Frantic, I searched the swarm of people exiting the carriages and carts. The opulently dressed nobles, and dour-faced officials, the gold-armored guards. Theodore had to be near, but before I could spot him, my retinue of armored sailors filed in around me, encasing me like plaster.
I tipped my head back to take in Fort Vuoria and my alarm doubled. Its entry doors were towering and arched, carved with the Obelian runes that were emblazoned on their flag. Above them, the center of the building came to a tall, vicious-looking point, flanked on either side by four formidable turrets.
Just like Fort Linum.
There was no doubt in my mind that Nemea had based his mountain fort on this one. Save for the color of the stones, they were each other’s mirrors.
The cold seemed to grow and burrow toward the middle of my bones. I told myself I had not returned, but I could almost smell the dry earth and cypresses. If I spun, I half expected to see the bloodstained execution stone haunting the middle of the courtyard.
I tried to bat away my mind’s trickery and searched between my guards’ shoulders and heads. They’d begun herding me toward the main door with everyone else. I searched the crowd of Varians,all of whom were woefully underdressed for the wintry air, but I couldn’t spot Theodore amid them, nor could I see Halla’s white flash of hair.
He needed to know what my vision had shown me.
The crowd moved into Fort Vuoria’s tight entry, and I breathed with relief to see that its interior did not at all resemble Linum’s. It was a tall, circular room with a steeply arched ceiling, dark and dour within. Unlike Linum’s washed, smooth stones, Vuoria’s had a black patina clinging to its crags. A single partially lit iron chandelier hung low above us.
“What a surprise.” The husky, composed voice rang from the upper landing of the single narrow staircase. The empress peered down on us from the banister. It was disarming to see the ghost of her youthful face within her older one. She’d broadened in the cheeks, softened in the jaw, but the penetratingly keen blue of her eyes remained. A slow smile spread over her bright red mouth. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
The crowd had fallen quiet, and I could hear the brittle sound of Halla clearing her throat. “Hello, Mother,” said, meekly. “As a marriage gift, I requested an Obelian wedding celebration. My new husband granted me my wish.”
I stood tall amid my guards as the empress’s gaze swept over us. She tilted her head slowly, taking her time, that wide smile of hers stuck in place. When her eyes locked with mine, I sensed her jolt of anticipation more than saw it. There was a widening of her eyes, a minute and hungry clamp to her jaw that rattled me to my bones.
The smile slipped off the empress’s face. “Oh, how good of him.” She drew a pale hand across the banister. “Well, come along.” She looked to me. “We have a lot to accomplish in very little time.”
28
Imogen
I was whisked deep into Vuoria’s halls before I ever managed to spot Theodore. My group of guards, along with Aleka and Markis, were led by a regally dressed servant down a corridor that took us toward one of the western turrets.
We worked our way down the dark, labyrinthine passage, and despite my prickling worry and the weakness the mountains set into my muscles, I couldn’t help but wonder after the sparse, draftiness of the place. Knowing the wealth and might of the Obelian empire, I’d expected opulence, but this palace was a worn stronghold, seemingly lost to time. It didn’t showcase wealth or prioritize beauty.
“Strange, isn’t it?” I asked quietly to Aleka, who walked beside me amid the guards.
“What is?”
“Do you think the empress stays here often?” I stared at the bare floor, at the empty, blackened walls. “It seems… rather simple.”
She looked around as if for the first time, noting the details of the place—or lack thereof. The small, high windows; the particularly narrow, winding stairways. Even Fort Linum’s interior feltvast and marginally warm in comparison to this. “It’s not odd for a sovereign to have a stronghold alongside a more opulent home. Surely you know that.”
Nemea hadn’t. He’d abandoned his keep by the sea for Fort Linum the moment it had been built. Even with Aleka’s nonchalance, I could not shake the ill feeling coursing through me. Perhaps it was the mountains themselves that had me off kilter. My joints had started to ache; my lungs felt atrophied from the thin air. “Does His Majesty have a stronghold? A place he retreats to other than Genevreer Palace?”
Markis hiccuped behind us.
I caught Aleka’s thoughtful scowl before she smoothed her face again. “No. Varya’s landscape and palace location has always been sufficient.”
“I see.”
As we were led up yet another dark stone staircase and down a tunnel of a hallway, I only felt more poorly. A deep ripple shuddered through me, and my body flashed hot and then cold. Having grown up in the mountains, I had never realized how greatly they affected me. I’d never known anything other than the fatigue, the dizzy spells, the weakness, and I had not known what it was to feel truly hale until I’d left.
Head suddenly spinning, I stopped short before a small open doorway. Aleka took my arm as I swayed. “There now.” She looked over her shoulder to Markis. “If you would?”
Markis stepped in close, body fully against my side. He fumbled, hands dragging up my waist, as he took my arm. He gazed down at me with a mean, lecherous look. “I’m all right.” I yanked my arm away from his hold. “Just the mountain air.”
The door we’d stopped beside was rough-hewn, the iron hinges craggy. I swiped my clammy hands over the silk of my bodice andstared unblinkingly into the long, narrow room beyond. It was a throne room, but there was no gilding within. No crystal, no fine fabrics. Torches leapt beneath the high-hung windows. Even Nemea’s throne room had been clad in sheets of valuable, polished marble, but the rugged stone within this room was as unkempt as the rest of the place. The chamber was entirely empty save for a remarkably tall dais at its far end, constructed from planks of worn wood.
Atop the towering dais, looking entirely out of place, sat the most opulent throne I’d ever seen. Diamond encrusted, and coated in painstakingly cast silver and gold, the chair looked like it belonged in a different world altogether. Even the deep-blue velvet that covered its seat glinted like it had been stitched through with dark sapphires.
Aleka followed my line of sight and chuckled. “There you go,” she mused. “A bit of that shine you were looking for.”
