Heart of Iron (Heart of Iron #1)(57)
“Mother, it’s an old wives’ tale,” Erik scoffed. “You don’t actually believe that star-kissers can tell the future, do you?”
But the longer the woman stayed silent, the more his panic ebbed. Ironbloods didn’t believe in Solani superstitions, but Robb had said his mother valued legacy. At least that was what he was counting on.
With a sharp flick of her hand, she dismissed Erik. He tried to argue, but she sent him away again, and turned back toward the darkened cell, her blue marble eyes gleaming in the shadowy light.
Jax spread a grin across his teeth to mask his fear. “I’m glad I’ve got your attention. Let’s make a deal.”
Ana
Everything she knew was a lie. Her parents. Her history. Her scars—had Siege lied to her, too? Had Siege known who she was all this time? She must have—she found Ana, after all. It must have been why Siege didn’t want her on the Tsarina. The realization hurt deeply, somewhere in the center of herself, carving out a hole like a bullet wound.
She was a lie.
People flooded into the throne room, more than there had been a few moments before, kissing the back of her hand, pressing their foreheads against her palms, telling her how happy they were that she was alive. But she wasn’t so sure she was anymore. She didn’t remember the faces of these Advisers who knew her name, or the servants who bowed to the floor, or even the Grand Duchess, who disappeared so quickly after everyone had risen to their feet in the throne room that Ana almost believed that she had been a ghost.
“Don’t overwhelm Her Grace,” a short man with a gray mustache said, shooing the Advisers away. Her thoughts were a blur, spinning. “I’m sure she is very tired. Would you like to retire to your room, Your Grace?”
“My . . . room? Who’re you?”
“I am the Grand Duchess’s, and now your, steward. And yes, Your Grace, your room. You are home.”
She was very far away from that. Glancing around the throne room for Robb, at a loss for what else to do, she realized he was gone. Of course he was. He’d probably left the second he could.
“Yeah,” she replied, defeated. “Yes—please.”
The steward excused her from the throne room, and in the hallways she could finally breathe. Large potted plants grew against the walls, flowering with moonlilies and roses and purple dragon-tongues.
A small patrol of Messiers accompanied her and her steward to her room. She doubted they were guarding her. The crown might not have rusted, but she had just been convicted of treason not an hour ago.
But at the moment, she was too tired to care.
The steward showed her to a room somewhere in one of the towers. Hallway after hallway, each lit with bobbing lanterns that floated in an invisible river above them. When the steward finally stopped at a room at the end of a long corridor, and the Messiers took up position on either side of the door, she was lost. There was a crest above the door—the Armorov insignia.
A crescent moon with a sword down its middle.
Inside was a queen-size four-poster bed with a silken white canopy draped over the mahogany bedposts. The breeze from the open balcony window fluttered the silks so they danced in the evening light and drew shadows across the marble floor. There was a dressing table against the far wall, filled with opulent perfumes and pearl-studded accessories, and a wardrobe so big she could live in that, instead.
The bedroom was so large she felt like a mouse inside a lion’s cage.
Through a connecting door there looked to be a parlor of sorts, and beyond that a study—there were certainly a lot of expensive-looking books. None of them must have been very good—the best stories were the ones with cracked spines and dog-eared edges.
“If it is not to your liking, please don’t hesitate to say so, Your Grace,” said the steward, his gray mustache twitching. “There is so much to be done before your coronation—”
“My coronation?” She wanted to laugh—or cry, she wasn’t sure which. “You barely know me! And you’re going to give me a kingdom?”
“You’re the lost princess, Your Grace. You are the Goddess returned—the girl of light who will lead us out of the darkness of the last seven years. You arrived exactly when you needed to,” he added smugly. “And on the morning of the Holy Conjunction, you’ll be crowned Empress to the kingdom.”
One week, she thought.
She had one week to escape this madness.
“Don’t fret,” the steward said as he backed out of the room. He must have sensed the desperation seeping through her sweat glands. “Ruling is in your blood. The Goddess will never lead us wrong—and neither will you.”
He closed her in this foreign room, promising to retrieve her for dinner.
As if she could eat at a time like this!
Her stomach twisted, nauseous at the thought of food.
Was this real? Or was she still in that terrible nightmare? Why had the Grand Duchess let her touch that crown? She was a citizen—Ironbloods would never let a normal citizen touch it. They were unworthy.
But you aren’t a citizen, she realized. You are Princess Ananke.
She needed to get out of here—now. Hurrying out onto the open-air balcony, she looked down at the drop into the gardens. Ten feet—she could handle that. Hiking one leg over the rail, she began to climb over when a voice made her pause.