Savedra’s hands ached, clenched white-knuckled in her skirts.
“I would never accuse you….”
“It’s true, though. It isn’t yours. I’m sorry.” She squared her shoulders, a soldier facing discipline. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I won’t dishonor the oaths I swore any further by lying. I know the odds are poor that I’ll keep it
any longer than the others, but I thought you should know. If you wish to begin divorce proceedings—”
“Slow down, please. You’re making my head spin.” He set his goblet aside. “Most state marriages last at least five years before public scandal and divorce. But if you’re that unhappy….” All of them flinched at the hurt in those last words. More than injured pride, and Savedra’s chest ached; he loved Ashlin after all, or something close. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me whose it is? As long as it’s not my father, I think I could stand to hear anything.”
That drew an outraged laugh, but Ashlin sobered quickly. “I’m sorry, but it’s not my place to say.”
“No,” Savedra said slowly, pushing herself off her knees. “But it is mine.”
They both startled. Nikos’s goblet teetered on the sideboard and fell, spraying wine across the carpet with a metallic thunk; Ashlin groped at her belt for an absent blade. She flushed as Savedra stepped out of the shadows. “Vedra—”
“My place,” she went on, cutting her off. “My place, and my child.”
Nikos blinked, and his jaw slackened in confusion. It tightened again with the realization that followed. “You can’t mean—”
“Yes. I’m the—” Her voice broke. “The father. Forgive me. No, forgive Ashlin. I understand mine is the worse betrayal.”
Nikos lurched away from the wall and Savedra tensed for shouting, for rage, even for a blow. But he turned back to the sideboard to fetch a new goblet and pour more wine. His hand shook and garnet-red drops splashed the table.
“It was my fault,” Ashlin said. “I pressed the matter, abused my position and Savedra’s trust.”
“Please.” He laughed bitterly and raised his cup. His throat worked as he swallowed. “You said no lies. I know you too well for that.”
“I’m no ravished maiden,” Savedra said, her voice so dry she hardly recognized it. “Let’s place no blame beyond what we’ve earned.”
“Vedra—” His eyes were dangerously liquid. Her composure would shatter if his did. “Is it over, then? Between us?”
She started forward, stopped short as if held by a leash. Her cheeks tingled; her hands shook. “I love you. I love you as I always have. I would never leave you willingly, but what I’ve done—” She forced the words past her tightening throat. “It’s treason.”
“You love me.” No mockery, no doubt. “Do you love Ashlin, too?”
She saw the princess tense as if for a blow. No assassin could ever wound them all so gracefully. “Yes.”
“Well, then.” He drained the rest of his cup. “Doubtless my father could be decisive about something like this, but I don’t think I can. I need time, and more wine. I trust neither of you have spoken of this to anyone else? Good,” he said when they both nodded. “Then please don’t. I—Excuse me.” With that, he left, easing the door shut behind him so it didn’t make a sound.
Ashlin and Savedra stared at each other.
“When did you know?” Savedra managed at last.
“I’ve worried since we got back from Evharis. The timing was right for a child to catch—which I should have thought of then, but I was too drunk and stupid. And then this morning my breasts began to ache, and I knew.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I looked for you this morning. I thought of waiting, but that would only have put the burden on you, and been a coward’s choice. I’m sorry, Vedra. It seems that all we can do is hurt one another.”
She turned back to her rooms and shut the door behind her.
Savedra stood for a moment, stunned and sick, before she remembered the reason she’d needed to talk to Nikos in the first place. With a curse she ran after Ashlin, catching her before she reached the door of her suite.
“Wait! Saints, Ashlin, your timing is impossible.” She couldn’t look the princess in the eye, but she forced out an explanation of Phaedra and Isyllt’s suspicions.
“Blood and iron,” Ashlin swore. “No, we can’t let him wander off to drink himself stupid now. Where would he go?”
They searched the library, the stables, and the wine cellar with no luck, and Savedra silently cursed the cold and empty halls. Whenever she and Nikos tried to find a moment alone, the palace was crawling with servants, and now it was desolate.
An hour passed before they found a groundskeeper who pointed them toward the palace temple. The memory of the black crypts and the queen’s empty coffin sped Savedra’s stride, till Ashlin had to jog to keep pace.
His guards waited inside the temple, but directed Ashlin down to the crypt. “His Highness ordered us to leave him,” the unhappy sergeant said. And, more reluctantly, “He’s been drinking.”
Ashlin’s smile didn’t fool anyone. “I think I can carry him if he’s too drunk to walk. Stay here.
“I hate these places,” the princess muttered as they descended the stairs. The lantern swayed in her hand, and their shadows capered back and forth. “The dead should be burned and given to the sky, not locked up in vaults like preserves. And you call my people heathens.”
After several twists and curves, they saw a glimmer of light ahead. Nikos had set his lantern on the ground outside the Alexios crypt; its glow cast his face in shadow where he sat beside his mother’s sarcophagus, legs sprawled in front of him and a bottle of wine in his hand.
“I probably shouldn’t be found here,” he said, tilting the bottle. “I’d be called morbid and unstable in no time.”
Savedra’s hands clenched in her skirt. “Nikos—”
He waved the bottle in a silencing motion; wine sloshed black against the glass. “Wait. Listen.” He caught the edge of the coffin and pulled himself up; Savedra winced, remembering the scrape of stone as it opened. He took another long pull and set the bottle down.
“Vedra, I love you. I wouldn’t give you up for propriety, or my father, or even a political marriage. I don’t ever want to give you up.”
A painful knot lodged in her throat—before she could swallow it he went on.
“Ashlin. I know this marriage isn’t what either of us wanted, but I find myself not half as miserable as I expected. You’re clever and strong and competent and only a termagant every other decad or so. I
like
you, and the alliance is a good one. I can’t think of any daughter of the Eight that I’d rather be saddled with. You could have forced me to set Savedra aside, and you didn’t. And—and so it seems heartless and hypocritical for me to force you
to set her aside.” He fumbled for the bottle again, and Savedra was too stunned to speak.
Ashlin wasn’t. “Do you mean—”
“I mean I don’t want to lose either of you. If… if you bear the child, I’ll accept it. I would gladly have a child with Savedra—this is the closest I’ll ever come. And—” He looked away, throat working as he swallowed. “And if you don’t, we’re no worse off than before.
“I just—” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I just don’t want to end up alone and miserable like Father.”
Savedra’s paralysis broke. She crossed the room in swift strides and took him into her arms. He sobbed once and pressed his face into her neck.
“I won’t leave you,” she murmured, fingers tangling in his hair. “Not ever.” It wasn’t something she’d ever promised before—it was the sort of vow fate took too much joy in breaking. She turned and stretched a hand to Ashlin. “And I don’t want you to leave, either. Stay with us.”
“This is madness,” Ashlin said, staring at them. Then her hand rose to clasp Savedra’s. “We’ll kill one another in months.”
They stood that way for a long moment, precariously balanced until Nikos laughed breathlessly and pulled away. “Then I won’t have to worry about what will happen if Father finds out. But we should go up, or the guards will think we’re already murdering one another.” He squeezed Savedra’s free hand and knelt to retrieve the wine bottle.
“We have to talk,” Savedra said. “Isyllt and I have learned something.”
“Not here,” he said as they left the crypt. “I’ve exhausted my morbidness for the day. And what happened to the
lock?” he added as the heavy door swung shut behind them.
“This is important—”
Savedra knew they weren’t alone a heartbeat before a ghastly white shape flitted out of the darkness. Taloned hands closed on Nikos, tugging him down the corridor. He yelped and the bottle shattered on the floor.
Ashlin’s lantern shattered an instant later as the princess lunged after him. The air reeked of wine and smoke and olive oil, and a strange inhuman musk. Savedra snatched up the second lamp and followed, terrible visions flashing through her mind.
Nikos and his assailant had vanished when they reached the next turn, with no trace to show which way they’d gone. The tunnel was silent save for the harsh echoes of their breath, and the voiceless laughter of the fates.
S
avedra had dreamt of death, or plague, of ridiculous arguments and of Nikos abandoning her for the unlikeliest members of the court. But never in the worst of her nightmares had she imagined she would have to go before Mathiros and tell him his son had been kidnapped.
The king was closeted with his advisors when they burst into his study, the mood in the room already heavy. Savedra breathed a silent blessing when Ashlin stepped forward to speak. The princess delivered the account like a reporting soldier, leaving out only their conversation before the demon struck. She would have searched the black tunnels herself, but Savedra had insisted they not do so alone.
Adrastos paled at the news. Captain Kurgoth, still wan from his encounter with Phaedra, swore under his breath. Mathiros’s hand tightened on the arm of his chair, but his expression didn’t change. He looked worse than Savedra had seen him since the queen’s death—ashen and sunken-cheeked, eyes dark with lack of sleep.
She ought to speak, tell him all she knew. It was treason not to, and her secrets and slowness had led Nikos into danger. Or worse.
No
, she told herself fiercely, digging her nails into her palms. Not worse. Never that. Then Ashlin stopped speaking and Mathiros began, and her moment’s resolve was lost.
“Mikhael, take men and search the tunnels,” the king ordered immediately. “Adras,” Mathiros continued when the captain saluted and strode from the room. “Bring me Kiril. No excuses, no delays—find him and bring him here.”
The chancellor nodded, but the crepey flesh of his throat worked as he swallowed. “As you wish, Majesty.”
“Sire,” Ashlin said when they were alone, “what can I do? My sword is yours.”
Mathiros tried to smile and managed a grimace. “I’m glad my son has you. But now I—and Nikos—need you safe. Stay inside. When I have some news I’ll let you know.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Ashlin couldn’t hide her annoyance at the dismissal, but Mathiros gave no sign of noticing, only stared into the distance. He hadn’t looked at Savedra since they first entered the room. It would have angered her, but at the moment she didn’t want that black gaze trained on her. When he didn’t speak again the princess gave a shallow bow and turned on her heel.
Ashlin snarled as soon as the door closed behind them. “I’ll be damned if I’ll pace my cage and wait for news. We have to
do
something, Vedra. But what, against demons and sorcery?”
“We’ll find him,” Savedra said, and almost laughed. She’d never thought she would have to reassure the princess
when it came to Nikos. “And against sorcery we need a sorceress.”
Isyllt returned home to find a coach waiting outside her door and an unhappy soldier shivering beside it. Dusk was too close to be out on a dead day.
“Lady Iskaldur?” The soldier’s Celanoran accent made her name into something musical. “The princess sent me to fetch you to the palace. Will you go?”
His voice was mild, polite, but his posture spoke of trouble and haste, perhaps worse than what they might find being out of doors at nightfall. “Of course,” she said, saving her questions, and let him help her into the carriage.
“The princess sends for me?” she asked when they were underway. Purpose and motion were a ward against little spirits—misdirection was their most powerful weapon, luring travelers away from safe paths, tricking them into stopping. If they were set upon by a demon, they would need more protection than the walls of a carriage.
“The princess commands me,” the soldier said, pulling his scarf aside to bare a lean, chill-reddened face. “But in fact I believe it’s the pallakis Savedra who sends for you. I came because we heathens don’t have a healthy fear of your dead days.” He grinned, baring a chipped eyetooth. Isyllt smiled back, though the expression felt clumsy and stiff. “Although,” the man said, cocking his head, “I don’t like the sound of the wind.”
“You shouldn’t. However much superstition surrounds these days by now, the dangers at night are real. Most of the spirits you’ll see tonight are harmless, wildling things and tricksters, but they’re still hungry, and enough of them together may try more than tricks.”
He touched a charm nestled in the hollow of his throat—a bead painted with a red eye. The sign of Andraste, Celanor’s warrior goddess, if Isyllt remembered their legends aright. Saint Andraste, the politic would call her now—only years ago the Celanorans were spirit-worshiping heretics.