Emilius froze in surprise.
His mouth parted, the edge of his teeth bright under his lip, eyes suddenly wide. He wiped it away slowly with his own shoulder, neck taut. When he surfaced from the other side of his sleeve, the roll of hot metal wafted into my nose. He stood, looking down at me for a long moment. Then tossed the coils away. “I don’t even think I’ll need rope,” he said, reaching over my head to draw something shining away from the bookshelf above.
A hammer. And a chisel. They belonged to each other, a set crafted as a twin pair, artistic and well-made, the handles of each engraved with a flaring sun.
Maybe it was the sparklingvolarein my blood.
Maybe it was the sleeping powder in my belly.
Maybe it was psychological, my mind distancing itself from my body.
Maybe it was the terror that grew within me at seeing him reach for the tools, horror reflecting off every screaming thought in my head like athousand mirrors. The sound blooming. Amplifying. Each passing second a greater fear.
Or maybe it was simply the ludicrousness of the evening. Of thinking I’d only have to kiss and sing the King into something compliant and submissive, only to find myself in the seat I’d planned for him.
I’m not sure what it was.
Butlaughterwarbled out of my mouth, breathless and dazed.
Emilius pointed the hammer toward the wall, indicating the main threshold we’d entered twenty minutes before. “The door to my quarters is the thickest in Calder. It’s soundproof. And it’s bolted shut. I have food in this chamber. I have water. I have no need to step outside for days. Resist, and this experience will be slow. Painful. Agonizingly so. Cooperate, and you’ll be safely dead by morning. How did you meet Cain?”
I tried to think of a lie, but my mind turned like a wheel stuck in mud. Ribs burning, my breath shuddered out of my lungs, the soft wind of it tumbling over his lashes.
Emilius exhaled. His breath blew back over my face, much harsher than mine, laced with the hot metallic scent of building frustration. He wrapped my fingers almost tenderly over the end of the armrest, shifting my elbow just an inch so my limb lay parallel to the wood. Then lined the chisel over the side of my arm, the flesh and muscle that wrapped around bone.
The hammer hovered over the flat bell of the chisel. He sent me a final look. One last offer. My heart drummed an unbearable rhythm. My chest filled, but not with air. Panic crowded within me, swelling, lapping, clawing. The skin behind my neck was cold and clammy, shadowed with the scent of my sweat.
“Your palace is a pig show tonight,” I murmured. “And you dance like aboor.”
He stared at me, disappointed.
Then swung his hammer against the head of the chisel.
Thetingof cold iron split through the room.
The smell of it followed.
38
Pheolix
The oil sconces outside the King’s private rooms didn’t flicker like the lit flame of a candle. But the crystal bowl that housed them seemed to waver and shine the way a bubble of soap does, oil mingling against air, marbling in slow iridescence.
How long did it take to seduce a King and steal a stash of letters from his private study?
More than an hour, apparently. Thaan had wanted Emilius drunk, notincanted, and the King had climbed the stairs on sober legs. Selena had a thick task to accomplish using her body as a weapon, and it was that thought that set fires in my head and nausea in my gut.
I’d tucked myself behind the long, sweeping curtains at first. Then climbed halfway up the stairs when I realized the heartbeat of the guard I’d expected outside Emilius’s door was nowhere to be found. As far as I dared.
I’d broken my hand twice in my life. Once on the jaw of a man. Another under the weight of a shifting stone in the mines. But the thought of hearing a soft moan or a rough laugh through the wall made the memories of both fuzzy.
Made me almost wonder what it might feel like to cock my fist and break it a third time.
Outside the window at the end of the hall, the moon floated over the palace. It traveled slowly, every inch of its journey another minute that dragged by. Every minute that dragged by invited images into my head.
His hands on her.
His mouth on her.
