It seems too simple, and yet … Safi understands. Vaness’s iron demeanor keeps Marstok unified for years, even when not everyone loves or agrees with her. Meanwhile, tenants and farmers on the Hasstrel estate look to Eron for guidance and find only a broken man who drank too much.
It was all Safi had ever found in him as well … or so she’d thought until two months ago.
“You understand,” Henrick says, and Safi nods.
She also understands that she has severely underestimated the Emperor. His eyes, fixed on her face, are not the vacant eyes of a toad. They are sharp and fathomless, and were Safi to meet him across a taro table, she would not agree to play.
True, true, true.
Suddenly, her new pocket feels aflame. Suddenly, sweat prickles out along her spine. “There are many raiders at the border?” asks, grasping any topic she can to deflect focus off herself.
“Many. And they are not just in the east, but have fortified in Poznin. I will show you on the maps tomorrow.”
Safi bows her head as a thank-you, but when she lifts it again, Henrick still stares.
He knows, she thinks. He knows and he will act. She offers a smile even as her toes curl in her slippers and muscles tense beneath her gown. She will not go down without a fight.
Then his gaze finally breaks, dropping to her Threadstone, visible at her collar alongside the steel chain Vaness made her wear.
“An empress needs better jewelry,” he declares, and he angles his body back toward the dancers.
Safi has to fight to keep her lungs from loosing, her shoulders from drooping. Sweat now slides down her back against the throne, and though she knows it looks strange, she drapes a hand over her Threadstone.
As soon as her fingers touch the ruby, warm from her skin, Iseult’s voice booms into her mind. HE PLANS TO LEAVE, SAFI. PLEASE LISTEN. THERE WILL BE NO WEDDING NIGHT. WHERE ARE YOU, SAFI? HE PLANS TO—
“I’m here.” She whispers the words on a sigh, dipping her head sideways as if tired. As if taking in the view of dancers. But her fingers tighten on the Threadstone, and she mouths, “Explain.”
Henrick has no plans for a wedding night, Iseult says. He has no plans to consummate anything and he will leave the palace after the dancing.
Safi’s stomach drops low. She wants to ask how Iseult knows this, but she dares not speak too much, even silently. Too many people watch her, including the Emperor himself. He glances at her sideways, and she smiles in return.
Iseult seems to understand the question anyway, for she adds, Caden told my guards to expect shift changes tonight because the Emperor is going into town.
Safi’s heel taps, and though she keeps her smile pasted on, her mind is shrieking every swear word she’s ever known. If the Emperor does not have a wedding night with her, then she cannot execute the final step in their plan. She needs to be alone with him, unguarded. As exposed as a person can possibly be.
“We need a new plan,” she whispers, pretending to yawn and covering her mouth with her free hand. Before she can actually suggest one, though—or wait for Iseult to—Henrick reaches out and rests a hand on her throne’s armrest.
“It is time to go,” he says, and Safi realizes with a jolt in her knees that the music has ended. The dancers have stopped.
She’s out of time, and she does not try to hide her sudden terror. She can feel that her face has drained of blood.
“Already?” she squeaks out.
And his perpetual frown eases into something almost kind. “You need not worry.” He pats the armrest. “I have no intention of bringing you to my bed. A barbaric custom.”
Please do! she screams inwardly. Please take me to your bed!
Aloud, she simply says, “You … do not want an heir?”
“I have one.” Henrick runs his tongue over his teeth. Then: “He is well suited to succeed me and even better trained, so consider yourself free from my bed for the rest of your life.”
No, no, no. This cannot be happening. All of Safi’s and Iseult’s plans are collapsing, for if Henrick will never take Safi to his bed …
That is the end of everything. This pocket at her chest and the golden item within are useless.
And there is nothing Safi can do to argue. If she presses the point, it will seem suspicious. Beyond suspicious—downright traitorous. Henrick knows she had no desire to marry him. She ran halfway across a continent to avoid it. If she suddenly insists on sharing his bed, those sharp, taro-playing eyes will understand in an instant that she is up to something.
All Safi can do is nod and push to her feet as Henrick pushes to his own. I am relieved, she tries to say with her posture. With her face. I have just been offered freedom and it is all I have ever wanted.
Yet each step off the dais feels a thousand years long. Each sweep of her skirts across the floor like slogging through mud. She has no time to come up with a plan, and no way to effectively communicate with Iseult. One hand is rested on Henrick’s arm, and the other waves while she smiles. Always the smiling.
Ten paces become twenty become sixty, and the arched doorway from the room swallows her. In the hall beyond, Hell-Bards instantly arrange around them with Caden at the fore. Newly promoted and gleaming in his dress regalia.
Safi feels him try to connect eyes with her, but she dares not look. She must think, think, think like Iseult. If Henrick is going into Praga, he will likely take a carriage. That means he will go right at the gardens while Safi goes left to reach her quarters.
She has perhaps two hundred paces to make a plan.
Or to make her move.
And there is no other choice, is there? It’s now or it’s never. She can bide her time and hope for another opportunity—another moment of half solitude as they’d shared in the marble room filled with golden chains. But what if such a moment never comes?
Gods below, why can’t Iseult be beside her right now? Safi is going to ruin this. She knows she’s going to ruin this, and yet she sees no other course before her. Uncle Eron’s life depends on her. Iseult’s too, and little Owl’s tucked away in the servants’ wing.
All the Hell-Bards as well. She is Empress now, and she is the only one who can make a difference for so many people.
She will have to act fast. She will have to use every tool in her arsenal. The garden path will be dark, lit only by atmospheric lanterns, and presumably Henrick will pause briefly to take his leave of Safi. That will have to be her moment. She will have to make it count.
They reach the door that leads to the gardens. Footmen heave it wide, silent and unseen. Cold air billows in—welcome against all the sweat gathering on Safi’s skin. Her heart thuds against her eardrums. The world is fast sharpening, as it always does during a heist. Ten steps and they are in the covered walkway. Evergreen ivy glistens in Firewitched light. Beyond, snow trickles down. So gentle, so at odds with what Safi is about to do.
Henrick slows to a stop to release her, and Safi slows beside him. “I will expect you at court tomorrow,” he begins. “We begin at the tenth chimes—”
Safi kisses him. Directly on the lips and before he can pull away. Her free hand is already in her bodice, already in the secret pocket. She has the fingers of a thief, a nimbleness honed for almost a decade.
Before Henrick can react to her lips, she has the noose from her pocket. Then she snakes her arms around his neck and tries to deepen the kiss. Distantly, she is aware of how thick his lips are—and wet too. And distantly, she’s aware of surprising muscles under his shoulders and along his back.