Bring Me Their Hearts(54)
“Forgive me, Lady Zera. I tend to get lost in this painting, much to the chagrin of my Ministers and the queen. I’d blame the painter for it, but the man was a genius—and you can be angry at genius for only so long.”
I knit my lips. The nobles said Varia had been the king’s favorite, that he changed so much when she died. It’s a delicate subject, and I’m in a far more delicate position. Y’shennria didn’t train me for one-on-ones with the king of all Cavanos. But I can’t remain mute.
Will he mourn for Lucien when I turn him Heartless, the way his eyes mourn for Varia now?
The king asks suddenly, “What moons were you born under, Lady Zera?”
“Um.” I scrabble to make something up—my birthday is a missing memory locked tightly in my heart. “The Flint moons, Your Majesty.”
“The Giant one-third waning,” he murmurs. “The Twins two-thirds full. Good moons. Dreamer’s moons. I thought for certain you were an Onyx. Varia was born under Onyx.”
He goes quiet, and then turns to me, smile gone.
“What you said to me at the Welcoming—it was something she would’ve said. She was always so painfully aware of the common people she was to someday rule, more than even I. If she could’ve heard your quip, I’m certain she and you would’ve become fast friends.”
I should bow and take the compliment modestly. But instead I look to Varia’s smirk, so amused with herself and yet somehow broken deep inside. It’s a familiar sight—I see shades of it in the mirror every morning.
“I like to think we would’ve, too,” I finally manage. I burn to ask him a thousand things—why he lets Gavik purge innocents, if he knows they’re innocents at all, if he truly hates witches and the Old God enough to turn a blind eye to such carnage. But I can’t ask him. It would be beyond impolite—it would be treasonous.
King Sref chuckles, the sound muffled by the darkness of the room pressing in on us. “You’re just as bad at hiding a question on your face as she was.”
I’m thrown by how easily he sees through me, but I make my voice light. “Just the one, Your Majesty? I have hundreds.”
“I’m sure,” he agrees. Both of us remain silent, knowing if another word leaves our lips it could cross the unseen line that permeates every noble conversation—the line between our real selves and our court selves. Our masks and our faces beneath. The king clears his throat. “If I could ease the most pressing question in your mind, I’d very much like that.”
It would be simple to make up something frivolous, something intrusive about Lucien. It’s expected; I’m a Bride, after all. Maybe it’s a specialty of the d’Malvanes—to make someone feel as if they must tell the truth—because beneath the king’s gentle stare only honesty emerges from my throat.
“Why do you let Archduke Gavik have so much freedom to torment your people?”
The king’s smile fades, and I brace myself for the certain anger and indignation I’ve grown used to from Lucien. But Sref is not Lucien. He doesn’t get angry. He gets tired—the same defeated tiredness I saw in his eyes during the Welcoming. He doesn’t try to dispute it. He doesn’t try to argue. He merely sighs.
“Because, milady—he’s made me a promise.” I feel my face twist, but he speaks before me. “Have you ever lost someone dear to you?”
I nod. “My parents.”
“My condolences. But that means you’ve also longed to get back at what took them from you—at time, at chance, at death itself, if you must.”
At five men, the hunger sneers. My hands shake in my lace gloves, and I quickly hide them behind my back. I won’t let the king, of all people, see me weak. Shadows carve deep into the lines around his mouth.
“The archduke will find Varia’s killer for me. And until then—he is allowed to do whatever he must.”
“But your people—”
“The world can rot, Lady Zera, if it means finding my daughter’s killer.”
His voice is so even as he says it, so calm, and that scares me more than anything else. My very marrow chills, my skin icy with goose bumps. Reality comes rushing in as the baron’s voice outside the door crescendos. King Sref’s gaze flickers to the door, then to me.
“I hope you enjoy the banquet as much as I enjoyed our talk, Lady Zera.”
And with that perfectly crafted farewell, he sits back in a chair against the wall. Taking the hint that I’m dismissed, I turn and leave through the door, light and sound and the Baron’s friends staring at me, and for once I’m grateful for it, for them making me move, respond, think of something other than the horrifying calmness with which the king of Cavanos condemned his people so easily to suffering. The guard smiles at me ruefully, a half apology, before the baron—insisting we’re late—whisks me away to the banquet amid a tittering circle of his friends.
I cope with the unease the king’s put in me the only way I know how—with beauty. Admiring it, enjoying it, taking it in. The dining hall is filled with orb-like golden oil lamps suspended from the ceiling by impossibly delicate chains. The air carries the mouthwatering smells of roasting meat. A massive blackwood table stretches the whole length of the room, the chairs high-backed and seated with silk cushions. I spot Ulla in a corner, whispering to other servants. Archduke Gavik wears an ornate silver robe—laughing and toasting wine with a bunch of old, bearded men, some of whom I recognize as the royal polymaths who put out the fire. The king and queen are thankfully absent, but I see Charm and Grace talking to each other in pretty, laced-up dresses. When I enter, they shoot me looks and laugh behind their hands.