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“All right.”
“But I also need—” She took a deep breath. “I also need to defy my father. And that will make him angry. And I’m not sure how I will handle that.”
Jayla nodded. “I have a few ideas. Let’s talk them over.”
It took all of the next day for Madeleine and Jayla to finalize their plan, but Madeleine was pleased with how the pieces came together. She wished she could get Reese’s opinion before putting it in motion, but he had business in Chibain and would be gone for the next few nights. But she was fairly certain he would approve.
The following morning, she rose from bed still nursing a headache, but nonetheless feeling a cold resolve that replaced some of the formless anxiety of the previous days. She had a faint idea of what to do next, and from this point on she would be feeling her way forward.
She dressed carefully, pinched some color into her cheeks, and threaded a ribbon through her dark hair. Not that her father would notice how she looked. He had never actually considered her aperson;she understood that now. So she made the effort for herself.
She had timed it so she would arrive in the small dining room just as he was about to leave for the day. Indeed, he was on his feet and gathering up a handful of papers when she walked in. “I need to talk to you,” she said.
He finished off his juice and set the glass down. “It’ll have to wait until tonight.”
“It has to be now,” she said.
“Oh, for—what is it, Madeleine? I’m late already.”
“I’m not going to let you marry me off to Tivol so I can produce children who will be sacrificed to Cordelan.”
For a moment, she had the satisfaction of knowing she had caught him completely off-guard. His face showed a complex series of emotions—astonishment, something that might be fear, and something that was definitely calculation—before it shut down again. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said coolly. “I admit, it is a great deal to ask of someone.”
“I’m glad you’re being so reasonable about it. I will send for Tivol and tell him our engagement is off.”
“You won’t,” he said. “You will marry Tivol—very soon—and you will bear his children. You have a role to play and no choice but to play it.”
“I am refusing to play it.”
He took a step closer, his big body radiating menace. He had never struck Madeleine or her brother—never, as far as she knew, lifted a hand to their mother—but she had always believed he was capable of extreme violence. “You have no choice,” he repeated. “If I must confine you to your quarters by force, I’ll do it.”
“People will miss me.”
“People will hear the tragic story of your terrible illness. Who knows, you might even die.”
“It will be awfully hard for Tivol to marry me and set up a household with me if I’m dead.”
Her father shrugged. “The marriage is an attempt to give you some kind of normal life. It is not strictly necessary to meet the requirements of the god. Tivol could suitably mourn you and marry some other girl and move on with his own life.”
Madeleine had never felt so cold, as if her bones had turned to icicles inside the snowbanks of her body. “While he visited me from time to time in order to get me with child?”
“Tivol—or anyone else who might play a similar part.”
“You would turn me into Cordelan’s whore,” she said, deliberately vulgar.
“Only if you give us no other option. So think very carefully before you start telling me what you will and will not do.”
She stepped deeper into the room. She was pleased that—despite her glacial chill, despite her escalating rage—she remained so steady. So calm. “Who do you think knows the true story?” she asked. “All the heads of the Council families, I suppose. And Harlo. But do all the devout young priests know? The bankers and the businessmen? The workers in the warehouses? Are they aware of this very delicate arrangement between the city and the god? How do you think they would react to that news?”
He grunted. “They would panic in the streets. Some would revolt against the priesthood for their centuries of lies, and some would tear down the houses of the Council families, calling us barbarians. But most would riot in terror, burning and looting and trampling each other to death in their haste to abandon the city, afraid of the destruction the god might rain down. We have always known this was a secret we had to keep or risk a completely different kind of ruination.”
“What about my cousins and my aunts and uncles? How many of them are in possession of the secret?”
She could tell he was getting tired of her interrogation, but he had decided he needed to handle her carefully, so he answered. “My brother Archer knows, as he would take my place if something happened to me. None of the rest have been informed. The truth is too complex for ordinary men and women to be expected to understand.”
So he didn’t consider himself ordinary. Well, that wasn’t a surprise. “I suppose you wouldn’t like it if I told my cousins and my friends. If I shared the secret with your trading partners. And your bankers. And your servants.”
Now he was angry again, and his eyes bored into hers. “No, Madeleine, I wouldn’t like it, and you will do no such thing. I am starting to think I will need to cancel my appointments for the day and begin the unpleasant task of confining you to the house—perhaps for the rest of your life.”
