State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(4)
The steward blinked, then sniffed. “No, Miss Ventaxis,” he said slowly. “I don’t think so. What kind of smell?”
Sorrow shook her head and took a deep breath, regretting it instantly. She gagged, and the steward gasped.
“Miss Ventaxis! Someone, please—”
“No.” Sorrow spoke firmly, holding up a hand. “I just need…” The odour seemed to swell again, and Sorrow abandoned what she was going to say, moving to the doors in three uneasy strides.
She paused just outside her rooms, turning left and right, scanning the passage. There was no one in sight, save the two guards posted by the open doors at the end, and as Sorrow tentatively inhaled, steeling herself against fresh pain, she found the scent was gone. She gulped in lungfuls of clean air, her head falling back with relief as her headache retreated and the churning in her stomach eased.
As she straightened she found a presence at her shoulder, and turned to see Irris Day behind her, eyebrows arched in question.
Sorrow stepped closer. “I thought I could smell Lamentia,” she whispered.
“Here?” Irris peered down the corridor, to where the guards were feigning disinterest in the two young women hovering outside Sorrow’s parlour. “I can’t smell it,” she said finally. “Does your head hurt?”
“It did. And I can’t smell it any more, either.”
“It must be coming from the west wing…” Irris’s tone was thoughtful.
Both girls turned again to the open doors, and Sorrow was struck by an idea. “I should go and see,” she said, trying to conceal her eagerness. “The palace is full of guests. It would be a disaster if any of them came across something they shouldn’t. I know your father would…” She trailed off as Irris gave her a long look, punctuated by a subtle nod of her head at the people waiting in Sorrow’s rooms.
Sorrow’s shoulders slumped as she understood her friend’s silent message. She was going nowhere yet.
The emissaries and messengers had descended on Sorrow half an hour ago, surprising her and Rasmus Corrigan in the middle of an illegal game of Malice. Sorrow had answered the door and found the dignitaries begging for an audience, forcing Rasmus to hide the board and the pieces beneath the tatty cushions on a moth-eaten sofa, before making his escape.
Sorrow looked back and saw the steward from Prekara shift uncomfortably on the very same sofa, as though she could feel the marble figures concealed beneath her. A swift burst of vindictive glee thrilled Sorrow at the woman’s discomfort, before shame doused it. It wasn’t the steward’s fault she and the other representatives had been sent to Sorrow’s rooms. The blame for that lay squarely with Charon Day, the vice chancellor of Rhannon, and Irris’s father.
“I’ll go,” Irris said, in that moment sounding and looking exactly like the vice chancellor. “You have other work to do.” She gave Sorrow a consolatory pat on the shoulder and left her.
Envious of her friend’s temporary freedom, Sorrow hesitated in the doorway, allowing herself one more moment away from the people waiting for her. She wasn’t used to so many being in her rooms, and with the windows perpetually hung with the heavy black drapes, the air was dense and stifling. Even with the internal doors thrown open, the room now smelled of a thousand stale breaths, fresh sweat, and the sourness of despair.
Eau de Rhannon, Sorrow thought, before she could stop herself.
Then she sighed, steeling herself, and returned to the man she’d been speaking to.
“My apologies. What can I do for you?”
“I need to discuss the Decorum Ward in the West Marches—” He fell abruptly silent, hunching his shoulders, head hanging.
Taken aback by his posture, and certain he hadn’t finished speaking, Sorrow waited, but the steward said nothing else. “What about them, Mr…?”
It was her turn to pause, as she realized she’d forgotten the steward’s name. Charon would be furious if he were here. Hastily, she continued. “What about the Decorum Ward?”
He made no reply, and Sorrow noticed then that the silence in the room had changed, becoming thicker, fraught, and that the cause of it – and the reason for steward’s sudden submissive state – was behind her.
She turned to find the massive form of Meeren Vine filling the doorway, and instinct made fear scuttle like insect legs over her skin. As though he knew, and he fed on it, Vine seemed to expand, standing taller, seeming broader, his cruel gaze fixed on the steward.
“And what is it you need to say about my men?” The captain of the Decorum Ward’s voice was a roll of thunder, rumbling from deep inside his barrel chest.
The steward flinched, and something about the motion tugged at Sorrow, cutting through her own alarm. Vine had no business being in her rooms and she wouldn’t have him bullying people. Not here, at least. Here, she was the law.
“Perhaps if you give him a chance to speak, we’ll find out,” Sorrow said, keeping her voice steady, locking her shaking knees beneath her mourning gown.
Vine stepped forward, using his bulk to crowd her, so she had to look up to see him properly. She forced herself to not lean away, but to stare directly into a face that might have been carved from granite. He had no hair, no beard, nothing to distract attention from his eyes, so dark they might have been black. Shark eyes, unreadable, and unforgiving.