A Promise of Fire (32 page)

His expression flattens. “Give it time, and you’ll see I’m right. On both counts.” Griffin plants his hand on my lower back and propels me out of the alcove without another word.

Discussion over.
Argh!

Seeing us available and circulating again, a boy, one of my first north wall workers, approaches with a tray of food. He grins, looking clean and boyishly handsome in his new uniform. Despite my pounding headache and the growing tension with Griffin, I can’t help smiling back. I take a fruit kabob and ask him how he likes his new job.

“Actually, Your Highness, I prefer hauling rocks. It’ll make me strong. I want to be a warrior like Beta Sinta.” He glances shyly at Griffin.

I nearly choke on a kalaberry. “You don’t need to call me ‘Your Highness.’”

“He will soon,” Griffin mutters.

The boy beams.

Fantastic.
That news will be all over the castle by sunrise, and it’s not even true. “We just talked about this!” I hiss after the boy leaves.

“You talked. I disagreed.”

My jaw goes slack. “Unless you’re planning on knocking me unconscious, dragging me to the temple, and practicing ventriloquy, I still have to say yes!”

Griffin’s face shuts down entirely. “We’ll discuss this later.”

“Discuss? Is that what you’re calling ‘I decree, you obey’?”

Another tray of food passes in front of me, and I grab a phyllo triangle without really looking. Griffin plucks it from my fingers and tosses it back onto the tray. “Goat cheese.”

Damn it!
It’s impossible to stay mad now.

Egeria signals that dinner is about to begin, and everyone moves into the formal dining room to find their predetermined places. Course upon course comes out of the kitchens, mostly northern fare with a few southern specialties thrown in. The dinner seems interminable, not only because I feel hot, achy, and sick, but because everyone keeps looking at me and noting my frankly conspicuous position among the royal family at Beta Sinta’s right hand. On top of that, seated where I am, I can’t learn anything of interest except that Piers, who is on my other side, is capable of disagreeing with absolutely everything I say, even when it’s strictly a matter of personal opinion. By the end of dinner, I’m ready to stab Griffin’s brother with a fork.

Before I can succumb to my baser urges, Egeria rises and claps her hands. “Please proceed to the gardens for our post-dinner entertainment.”

Fresh air, thank the Gods…

Along with a healthy supply of wine at every corner, musicians are peppered around the sprawling grounds. Usually, I like that kind of thing, especially in a torch-lined setting of terraced marble and vibrant green. Tonight, though, I think one pluck of a kithara string will make my head explode.

Gritting my teeth, I follow Griffin toward the gardens anyway, but I’m slow to move, and we end up trailing behind. The last of the nobles disappear from view as we cross the brightly lit reception room, the glare from the oil lamps like a fist in the eye. I glance longingly toward the stairs, wishing I could climb them straight up to bed.

A lone guest is lumbering down the main staircase. She looks up and sees me just as everything inside me freezes.

“Talia? Good Gods! Talia, is that you?”

I stop breathing and keep walking. There’s a pause in Griffin’s step, and I hope the woman bearing down on us from the side doesn’t notice. My very pregnant cousin Helen waddles remarkably fast. She must have been in one of the bedrooms this whole time because she wasn’t downstairs until now. I would have seen her.

“In Castle Sinta of all places!” she exclaims. “Just wait until I tell everyone I’ve found the—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, finally turning to her. “Do I know you?”

She looks taken aback and then laughs. “Very funny. We grew up together. Aarken tortured us both.” She leans in and says confidentially, “Can’t blame that fish for eating him.”

I look confused, or at least I hope I do. “You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

She frowns. “It’s me, Helen. I got away, too. I didn’t cause
nearly
as much of a stir as you did, of course. I had to get married to do it.” She grimaces, rubbing her enormous stomach. “My parents said it was a good enough alliance, and Uncle Dimitri seemed pleased, although we all know what
his
opinion counts for.” She rolls her eyes. “You know, these Sintans really aren’t that bad once you get to know them.” She looks unapologetically at Griffin. “Pardon my saying so, Your Highness.”

Griffin arches an eyebrow in a very successful expression of condescending astonishment, and if she weren’t Helen Fisa, I think she might have fainted. As it is, she’s very sure of her own worth and doesn’t give a damn what Beta Sinta thinks. I always liked Helen.

“I’m afraid we’ve never met. Enjoy the party, and good luck with the baby.” I walk away. It’s too bad. Helen was one of the few people who didn’t make me miserable, and we never tried to kill each other, which makes us allies of a sort.

Her voice echoes behind me, far too loud in my ears. “What’s wrong with you? I know you! Talia, wait!”

I slowly turn back around, Griffin tense at my side and an unwanted audience for this charade. Helen followed. She’s calling me out, and I see the exact moment she realizes she should have let me go. She pales, her eyes widening as she slides a protective hand over her swollen belly.

Mother is convinced that I’m just like she is, or that I’ll at least end up that way. My greatest fear is that she’s right, which is why I’ve never altered anyone’s mind. If I take that small step, if I use compulsion to force Helen to back off to preserve my secrets and send her on her way, what’s to stop me from taking the next step, and the next, until I’m slaughtering puppies, terrorizing children, and killing on a whim?

I stare at my cousin, hearing Mother’s insidious whisper in my ear,
“It’s nothing, Talia. Just this once…”

Helen and I stare at each other. Her eyes grow more fearful, and her whole being seems to curl around her unborn child. I have no violent impulse. I feel compassion. I feel a need to reassure and protect, and in that moment, I finally understand that I will never be my mother.

Heaviness lifts from me. My heart feels weightless in my chest, and for the first time in my life, I am surrounded by air and by light.

I breathe again, not having realized I’d stopped. “Your husband must be looking for you.” I look pointedly at Helen’s midsection in what I hope is a nonthreatening way. “And worrying over your health.”

The stress in her eyes eases, as does her protective stance. “Thank you, Your Highness.” She curtsies—beautifully, of course, despite the state of her belly—and then doesn’t waste a moment crossing the empty room and disappearing into the guest-filled garden.

My heart sinks. I glance fearfully at Griffin, but he doesn’t seem to register anything amiss, at least not with that last part of the conversation, and I realize he already sees me as a princess—
his
princess. He doesn’t know that Helen would never genuinely defer to anyone but Fisan royalty. In her mind, she can count on one hand the people that outrank her, and I’m one of them.

“How does she know you’re the Kingmaker?” Griffin asks in a low voice.

“What?”

“You interrupted her before she could say ‘the Kingmaker.’ How does she know?”

That’s not what Helen was going to say, and if it were in me right now to laugh hysterically, I would. “We were children together. It wasn’t a secret in Castle Fisa.”

“Who’s Aarken?” he asks.

“Her brother.”

“And the fish?” Griffin prods.

“Poseidon’s three-tentacled trout. An Oracle in the Frozen Lake.”

“Your Oracle?”

I nod, feeling increasingly numb.

“I’ll piece your story together,” Griffin vows. “Bit by bit if I have to.”

My stomach plummets. “It’s a terrible tale. I’d rather you didn’t hear it.”

He swipes a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “What am I missing, Cat? Why didn’t your family come for you when you were a prisoner in Castle Fisa? I would never have left you there.”

His words make my heart ache. As usual, my silence aggravates him.

“Should I ask Helen?” he growls.

“Please don’t.” My voice is rusty and catches in my throat. I’m unbearably hot, and my headache just started thumping to the beat of the pulse behind my eyes. Vomit crawls toward my mouth, and I swallow hard.

“Go enjoy the rest of the party. Enjoy your success,” I urge. “My magic has been hard on me tonight. I-I need to rest now.”

Griffin looks at me, seeming torn between concern over my well-being and wanting to interrogate me further. Then, his expression shuttering, he turns and steers me toward the stairs. I think he’s going to leave me there, but my steps falter as I start to climb, so he grips my elbow and takes me back to our room. The second the door shuts, I wearily kick off my sandals and start sliding the pins from my hair.

I unravel a series of tight braids, groaning in relief. “I feel like a stampede of angry Centaurs tried to kick me to death.”

Griffin watches me, his eyes dark. “There’s too much I don’t know about you. Too much you won’t tell me.” Closing the distance between us, he reaches out and runs strong fingers over my scalp, helping to shake out my thick curls. “You can trust me, Cat. I will never betray you.”

Something heavy settles in my chest. “I do trust you.”

His hands go still in my hair and then fall away. “Just not enough.”

I feel the loss of his warmth so acutely that I throw myself against his chest. It takes longer than usual for his arms to close around me, and my heart feels that hesitation like the sharp end of a knife.

Noise from the realm dinner continues well past dawn. The nobles who haven’t retired to their rooms by now have apparently inebriated themselves into thinking that Griffin’s plans came from them in the first place, and are bloody good ones at that.

“To the health of the realm!” someone still in the garden shouts. Griffin’s new toast. Clever, really.

I can’t sleep, partly because Griffin hasn’t come back, and partly because I haven’t been pounded this hard with lies and truths since I was a kid. I hadn’t forgotten the toll it took. I just did it anyway. For Griffin. Now, I’m aware of every aching bone in my body. Even the tiny ones burn.

I give up on resting and climb out of bed. My arms and legs tremble as I force them into clothing that sticks to my clammy skin. Keeping my head down, I leave the castle using a discreet side door and then stumble past the royal bathhouse toward the women’s pool adjacent to the barracks. I’d rather face early-rising soldiers than drunken nobles.

Morning sunshine slants through the high, arched windows, dappling the water with puddles of light. In a haze of pain and fatigue, I slip out of my clothes and sink into the deserted pool with a sigh. I should have done this hours ago instead of waiting—and hoping—for Griffin to return.

I spread out my arms and float in a patch of sunlight, half-asleep, my ears underwater. Naked. Relaxed. Healing.

A sharp pain splits my middle. I gasp, water spilling into my mouth as my eyes fly open, and my hands dart to my belly. I stare in shock at the knife sticking out of my stomach, blood billowing from me like a watery sunset.

Bare feet pad almost silently across the marble floor. My head whips around.
Daphne
.

She’s always watching me. I guess her lurking finally paid off. “Throwing a knife from the shadows is something only a coward would do.”

She shrugs. “It worked.”

“Griffin will never forgive you.” I use one hand to help me float. The other is pressed to my stomach, around the knife’s blade.

“Griffin won’t ever know I was here. There are hundreds of strangers in the castle tonight. Any one of them could have struck you down.”

Air hisses between my teeth. My breathing turns harsh from the pain blistering my middle. “He doesn’t love you.”

“He will,” she grates out, as if saying it makes it true. “Once you’re out of the way.”

Good Gods.
Considering the powerful and horrible people that have tried to kill me, it would be enormously disappointing if
Daphne
were the one to manage it.

I open my mouth, but my Dragon’s Breath fails me. I’m still too drained from last night. It doesn’t matter. I have other ways to kill.

“I was doing my best to tolerate you,” I growl, “but now I’m mad.” I tear the knife from my stomach and send it back. My feet don’t touch the bottom of the pool to steady me, and pain rips my insides as I throw. The knife is heavier than any of mine, but I’m used to working with different blades, and I’ve had plenty of practice adapting on the fly. I don’t go for some ridiculous, slow-death stomach wound. I aim straight for the eye and hit it. Daphne goes over backward, her head cracking against the marble floor.

The satisfaction I ought to feel is absent. I feel…bleak. And light-headed. Panting, I struggle toward the shallow end of the pool. I shouldn’t stay in the water, but it dilutes the blood.

A chill seeps into me, and I start shivering. My heart is heavy, my skin cold. It’s getting harder to breathe. I didn’t want to be right about dying young, and I never thought it would happen like this. The pool is turning pink with my blood, and that’s all I can see.

That, and Griffin’s face when he finds me.

Just hours ago, I was sure I’d never use compulsion on a person, but I start calling for Griffin in my head. I don’t know what else to do, and summoning help isn’t exactly altering minds. But it’s always been those small, seemingly innocuous steps that terrified me, along with Mother’s voice in my head.

He doesn’t come. Maybe he’s too far away. Maybe I’m too weak. More likely he’s immune to compulsion, or maybe I’m just no good at it. The glacial shard around my neck starts turning the water around it to ice. It feels me fading and is working for me.

I’m not ready to give up yet. I never give up. Shadows creep into the edges of my vision, but I push Griffin from my mind and concentrate on sunny blond hair and cobalt eyes.

Kato! Kato! I need you!

I shout for him and picture myself in the bathhouse until everything goes distant and numb. No large, sturdy, dependable man bursts through the doors like I think he will, and I realize I’ve been incredibly stupid. I should have gotten out of the water while I still had the strength to find help.

Slowly, too slowly, I move toward the stairs, water still up to my breasts and my hand gripping the edge of the pool. Blood pounds in my ears, and the steps never seem to get any closer. My legs give out, my hand slides off the edge, and my head slips underwater. Silence engulfs me. I’m going to drown. How utterly ironic.

In this soundless place, my eyes close, and I stop breathing until my body chooses for me. The first liquid lungful burns my chest, choking me. The second rushes in, filling me up. My neck suddenly stings, like someone’s taken a blade and slashed the skin below my ears. The last bubbles of air leave my lungs just as strong hands grip my upper arms and drag me out of the water.

Someone lays me flat on the marble floor. “Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.”

Kato’s voice shatters the darkness enfolding me.

“Breathe!” he bellows, slamming his hands down on either side of my head.

My chest convulses, and water spews from my throat, gagging me. I choke and cough and breathe, tearing at my wound. The stinging pain in my neck disappears as quickly as it came.

“Get Griffin!” Kato shouts.

Someone sprints out of the bathhouse, the heavy gait ringing like Flynn’s.

“The blood…” I mumble, my lips numb.

“To the Underworld with the blood!” Kato presses his hand to my stomach. I gasp, my body jerking in response.

A few minutes must pass. It feels like seconds. Maybe I black out. Griffin’s voice reaches me next, rough with panic. “Cat! My Gods, Cat!”

Griffin never panics. He’s always infuriatingly calm. I raise my hand, groping for him, and he catches my fingers, squeezing them so hard it hurts.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, forcing my eyes to open. When he comes into focus, I wish I hadn’t tried so hard to see. The look on his face terrifies me. I see my death in his harrowed gaze, in the stark lines and stricken planes.

“Don’t die,” he orders gruffly. “Don’t you dare die.”

Tears spill from my eyes and slide hotly down the sides of my face.

“Gods damn it!” Griffin explodes. He turns to his brothers. They must have arrived with him. “Piers! Get that healer.”

There’s only one healer among the guests, a solitary man who kept shooting Griffin and me dirty looks during dinner.

“I don’t know which room he’s in.” Piers hesitates. “He didn’t seem friendly.”

“I don’t care!” Griffin snarls. “Get him! Carver, go to the circus grounds. They’re back. Bring Selena here.”

They both leave immediately. If the circus is outside of Sinta City again, I know where Selena is. It’ll take an hour to get there and back. I don’t have that long. I’m surprisingly resistant to death, so I might have made it if I hadn’t been so worried about the blood and Andromeda tracing me to here. I never thought it would take so long for someone to find me. It was stupid to stay in the water. I hate Mother more than ever. She’s cost me everything. Again.

I shiver, my teeth rattling. “I’m cold.”

Griffin visibly pales. He picks me up and cradles me against his chest. His heat feels like a balm, but it’s not enough to warm me. Kato doesn’t take his hand off my wound. He’s up to his elbow in my blood and as white-faced as Griffin.

Flynn paces frantically before taking off at a run. “I think I know where a healer is!”

“Walk with me,” Griffin orders Kato. They leave the bathhouse with me sheltered between them, taking the side entrance to the castle and climbing the stairs. “How did you find her?”

“She was shouting in my head. I thought it was a dream, but it didn’t feel right, so I got Flynn up, and we went searching.”

Griffin’s arms tense around me. “You should have called
me
.”

Jealous? Even now?
“Tried. Didn’t work.”

He glances down, looking even more stricken. “I should have done something about Daphne. I never thought…”

“Not your fault.” I wish I’d been more truthful with him, and not just about Daphne.

In our room, Griffin goes to lay me on the bed, but I rouse myself enough to protest. Whatever my blood touches will have to be destroyed. “Can’t burn the bed.” It’s the only place I’ve ever felt happy, and safe.

Kato grabs a blanket with his free hand and throws it on the thick sheepskin rug. Griffin sets me down without Kato ever taking the pressure off my stomach. Tears keep spilling from my eyes, silently falling. There are too many people to leave behind. There’s Griffin.

As I look at him, he moves to the side, and my gaze falls on the bowl of lemons. My eyes widen.
What if I live?
“Get the lemons. Wash the blood off with lemon juice.”

Griffin swings a near-frantic look on me. “That’s insane. That’ll hurt like the fires of the Underworld.”

I think we’ve already established that I’m not entirely sane, so I give him the best maniacal glare I can manage under the circumstances. “It’ll corrupt the blood. Confuse her magic. More effective than water.”

A muscle pounds in his jaw. His face turns thunderous. He still cuts open all ten lemons and squeezes the juice over Kato’s hand and my stomach. When the acid hits me, I scream like a child. I scream like the Minotaur is on my tail, and I just hit a dead-end in his maze. I scream for all I’m worth even after Griffin stops what he’s doing and curses violently, hurling the lemon rinds against the wall.

Griffin’s sisters and parents erupt into the room in their nightclothes, panicked.

“Cat!” Jocasta falls to her knees next to me. Trembling fingers brush wet hair off my neck and cheeks. She sniffs loudly and then bursts into tears. The second she starts crying, the other women do, too.

I blink leaden eyelids, wanting to keep looking at them. I have a family crying over me. What a strange idea. I hold on to that thought as I slip in and out of darkness.
Eleni emerges from the shadows to greet me, a smile on her lips, blonde hair glowing, green eyes merry, a bottle of Fisan clover water in her hand.
Has Hades sent her to collect me?

I guess not because she fades, and I wake up, limp and hurting. There’s a sheet covering my nakedness. Griffin is on his knees next to me, his head bowed, his beautiful, wide mouth moving on silent words, praying. I read Poseidon’s name on his lips.

Poseidon
, I beg.
Please take care of him.

Piers bursts through the doorway, two people in tow. “I found him! And another one! A girl.”

Griffin jumps to his feet. He grabs the man and drags him down next to me. “Heal her!”

His eyes flicking over me, the healer smiles like he knows he’s about to die and relishes it. “She killed my wife!” he snarls.

What?

“Belinda went to Ios.” He turns burning, hate-filled eyes on me. “She wanted to stop that healing center garbage.”

Ah, Gods. Talk about rotten luck. I had to grab this guy’s wife and then accidentally kill her?

A storm roars to life in Griffin’s eyes.
Idiot healer.
He’s about to read some sign language.

“Can you drain him?” Griffin asks me, his expression murderous. “Heal yourself?”

I shake my head. My eyes say the rest. I’m already too weak, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Even healers can’t heal themselves.

“Heal her. That’s an order.” There’s steel in Griffin’s voice.

“You can rot in the fires of the Underworld,” the healer spits. “You and your Fisan whore.”

With a snarl, Griffin grabs the man’s head, snaps his neck, and then launches his body across the room. The healer thumps against the wall and then falls to the floor with the lemon rinds.

Kaia bleats like a frightened sheep and sits abruptly on the bed. Her face ashen, Nerissa wraps her arms around her daughter, but she doesn’t scold Griffin like I half expect her to.

Piers shoves the girl at me. She can’t be more than twelve, which means I’m as good as dead.

“I-I’m just an apprentice. I’m here with my parents. I’ve n-never fully healed anyone before.”

Griffin takes her by the shoulders, doing his best to appear calm and nonthreatening despite having just killed a man and tossed him across the room. “Just help her hold on until someone else gets here. Please. I know you can do it.”

She nods jerkily, shaking all over. “I’m strong. They always tell me I’m strong.”

“Good.” Griffin nudges her toward me. “We need you to be strong.”

With his next breath, Griffin sends Piers to the bathhouse. “Wash the blood off the floor. Drain the pool. Refill and drain again.”

Piers nods and leaves the room but not before I see a shadow flit through his eyes, making me wonder what he’s read in his scrolls about magic and blood.

The girl kneels next to me. She peels the blanket to my waist and then lays her hands on my stomach. I feel a tingle of magic, pure and strong, and hiss a breath through my teeth. The pain intensifies as torn things begin the slow, agonizing process of repairing themselves. When I can’t stand it anymore, I moan.

“What are you doing?” Griffin jerks the child off me.

She gasps. “I-I’m doing what you said.”

“You’re hurting her!”

“I know!” the girl cries.

“Keep going,” I croak. “You’re doing fine.”

She looks at me, wide brown eyes in a pale, oval face. I clench my fists until my nails sting my palms and nod in encouragement.

I suffer through the bite of magic and the misery of healing, so drained of blood I think my skin will collapse and mold to my bones, leaving bumps and hollows and sunken flesh. After a while, the feel of the girl’s magic changes. She’s drained her healing power. This is her life force.