So instead of going to bed I wander around the palace aimlessly, trying to get lost, trying my best not to think about all the things that could go wrong in the next ten hours.
I’m not exactly afraid. I’ve seen my mother defuse a lot of tense situations. Growing up a diplomat’s kid, in half a dozen different countries, I’ve walked into more than one situation where I didn’t belong. I know that words have real power, and that people would almost always rather talk than shoot.
It doesn’t mean I’m not nervous.
I end up by the drawing room where Kostya told me about murder holes and heads on spikes, and I wander in. I keep the lights off, because I’m not sure I want to be found, and I sit on a high-backed, ornately carved couch with the most uncomfortable upholstery I’ve ever encountered. It’s facing the crazy-eyed portrait of Maksim the Second, and we stare at each other in the dark.
I’ve learned more about him in the past week. He’s remembered as a fierce defender of the homeland, a man who fought off invaders and put their heads on spikes. Turns out that’s just the tip of the Maksim iceberg.
Deranged is probably the right word. When there were no barbarians to decapitate and display, he ordered hands cut off thieves. Army deserters were drawn and quartered, usually while he himself stood there, watching. He suspected his wife of adultery and had her locked in the dungeons of another palace for three years, and she finally died of neglect when he forgot about her.
He wasn’t even sixty when he died suddenly, vomiting blood. Historians agree that he was probably poisoned, but there were so many suspects that we’ll never know who did it.
Now I’m sitting where he sat. Looking out at gardens that were once festooned with heads, and tomorrow I’m going to have a good, peaceful, by-the-book exchange with the people threatening Sveloria. At least I hope it’s peaceful.
Footsteps echo through the hallway. Someone walks to the open door of the drawing room and stops, leaning in the doorway. I can tell it’s Kostya from the way he moves.
“There you are,” I say.
“You’re just sitting here in the dark?” he asks, his voice low and quiet, and it sends an electric shiver through me. Despite everything that’s happened today, I keep thinking about this morning, about his hand on my hip, about how he turns my mind to mush with need. About how right everything feels when we’re together.
I look back at the crazy-eyed portrait on the wall.
“Maksim and I were having a moment,” I say. “He doesn’t really approve of me, but he’s a painting, so he can go fuck himself.”
Kostya closes the door behind him with a long, loud creak.
“My father wanted him there,” he says, glancing at the portrait. “Probably to make sure people knew that heads on spikes were never too far from his mind.”
“You disappeared,” I say. “I was looking for you.”
“I had to take care of some things,” he says.
I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, walking over to me.
“You know I don’t believe you, right?” I ask.
He holds out one hand, his face nearly expressionless, his eyes burning.
I stare back, and I feel like a pinned bug again for the first time in weeks. There’s something suddenly different about his mannerisms, a total one-eighty from last night.
Kostya’s not asking me to take his hand. He’s telling me. I take it.
He pulls me to standing, then takes my face in his hands, our bodies pressed together.
“Hazel, nothing’s gonna happen to you,” he says, his voice low and gravelly, those eyes boring into me.
I swallow.
“You mean tomorrow?” I ask.
“I promise you’ll be okay,” he says, not exactly answering my question. “I swear.”
“Kostya,” I say, because I don’t actually know what he’s talking about.
“There’s no fucking point to being king if I can’t protect you,” he says, putting the pad of one thumb on my lips. “It’s nothing but castles and cars and bureaucracy and bullshit if I can’t keep the people I love safe.”
My heart does a tiny flip in my chest, but I take a deep breath.
“What are you talking about?” I ask through his thumb.
“I’m talking about you,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but I feel like I missed a couple sentences of this conversation or something.
“Start over,” I say. “What’s happening?”
His eyes just barely crinkle around the corners.
“I’m being the fucking King,” he says, nearly smiling.
“But—”
He shuts me up by kissing me hard and despite myself, I kiss him back, my hands around the back of his neck as he presses the small of my back so my hips lean into him, pressing along his delicious, hard length.
Then I put both hands on his chest and push, just hard enough that he stops kissing me.
“Wait,” I say, a little breathless. “No. You have to tell me what’s going on, Kostya. Pull your ‘I’m the King’ shit with other people.”
His eyes crinkle again in his almost-smile.
“You know the English poem, ‘You carry my heart in both hands,’ or something?” he asks.
“Maybe?” I say.
He puts his hand over mine and presses it to his chest. There it is, the steady thump-thump of his heart.
“I may as well tear it out of my ribcage and hand it to you,” he says. “I already feel like I have, like it’s raw and beating and at any second you could squeeze it or drop it and I’d be finished.”
Thump-thump.
“I won’t,” I whisper.
“I need you to trust me this once,” he says. “You can have this—” he squeezes my hand over his heart— “as collateral, and if I’m lying to you, step on it or throw it in a fire. Do whatever you want. Just trust me.”
Now I’m afraid, because that’s not what someone says when they’re going to follow the plan you’ve laid out together.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want collateral, I want—”
“Please,” he murmurs.
I close my eyes, feeling the thump-thump under my palm. I take a deep breath and remind myself that there’s a good chance he knows what he’s doing.
Not that it changes how afraid for him I am, or how desperately I want him to be okay.
“I trust you,” I whisper.
“Thank you,” he says, and kisses me again.
My mind’s a maelstrom. I wish he’d tell me what’s going on, and I have a bone-deep bad feeling that it’s dangerous. I wish tomorrow were over already. I wish we were waking up in my bed again, tangled up together, sunlight streaming in through the window.
But then Kostya deepens the kiss, and he presses his rough fingers to my spine, under my shirt, and slides them up notch by notch, and I force myself to let all that go. I focus on his tongue winding around mine, his heartbeat under my hand.
Suddenly, there are voices speaking Russian right outside the door, and I freeze. Kostya pulls his head back but his hands are still on me as the door opens and the lights flip on.