Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1)(37)

“One moment, General,” Jack responded while his eyes pleaded with her. She accepted his offered palm, gripping it as she stepped from the vehicle and approached the palace.

A battalion of servants greeted them inside the entry. Jack announced her as an honored guest and conferred with a matronly woman who must have been in charge of things. Two maids whisked her away before she could even thank Jack or say good night, let alone find out what he had wanted to tell her. Hopefully it was whatever he'd said she needed to know about him. Her heart burned to know his secrets, even as part of her was glad she didn’t.

She barely registered the dazzling hallways of the palace, the opulent room she was led to, the plush carpeting, detailed tapestries, or hand-carved furniture. She saw only the bed, canopied and enormous, and then the backs of her eyelids as she sank into the extravagant mattress.




A knock at the door brought Jasminda fully awake. She garbled a greeting and a tiny maid, not yet out of her teens, appeared with reams of fabric in her arms.

“Have a nice rest, miss?” the girl said in a crisp city accent. Jasminda tried to prop herself on her elbows but gave up after a few moments and collapsed back down.

“I’ve never slept better,” she said, mostly to the pillow.

The girl chuckled, then flitted around the room, opening the curtains. Late-afternoon sunshine filtered in.

“It’s time to bathe and change, miss. The Prince Regent has requested you for dinner.”

She startled into wakefulness. Was she to be the main course? Neither the servants last night nor this girl reacted to her Lagrimari appearance, but Jasminda remained on her guard. Why could the prince want to dine with her? Jack must have set it up, though after enduring the suspicious glares of the soldiers, she could not imagine the prince would be more welcoming to her than they had been. However, it stood to reason that Jack would be in attendance, as well; he was the reason she was staying there, after all. Her excitement at being near him again grew as she followed the maid into the gold-trimmed bathroom.

Marble floors and walls greeted her. She gaped at the ivory-handled sinks with hot water flowing from the taps and marveled at the modern efficiency of a water closet with a seat that warmed her bottom. Papa had devised a plan for plumbing in the cabin, using some spell she suspected, but water still needed to be heated on the stove.

The bathtub, however, proved to be a stumbling block. The little maid was adamant about bathing her. Jasminda protested that she could very well bathe herself—she wasn’t a child—but finally gave in to the girl’s steely determination.

At least a bucketful of dirt disappeared down the drain. Her hair was washed and doused with a sweet-smelling concoction. Nadal—for if another woman was to see her naked, Jasminda should at least know her name—carefully combed Jasminda’s thick, tightly coiled locks free of snags in front of the fire, drying it as much as possible. Then she helped her into a complicated dress she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of again. At a gentle tap on the shoulder, Jasminda turned to face the full-length mirror in the dressing room.

She gasped at the vision in front of her. Shiny, golden fabric flowed around her body, hugging her curves and making her appear, for the first time, like she was worthy of staying in the palace. Her hair was even tamed into a cascade of thick waves.

“You are a miracle worker,” she praised Nadal, who blushed.

Nadal searched the pocket of her apron and pulled out a tiny oval mirror on a gold chain. “Where would you like it, miss?”

Jasminda gaped. “Who is it for?” Mourning mirrors like the one Nadal held were worn after the death of a loved one. It was said those in the World After could peer through the mirrors and say their final good-byes to the living. After her mother died, she’d worn one around her neck for a year. When her father and brothers died, she hadn’t had the heart.

“You haven’t heard?” Nadal’s hushed voice filled with wonder. “I’d thought since you arrived with . . . Miss, the Prince Regent has gone to the World After.”

Jasminda took the mirror from the girl, gripping it lightly, and shook her head. “When did this happen? And how could he have invited me for dinner?”

“They made the announcement this morning, but he could have been dead for days. They never proclaim the death of a royal until his heir has been sworn in. Fear of attack during the changeover or some such. I heard from a girl who works in the prince’s wing that she’d seen His Grace last week, Seconday. But she’s just a duster, and she didn’t see him that often.” The torrent of words seemed to take something out of the girl, and she dropped her chin, staring at the floor as if embarrassed to have spoken at all.

“So the new prince invited me?” Cold dread made her skin go clammy. The air in the room suddenly grew thin, as if Jasminda stood at the peak of a mountain. Jack had wanted to tell her something that night at the base, and again before they’d entered the palace . . .

She shook her head, unwilling to believe such a thing. He was a warrior, and perhaps a poet. He was almost certainly not a . . . She couldn’t even attach the word to him. An image of his face slightly twisted in one of his grim smiles filled her vision. He would have told her something so monumental.

“Is this dinner special in some way? Is it in honor of the prince?”

Nadal shook her head. “It is just dinner. The changeover is seamless. Outside, the people will mourn and most here will wear the mirrors for a week or so, but the business of the palace never stops, not even for death.”