Burning Glass (Burning Glass, #1)(33)
“Stop!” I jumped up between them, unable to control my emotions with both of them so enraged. “Prince Anton did not harm the empress.”
Valko’s teeth were bared. He was determined to make Anton confess to a crime he didn’t commit. I feared he would somehow find false evidence and have him executed.
“You must believe me!” I said, and pushed the emperor back when he tried to seize his brother. His anger fluctuated with amazement. He surely wasn’t accustomed to anyone touching him so freely. “I can prove it.”
He huffed. “Impossible.”
“On the journey from Ormina to Torchev, Anton brought with him a blanket belonging to the dowager empress. Mossy green with embroidered flowers. Do you know the one?”
Valko nodded. “She had it on her when she choked to death from poison.” His gaze hardened and moved past me to Anton, as if this were damnable proof of his involvement.
“There was blood on the threads,” I said, “and through them, I felt her dying aura.”
Valko’s brow hitched. “What do you mean?”
“I am gifted—or cursed, however you may see it—with an enhanced ability to feel the last energy of someone’s soul if I touch them—their flesh, their hair, their blood.”
His eyes narrowed. “The meat I offered you from my table?”
“Yes.” I felt him descending back within the realm of stability. I needed to keep him there. “Also the fur on my robes and headdress, which is why I never wear them.”
“Their deaths pain you?” he asked, a note of sympathy in his voice that, for a moment, rendered me silent.
“Yes,” I replied softly.
“You felt my mother’s pain?”
“Yes.”
His gaze lowered to the floor. Behind me, Anton placed his hand on my arm. Something sad and lovely graced my heart at his touch, but I resisted it. I couldn’t lose focus. I gently batted him away without turning my gaze from the emperor. “Were you with your mother when she died?” I asked him.
“He was,” Anton answered. “And so was I.”
I inhaled with understanding. “Then her last feelings were for both of you. And they were neither bitter nor accusatory. They were not shocked with betrayal nor filled with the malice of vengeance.” My voice wavered with emotion. “They were filled with the most beautiful and tender love I have ever experienced.”
The wind whistled outside, rattling the intricate panes of the window. The stained glass formed the picture of a coat of arms, and on it, a blossomed rose inside a red sun, the symbol of the Ozerov dynasty, their family. My breath came easier. The emperor and Anton’s heads were bowed. For now, the storm between them had blown over.
Councilor Ilyin—the eldest, with a streaked white beard, but sharp and youthful eyes—broke the silence. “Forgive me, Sovereign Auraseer, but the fact that Empress Katarina loved her sons cannot absolve them from involvement in her death. She would have not known who poisoned her cup.”
I shot him a penetrating glance. Did he mean to stir up Valko’s suspicion? To what end? For all I knew, this old man laced the poison himself. Why, any of them could have. I was only beginning to understand the hidden agendas at the palace and my role here.
To search Councilor Ilyin’s aura, I studied myself, my body, for what I absorbed of any of his intensified physical reactions. A headache flowered at my temple and I had a pain in my hip. As for my emotions, they only revealed the old man’s fatigue and dwindling patience. Nothing hinted he might be guilty of murder.
“The prince is innocent,” I said resolutely. I hoped to frighten the councilor, to halt him in whatever game he might be playing. He was likely a better artist at concealing his aura than any noble at court.
“How do you know?” Councilor Ilyin asked, as if condescending to a child.
I stepped closer to Anton. “I spent two days with this man fresh after the death of his mother. I had every opportunity to see into the depths of him, just as I see into you now. Prince Anton did not kill the empress, nor seek to harm the emperor. Neither does he wish to take his brother’s crown.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth, fierce and unyielding, whether I knew the truth of my latest claim or not. I wasn’t sure why I insisted on defending Anton, only that I felt in my bones that he needed to live. I wouldn’t have anyone endangering him.
“Young though I may be,” I said, “I am the emperor’s Auraseer, and you must learn to trust my word.”
In my periphery, I felt Anton’s gaze, solemn and amazed.
Councilor Ilyin’s aged lips pursed, but he didn’t badger me any further. The emperor, the prince, and I awkwardly took our seats, while everyone did a masterful job of pretending nothing had gone awry. The meeting continued, moving on to the issue of immigrants from Abdara and the question of yet again raising the taxes on imported goods. The cord of tension was still taut between the two brothers, but at least more flexible.
I spent the rest of the meeting under the weight of the emperor’s stare. I wondered how he saw me now—in painted light, golden dust motes floating above my head, as I had seen his brother, or as a new threat to his throne and a new ally to Anton? From the way my skin flushed with fire and ice, from how my heart beat quickly then seized up in my chest, I feared I wasn’t merely one simple thing any longer. I wasn’t a girl to be forgotten, a girl dismissed to a corner.