Burning Glass (Burning Glass, #1)(72)
I’d said the wrong thing. One of his hands released mine, only to rear back, preparing to strike me. Anton’s grip flexed on his dagger. He was close enough to reach us by one leaping bound. No. I couldn’t let him kill his brother. I couldn’t let him suffer the damnation of murder I knew only too well.
“What would the boy you once were think of you now, in this very moment?”
A spasm ran through Valko’s brow. His raised hand froze, but he didn’t lower it.
“You have lost much tonight,” I rushed on. “Estengarde. Shengli. You let them go because of me, and you question it. But if the only reason you saved me”—if I could call this saved—“was so I could tell you, you don’t need to stretch from sea to sea to achieve greatness, you are enough—Riaznin is enough—then that would be well worth the price.”
I sensed my words pricking his defenses, but his rage still boiled beneath his skin. If I didn’t take care, his mood would snap again and Anton’s dagger would fly.
I needed to do something more—not seek my own emotional release, but seek the emperor’s. If the space within me wasn’t large enough to push him away, perhaps it was large enough to pull him in. If I let myself become one with his aura, could I do more? Could I inhabit his limbs, his heart, his mind? Could I finally persuade him?
Valko’s breath was hot. His knee dug into my leg and forced me flush against the wall. “You can’t tell me what I need.”
By some miracle, I felt the sudden shift in his emotion the moment before his hand came smarting down. I dove for that space inside myself, and I thrust it open. Valko permeated my aura, every quality that composed who I was—my gifts of character, the energy of my spirit, the defining fibers of my body. The serpent slithered away. It didn’t belong to the emperor. He had his own brand of darkness.
Like medicine, I sent myself back to him, back through the flowing channel between us. I felt Sestra Mirna’s long-suffering care for Yuliya in the infirmary. The hands of the Romska when they stroked my hair and tried to soothe my mad spells away. Tosya’s smile that helped me know my life wasn’t as bad as it often seemed.
My head didn’t whip to the side because Valko never struck me. His hand halted near my cheek. He swallowed, his chin quavering. “They think me incapable,” he abruptly confessed.
In my periphery, I saw Anton’s eyes widen. Had his brother truly admitted to weakness? “Who?” I asked gently.
“My councilors . . . Anton.” Valko gave a sorry laugh. “The populace of my empire.” His hand fell to his side, and he released my arms from the wall. “They think I died as a child, and they’re now ruled by an imposter. Don’t you see?” His eyes glistened with tears. “I have to show them my power, that I’m even mightier than my father.” His voice cracked. He sounded anything but mighty.
Holding his aura with my empathy, I replied, “I know what it is to feel incapable. I understand you.” I ignored my still-burning wrists and took his hand, cupping it in both of my own. “Let me be your balm, Valko. That is better than your mistress.” I kissed his hand, hoping to show him the sweetness of some other kind of companionship. “Let me be your seer. Let me reveal what you can become.”
He looked at me like I’d transformed into a living beacon. All his remaining pride shattered. He crumpled in my arms and wept like a boy. I felt the release of his emotions, like everything he had ever suffered culminated in this moment. Despite the monster he had been tonight, my heart broke for him. I cradled his head and let his sorrow escape through me.
As I met Anton’s gaze, Valko’s tears fell from my eyes. The prince sheathed his dagger. He no longer stared at me like I was lost. Because I wasn’t, I had found myself. And that finding had more implications than either of us could understand at that moment.
I didn’t sever my connection to Valko, but beyond it I sensed Anton’s aura. Within it, I confirmed that the embers in the prince’s gaze reflected hope.
A shiver ran up my spine. I didn’t know if I could bear such hope. The weight of it fell heavier than the burden of the emperor’s mourning. With such hope, I could one day forgive myself, wash the blood from Feya’s statue clean.
As Anton stepped silently back and closed the door, I still felt his faith in me like a mantle I could never remove. I shut my eyes and more tears slipped down my cheeks. I hid my face against Valko and from the dream of a purer form of redemption.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LATER THAT NIGHT I TOOK A CANDLE AND WALKED PAST THE red door, the lavender door, and set my key to the lock of the evergreen door. The train of my nightgown swept a path through the dusty floorboards, a path I recarved every evening before I went to sleep in the bed of the tapestry room.
My legs were a bit steadier than earlier. Pia had brought me a pastry and a cup of blessedly nondiuretic tea. She seemed keen to talk about her dance with Yuri, but I made for a poor listener. Keeping Valko in check had stripped me of all my energy. The emperor and I had never returned to the ballroom. After he’d wept in my arms, he pressed a platonic kiss on my hand and walked me to my rooms before retiring to his own—alone—no mistress in tow. I’d touched two hands to my head, then my heart, giving the goddess Feya my thanks for escaping that role. She was gradually becoming more to me than the chalice of Yuliya’s death.