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“I believe you.”
21
Morning sunlight woke me, a golden glow streaming through the sheer white curtains. The Imperial Palace Hotel was a far cry from the battlefield tents and train berths I was so used to as a mercenary.
Wendel lay with his back to me, his breathing still slow with sleep. His hair spilled like ink across the pillow and glimmered blue-black. I stroked his hair in my fingers, wondering how he kept it so silky.
On his neck, just over his spine, he had a black tattoo of a double-headed eagle.
My breath caught in my throat.
After three years of looking, I had at last found the symbol my mother had seen tattooed on my father’s neck.
Was it a symbol of Prussian royalty?
My heartbeat thudding, I traced the mark with my finger. Strangely, the eagle’s claws clutched a skull and a six-petaled flower.
Wendel tensed beneath my hand. “Ardis?” Sleep roughened his voice.
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I saw the tattoo on the back of your neck.”
He slid out of bed and bent for his clothes. “It wasn’t my choice.”
“Wendel.”
He tugged on his trousers before grabbing his shirt. Why was he refusing to look at me? What did the tattoo mean to him?
I clutched the sheets to my naked body. “Wendel, what’s wrong?”
With a hard exhalation, he sank back down on the bed and braced his elbows on his knees. His hair hid the eagle on his neck until he brushed it aside. “This was given to me by the Order of the Asphodel.”
My stomach plummeted. Was my father one of them? An assassin?
“Against your will?” I asked.
“It’s a hideous tattoo.” He spoke with derision. “I have better taste than that.”
“Is that why you let your hair grow long?”
“Yes.” He glanced back at me. “Why so many questions?”
“Let me show you.”
I leaned across the bed and took my brass locket from the nightstand. I slid my fingernail between the two halves of the locket. He tilted his head toward the tintype photographs. His gaze locked on my father.
Already pale, his face turned even whiter. “Where did you get this?”
“From my mother.”
“Your mother? Are you serious?” His jaw hardened. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”
I stared at him. “No.”
“Why is she withhim?”
“Who is he? You know him?”
He grabbed his shirt and began buttoning it, though he couldn’t hide how his hands were shaking. “I wish I never knew him.”
