Burning Glass (9 page)

Maybe, if I was very fortunate, Emperor Valko wouldn’t be as every rumor suggested. Maybe he would share some traits with his brother.

I pressed a hand to my stomach and reminded myself Anton wasn’t as gallant or caring as he’d led me to believe. It had been a show designed to bring me to the palace in haste, as he’d been commissioned to do. No doubt he shared many traits with the emperor, and none of them would bring me any comfort.

W
E DIDN’T APPROACH THE EMPEROR’S ROOMS AS
I
’D EXPECTED.
Lenka led me down two twirling flights of stairs until we reached the main level of the palace. She needn’t have guided me any farther. All I had to do was step into the river of people flowing westward past the amber lobby. Lenka accompanied me anyway, and for that I was grateful. I wasn’t prepared to be among so many people, so many crowded emotions. I kept my arm pressed to my maid’s, despite her annoyance at my closeness, and fought to leech her energy and forget everyone else’s. We marched together down the marble-pillared corridor. My belly was a pit of worry. My heart thrummed so hard, I feared it might bruise my chest. I tucked my chin and latched my gaze on the parquet floor. I hoped the emperor wouldn’t notice me.

It was a stupid idea to wear my hair down. Now I felt even younger, even smaller in comparison to my enormous duty. I was supposed to be a protectress. I should
allow
myself to rub
shoulders with the nobles, to glean from them what I could and discern any potential threats, not hang on my maid’s apron strings. I took a step away from Lenka as I attempted to
be
the sovereign Auraseer, but immediately my body started shaking. I felt threats
everywhere.

The auras of the nobles were different from those of the city dwellers, not because of the aristocrats’ distinguished societal positions, but because they felt more practiced at veiling the hostility they bore for one another. Life at court made them artists of deception. Still, what I sensed from them was enough to tighten my throat and send a fit of tremors through my body. Clutching my neck, I bumped back into Lenka and cowered from the highborn sweeping past me. How could I be certain their ill will wasn’t directed at the emperor?

For their part, the nobles were oblivious to me. Without my token robes, they didn’t recognize me as the sovereign Auraseer. Heads held high, they walked onward and in through the doors of the great hall.

Lenka shrugged me away and made me stand up straight. “Pull yourself together, child! Remember your training.”

I wanted to weep. What training? While the other Auraseers at the convent had sat in the study hall and wrote essays on the subtle distinctions between hunger, avarice, and desire, I’d scribbled notes to Yuliya or used too much of my inkwell to play mind-numbing games of X’s and O’s.

I bit my lip to control my wobbling chin. No, I wouldn’t think of the convent. I wouldn’t remember the last time I saw
its burned ruins or inhaled the thick and cloying stench of the dead.

I bent over in a sudden fit of nausea. As I closed my eyes, I saw Yuliya’s lifeless face, the gash in her leg, her bloody sheets. My nose stung, a warning I might cry. I should. I hadn’t shed enough tears over everyone who had died because of me.

“Stop this at once!” Lenka jostled my arm. Her voice was nothing more than a hiss. Shame, more than concern, permeated her aura. I must be a public disgrace.

I rushed into the shadows behind one of the great hall’s doors. Here I was farther away from the nobles, though not outdistanced from the tumultuous memories in my head. “I’m tired from my journey. Please . . . I can’t do this tonight. I can’t go in there.”

Lenka’s horselike mouth pursed and shriveled up with wrinkles to match Sestra Mirna’s. “Don’t you dare speak of shirking from your responsibility! This isn’t the convent. You cannot say you are sick and hide away in your room. You
will
attend the emperor, as you will every time he requires you. When you are through tonight, you can take to your box bed. Its design
does
serve a purpose.”

Dread turned my stomach to stone, and I wiped the moisture from under my nose. “Very well, then.” Lenka was right. I couldn’t hide. I had Dasha and Tola to think of. “Just let me collect myself.”

“There is no time for that.” She prodded me out of the shadows. Her face looked skeletal in the half-light. “Go in there and
keep your wits about you!” With one final shove, she launched me into the great hall and promptly abandoned me.

My heart pounded like a volley of musket fire. I struggled to stand up straight and took several long breaths. The serpentine press of the nobles’ auras slithered closer. Competing with them was the memory of the convent in flames.

Think of something else. Think of anything else.

My childhood home.
No, that wasn’t a vivid enough recollection.

The scent of my mother’s hair.
Rosemary and . . . I couldn’t remember.

Think of me.
I blinked, recalling Anton’s words from this afternoon. “Think of me,” he had said when I was on the verge of completely losing all control among the commoners in the square. Anton had done what I couldn’t do on my own. He’d distracted me. More than that, he’d brought me back to myself.

I lifted my gaze to the massive domed ceiling in the great hall.
Think of Anton.

The ceiling was painted a robin’s-egg blue and embellished with swirling golds, indigos, and reds—intricate and interwoven like living embroidery. I saw what wasn’t there: the prince’s buttery-brown eyes in the wintry light of Torchev.

As I focused on his image, the buzz of the nobles’ auras softened inside me as if a conductor had hushed his orchestra. I took an astonished breath.
This is working.

I kept my sight on the ceiling, wishing I could run my fingers over the places where it shimmered in the light of the
chandeliers. Remembering Anton’s touch, a warm sensation spread across my back where he had placed his steadying hand.

Exhaling, I lowered my gaze and walked deeper into the great hall. Two long tables ran the length of the room, their surfaces draped in midnight-blue cloth and bedecked with evergreen boughs and glowing candles.

I pictured Anton in profile as he snapped the reins of the sleigh, the way his head tipped back in admiration to watch the sun glint off the snow-capped hills on our journey, or when the light shone a spectrum of color along the crystalline branches of a frozen weeping willow.

I advanced three more steps. Porcelain plates, crystal goblets, and gold utensils beckoned the nobles to sit on high-backed, velvet chairs. A string quartet added to the enchantment. The courtiers practically waltzed to their designated seats, the ladies in their jeweled headdresses and tiaras, the men in their polished boots and gold-buttoned kaftans.

I remembered how Anton had dismounted from the white mare once we reached the palace, how his cape had billowed as he turned away and left me in a veritable lion’s den.

The prince’s spell over me broke. In its place came a torrent of dizziness as the nobles’ auras pried their way inside my body. In came their pangs of gluttonous hunger as they eyed the first course of the feast. Their tingles of dark passion. Their scraping hatred past the strain to smile. I caught the furtive glance a noblewoman cast to a man who wasn’t the one she laid her gloved hand on. Behind her, two men whispered, eyes
narrowed, as one inhaled snuff powder from his knuckle. At the nearest table, a gray-haired woman traced a finger down her age-spotted neck while she stared at the milky skin of the lady seated across from her.

The room began to tilt. My faintness grew stronger. So much for trying to use Anton as my anchor. Legs shaking, I glanced around me. I needed to sit down, though I didn’t know where.

The quartet went silent. The nobles who had been sitting, stood. The ladies lowered their fans. The men angled their bearded faces to the doors behind a third table—this one on a dais at the head of the room. Two liveried servants advanced onto the raised platform in unison and reached for the ivory handles of the doors. On impulse, I stepped behind a tall nobleman and hid like a child who had broken her mother’s favorite teacup.

The silence stretched for an unbearable length. My head prickled from holding my breath. The clip of shoes—the emperor’s?—and another one or two pairs echoed into the curve of the dome above me. I searched inside myself for any new feeling, for a spark of something austere or dramatic or even cruel. Nothing so exciting happened. In fact, I couldn’t place why moments ago I’d been on the verge of fainting.

I released my pent-up breath with all the grace of a wilting flower. I stared at my slippers, peeking out from the hem of my dress. I tapped the toes together, because that was at least mildly stimulating. The inlaid wood of the parquet floor was cut
in the same swirling designs as the ceiling above. Why had it ever mesmerized me with thoughts of Anton?

My eyelids grew heavy. I had an itch at the back of my neck. When could I sit down? I was past the point of exhaustion. I peered around the man blocking me to see what was taking so long.

I caught my first glimpse of Emperor Valko.

He was young. I knew that he would be, but didn’t expect him to appear so close in age to myself. The emperor was older than Anton, but he seemed to be two years his junior. I wondered how that aspect played into their relationship. Once my surprise at the emperor’s youthful appearance had subsided, I let myself study his face.

Cool gray eyes. Brows so straight they could have been drawn above a rule stick. A pronounced, wide mouth, running a parallel line below. A handsome nose, if a little short. In fact, his face altogether had a slightly compacted look from his forehead to his chin. But somehow it worked in his favor, making him more alluring, more feline, setting him apart from everyone else in the room—in the empire. Proof, as the nobles claimed, that his bloodline was indeed blessed by the gods.

He stood as he conversed with other men on the dais. Councilors, I presumed. One was a general, by his uniform. The Romska had a humorous song about a general’s fussy regimentals, from his gold epaulets to his red pompons and plumes. The emperor nodded and said something in a low voice to the general, not deigning to look the man in the eye. The honor of
being addressed by his monarch, however slight, was enough to make the man puff out his chest. As the general gave a reply, the emperor leisurely held up a silencing hand. At once, the general’s mouth clamped shut and he prostrated himself in bow.

When the general and councilors turned away to discuss something more, the emperor’s nostrils flared with a stifled yawn. He never once turned his gaze to the waiting assembly. As the councilors continued their hushed conversation, the emperor picked his thumbnail on the back of his ornate chair. He was bored, I realized. I
had
sensed him a moment ago. My sudden disinterest belonged to
him.

I breathed in deeply. Honing in on his aura from across the room—singling it out from so many, even before I had seen him—brought me a great measure of satisfaction. I might not lose my head, after all.

Feeling more at ease, I let my gaze drift away. Apart from the councilors, another man stood on the dais.
Anton.
A little zing shot through my palms and the soles of my feet when I discovered he was already staring at me.

His hair was slicked back, the windblown look from our journey gone. He wore a green silk kaftan. Its hem skimmed his thigh in the new fashion and was belted low at the waist with a brown strap of leather that matched his dark boots. I took in his furrowed brows and pressed lips. I didn’t need to decipher his aura to know he was displeased. His eyes fell to my hair, to my gown, and a feeling of nakedness came over me, worse than when Lenka and my maids had assessed my body. Perhaps
I should have worn the fur-lined robe and headdress. Clearly without them, I gave offense. And
with
them, I’d have had all the more layers to hide beneath.

I glanced away from the prince and lifted my chin, taking a keen interest in a sconce on the wall, surely the most ordinary thing in the room. For all my rapt attention, it could have been a wreath of diamonds.

At length, the emperor and his councilors decided their untimely conversation was over. Valko seated himself, followed by the court nobles doing the same. Together, they were a wave of rustling taffeta and scraping chairs.

My heartbeat quickened. I clutched the skirt of my dress. I didn’t want to call notice to myself by standing alone, but every seat seemed occupied—every seat except the last chair at the emperor’s table. Was it reserved for the sovereign Auraseer?

It must be. It would be an ideal position for protecting him.

I took three steps in that direction when Anton shook his head. The motion was subtle, but clearly spelled
no.
I halted. The look on his face said I nearly escaped the social blunder of the century.

Emperor Valko was unaware. He took a sip of wine and idly traced the stem of his crystal goblet. I still had time to find my place.

I scanned the room. The people were a riot of pearls and feathers and winter pastels. For the life of me, I couldn’t find a vacant chair.

Anton’s eyes widened a fraction, and he tipped his head to
the left. I frowned. He tipped it again. I glanced to that side of the room. Still no chair. He picked up his fork, and while polishing it on his napkin, pointed its prongs to the left. I shrugged my shoulders. He gave the fork a pronounced wiggle.

Where?
I mouthed.

There?
His lips pursed the silent word.

The emperor’s gaze lifted and narrowed on his brother, two seats away. Then his imperial eyes found me. I cursed the seven gods and stumbled a curtsy, ducking my head as I rushed to my left, where I demanded a chair to materialize.

A heavyset woman shifted and leaned to her plate, and the magical chair appeared. I promptly sat upon it and spent several long moments arranging my napkin just so on my lap, all the while praying that the burning in my cheeks looked like a healthy flush and not bright splotches of embarrassment. At last, I stole a glance at the dais.

Emperor Valko was still watching me.

Anton had taken up the fine art of buttering a roll. The emperor’s gaze flicked between us, but the prince didn’t acknowledge me again.

Valko whispered to the councilor on his right. The man skimmed the crowd. His eyes riveted to mine. The man nodded, then whispered to Anton, seated on
his
right. This was like some infuriating child’s game where I was the target of the prank. Anton set down his knife and muttered a reply, never again looking in my direction. The councilor passed the message to Valko, who arched his brows. His gaze returned to me,
and he leaned back in his chair. What had happened was simple enough to determine—the emperor had confirmed I was his Auraseer.