Burning Glass (Burning Glass #1)(70)
My mouth fell open at his brazenness. The emissary’s endearment to his goddaughter must have fueled his contempt, but that didn’t excuse his blatant hatred of me. His insults tumbled inside my chest as if caught in a whirlwind. I couldn’t contain the fury. I became the storm.
“Don’t treat me as if you are my better!” I lashed out at him. “Don’t pretend you are not above reproach yourself. I’ve seen the Auraseer in your company and sensed the telltale signs of the abuse she has suffered at your hands.” I was sure now that she’d meant to warn me of him. “How dare you speak to the emperor about defilement when you have absolutely no respect for humanity!”
Floquart’s face mottled to purple. A vein spasmed at his temple. I met his enraged expression without batting an eye, justified in all my accusations. Surely Valko shared in my vindication. I looked at the man who’d just rained affection on me, promised me a life of adoration . . . but that man was gone. I felt it in the absence of warmth in my breast. In the ice crusting over my heart.
As if he hadn’t heard a word I’d just spoken, Valko said to Floquart, “You are right.”
My eyes flew wide. At the worst, I’d expected the emperor’s silence, not his agreement with the emissary. Did he want Estengarde so badly he would suffer his pride—and my dishonor—after such a vicious attack? “I will end this here.” He jutted out his chin. “She will not tempt me again.”
My lungs constricted and made it difficult to breathe. I felt like he’d just struck me.
Floquart’s lip curled with hostility. He leaned forward nearer the emperor, his brows peaking at a severe angle. “I will not be satisfied unless she leaves”—his eyes threw daggers at me—“and you relinquish the position of sovereign Auraseer.”
Valko blanched. “Relinquish?” His squared shoulders drooped as some of the ice in his aura melted. “You understand she is my guard—my most important guard—not a mere fortune-teller.”
“You have enough guards in Torchev to stop the border wars. They are sufficient to defend one man.”
“Come, now, Floquart, you are taking this too far. Perhaps you are still tired from your journey. Why don’t you get some rest, and we can come to another agreement in the morning?”
“We cannot. This is my offer. If you are serious about your marriage proposal, the decision is simple.”
Valko stood as still as a statue. His brows drew so low they nearly touched his eyes. Everything twisted inside me—the emperor’s wrestling indecision and pride, Floquart’s stubbornness, and buried beneath them both, the glimmer of my own feelings.
I should want this. I should want Valko to give me up. My life wouldn’t balance on the curve of a saber. The empire would no longer cage its Auraseers. Dasha and Kira could have a chance at a normal life.
So if I should want my freedom, what was this silent prayer behind my pressed lips, the plea that Valko would keep me in the palace? Did it have to do with Anton? If I left, I would certainly never see him again. Or was this about Valko? Did I wish to stay in order to comprehend how deeply his feelings ran for me? They were authentic enough when I sensed them in his aura, but they were also fleeting. I could not forget how little he noticed me in the days preparing for the emissary’s arrival and how he never came to my defense when Floquart accused me of harlotry.
If I left the palace, where would I go?
Valko drew in a long breath, while I held mine. His hand curled, then flexed. “I need her,” he said, and something like shame spooled inside me—inside him. “She stays.”
I exhaled with disbelief.
Floquart arched a thin brow. His eyes slitted like a cat’s. “Then this is my farewell.” He adjusted his cuff links. “I will be gone by first light, along with any hope you ever had of an alliance.” With the fierceness of a lion, he marched away, his coattails flapping.
Valko paced back and forth. He yanked his hair at the scalp as he watched the emissary go. I remembered the emperor’s finger on the map tracing the river of Shengli, his manic attention to detail in preparing to receive the Estens. I thought of the end of the border wars at the base of the Bayac Mountains. He’d given all of them up. I couldn’t understand why.
Apparently, neither could he.
Once Floquart was out of sight, Valko slammed his hand against the wall. It echoed oddly from within the closed room behind him. “Dammit, Sonya!”
I flinched. His aura shifted so quickly I could scarcely prepare myself.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” He hit the wall again. This time something sounded from the room with such distinctness it couldn’t possibly be an echo.
I stood erect, determined not to cower before him. “Nothing I said to the emissary was unwarranted.”
Valko laughed and rubbed his eyes with his palms. “The mere act of you speaking to him was offensive. Have you no idea of your station?”
His rebuke burned inside me like acid. I tensed my body to ward off shaking. “You chose me over Estengarde! This isn’t my fault.”
“No?” he shouted. “Am I to blame?” The door behind him opened a crack, though I couldn’t see within. The darkness, which had been my constant companion all evening, seemed to swirl out from the crack in thick waves. “You glide into my life with your intensity, with that wildness you keep restrained. Yet when I taste it, it is so intoxicating I don’t know whether to nip at you or devour you whole!”