Burning Glass (32 page)

My gaze fixed upon the pattern of an embroidered pillow until it seared spots into my vision. My ears rang with the
silence of the room. The emperor wasn’t looking at me. Why? He always looked at me.

Pia.

The truth gutted me again.

Pia is dead.

A painful whimper tore from my throat. I choked it back with my stubbornness. I refused to accept Pia’s fate, refused to acknowledge the absence of her aura, the missing glow I felt when she was in the palace, that faint surge in my blood that was present when blood flowed through her veins. And yet how easy it was to believe Valko would have her killed.

A horrified breath purged from my chest. Another tumbled after it. They quickly escalated into dry sobs. Each heartbeat struck my rib cage like an iron mallet. I shook my head again and again, unable to contain my tormenting emotions. I was nothing but pain now, nothing but feeling.

“She was innocent,” I whispered, my tongue tasting of bile.

“She was
guilty
, Sonya.” Valko finally met my eyes. “After her arrest, we had her belongings searched.” He pointed to the volume of poetry in my hand. “That was found in
her
room, not Yuri’s.”

A wave of coldness flooded over me. The book slipped through my fingers and thudded to the ground. My hand flew to my mouth as a violent cramp of nausea made my shoulders rack.

This was
my
fault. I gave her that book.

Pia was dead because of me.

“You’ve made the worst of mistakes,” I said. Tremors of shock chased through my body. “Pia could barely read. I was . . . I was teaching her . . .” Past my wild panic and grief, I knew I had to protect myself from blame. For Dasha, for Tola. For Anton and his dream of liberating Riaznin. “Yuri must have left the book in her safekeeping, knowing she wouldn’t understand what it was.” I dug my hands through my hair as the horror of her death crashed over me again, a wave that wouldn’t recede. “How could you have done this, Valko?”

He reached for me as if to offer comfort, but I wrenched away in disgust. “Did you truly think your
kisses
and your
twisted affection
could make me forget her? She was my friend!” I shouted and held back none of my rage and sorrow. “She was nearly your lover!”

His eyes flew wide at my outburst. “She was a
maid
.”

“Do you hear yourself?” My eyes stung with bitter tears. “I am also your servant. Does my life mean so little to you?”

“Sonya.” He set his hand on my leg.

“Don’t touch me!” I stood abruptly. My shins knocked the edge of the low table, and I hissed out in pain. Valko reached for me again, but I jerked back and limped around the pillows of his receiving area.

“Sonya, calm down.” He rose to his feet. “You’re acting irrational.”

“Irrational?” I whirled on him. “Is it irrational to mourn a friend? Is it irrational to feel fury and agony?” My voice burned from shouting. “You’ve always wanted my abandoned emotions.
Now you have them. This is
me,
Valko!” I shouted. “I am every black feeling! I
cause
them! I cause every dark thing to happen!”

I caused Pia’s death.

Rage blinded me. Rage at Valko. At myself. Unable to contain it, I stumbled up the stairs to his lobby and raced for the door.

“Sonya!” Valko called.

I flung the door open and slammed it behind me. I sobbed and fled down the corridor. My hand groped the wall for support as my vision blurred and tilted. At last, I found Anton’s door—his outer door, not his covert, midnight-blue one. I pounded on it, making no effort to be quiet.

The prince answered. His brows peaked with surprise. I shouldered past him. “What are you doing?” he asked. “The guards can see you.”

“I don’t care.” I choked on my words.

He shut the door and observed me more carefully. “What is it? What has happened?”

My grief consumed me. I trembled with my fury.

“Sonya, talk to me.” Terror was written across Anton’s face. “What has he done to you?”

“He’s a monster! I hate him! Give me a knife, and I will kill him myself!”

“Shhh.” He extended a hand toward me.

“Don’t!” Anton’s touch would only heighten his aura within me, and I couldn’t endure anyone else’s emotions right now.

He pulled back. “All right.”

I yanked at my hair. A torrent of tears released from my eyes. “She’s dead because of me!”

“Who is dead?”

“Pia.” The word came out in a whimper. A beautiful name. Melodic and pure. Light as air, bright as morning.

“What?” The prince’s energy flashed cold. He paced in a circle around me and rubbed his hand across his face. “I learned she was imprisoned, but . . . Valko executed her so quickly?”

I nodded. “She was dragged like a dog through the people’s reception. I tried to defend her.” I wiped under my nose and cried harder. “Valko wouldn’t listen to me! He’s
capricious
and
willful
and
impossible
.” I slammed a fist on my chest. “I have no power over him!”

Anton swallowed and blinked hard. “That isn’t true.”

“Stop!” I held up my hands to ward his words away. “I don’t deserve your faith. I’ve done nothing to merit it.”

“Sonya, please. Just breathe.” He hovered around me, unsure how to bring me any comfort when I wouldn’t allow him to touch me.

I wept with abandon and crumpled to my knees. “I destroy everyone I love. I killed Yuliya, too. I only wanted to help the starving peasants.” My fingers shook near my mouth, as if trying to trap back my darkest confession, but Anton needed to see me for what I truly was. “They hated me. They would have stopped me. I locked them in because I hated them, too.”

The prince crouched beside me. “Whom did you lock in, Sonya?” he asked gently. “What are you talking about?”

“The Auraseers.” I sobbed and rocked back and forth. “And there were others. The sestras asleep in their beds. Basil—the old caretaker at the convent.
He
didn’t hate me. He was kind to all of us.”

Anton listened patiently, as if sensing I had more to tell. Revealing my dark past to Valko had been so much easier in comparison to sharing it now. How aptly that marked the difference between my feelings for both brothers. Losing the prince’s good opinion would surely break my heart.

I tried to capture Anton’s ardent expression of tenderness, because after I confided the rest of my story, he would never care for me again.

“I never helped the peasants.” I tugged the black ribbon around my wrist until my fingers went numb. “The wolves chased them away. Except for one man. He suffered from madness. I brought him inside the convent and . . .” I shook my head. “There was accident. I started a fire.” Shuddering a breath, I released the worst of my confession. “The convent burned because of me! The Auraseers were trapped inside their rooms. So many people died!” My shoulders curled into my chest with my weeping. I wanted to bury myself, to hide away from what I had done. “Yuliya was already ill. She died because she felt their suffering too keenly. I may as well have held her knife.”

The prince’s eyes were as pained as I felt. The ache in his aura rent at my heart. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

I shrugged as tears streamed down my face. “You made me
feel special—honorable.” I could scarcely speak past my sobbing. “It was a nice lie to believe.”

“It isn’t a lie.”

I gasped with disbelief. How did he maintain his faith in me—especially after everything I’d just told him? “Don’t you see?” My cries hardened with frustration. “I can never become anyone’s savior. I’m nothing but a curse! I brought death to my parents. I endangered the Romska. The sestras in the convent
feared
my unnatural ability, and they were right to. All I am is darkness!”

Anton shifted closer so I wouldn’t look away from him. “I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen carefully. You are
not
a curse.” His brows lifted in earnestness. “You are a
gift
,” he said softly. “You are
my
gift. A savior to me.”

I raised my gaze to him. Tears clung to my lashes.

His brown eyes were a well of sympathy, stronger than any Auraseer’s. “Let me hold you, Sonya.”

I tensed, and my throat constricted. How long had I accused him of withholding himself when I was just as guilty of doing the same? But now that he knew the truth of me, could I really believe he still held me in regard? Could I allow him to try?

I managed a small nod.

That was all the permission he needed.

Within a moment, Anton’s warm arms surrounded me. His chin tucked over my head. At once my chest expanded and made room for the breadth of his compassion. He held my sorrow in
his own, my suffering in his suffering. He held understanding.

“I’m sorry about your friend.” He smoothed back my hair. “I know she meant a great deal to you.” I sobbed into his chest. “I’m sorry you lost Yuliya, and your parents. I’m sorry for the tragedy at the convent, and that you never had a home, that you had to come here.”

He didn’t bolster me up with more talk of my ability—of seeing my duty through to the end and my commitment to the cause of freedom. He just let me be sad. And for that I felt overwhelming gratitude.

His hand steadily rubbed my back. “Shhh, shhh,” he murmured, and in his voice I didn’t hear an admonishment to be silent, but instead the rushing of mountain water, the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. He spoke comfort like a language I’d once learned as a child but had long since forgotten.

Gently scooting us across the floor, he guided me to the corner where his bed met the wall and opened his arms again. I crawled right back inside them. Pulling my hair over one shoulder, he coaxed me to turn around and lean against him. As he combed his fingers through my hair, he hummed a lullaby in a low and soothing voice. My sobs came softer as I listened to the haunting and peaceful melody. I rested my head on Anton’s shoulder and laced my fingers through his.

I cried for what seemed like hours, and when I realized I had stopped altogether, I felt ashamed and tried to muster up more tears. But it was useless. I was spent like a wrung rag. Despite the tragedy of the day, I didn’t wish for this moment
between us to break. Anton was my solace, our auras knitted so intricately together I couldn’t tell where mine began and his ended.

I tilted my head up to see his face. The shadowy rings were back beneath his eyes. This was the second night I’d deprived him of much-needed sleep.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

He stopped humming, and a grin touched his lips. He kissed the top of my head. With his voice thick and drowsy, he replied, “You’re welcome.”

I shifted around to take in all of him. His hands moved to settle on my waist. The candles burned low, but I still noticed the smoothness of his chin. My hands cupped his face, and my thumbs skimmed his jawline. “Let me guess, you heard the beard law is no longer in effect. So, naturally, you shaved.”

His eyes were half-lidded as he smiled. “You’ve found me out.”

“You’re an unabashed rebel, Prince Anton.”

“Truer words were never spoken.”

His haggard drowsiness and humored expression made him appear all the more devastatingly handsome to me. His aura never felt so relaxed and open and welcoming. I gently kissed him.

I kissed him.

I drew back and searched his face for his reaction. He looked as stunned as I was. “Sonya.” His voice was a soft warning. I heard what he meant:
I want this. I don’t want this.

His face still rested in my cupped hands. Heart pounding, I leaned closer. He smelled of pine and juniper and spring water. I breathed in all of him and savored every wondrous feeling in my aura. Very deliberately, very carefully, and with exceeding tenderness, I kissed him again.

His hands on my waist turned to stone, but as my mouth slowly explored his, his grip yielded and slid down to the curve of my hip. His mouth found rhythm with mine, and soon we matched cadence, two birds soaring on the same current of air.

He exhaled and pulled me closer. His hands traveled up the sides of my bodice and back around to weave through my hair. My heart opened. The stitches that bound my grief tore free. I’d wanted this for so long. Within him, I felt the same sweet sense of release. Our auras entwined in a beautiful dance and affirmed the rightness of our union. I parted my lips and tasted him deeper. He was the mist in an evergreen forest, the reeds sighing into a river. My fingers curled around the nape of his neck. His warmth radiated sunlight through my body.

That effortless feeling, like floating on water, heated to something just as wonderful, but more turbulent. Our kisses pressed harder. Our hands roamed faster. My chest tightened as my breath became difficult to find. Even when I drew back to inhale, the feeling didn’t abate. It intensified until I recognized it as a seizing of panic. Anton grabbed my arms and pushed me away.

“I can’t . . .” His face was flushed with a light sheen of perspiration. “We can’t do this.”

My head spun. Every nerve under my skin longed to stay connected to him. It took me a moment to understand the panic was
his.
“Why?”

He worked to steady his breathing. “It’s late . . . and you’ve had a horrible night. Now isn’t the time to . . .” He sighed, and his eyes drooped at the corners. “You’re broken right now, Sonya. I don’t want to press my advantage.”

“You’re not,” I said. He slid up straighter against the wall and put a small measure of distance between us. It felt like an insurmountable gash in the earth. “This isn’t you, Anton. You’re not forcing me to feel this way.
I
need you—especially now.
I
want us to be together.” Why couldn’t he feel what was inside me, what was my own? “I want
you,
” I said, and reached for his hand.

He pulled back and raked his fingers through his hair. “Please.” His voice was pained. My gaze drifted to his sleeve, fallen back to his elbow to reveal his lynx-shaped birthmark. I wished I could blot it out, retract the words of the Romska fortune-teller, find the little boy in the prince and tell him his mother still loved him, even though she had to let him go. I’d felt the dowager empress’s devotion in her very blood. Why couldn’t it erase all his heartache? Why couldn’t I?