coming. For once, I initiated a meeting with him. The guards didn’t admit me, but neither did they turn me away. One of them, a man with long hair tied at the back of his neck, went inside to petition the emperor. I paced, not wanting to squander any time when I was sure he would let me in. He did.

Humid air greeted me. Steam rose from the bathing pool, but its warmth never reached my bones. Sprigs of rosemary and juniper needles floated on the surface and gave off a heady aroma. Valko sat on a mound of velvet cushions, wearing nothing more than a silk robe, no trousers or nightshirt beneath. His wet hair lay in dark waves, and droplets of water clung to his chest where his robe parted in a V. I recollected how I’d also barged in on Anton when he was fresh from his bath, but how I felt in this moment could not compare to then. Anger scraped me like a hot knife. Valko had wrongly imprisoned my friend. He might have prevented me from helping her in the great hall, but he would not prevent me now.

“I wish to discuss Pia Lisova,” I began, and descended the steps into the receiving area. I forced myself to curtsy.

The emperor’s eyes roamed over my dress as he evaluated my first line of defense against him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. His gaze lingered at the swell of my breasts and hips, and dark desire flowered in his aura. My brows hitched together.
His altered mood deeply disconcerted me. Wasn’t he upset at all? Did he remember he’d hit me, or was that sort of violence commonplace to him now? Did it go hand in hand with his passion?

In Valko’s lap was an open book. He snapped it shut. I drew in my breath, my heart racing when I saw its pale-blue binding. Was he the one who had taken it from my bedroom?

“This is what’s causing all the upheaval in my empire,” he said, ignoring my request as he held up the volume.

I couldn’t tear my gaze away from it. Would I be sent to the dungeons now, too?

“This is what I have to contend with,” he added, “the words of a
poet
—and a common one at that. A mere gypsy!” He sighed and rubbed his face. “Floquart was right about their breed.”

My jaw locked as I bit down on a defensive remark. Now wasn’t the time to persuade him to see the Romska in a kinder light, not when I might also be accused of treason and must plead for my friend who’d been accused of the same.

I waited for his condemning words, but when Valko didn’t say more about the book, I released a trembling breath and tried to push my anxiety aside. “I don’t know if you’re aware, My Lord,” I continued to implore him, “but Pia is my serving maid. I’m well acquainted with her, and I can assure you she has no sinister motives against you. Her aura is as sweet and innocent as a child’s.”

Valko tilted his head at me. There was something he was concealing. It snaked fog around the edges of my mind. “Come,
Sonya.” He patted a cushion beside him.

I twisted my fingers together, but did as he commanded. I needed to appear humble if I wanted his mercy.

“I understand your frustration,” he said. “You’re angry with me for admonishing you in public.”

“That it isn’t why I came here.”

He lifted his brows like he didn’t believe me. “I’m sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression.” He took my hand and brought my knuckles to his lips. His aura teased me with a chill of pleasure. I smothered it. He wouldn’t get far with his game of seduction. He brought my hand down and rested it against his thigh. “Perhaps my indulgence in you has given you the idea that you can be my mouthpiece.” He grinned gently, like he was explaining something to a little girl. “Even my wedded empress would not have that privilege, dear Sonya. My affection for you doesn’t change the order of our relationship. At court, you are my guardian, nothing more. But here . . .” His hand swept the hair from my face. “Here I welcome your boldness.” He leaned in closer to my mouth.

I froze with revulsion. I would never let him kiss me again. But as his currant-tea breath drifted nearer, and the tease of his aura nudged mine, another tactic presented itself. If I gave him what he wanted, would he soften and relent to my plea? Then again, if I truly had the ability to curb the emperor’s emotions, I didn’t need to surrender to his advances. I needed to test my skill. My friend’s life might depend on it.

“Wait.” I pulled back and stalled him with what I hoped was
a demure smile. “Not yet.”
Not ever
, I silently promised myself.

“You’re not still angry with me, are you?” His thumb brushed the center of my lower lip.

I wanted to laugh. My friend in chains? My neck sore with whiplash from being struck in the face? “I’m not angry,” I replied, and knew he had no gift to feel my deception. With my own, I clawed deeper into his aura and sought his puppet strings. All I felt was his voracious yearning. My head grew dizzy as I fought to resist him. “But I do wish to talk with you.”

The night of the ball I’d manipulated his emotions by first letting them swallow me whole. But if I did that now, I might lose myself to his lust. I needed to distract him first and find a safer pathway to his aura.

He groaned softly at my hesitancy, but maintained a smile for the gratification I’d hinted was to come. “Then talk to me.” His fingers traced the neckline of my dress. “Quickly.”

Grasping at straws, I picked up Tosya’s volume of poetry. It might serve as a convenient way to stoke his feelings in a different direction. “Tell me more about this.” By Valko’s actions thus far and his amorous mood, I felt safe in assuming he hadn’t found me guilty of possessing the book. I didn’t even know if this was my copy.

At the sight of it, the emperor’s mouth contorted like he’d tasted something sour. “It’s nothing more than the ramblings of a madman in verse. Sheer blasphemy. I can’t understand why anyone heeds it.” A flint strike of anger lit inside him. Good. I was familiar with anger. I clung to it. My hands shook with his
flickering rage. I compounded it. I thought of Pia bruised and weeping behind the bars of a cell.

“But I take it people
are
giving it heed,” I replied. My trembling fingernail slid into the groove of the title’s embossed lettering. “Or else you would not be so upset.” Deeper and deeper I burrowed into his aura in desperate search for the means to overpower him.

Valko eyed me with a chuckle. “Am I so easy for you to read?”

I made myself smile back at him. “Sometimes.”

He shifted nearer. “What I would give to see you so transparently.”

His double meaning didn’t escape me. A rush of his heated desire swept through my body. Just as I wavered with it, my muscles clenched in resistance. But should I fight his unwarranted lust? I needed to harmonize myself with his feelings. As his aura curled with longing, my heart tripped over itself. I redoubled my efforts to bring him back to his anger—an emotion I wouldn’t struggle to push away.

“Is this Yuri’s copy of the book?” I asked, and examined it closer. “Was it found in his room? Perhaps that’s how suspicion was raised about him working with that poet, Tosya Pashkov.”

Now that I’d baited Valko again, I combed through his aura for another spark of resentment. I found it when a dull pain in my jaw surfaced, as if I’d spent the night grinding my teeth. I bit down hard, and the pain intensified.
Stay angry
, I silently commanded him. If he did, I might find the synthesis between
us and use it to bend his will to free Pia.

“I don’t need to worry anymore about that soldier.” Valko took a long breath of overconfidence.

Alarm coursed through me. His emotions were already shifting. I quickly inhaled his sudden pride and fought to trap it in my chest.

“He will come to me,” the emperor declared.

“Oh?” I worked to understand him, but panic gripped me. I felt closer to finding a deep connection with him, but it kept faltering, like I was trying to light a match in the wind. I had to work harder. I couldn’t lose ground now. I focused on my fierce desire to rescue Pia and frantically tried to produce thoughts that might give me empathy for Valko.

How intolerable it must be to know a guard who had been trusted and privileged to attend him—the grand ruler of all Riaznin—and even bunk right beside his room, had also betrayed him in order to follow after a lowly poet. An example should be made of Yuri in front of the common people before their insufferable ideas of entitlement got out of hand.

“Why will Yuri come to you?” I asked and tried to weed inside myself for an opening to grant Valko full purchase of me. I needed to manifest the nearly impossible feat of perfect understanding with him in order to grasp my hidden power of curbing his emotions.

He stroked the shell of my ear. “You have much to learn about men, Sonya. We like to be gallant. It’s hard to watch a lady in distress. And gallantry turns swiftly to vengeance.” He
nuzzled closer. “Vengeance is a powerful tool—powerful and dangerous. But I needn’t fear, for I have you. When Yuri returns, you will warn me.”

I wasn’t sure I was following. “You think he will attempt to rescue Pia?” I strove to tamp down my hope and stay aligned with my forced empathy.

“Not rescue. Yuri will come back for revenge.”

Everything around me seemed to slow. The flicker of the candles. The rustling curtains at the windows. I shrank back. My heart pounded. All my efforts for persuading the emperor scattered like ashes. “Valko, what have you done?”

He broadened his shoulders. “Nothing any monarch would blink an eye at. I’ve simply executed a person guilty of treason.”

I stared at him. His words cut off all my sensation. I had no lungs to breathe, no pulse at my throat, no blood pumping past my absent heart. The world itself stopped moving, stopped revolving, stopped existing. There was nothing but an inconceivable truth. “Pia is dead?”

Valko was unable to hold my gaze. “Yes.”

“But . . . that isn’t possible. I saw her today. She . . . she was only just imprisoned and . . .” I couldn’t think clearly. An avalanche of thoughts crowded my mind, but only left me in a stupor. How could Pia be gone? Had I really said the word
dead
aloud? That couldn’t be right. I hadn’t had time to free her. I was going to. I’d been trying. I . . .