The crash of release made me cross-eyed, diamond stars wrenching my brains out the back of my skull. Though I tried to keep myself leashed, I knew I thrust too hard into Lia’s deliciously welcoming heat. She thrashed beneath me, a wild thing moaning encouragement I didn’t need, our skin slicking against the other, a contact I’d been too ignorant to miss before and now knew I’d crave the rest of my benighted life.
As the brutal fist of the climax relaxed, I at least had the presence of mind to slip a hand under her head, cushioning that fragile-seeming skull from the cold tiles, propping my weight on my elbow, uncaring how painful the hard floor made it. Better my battered body than her delicate one. Dizzy, I dropped my face to my forearm, dragging in breath after breath. You’d think I’d been battling hours instead of making love to a woman. My wife. The Queen of Flowers.
How unreal was that?
Her hands trailed down my back, like she thought I needed soothing. Maybe I did. The comforting caress of her fingertips, bare of the wicked nails she usually affected—or I’d be sporting furrows of blood from them—touched some ragged part deep inside me. I throttled the tender feeling before I did something horribly weak, or confessed something unwise. Lia brought out a side of me I’d thought long since dead, buried under mounds of stinking rock and despair. Lying there on her supple skin, a blossom of a woman, in the warm night with torchlight and some sweet flower filling the still air … In another world, another lifetime, I might have called it romantic.
“Mmm,” she purred, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “On second thought I’m not at all annoyed that you didn’t come to bed.”
I lifted my head to check her face to see if she was teasing me. She smiled, all soft and glowing. Without the wig her eyes looked huge in her small-boned face, glinting with light, like otherworldly, radiant jewels. Lovely eyes, deep blue now, almost purple. No, a rich emerald. I cocked my head, studying one eye then the other. One blue. One green. Glowing, as if lit from within. “Are your eyes different colors?”
For a moment she looked startled and vulnerable, those gorgeous eyes widening, a tremor running through her body, just as when I’d pulled the wig away. I caressed her scalp, sliding my hand down to massage the tight tendons at the base of her neck. The woman was way too tense for someone who wasn’t a warrior. Though I supposed she fought her battles every day just the same.
“It’s me,” I told her, not sure if that made any sense. But there I was, her husband, my life sworn to hers, my body still sheathed inside her. “I won’t tell. I won’t hurt you,” I added, just in case that helped.
“I know.” She blew out a breath, her body relaxing beneath mine, though she’d lost her previous languor. “Let Me up.”
I hadn’t thought I was preventing her, but I heard the return of the regal tone to her voice and obliged. Obeyed, perhaps. A fine line there. I settled back, watching as she sat up, tucked her legs demurely to one side, and ran her hands over her bare skull, then glanced at where I’d tossed her wig, well out of easy reach. She felt naked without it, I could tell, and she’d love to put it on again—but I bet myself she wouldn’t reveal that insecurity by going to get it. That would betray too much.
When she returned her gaze to mine, she’d assumed her invisible cloak of cool poise—and her eyes were once again gray-blue, the same on both sides. “Better?” she asked.
“If you mean, are your eyes the same as each other again, and more … not as colorful, then yes. But not better.”
She paused, that stillness to her, like a forest animal freezing when a predator passes. It made me want to kiss her, so I took the chance, going to her on hands and knees and hovering my mouth near hers until she tipped her chin up to meet my lips. I kissed her as tenderly as I knew how, aware of how often I didn’t. The lust for her raged in me, and I was not a civilized man by any stretch. Fortunately she seemed to understand and accept that. Maybe the wildness in her recognized the same in me.
I pulled back just enough to speak, hoping the words would come out right. “I liked the different colors. Beautiful and magical, like you.”
She searched my face, a tentativeness in her eyes, though she’d definitely done something to change and mute them. “What colors did you see?”
It seemed wrong to say just blue and green, but I wasn’t much for poetic words. “Don’t you know?”
She shrugged a little, then gave me a quick kiss before scrambling away with lithe grace. Not quite fleeing, but not far from it, either. Catching up the wig, she pulled it on, then walked casually over to the robe she’d discarded. I took note of the order—and how she didn’t mind at all bending over so I saw all of her pink sex between her legs, but she’d covered her bald head as soon as she could. She turned back to face me, tying the sash of her robe, watching me pull up my pants. I didn’t have anything to clean myself with, but oh well.
“I haven’t let My eyes show in … forever,” she said. “It’s been so long I can’t even remember what they look like. I’m rather astonished at My lapse.” She cocked her head slightly, and I didn’t miss the hint of accusation.
I very nearly said something about how I’d fucked her senseless, but that was a crude joke I’d heard and I doubted it would come out as funny. Instead I got to my feet and pulled on my shirt, buckling on the vest and belt again, thinking hard. “Deep blue,” I said, “like the sky gets after sunset but before it’s really night. On the left. On the right…” I frowned, considering. “Like that jewel of Ambrose’s—you know how it gets really green when the sun hits it just right? Bright, but still rich-looking. Like that.”
She smiled slightly, a closed-mouthed pursing of her lips, a quirk to her brows. They were different without the makeup—not etched and elegant, but light and almost feathery. If her real hair grew in, she’d told me, it would be like fine vines with leaves and flowers. It had been hard for me to picture before, but I could see it in my head now, having glimpsed her true eyes.
I frowned, tugging at an elusive memory. Trying to remember stuff from before the mines could be like hooking a fish—I had to lay in wait when the shadow of a memory flitted by, then move slowly, steadily, to draw it in. Make my move too fast and I’d spook it.
Ah, there was a piece of it … a book, with illustrations. A very old memory because I was in the nursery, and my sister was there, the book on her lap. She pointed at the picture of a naked girl in a jungle of flowers, her hair and the background weaving together. Her eyes, one blue and one green, shimmered like jewels. Like Lia.
I tried to see the cover of that book. We’d loved it, I remembered that much. And our nurse had read us stories from it, of old gods and … elementals. Yes, that illustration had to have been of a being like Lia in some way. If only I could remember the stories themselves, they might give me insight.
“What?” she asked, breaking into my thoughts.
Mentally, I set the hook for the memory, hoping to snag the whole thing. But I thought she wouldn’t like it if I told her I’d been trying to figure her out. “If you can change your eye color just by thinking about it, why use the makeup and stuff?”
She didn’t cock her head—even without the crown and wig, she held her chin firm and spine straight, like she never lost awareness of that balance—as she considered the question. “It’s more than just ‘thinking’ about it,” she said slowly. “It takes concentration. I had to practice it for a long time when I was a girl. Mostly it’s habit now, and the minor drain is something I’m used to. If I had another way to disguise My eyes, I’d do it.”
“Only now maybe you don’t have to. There’s no reason to keep secrets about yourself anymore,” I added, gentling my voice as I said the words, seeing how she withdrew as I spoke.
“You’re wrong,” she replied with flat determination. “There’s every reason.”
“Tell me one.” I held her muted gaze in direct challenge, not letting her off easily.
“It’s how I survive,” she replied quietly. “You have your revenge. I have … endurance.”
I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” She hesitated, then added, almost reluctantly. “In some ways, I don’t understand, either. I’ve survived this long by hiding. At night, I hear the howls of those who suffer, the ones who didn’t stay safe. Their obvious pain is a good reason to keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
I turned that over in my head, still not sure what she was saying. “What do you mean, that you hear … these things?”
“Never mind.” Firmly changing the subject, she swept her hand at the map. “So, what have you discovered? You spent all day studying My island.”
I’d pushed her enough—especially considering what I had to say next. “This place,” I said, walking barefoot to a part of the coastline I’d been studying. I’d been over the whole thing countless times, and I kept coming back to that one.
She drifted over to me, looking down, then up at me, that fine pucker between her brows. I bet it didn’t show when she had the heavy makeup on and I nearly lifted a finger to trace it, but that would be giving away that I’d picked up on one of her tells. She had so few that I’d better hoard the ones I discovered.
“Cradysica?”
“What does that name mean?” I countered. The word tickled some of that old, same memory.
She shrugged, but she picked at the band of the orchid ring with her thumbnail. Another tell—one that made me wonder if the thing itched or something. “Nothing special—just a place-name, for a village like any other.”
“I want to go there.”
“Then go. You’re a free man. Do as you like.”
“I want you to come with me.”
With a tightening jaw, she jammed her hands to her hips. “That’s what this is,” she hissed. “A trick to get Me out of the palace. You want to bring Anure’s wrath down on Cradysica. It’s a beautiful place with an innocent population. I won’t let you sacrifice them to—”
“No?” I stood up, leaned over her. Even so much shorter without her fancy heels, she burned with imposing presence. “Which part of Calanthe will you sacrifice, Lia?” I swept a hand at the detailed map, glittering more sullenly now as the torches guttered. “Go ahead and pick it out. I’ll wait.”
She glared at me, gaze full of fury that could cut a man to ribbons. “You are loathsome.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I bit out. There was no reasoning with this woman.
“You have no idea what this is like for Me,” she gritted through clenched teeth.
“Then tell me.” The near shout strained my throat, painfully grating as it hadn’t in a while.
Her eyes briefly glimmered, her face losing its smooth impassivity for a blink. Then she had it back and I wondered if I’d imagined the tears. “You don’t have the ability to understand.”
The cool words, lethally sharp in their dismissive arrogance—those were a new weapon. I ignored the hit, taking the reveal for the opening it was.
“Not if you don’t explain.” I returned the words hard. “You said you trusted me.”
A flare of impact as that hit home in turn. She closed her lips tight, assessing me. “That was sex.”
“It’s all the same thing, Lia.”
“Oh, Con.” She spoke in a pitying tone, lifting a hand to pet me into calm—eyes widening in surprise when I batted it away. Chilling, she stepped back. “The first lesson of the Court of Flowers is that sex is sex. I promised to be your wife, and that gives you access to My body, but I don’t owe you anything else.”
I pushed through the pain in my throat, and the weary awareness that she didn’t share the tumult of emotions that plagued me. What a pitiful piece of shit I was, thinking of making love to her, that the joining of our bodies meant something, when it clearly meant nothing to her. “What about your willing alliance and assistance, which you promised only this morning? I can’t win this fight, do the job you married me to do, unless you work with me.”
She stared hard, chin lifted in defiance. Then she sagged, almost imperceptibly, gaze going to the village of Cradysica. “Why there?”
“I need to see it first, for real. Then I’ll know if it’s the right place.”
When she glanced back at me, nodding in resignation, I knew I’d won. “But I want to convene everyone again. If Cradysica is the place, we’ll need to have plans ready, weapons prepared.”
“Shall I have our advisers dragged from their beds, or is morning soon enough?”
“Morning is fine.” I ignored her scathing tone, figuring she deserved her anger. “But first thing—not after hours squandered in formal court, spending time on inane meetings about … other stuff.” I amended what I’d been about to say when she pierced me with a fulminous stare that just dared me to minimize the business of running Calanthe.
We descended the long stairs in silence, but when we met Ibolya patiently waiting at the foot of the tower, Lia instructed her to send messages to everyone to meet first thing in the morning. Far too early, to my mind, given the very late hour, but I could hardly argue now. Still, how did the woman get by on so little sleep?
“Happy now?” Lia asked, and I nodded, though, as usual, victory tasted like ash. I imagined the final triumph would be the same. When I struck down Anure and destroyed his empire, I didn’t expect to feel good. I only hoped the ravenous ghosts that clamored for vengeance would at last be satisfied.
As I accompanied Lia back to our rooms, it occurred to me that the only time I had felt anything that resembled happiness was in those moments skin-to-skin with her, buried in her, with her scent around me and her unguarded cries in my ear. Only then did the voices of the past fall into silence.
Like Lia’s eyes, however, neither of us stayed unarmored for long—and the voices of the dead renewed their demands all too soon.
Though Lia fell asleep the moment we lay down, her back turned to me in cold dismissal, I remained awake, eyes stubbornly popping open, brain still chewing away at the problem. Cradysica had the perfect landscape for a trap—if I read the map right, and if the currents were what I thought. The name … instinct plucked at me. Something there.
It had to be the place. If so, the strategy had to be perfect. It should be simple: dangle Lia as bait, draw in Anure personally, along with his forces, fold the trap around him. We needed a lot of vurgsten, true, but we’d overcome similar odds. Avoiding blood shed in violence would be nearly impossible, but I’d promised Lia I’d try.
As for protecting her … Getting her out of the palace was the first step. Keeping her out of Anure’s reach should be reasonably straightforward. If she obeyed orders, which—let’s face it—she wouldn’t do.
She made a sound of protest in her sleep, and for a moment, I thought she responded to my thought. Then she whined, piteous, like a small creature in pain. “Lia?”
Another cry, louder, more agonized. It scraped along my nerves, dredging up memories of the mines and hearing sounds like that in the night. Clenching my jaw, I put a hand on her shoulder. Did she have nightmares like we did? I’ve endured more than you know. “Lia, sweet. Wake up.”
She did. Abruptly and fully. The moonlight reflected on the shining seas just beyond the nearly full circle of open windows that ringed the bedchamber, lighting the room and her pale face, her eyes luminous. Terror and grief in them. “Is it morning?” she asked, her voice clear, no hint of sleep fogging it.
And I realized I’d spoken as her ladies would to wake her for the day, like setting spark to vurgsten and exploding her from sleep. “No. You were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
Her face smoothed, eyes unfocusing. “Dawn isn’t long away, though.”
“How do you know?”
“I feel it. Calanthe is waking. Listen.”
Sure enough, a bird called, followed by more. A soft knock on the door, and Ibolya called through it. “Conrí?”
“You were right,” I said. Maybe I’d slept without knowing it. Giving her a kiss—because she still looked lost—I found her lips cool, nearly waxy. “Are you well?”
She gazed back at me, lips still parted as if she might speak, then she pressed them closed. “I’m fine. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Still, I hesitated. “Maybe you should sleep longer.”
She rolled over, turning her back to me again. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Not exactly reassuring. I lifted a hand to touch her shoulder again, but another knock came, louder. “Conrí?”
Getting out of bed, I pulled on the soft robe they’d given me and went out to meet Ibolya. The rooms lay in quiet dimness still, no candles lit, and I realized the bright moonlight mingled with coming dawn. Ibolya smiled, looking untouched as dew, wearing a different gown and wig than a few hours before, fresh flowers gleaming in the soft light. “Good morning, Conrí. Did you rest well?”
“No,” I replied bluntly, and she blinked at me in surprise. “Did you rest at all?”
She laughed, a practiced sound like bells. “No. I used the time to refresh myself and change clothes. But I did nap while Her Highness visited you in the map tower.” She led me to the adjoining rooms that had been converted for me to bathe and dress in, so I wouldn’t be in the way of Lia and her rituals. Ibolya showed me the bath full of steaming water, as if I hadn’t been doing this every day since the wedding. This room was brightly lit with glass-paned lanterns. “Do you need anything else, Conrí?” she asked.
“No, I’m good.” Maybe I’d catch a nap in the tub.
“General Kara requests an audience. Shall I ask him to wait?”
I snorted at the image of Kara “requesting” anything. Always an early riser, he doubtless kicked his heels in impatience at being blockaded. “I’ll see him now.”
She curtsied, turning politely away as I dropped the robe and got in the tub. “Shall I bring tea?”
“Coffee,” I said. They grew the stuff here on Calanthe, one of its many delights. Plus I could use its stimulating kick today. “And get Kara to bring it. He can make himself useful.”
Ibolya giggled lightly. “Yes, Conrí.”
“Ibolya?”
She turned, hand on the door latch, brows raised politely. “Have you known Lia—Her Highness—for a long time?”
Her face smoothed into a polite mask. “I’ve served Her Highness for five years. Not as long as other of Her ladies.”
I nodded. “Does she have nightmares?”
“I couldn’t say, Conrí.”
Nice, specific phrasing. Not confirming or denying. “Thanks. Send Kara in.”
“As soon as I load up the coffee tray, Conrí,” she replied with an impish smile. An apology of sorts, for not replying, I decided.
I did fall asleep in the tub, because Kara woke me by kicking the side of it. I squinted at the grim specter of his disapproving scowl, glaring at me over a tray laden with a silver coffee service. “Must be nice,” he commented.
“Don’t they offer you hot baths?” I replied, taking the mug he handed me while expertly balancing the tray on one hand. “Remind me to talk to the staff for you.”
“Funny,” he grunted. Putting the tray on the table, he added several spoonfuls of sugar to his own mug before offering the sweetener to me. I shook my head and tasted mine, savoring the roasted bitter richness. Kara pulled up a chair, holding his solid mug in his scarred hands.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m concerned.”
“Yeah?” I’d met Kara in the mines and we’d fought together for a long time. He almost never hesitated to speak his mind. Seeking me out when he knew we’d be in private …
“There’s no way to battle Anure’s forces without shedding blood. Plenty of it. The violence goes without saying.”
“I know.” Of course we all knew that. Everyone but Lia, and the rest of Calanthe.
“And yet you promised Her Highness.”
“I said I’d try.” I drained the cup and set to scrubbing myself.
“Then you don’t intend to keep your promise?”
I shrugged, soaping my hair and closing my eyes against the stinging suds. “I’ll try. Lia doesn’t understand war, and right now I need Lia compliant.” Did I just say that? What a hypocrite I was, promising one thing to her face, conspiring to keep her ignorant and pliable behind her back. Guess it wasn’t the most monstrous thing about me, though.
“What of the consequences?”
I ducked my head and wiped water from my face, getting a look at Kara’s. “You don’t believe this magic stuff has any real-world impact, do you?”
His eyes got a faraway look. “There are old stories.”
“Yeah. About unicorns and dragons, too. There’s magic here, I’ll admit, and Lia has it. But really, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ve already survived the end of the world. I don’t see how anything else could be all that bad.”
Kara focused on me again, giving me an unamused smile. “Did you ask Ambrose?”
“He never gives me a straight answer,” I grumbled, standing and wringing out my hair before reaching for a drying cloth.
“Are you sure you’re not just ignoring anything that interferes with your vengeance?”
“I’m ignoring this conversation. I found a potential location. Cradysica. In case you want to check it out before we meet.”
He nodded, his gaze dark. “This plan … you’re talking endgame here, Conrí.”
I pulled on the pants that efficient Ibolya had left for me. “You just figured that out?”
Standing, he refilled my cup, thrusting it at me. “Have more, because your brain clearly isn’t working.”
Though I didn’t want it, I drank, waiting for the lecture. “Spit it out, man.”
“I did some calculations. Even getting all the ships, all the vurgsten here for this trap—we’re greatly outmatched.”
“Not news, Kara.”
“If we fail, then there won’t be any coming back. This is an all-or-nothing gambit.”
“Then we’d better win.” I pulled on my shirt, then fastened my belt and bagiroca. Kara waited in silence. “Do you have another suggestion?”
“We could go after him at the citadel, like we always planned.”
“Go up against the impregnable fortress? Last I heard, you thought we’d dash ourselves brainless and end up as beach trash.”
“True,” he admitted.
“This plan can work, Kara. I feel it in my bones. We’ve never had an advantage over Anure like this. It’s what the wizard’s prophecy meant.”
“Did Ambrose say that?”
“I didn’t ask,” I bit out, shouldering my rock hammer. “Why are you bugging me about asking Ambrose every damn thing?”
“I have a bad feeling about this plan.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, distant gaze going through me. “Details will help. Cradysica, huh?”
“Cradysica.”
We convened in the map tower, so we could look at the geography around Cradysica and the approaches. It helped to have a strategy meeting around a map, but the Calantheans still managed to make it look like a garden party.
Lia’s ladies circulated with trays of pastries, fruit, hot floral tea, and cool lemon-mint ices, serving everyone themselves rather than bringing servants in. Setting the tone, Lia wore a gown that seemed to be made of flower petals, all shades of red and pink, like that fountain of roses in her garden. She should have looked soft and gentle in it, but something—maybe the wig of unnatural red that set off the blue jewels of her crown, or the sharp lines of her makeup that put me in mind of thorns—made her look hard and dangerous. Not for the first time she reminded me of the carnivorous flowers we’d encountered in the steaming Mazos jungle.
“Was breakfast really necessary?” I asked when she wafted past. Yeah, I’d never been able to resist poking those Mazos blossoms, either.
“People need to eat, Conrí,” she replied with cool disinterest, no sign of the vulnerable woman I’d kissed only a short while before, or the passionate one who’d spread herself open for me an arm’s length from where we stood. “I’d think you’d know that, being such a brilliant commander and all. You’ll have plenty of time to talk about war. Ah, Lord Dearsley, thank you for indulging Me with such an early morning, come and sit.”
Without another glance at me, Lia took the old man’s arm and led him to a chair. With him she was all sweet smiles and charm.
“Tea and crumpet, syr?” Sondra inquired in a posh accent, handing me a plate and a fragile-looking cup decorated with more roses.
“Don’t start with me,” I growled, very glad I’d at least already had coffee.
She snorted. “Teach me to be nice to you.”
While she retrieved her own plate, I chewed the pastry savagely. It was flaky and buttery, and more delicious than I wanted it to be. Good thing Lia had agreed to leave for Cradysica the next day. I’d grow fat as Anure eating like this and lounging about, forever talking and never taking action.
“Why so cranky, Conrí?” Sondra asked with fake sympathy. “Didn’t get enough sleep?”
“Were you on watch last night?”
“Ayup.” She crooked her fingers as she sipped her tea, giving me a malicious smile. Like mine, her hands weren’t the sort that normally held pretty dishes. Not anymore. With permanently stained skin, thickened nails, and gnarled knuckles, she made a mockery of the cup just by pretending to hold it like a proper lady. “You two were sure ‘studying’ that map for a long time.”
I didn’t rise to her bait. Instead I scanned the gathering. “Where is Ambrose?”
She shrugged. “In his tower. Last night he said he had things to do and wouldn’t make the meeting, but that he’ll be ready to go to Cradysica in the morning.”
“He said that last night? But we hadn’t decided yet that…” I didn’t bother to finish the sentence, especially with Sondra’s caustic expression. “Why do I even bother working out problems if he already knows everything?”
“I’m sure Ambrose would say that magic doesn’t work that way.”
I grunted a humorless laugh, because she was right. At some unseen signal, Lia’s ladies converged to her, flanking their queen as she sat, helping her to arrange her gown. Once Lia nodded, everyone else seated themselves. Except for us. Kara moved over to Sondra and me, and we all remained standing. Lia gave me an opaque glance, then addressed the gathering.
“Thank you, all, for attending Me this morning. Conrí?”