Fantasy of Fire (The Tainted Accords #3)(40)

I was a fool not to recognize what that meant when I first met him.

“Why did you tell me all of these things tonight?” I ask quietly. I close my eyes so I don’t have to see his reaction.

His answer is immediate. “I’ve wanted to tell you for some time. They are things the future queen should know.”

I smile. “Tatum, Jovan.”

I crack open my eyes to see him once more. Just one last time. He’s deciding what to say, I know that much. But I see so many things: vulnerability, gentleness, impatience and fear. There isn’t a single emotion I can think of which combines all of these.

I must be out of practice.

He leans forward slowly, letting me know at every moment what he’s about to do. It’s how I’d approach untamed Dromeda. I tell myself I’m too tired to move as his face nears mine, but in truth I’m desperate to confirm what I discovered that night of the ball.

His lips touch mine.

It’s just as I remember: soft and unyielding. How can one kiss feel so good? The intimate gesture is unconditional, but it’s reinforced by the thought bouncing around my mind. Jovan’s touch is better than anything I’ve felt in my life. What if no one else can make me feel this way? And if there isn’t anyone else, can I live without it?

I gasp, and he jerks back, eyes piercing through the dim light, pinning me in place. After living on Osolis, I’d never have described blue as the color of fire. But that simple knowledge dissolves as I meet his heated gaze. I wonder if my own are burning back, or if he knows I’m hanging on to a single tendril of awareness which prevents me from closing the gap between us.

And the thought which pulls my world apart just as it’s beginning to build again: what if I don’t want to live without this?

*

I squeeze Landon’s hand reassuringly as light knock comes from my door. A light knock doesn’t necessarily mean the news is good. In fact, I’ve learned the opposite is usually true. It means they don’t want to cause a scene. My room is secluded in a tower. Avoided. But the court loved to gossip and went out of their way for any fresh talk.

Olandon clings to me with desperate hands. He’s three revolutions old and too young for this kind of fear. Yet, the guilt I feel for sharing this terror with him is overridden by my need to lessen my burden. He’s my only friend. The only one she’ll let me have.

“Hide under the bed, Lina,” he cries. He always pleads. I let him do it because it’s normal, but I’ve learned begging makes things worse. It doesn’t prevent them from giving you the bruises in the first places. And if you beg, then you lose your pride.

Pride is all I have left.

I straighten the veil my mother makes me wear as the light knock comes again. The same sound, the same pattern. Three soft raps from one of the Elite’s knuckles.

I peek underneath the material over my face to make sure my robes and sandals are immaculate. Mother doesn’t like me untidy. She says she wants the court to forget how ugly I am. If I’m tidy, she says maybe one day, someone will like me. She says that in the Fifth Rotation there are some nearly as grotesque as I. I wonder if they wear veils too. I think she’s lying to get my hopes up, but I cling to the thought that someday I’ll meet other ugly people. Maybe they won’t hurt me all the time.

I pull open the door and peer up at a woman. There are six Elite today. I must have done something really bad; my usual escort is three or four. Despite the regularity of my beatings, I have to swallow a lump of fear. The urge to crawl under the bed, or into the wardrobe nearly overwhelms me. But Olandon is behind me, preventing me from going back inside.

I slip out and shut the door quickly, starting in the direction of the balcony room. It’s where the guards hit me while my mother and uncle watch. I’ve been trying to think of a name for it. I heard Aquin use the word “torture” the other day, just before he showed Landon and me how to inflict pain for answers. I think Torture Room might do. Though, mother doesn’t ask me questions at all. I wish she would. Sometimes their kicking hurts so much, I’d tell her anything.

I only have one secret I’ll never tell.

Heads poke out of doorways as we travel through the twisting black hallways. I roll my eyes at the court. They don’t even bother to hide their snooping.

The front two Elite move ahead and swing the double doors open. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop a whimper as I see the inside of the room. It’s all polished darkness. That’s not what bothers me, though. It’s that the walls always start moving when I step inside. They throb like an injured ankle I once had after training. Sometimes I think the walls will close over me and confine me in the tiniest of spaces, like the time Uncle Cassius locked me in a trunk for two days. It was one of the worst things ever done to me.

Then there are the blood spatters.

I know they’re not really there. But it doesn’t mean I can’t see them. The blood is there and all of it is mine. I look around this room and remember every single hit, kick, smash, and break I’ve earned. One pace from my left is where they peeled my right thumbnail off, and two paces to my right was where I jumped on the spot for three hours. That one wasn’t so bad. I pretended I was at training and eventually the Elite got bored and let me go.

I wonder where I’ll bleed today.

I look up in the direction of the balcony. Usually there’s a little speech about some transgression. A transgression must be something bad because they always seem to be saying it right before my face is split open.