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“If you knew you weren’t coming back, what was the point of spending that last night in my bed?” There are so many more pressing things that I can’t figure out, but this one makes the least sense of them all. I tell myself I need to understand her motives, so I know when she’s lying going forward.
Maybe that’s true. Or maybe I just need to know if there was ever anything real at all.
There’s a hitch in her breath, but she is speechless for so long I think she isn’t going to answer. Then, she finally clears her throat. “That’s not relevant to the wellbeing of you or the people in this castle,” she says in a voice that has gone both frigid and hoarse.
I refuse to believe I have wounded her, the woman who is nothing more than a shadow to begin with.
Neither of us speaks after that, but she has somehow managed to become even less present, like she is a mere specter of herself on the other side of the bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight. Rather than vigilance keeping me awake, though, I find myself stirring constantly at the distinct lack of noise, watching her form outlined by the pale moonlight until it rises and falls with breath.
Making sure she is still alive, which makes sense, of course, when there are still so many questions to be answered. That’s the only reason it matters to me.
How many times will I have to tell myself that before I finally start to believe it?
Chapter Nineteen
Einar
When I finally fall asleep, it isn’t for long. Images of Willem’s body and all of the others we’ve burned for the last two decades haunt me. Sometimes their forms are replaced with Zaina’s, only she’s chained to the pyre and staring at me with a challenge in her eyes.
The fourth time I wake up covered in sweat, I decide it’s too much. I quietly sneak out of bed, past Zaina’s sleeping form toward the passage to my study.
The low firelight in the hearth illuminates her face. It’s pinched in sadness or pain, but as eerily motionless as the rest of her. Long raven-colored hair spills out on the pillow beneath her while her body is wrapped tightly in the blankets.
So often, beautiful people want to draw attention to themselves, but it seems as though even in sleep, Zaina tries very hard to go unnoticed.
I suppose that’s a good quality for a spy, though.
Shaking my head, I open the passageway and move soundlessly up the stairs. If I can’t rest, then I might as well use my time productively.
As I do every time I enter this study, I begin by checking for fallen petals. There are none today.
The rose was alone in Gideon’s spacious saddlebags, aside from the small slip of paper. Still, anxiety churns my stomach as I examine it again for signs of damage.
The black stem is still straight, though, and the two remaining blood-red petals are perfectly intact. It looks as if it never even left this spot.
Whatever preserving agent Ulla had used to keep the rose alive is powerful, indeed.
I pull out the note from my desk, the one in the sadist's elegant penmanship. There is nothing outstanding about the handwriting, the calligraphy typical of the average noblewoman, and studying the ink and paper has gotten me nowhere.
Seventeen years has yielded not a single bit of progress on deciphering the words. That doesn’t stop me from torturing myself, scanning my eyes over and over the letter even when it has long since been branded onto my memory.
My Dearest Einar,
You claim to care for neither power or beauty, but I believe that’s easy to say for a man who has both at his fingertips. I wonder how it feels now that you have neither.
I leave you with the flower that poisoned all the precious people you weren’t able to protect. If you look in the most beautiful part of the rose, you might even find a way to save them.
But then, you never could appreciate true beauty when you saw it.
I hope you think of me each time a petal falls,
Ulla
My fist clenchesaround the note, crumpling it in my grasp. I want to throw the damned thing into the fire, for all the good it’s done me. Instead, I smooth it out and place it back in the drawer of my desk, along with all of the other notes and recipes and records of promising ingredients I’ve tried with the fallen petals.
Maybe there is still time to figure out what she meant. Or maybe it is only meant to keep me in agony while I waste my last breath trying to make sense of the madwoman’s nonsense.
I run a hand over my beard. A petal should fall soon, and I need to be ready with a plan for this last chance at a cure.
