Burning Glass (Burning Glass #1)(67)
“And where is that?”
“Montpanon. At the eastern base of the Bayacs.”
Nothing was adding up. So why was my stomach tightening like I was about to be kicked? “Are you telling me the prince lived in Estengarde?”
“That’s a matter of debate.” He leaned on one leg. “I would say yes. The Riaznian farmers would say no. There is a reason we fight.” He shrugged like it was an unavoidable fact of his life.
“And you knew he was the prince?” I asked, still bracing myself, still confused. What was the point of Anton being raised in secrecy if an entire Esten village knew about him?
“No,” he admitted. “Not until the prince left and his brother was crowned. But I will say our king knew of him. We were commanded that Trusochelm Manor was never to be touched in our wars. We avoided it like a river snakes around a rock.”
Understanding took seed inside me. Dauphin. Crown prince. “The king thought he was protecting the future emperor,” I said, voicing my revelation. Perhaps the king thought he could make peace with Izia’s successor. But then Valko took the throne and Anton remained the neglected prince. The Estens hadn’t given him a happy name.
“I suppose your king wasn’t too pleased Anton’s brother lived,” I baited the guard. It would have injured the king’s pride to realize he was thwarted after all the protection he’d offered.
“Who can say?” The guard jutted out his lower lip in the quintessential Esten shrug. “I can only tell you that after the prince left, we raided Trusochelm—and we weren’t reprimanded for it.”
I took a step back as the blow crashed into me, an icy gale tearing through the wrong season. The force of it chilled me with misgiving and made my gut fold in cramps.
I turned the guard’s words over in my mind. Why had they provoked such an ominous feeling? If the Esten king hadn’t protected Anton, he would be dead. Was the darkness inside me casting everything in a sinister shadow, when in reality there was nothing amiss? Or was Anton’s life still somehow in danger?
I became aware of every guard in the lobby, their perplexed eyes locked upon me, the all-too-inquisitive Auraseer.
“Thank you,” I muttered to the Esten guard and walked briskly to the far left corridor. Once I was out of sight, I broke into a run. My weakened legs threatened to snap like bird bones, and my breath came thinly, but on and on I fled.
Everything I’d just learned spun around in my mind, along with the mystery of where Anton had gone. He was the most notable of his party. Surely, he took a detouring, less obvious route to where his men were meeting—if they were meeting at all. I slid to a halt upon approaching an intersecting corridor to the right. Down that direction and up a flight of stairs was the council chamber. I couldn’t imagine Anton going there. But past the stairs were more branching hallways, and beyond them a library—a place no one would be lingering on the night of a ball.
With no better plan, I took the corridor to the right. As I sprang forward, my headdress fell to the floor. I snatched it up, not bothering to fasten it on again, and kept running. The pearl ropes stung my palms. I felt the faint song of their mother oysters’ deaths, their agony at being ripped open for the jewel in the cradle of their shells.
What torture had the dowager empress also suffered when she was torn from her young children? What had those little boys endured when they were severed from their parents to be raised in hiding?
How had that estrangement altered them?
And what of the Esten king? When Floquart journeyed home, what report would he give of the Riaznian emperor, who in the king’s eyes should have been Anton?
The blow struck my gut again, this time with piercing directness. I stopped short as dizziness assaulted me.
Floquart.
The king’s mouthpiece. The man who came here so readily at Valko’s request, despite all our conflict with Estengarde.
I’d felt the emissary’s greed. He wanted to share in our wealth. He knew his king would. But which brother would that king wish to forge an alliance with? And which brother could be done away with by some cunning means?
The lurking serpent inside me took form, its fangs seeking blood. I put my hand on the wall for support.
Floquart was behind the darkness I was feeling—maybe even some of his men.
Before the night was through, the Esten emissary meant to have Valko murdered.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ON INSTINCT, I SPUN AROUND AND RAN IN THE OPPOSITE direction—back to Valko. I gave myself horrible names. Slow-witted. Blind. Incompetent. I’d left the emperor with Floquart—twice. I prayed the emissary hadn’t already taken his opportunity and poisoned Valko while they were together in the treasury. He could be dying this very moment, and there would be nothing I could do to save him.
I’ve failed in my duty. I’m going to be executed. They’ll bury me beside Izolda. Dasha and Kira will be next. They’ll fail and die, as well. I’ll have more blood on my hands.
I stopped again, realizing where I was. Backtracking the way I’d come would be a slower route to the ballroom. I was closer to the main corridor leading there by continuing on in the direction I’d been going. I kneaded a stitch of pain in my side, turned around once more, and forced my legs onward.
My vision flecked with stars. I tried to breathe deeper past the pounding of my heart. Looming ahead were two marble pillars, which marked the crossroad with the spacious main corridor. I slowed when the pillars’ shadows touched me, partly because I was on the verge of fainting, but mostly because my mind seized on Anton as I considered “the neglected crown prince” in a whole new light.