Rescarin shook his head like she was some kind of witless child. “You have known him, what, a week? And you fancy yourself in love? You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know enough. And what’s it to you, anyway? You’ll be dead soon.”
“That’s rather tiresome. I’d hoped you had some sort of ridiculously elaborate banishment planned for me, like you had for that other courtier—what was her name? I don’t remember. She was forgettable.”
“Shutup.I didn’t come down here to listen to you prattling.”
His eyes met hers with a sudden, deadly seriousness. “Then why did you come? To make yourself feel powerful? Empires rise and fall, Eda. I would take care for yours.”
“I’m disbanding your mercenaries. There’s no other threat to me.”
He laughed again, his eyebrows tilting upward. “You’ll regret that, I think.”
“I’ve won, Rescarin. I would think you would show a little more respect to the person who holds your very life in her hands.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Eda. I know you put on a good show, but the truth is, you’re still that scared little girl who would rather sit in a room with her parents’ dead bodies than do anything to fight for the province she claimed to love so much.”
“I wasnine!” she screamed. “You took everything from me, and I swore to myself that one day I would take everything back. One day, I would repay you for everything you did that night. Everything you stole. Now I can.”
Rescarin shrugged. “Then kill me, if you like. Afterward you’ll have nothing left to hate, and no one to blame for your failures but yourself.”
His words were calculated, and hit their mark. They bit deep. Eda hated that he knew it. She would never stop hating him.
“Perhaps I won’t kill you,” she said quietly. “But I can certainly make you regret being alive.”
She wheeled on the prison guard. “Cut his fingers off. All of them. Send word when it’s done.”
“What’s wrong, Your Imperial Majesty?” called Rescarin. “You don’t have the stomach to see it done?”
She turned for one last look at the man she had hated since childhood. “You mistake me, Rescarin. I’m afraid if I stay any longer, I’ll kill you myself.”
She dreamed of climbing down into Raiva’s Well, down and down, but no matter how far she went, she could never seem to reach the bottom. Then she was in the sacred pool in the mountain, the water lapping up over her waist. But she looked down and saw it wasn’t water at all—it was blood. Rescarin laughed at her, reaching for her with scarlet hands, and the goddess Raiva turned her face away.
Far away, someone was weeping. A great darkness came into view, a god in chains. His head was bowed, his shoulders shaking, and she knew it was the god who wept. She stepped up to him. “What is wrong, my lord?”
But he didn’t answer.
The room filled up with blood, and Eda woke, gasping, to a sharp rap on her door.
She jerked upright in bed, heart pounding wildly. A glance at the window told her she’d slept late—well past midmorning.
The palace physician stood there, her eyes wide with shock. “She’s awake. Your Imperial Majesty, the Marquess isawake.”
Chapter Fourteen
EDA DIDN’T STOP FOR ANY OF HERusual morning rituals. She stepped from her bed, grabbed a fresh silk dressing gown and shrugged into it as she brushed past the physician.
Out in the corridor, she ran. For the first time in her life she didn’t care who saw her or what impression she made. Nothing mattered but reaching Niren’s side as quickly as possible, to see for herself that her friend had truly rejoined the land of the living.
She burst into Niren’s chambers, pushing past the gaggle of attendants and a few exceptionally nosy courtiers who had come to gape. She spared a backwards glance at her guard. “Get them out of here.”
“Your Imperial Majesty?”
“Get them all out!”
And then she flung open the bedroom door to find Niren sitting up in bed, warm color in her cheeks.
Eda’s heart wrenched. Tears pressed against her eyes. She stared at Niren, disbelieving.
