Burning Glass (Burning Glass, #1)(35)
I snorted. “No wonder Lenka has it out for you. If you’d told Valko ‘no,’ you would have saved yourself the wrath of the most contemptible woman in this palace. Besides, even an emperor can’t have everything he desires.”
Pia arched a brow as she considered me. “Would you have told him no?”
My pulse fluctuated again. Perhaps the sweetness of the cake had reached my bloodstream. “Of course.”
“Hmph.”
A soft knocking came at my door. Three raps, quick in succession. I startled. Pia’s eyes popped wide. Had Lenka returned? She’d already dressed me for the night and brushed out my hair. Besides, she always just walked in. My antechamber didn’t have a lock.
The rapping came again, a little louder and faster. I stood while Pia scrambled to collect the dishes onto her tray. Lenka would be furious that Pia had come to pay me a visit, even though it wasn’t against any rules I could think of. But when I placed my hand on the door latch, my insides flooded with an energy distinctly not belonging to my head maid.
Once Pia was standing, tray in hand, I cracked open the door and set my eye to the gap.
My breath caught, for it was Anton who stood outside, his face lost in the shadows between two pools of light from the corridor sconces. His kaftan was gone, though he still wore his boots, reaching above his knees, his loose shirt haphazardly tucked into his breeches. His hair was mussed as if he’d spent the last hour running his hands through it. I’d never seen him so distressed, so human.
“May I come in?” he asked. His voice, naturally rich and low in timbre, always rumbled with volume, making it scarcely possible for him to whisper.
I hesitated, my hand floating to the ribbons at my nightgown’s scooped neckline. Wasn’t it improper to let a man into my rooms when I was alone? Especially a man I was still angry with for going out of his way to ignore me. But then I wasn’t alone. I glanced back at Pia. A huge smile broke across her face. Anton? she mouthed. I fought an eye roll.
“Please, Sonya,” the prince said. When I returned my attention to him, he glanced toward the emperor’s rooms. “Let me in. I must speak with you.”
The pained look in his face twisted the fibers of my heart and made me relent. I groaned with frustration for allowing myself to pity him, but that didn’t stop me from stepping back to grant him entrance. He strode past me and shut the door behind him. Then he noticed Pia. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” He gave her an awkward little bow of acknowledgment. I bit down a grin that he should excuse himself or be flustered by a maid.
“I was just leaving,” she replied, and dipped into a curtsy. Anton opened the door for her and as she exited, she waggled her eyebrows at me in the brief moment before he shut the door again.
This time I did roll my eyes.
Anton proceeded to pace about my antechamber. He rubbed at his jaw and mouth. He raked his hands through his disheveled hair. I stood barefoot in the center of the room, my nightgown fluttering as his movements stirred the air. His gaze was cast on the floor, on anything but me.
“What is it?” I asked. Now that Pia’s radiant aura was gone, Anton’s swept into mine. My nerves tangled together. I didn’t know if I should sit or stand. I had the growing urge to hide away in my bedchamber, but I couldn’t make myself leave. Why was the prince so distraught?
He wandered to my tiled furnace and absently kicked at the grate. His breaths came quickly. His fingers clenched into tight fists. My emotions expanded then contracted in a dizzying cycle I couldn’t interpret.
“Anton?”
He whirled on me, eyes on my gown, not my face. “How could you be so foolish?”
I flinched. “What have I done?”
He laughed forlornly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can never defend me to Valko like that, do you understand?” He turned back to the grate and kicked it harder.
My lips parted in astonishment. My mind churned sluggishly to comprehend his anger. “I only spoke what I knew to be true. Would you have me be false?”
“I would have you take care for your life!” His voice rose, and mine rose with it, grafting onto his heated emotions.
“You should take care with yours! The emperor accused you of murder today—of treason. Even princes hang for such a crime.”
“I did not kill my mother.”
“I believe you! I also want your brother to believe. I want peace between you.” A heaviness, like a full winter’s snowfall, fell over me. Anton finally met my gaze, the anger snuffed out of him. Something about his helpless expression and the depth of his sorrow made me forgive him for ever disregarding me. Why would he come here like this, be so upset, if he wasn’t concerned with my well-being?
“Sonya, don’t you see?” he said. “I will never have peace with my brother. And you cannot make it so.”
The fire snapped behind the grate. Embers flickered in the air. I wrapped my arms around myself, but not because I was cold. I felt hurt. No matter how much I felt the prince’s concern at the moment, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I displeased him. I tried not to let it affect me, but that was becoming impossible. Today, as he spoke in the council chamber, I saw a measure of his greatness, his devotion to the welfare of Riaznin. He would make a fine emperor, though it was treasonous to think it. Was it wrong that part of me wanted to be just as great, just as noble in the cause of helping the empire, in helping anyone—even him? So despite my bitterness at his barging into my rooms to tell me I’d disappointed him yet again, his words stung.