The Cogsmith's Daughter (Desertera #1)(38)

No statements. No witnesses. No council of peers.

Varick turned to Aya and placed his hand on hers. “Did that answer your questions?”





CHAPTER TEN


Aya spent the entire next day distracting herself from anything related to a trial—be it the one she witnessed or the one she imagined. Lord Varick thought it best for Aya to stay within the estate while she processed her emotions, and although she did not like being confined, she did appreciate the excuse to avoid a run-in with King Archon for a bit longer. After their encounter at Abrim’s shop, Aya knew the king was interested in her. However, now that she had once again seen King Archon’s brutality at work, Aya realized that she needed a few days to recuperate before she could convincingly feign desire for him again.

Lord Varick was out on business. Aya did not know what business the noblemen had, especially since they were all born into rich families and didn’t seem to have any productive role in Desertera society—other than bossing around commoners—but she was grateful for the time alone. She amused herself by browsing through the books in Lord Varick’s small library.

Aya did not have much experience with books. Like water, wood was a rare commodity in Desertera, and most of the existing books were survivors from the world before. Someone had once told Aya that the palace’s bookbinder still had pages of blank parchment from the old world, which could be sewn into the backs of existing books to extend them. Someone else had told her that the bookbinder had resorted to using new materials to create parchment, specifically skin from dead livestock, but she didn’t know if she believed that tale.

As Aya scanned Lord Varick’s library, she found one entitled The Monarchy. She opened it to find an entire lineage of the royal family. It began with rulers from the world before, names that Aya had never heard. Toward the back of the book, the paper protruded from the edges. These were the pages that the first Desertera bookbinder had added. They began with Queen Hildegard—of course omitting her husband, who was executed for adultery—and went all the way down the line to King Archon, his first wife, the late Queen Lisandra, and their son, Prince Lionel. It had not been updated to include Queen Lisandra’s death or any of the king’s subsequent wives. Aya thought this was wise, considering it would have been a huge waste of a scare resource to constantly update King Archon’s exploits.

Aya remembered when Queen Lisandra died. Aya had been around seven years old, and her father had had a difficult time explaining to her what it meant that the queen had taken her own life. King Archon had ordered the entire kingdom to wear black to mourn his wife. Aya had hated the black dress her father had bought for her; it attracted the sun’s rays as animal dung attracted flies. She’d had a sunburn for the entire mourning period.

At the time, her father had told her to feel sorry for the royal family. After all, Aya and her father knew their pain—Aya’s own mother had died attempting to birth Aya’s younger brother, who did not survive. However, Aya couldn’t help feeling jealous of Prince Lionel. He got to know his mother for nearly a decade, and when she did die, the entire kingdom mourned alongside him and his father. When Aya’s mother died, Aya and her father simply received a cake from one of the bakers and pitiful looks in the street.

Now, Aya couldn’t muster any sympathy for Prince Lionel. After the way he’d ordered her father’s execution so easily—and then shown up at poor Lady Jauntley’s trial yesterday with that young girl as if he were attending a dance—Aya hoped he grieved his mother’s death and every orchestrated death of every stepmother his father tired of. It really wasn’t so surprising that Queen Lisandra took her own life. With a monster for a husband and a compassionless coward for a son, Aya might have done the same.

When evening finally came, Aya received a dance lesson from Mrs. Lemot and a visit from the dressmaker. Lord Varick had insisted that Aya learn a few of the noble dances, as simply following a man’s lead would not do. She had to be perfect, he had said, the most graceful, desirable creature at the masquerade, to keep the king’s interest. Aya didn’t mind dancing, and the maid was a good teacher, so the exercise was a happy distraction.

Her visit with the dressmaker was not nearly as entertaining. The old woman came in, took measurements of Aya’s entire body, and left without saying more than “Raise arm. Lower arm.” Her unsociability had Aya rather worried about how her dress would turn out. But again, anything had to be better than the ugly black and purple ensemble.



*



The next evening, Aya and Lord Varick dined on a platter of fruit, vegetables, goat cheese, and thin crispy slabs of wheat he called crackers. Lord Varick insisted Aya sample all the foods she had missed out on throughout her life. Aya felt guilty about the extra expense Lord Varick was doubtless accruing to obtain such a variety of foods for her, but instead of insisting he stop, she simply ensured he did not waste a single coin—by devouring everything she was given.

“I apologize for the lack of protein. But I felt it best to keep the meal light this evening. After all, we don’t need your corset straining too much as you attempt to be graceful on the dance floor.”

Aya glanced between the cracker in her hand and her stomach as if they were conducting a conspiracy of their own. While she was used to men—and even other women—commenting on her body—a near necessity of her occupation—she had never been told to watch her figure. She was one of the smallest girls at the Rudder, and based on the few noblewomen she had seen wandering the palace, she held her waistline in even higher esteem. If anything, most men told her to eat more to fill out her bosom and hips.