Burning Glass (34 page)

T
HE DAY PASSED WITH MADDENING SLOWNESS.
M
Y
NEW
serving maid showed up before Lenka did. She seemed kind and able enough, but my chest felt hollow, my body cold, as I compared her to Pia. Her freckled skin to Pia’s golden olive. Her thin frame where Pia was voluptuous. Her lack of a ready smile. She left with a curtsy, and I picked at the supper tray she’d brought, but found everything tasteless. Lenka arrived shortly afterward. She must have been informed of my magical reappearance.

I didn’t answer her inquiries about where I’d been last night. After my refusal, we didn’t mince words. I instructed her to make me presentable to the emperor, and she performed the task with signature skill and dressed me in a pale-silver gown.

I learned the emperor was in a long meeting with his councilors. I would have spent the day with them if he’d known I’d returned.

I descended a twirling staircase and made my way to the council chamber. The sapphire burned like ice against my throat where the necklace encircled it like a collar. I wasn’t eager to see the emperor’s gratified expression when he saw me wearing it.

As I reached the second level, I halted and clenched the banister as panic gripped my aura. At the same moment, Anton entered the palace through the grand lobby below. He looked up. His chest expanded when he saw me, but his anxiety still had me on edge. Servants milled about him and attended to their chores. He tipped his head to the left, a subtle motion, but I understood.

His dusk-blue cape flapped behind him as he strode down the corridor toward the great hall. Composing myself, I descended another flight of stairs and caught his trail. I tried to keep my pace casual while also moving fast enough so I wouldn’t lose sight of his broad shoulders. Anton paused up ahead to remove his gloves and cast his gaze about for any onlookers. A moment later, he slipped in through the doors of the ballroom.

My heart pounded faster. Anton’s dread roiled in my gut. I quickened my step, and with a glance over my shoulder, I entered after him and shut the doors. “Did you meet with your men?” I asked. “What has happened? Your aura is making me ill.” I pressed a hand to my nauseated stomach.

Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. Only a weak glow of sunlight rimmed their edges. It was enough for me to see the fuzzy contours of the room—empty of furniture, the
great chandeliers wrapped in cloth to keep away the dust, the throne on the dais abandoned, everything a haunting echo of its grandeur on Morva’s Eve.

Anton pulled me flush to the wall with the double doors so we weren’t in plain sight should someone enter. His gaze fell briefly to my sapphire necklace. I touched it self-consciously. It felt like iron fetters clamped around my throat. He shook his head, paced back a moment, then cursed, throwing his gloves on the floor. My hand moved to undo the clasp, when I froze at his outburst. “Feliks is a bloodthirsty fool! He’ll ruin everything we’ve worked for.”

I let go of the necklace and pictured the man I’d seen only twice. I’d always felt unsettled by him, but I’d attributed it to his shockingly blue eyes or his mysterious involvement with the prince—the letter about Morva’s Eve that Anton had discreetly given him, or the way Feliks had exited the ballroom first when the bell tolled twelve times. “What has he done?”

Beside us, one of the doors opened. I gasped and receded against the wall.

“Hello?” a man asked quietly. In the dim light, I made out his generous mop of hair.

“Behind you, Nicolai,” Anton said.

The man whirled around. He was, indeed, Count Rostav. He turned a distrusting gaze on me. “What is she doing here?”

“Sonya is a part of this now. You know that.”

“The emperor is looking for her.” Nicolai rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. “By now he must also be eager for
my return. I had to leave a
council meeting
to come here,” he added, making it sound like the ultimate cause for offense. “I drummed up some excuse about urgent business.” He laughed weakly. “I’m sure the emperor wondered what could be more important than convening with him.”

Anton frowned. “Why did he request you a second time in council?”

“His damned insistence that I lend my expertise in plotting the Shengli invasion.” Nicolai threw up his hands. “I don’t know the first thing about battle strategy! My father was the soldier, not I.” As he talked faster, my nerves jangled and a strange sense of foreboding scuttled up my spine. “It leads me to wonder if the emperor is keeping me close because he’s suspicious.”

“Valko is suspicious of everyone.” Anton shrugged, as if that were the least of our concerns. “Why not use his reliance on you to our advantage? If the revolt fails, you have a better chance than his councilors or I do to persuade him to postpone his attack. That will buy us more time should we need to regroup.”

Nicolai laughed again, this time with despair. “Persuade him? How can he be persuaded in anything?”

There I could sympathize with him.

“You’re speaking as if we’re doomed to fail,” Nicolai went on. “Are we?” When the prince didn’t answer fast enough, the count raked a hand through his hair and cast his gaze about the room. “Why are we meeting
here
—under the emperor’s very nose, of all places?” He sighed. “Please tell me this is necessary.”

“I wouldn’t endanger you otherwise,” Anton said. “You will
need to call up your courage, Nicolai. Our situation has become dire.”

“
Become
dire? Isn’t it already? Tosya in prison and Yuri with a bounty on his head. I’m next, I know I am.”

Anton’s jaw contracted. His patience was unraveling. Between his irritation and Nicolai’s escalating panic, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. “We are
all
in danger,” I snapped. “We all have something to lose.”

The count scoffed at me. “You are an Auraseer of the empire—and, I’m told, an orphan. You have nothing to lose but your own life.”

I recoiled at his words. He didn’t know anything about me. I’d already lost Pia. I was responsible for the fates of Dasha and Tola. And Anton . . . My throat tightened at the thought of what losing him might do to me.

“Take a care with your tongue!” Anton lashed out at Nicolai. My knees buckled at his outburst. “This isn’t a twisted contest of martyrs.”

“I have a
wife
and a
child
!” the count retaliated. His flood of emotions made my nose sting.

My mind flashed back to the cottage where the prince and I had stopped on our journey to Torchev. Past the cottage door, I’d seen two pairs of hands. One, amethyst-ringed, belonged to Nicolai, who’d passed Anton the letter. The other was smaller, a woman’s, and weathered from work. I’d known then the two of them didn’t belong to the same class. Had that woman been Nicolai’s wife?

“Our marriage is secret,” the count said, his eyes turning to me, as if he wished me to understand why he felt so desperate. “We live apart. My family . . . the nobles . . . they would never accept her. I thought this revolution would bring me a chance at that—at helping everyone see one another in a similar regard.”

Thought
, I caught him say.
Thought.
As in the past. As in he no longer believed it.

I contemplated him, his fine clothes, perfectly groomed mustache, and the amethyst ring—perhaps a family heirloom. No doubt he had a good heart: he’d married for love, joined the revolution, played a role in trying to sway other nobles to the notion of equality. But how much of Nicolai’s good heart was really in it? I hadn’t forgotten how eager he was at the prospect of dancing with me at the ball—strange for a devoutly married man. And he didn’t attempt to back Anton at their last council meeting. I feared how long he would be able to lend his support at all.

Despite everything he’d said, I suspected the root of his fear was cowardice, his unwillingness to risk his own life above his consideration for anyone else’s.

“I’m sorry for your difficult circumstances,” I replied. “The good aspect of your secret marriage, however, is that if you
are
compromised, your wife and child won’t be endangered by association. My friend, Pia, didn’t have that same luxury.” I managed a thin smile. As an Auraseer, I often had no trouble finding empathy for another. Perhaps I was becoming heartless because I could find none for Nicolai. “So, you see, you and I are equal,
after all. Our own lives are what we fundamentally risk.”

He blinked at me. His shame made my insides clench.

“Now”—I faced Anton—“I believe we are ready to hear why you have summoned us.”

The prince gave me a look of gratitude. His energy was still deeply troubled, but I felt him holding himself together to show a brave face for Nicolai, and perhaps even me. With a steadying breath, he said, “Feliks no longer supports me in a peaceable revolution. He was with Tosya at his arrest. Since then, Feliks has rallied his web of followers to spread word that the ‘Voice of Freedom’ is to be silenced by execution—and at the emperor’s hands.”

“But there will be a trial,” I interjected. “Did you tell him that?”

“He doesn’t care about a trial. I don’t believe he even cares if Tosya dies. The people will have no reserve in taking up arms against my brother after an execution.” Anton shook his head. “I didn’t realize how perilous things had become. I enlisted Feliks to spread Tosya’s
philosophy
, but he has done more—he has stoked the people’s desperation into
hate
. They are coiled now, their forces gathered and ready to strike. All they needed was a catalyst. The lowered draft age didn’t help, but Tosya’s imprisonment—that was the fatal blow.”

Nicolai’s aura lost all its color. It leeched me of my spirit and left only the pale ash of dread. “Speak plainly, Anton,” the count said. “What does this mean for us?”
For me
, he might have asked. “What is happening?”

Anton’s broad shoulders expanded, as if fortifying himself against the weight of every soul in Riaznin. “The revolution has gone public. They are coming.”

“The
people
are coming?” Nicolai gasped. “They will march on the palace?”

“Tomorrow at noonday,” the prince added grimly.

Nicolai laughed, though it didn’t bring a smile to his face. “They’ll never stand a chance!” He templed his fingers at the bridge of his nose, then dragged them across his face. “The emperor has a
walled fortress
here, countless guards with firearms. It will be slaughter! We will surely be compromised.”

“Nicolai, I need you now. Do not falter.” Anton gripped his friend’s arms. “What is done cannot be undone. We must hold together. . . .”

The prince’s words seemed to fade until I was deaf to them. The only sound was the thundering of my heart. I envisioned the mob of peasants at the convent’s gates—the mob I’d become one with in their single-minded fury. Surely the revolutionaries approaching tomorrow would be far more numerous, far more impassioned. How would I restrain myself from doing something violent along with them?

A warm hand touched my back. “Are you all right, Sonya?” Anton murmured.

I sharply inhaled as I fought to collect myself and scatter the waking nightmare from my mind. “Yes.”

His hand slid up to my shoulder and squeezed it before he turned to Nicolai. “How many nobles will stand with us?”

The count gasped with amazement. “
You
intend to fight with them?”

I whirled on Anton, my eyes rounded, my dread giving way to surprise.
Would
he fight? I didn’t believe it possible.

“We still have hope of preventing bloodshed,” the prince replied. “If Valko abdicates, no lives will be lost.” His gaze riveted to mine, and I swallowed, knowing what he saw in me.
I
was the hope he spoke of, the last means of attaining his dream for freedom
and
peace.

The count watched us, but I didn’t sense Anton’s faith spread to him. Nicolai only reflected my own lack of confidence. There could be no drawn-out persuasion with the emperor now. I had one day to make Valko see that the fate of the people was better entrusted in their own hands, when they were anything but trustworthy right now. And I had to do it before they marched here and made my task even more impossible.

“If everything goes as planned,” Anton continued, “the emperor will call off the battle and give the government to the people. But I want
all
people represented. I need to know how many nobles are on our side. We can’t risk a civil war.”

“There aren’t many.” Nicolai gave a shrug of apology. “There hasn’t been enough time to convince them—and this wasn’t what I promised. They agreed to stand in support of
some
rights for the peasants and serfs, not to be stripped of their own lands and titles, which will surely happen if the people take the government so quickly. It will be
chaos
, Anton. There has to be a better way. If this is what we have to offer
the nobility, I’m afraid you will be standing alone.”

The prince crossed his arms and gave the count a long look. “And what about you, Nicolai. Will you stand by me if no one else does?”

The amethyst on the count’s finger trembled. “I . . . of course I will.”

Anton’s eyes narrowed. He moved forward, closing in on his friend. “No matter what happens, no harm is to come to Sonya, do you understand?”

The prince’s foreboding stabbed my chest. What did he mean? How could Nicolai harm me?

Coming nose to nose with the count, Anton said, “At all costs, she must remain uncompromised. If not, you will find my retribution swift. I am not above violence if the cause is truly justified.” An image surged through my mind: Anton holding a dagger, ready to strike Valko when he threatened me on the night of the ball. “I have many allies who would be eager to assist me,” he added. “Am I clear?”

I didn’t know if Anton was bluffing about his many allies, but Nicolai shifted back a step. His ring quivered harder as if he was sick with the palsy. “Yes.”

“Then we should return to the council meeting, though we mustn’t draw suspicion by doing so together. Nicolai, you enter first. Sonya, you join him a few minutes. When I feel it is safe to arrive, I will come last.”