I wouldn’t have imagined I’d ever miss our small room in the manor, or the sounds that filtered through the shoddy walls. But those sounds had at least been familiar. The curfew drummers, the servants chittering in the room next door. Nheve calling out instructions before dawn, sellers making their way from residence to residence delivering goods.
I untied the gown just as Talia had shown me, slipped it over my head, and slid under the heavy bedcovers, kicking until they were loose enough that I didn’t feel like I was strapped down.
I stared at the walls, at the moonlight that slanted through the window, the unfamiliar shadows it made across the high, vaulted ceiling and the heavy wooden beams. I didn’t want to sleep, but my eyes drifted shut.
My mind may have objected to sleeping in a shrine to the Lys’Careths, but my body had no qualms at all. The traitor.
Eighteen
When I opened the door the next morning, I found a tray piled with food waiting on the stone floor. Beside it, a soldier stared at the opposite wall.
I picked up the tray and glanced at the guard. “Hungry?”
He didn’t move but slid his gaze to me, then back to the wall in front of him. “Thank you, no.” And then his stomach rumbled.
I looked down the hallway in one direction, then the other. “No one is looking, and I can’t eat all this. You’d be helping me by taking something. And if you help me, you help the prince.”
I had to work to resettle the tray in one hand—it was absolutely loaded with food—but picked up a small cake and extended it.
He scanned the hallway, took it, and popped it into his mouth. And made a very happy sound as he chewed.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He swallowed. “Pax.”
“I’m Fox. One more?” I asked, and held the tray up. He looked longingly at a pastry but shook his head and returned his gaze to the wall.
I took that as my cue to leave and went inside. He closed the door behind me, so I put the tray on the bed and sat down beside it.
I still wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do with myself—the idea of lounging around a palace seemed like the pinnacle of sloth. Surely the Lady would find out and demand the prince put me to work. Focusing on breakfast seemed a good start.
When my hunger was dealt with, I was left alone with quiet and uncertainty. I cleaned up and dressed and braided my hair, then heard a knock at the door.
I opened it and found Talia there.
“That’s a very becoming dress,” she said with a smile.
It was the color of sweetwine—a rich purple-red—with pretty ribbons sewn across the bodice. “I found it in the wooden chest. I assumed it was for me.”
“It was. We bought a few in the market while you were unconscious and had them taken in to fit you.” She adjusted my braid so it sat nicely on my shoulder. “You look very presentable.”
“For?”
“His Highness would like to speak with you. He’s in the throne room.”
We made our way through the palace, past more murals, statues of the Terran gods, and portraits of sundry Lys’Careth royals. We walked beneath the light of golden wall torches and chandeliers for some time before reaching a wide atrium where two doors of gleaming copper rose into the air, easily taller thanthree or four of me. They were embossed with crowns and vines and mountain swallows and secured by a bevy of guards.
“The main palace doors,” Talia said. “Crafted in the City of Flowers and carried overland all the way to the stronghold. Look up.”
I lifted my gaze. The palace’s spearing tower rose dozens (hundreds?) of strides above us, and light slanted through hundreds of cleverly hidden windows in the soaring tower, making an ever-shifting pattern across the stone floor.
“The builder wanted it to feel like you were lying in a field of grown mountain lilies, with sunlight filtering down through leaves and petals.”
“He’s not far off,” I said. “And this way you don’t get muddy or bug-bitten.”
“Definite advantages. This way,” she said, then gestured to the right. We followed another series of corridors to another set of doors. These weren’t quite as tall as the others, but their dark honey wood was carved with delicate twining mountain lilies. A pair of soldiers waited outside, and as we approached, they pulled the doors’ golden handles.
My heart beating a little faster, I followed Talia inside.
