“Do you think he knows? What You really are?” Tertulyn asked after a silence.
I gave her a repressive look. We didn’t discuss such things, even in private. “Who knows what our emperor does and doesn’t believe.” My casual dismissal came out more tremulous than I’d intended.
“Are you all right, Euthalia?” Tertulyn asked softly.
I smiled at my oldest friend. She only worried for me. “Wonderful. Aflutter with anticipation for My wedding night. A girl never forgets her deflowering—especially when it comes with bruises and bites.”
“It won’t happen,” she assured me. “Even His Imperial Majesty wouldn’t dare make You less than first wife.”
“He’s thought of some way around it.” I studied the letter again, trying to still the fluttering wings of fear by employing rational sense. I needed to be smarter than Anure. What are you planning, toad?
She bit her lip. “You’re so good at holding him off. You’ll think of something—You always do.”
“I always do, yes.” But the words rang hollow in my ears. Abruptly I missed my father, a great aching pit of loss opening inside me. He would’ve known what I should do. Without him, I had no one to call on, no one to save me. I could only do my best to rescue myself from this dire future. If I delivered the Slave King and his rebellious minions to Anure, he might be pleased enough that I could extract a reprieve from impending doom.
Regardless, Calanthe’s well-being and continuation took precedence. If Anure did call our waiting game to an end, I needed an heir to pass the orchid ring to.
Once I did that, I could face my own death with, if not equanimity, then a certain relish in taking Anure with me and saving Calanthe at the same time.
“Let me tend to You, Lia,” Tertulyn offered with a soft smile. “It will relax You and keep all Your sacred flowers intact.”
Her deft fingers and soft kisses would help to relax me, but it wouldn’t be enough, not with that feeling that I needed something else, something more. Besides, with the images Anure had put in my mind, even without magical reinforcement, the prospect of being touched sexually … no. Tertulyn cared for me, but even we had so many layers of formality between us. I didn’t want to be tended. What I longed for, what I craved somewhere inside my ice-encased heart, was for someone to hold me and tell me I wasn’t alone, that everything would work out for the best. To touch me out of love, and tenderness.
I rarely allowed myself such sentimental yearnings, and it was a mark of my exhaustion on every level that such thoughts entered my mind.
“Not tonight,” I told her. “You may go, to the parties or your own bed, as you wish.”
“Shall I help You into bed?”
I shook my head. “Take the rest of the wine with you.” Otherwise I’d likely drink it all.
Once she left, glad to have no witnesses to my despair, I allowed myself to lay my head on the table for a moment, sagging under the weight of it. If my eyes watered, that had to be vestiges of the glue-removal solution. Surely my heart had long since frozen too hard for something as tender as tears.
Then I straightened, went to the window. This side of the palace looked out only on the cliffside gardens and the sea. The rosy moon’s light traced long pathways across the calm waters, as if I could step out and walk along them, escape to the horizon and never look back. The scent of night-blooming jasmine rose up, filling the air along with the soft notes of the owls and nightjars calling.
I’d never walk away. Couldn’t, as all this fell to me to protect, and only my death would part me from Calanthe. Which meant I had to fight.
Resolved, I took myself to my solitary bed, praying to Ejarat to spare me the nightmares, if only for the one night. I wasn’t sure I could bear much more.
If I broke … what then?
* * *
Two of Anure’s warships sailed away the next morning—leaving Leuthar and his personal ship behind, and taking the provisions I so generously, if involuntarily, gifted them—and the waters of Calanthe breathed in relief, which meant I did, too. As soon as I felt them leave my seas, I convened my advisers and set my plans into motion. They involved a great deal of waiting, but such is the concubine’s lot in life, to spend her days waiting to find out how she’ll be used. Whenever possible, I employed my wiles to pump Leuthar for information, and he remained singularly unforthcoming. Either Anure had kept him ignorant or Leuthar had developed a caginess I hadn’t noted before.
I placed my bets on ignorance since Leuthar always seemed more inclined to indulge in the most degenerate pleasures of the Flower Court than to extend himself to work at anything. If I were Anure, I wouldn’t trust the man, either. But then Anure trusted no one. For that matter, neither did I.
I also leveraged something I’d held in store to keep Leuthar thoroughly distracted. It’s not always easy to judge when to access those things saved for lean seasons. What seems to be an emergency today might be eclipsed by a far worse one in the future. I went with my intuition—and the newly acquired voice in my head, which meant either magical assistance from the ring or encroaching insanity. No reason it couldn’t be both.
I summoned the Lady Delilah, something I never did. She had “ruled” the Night Court since long before my birth. We rarely crossed paths, in fact, as she slept during daylight hours to better fuel her nocturnal revelries. She also expressed zero interest in Calanthe’s internal politics, preferring instead to focus on exploring the world of sensual pleasure and her own intimate games of power and control. I couldn’t imagine how she hadn’t exhausted the possibilities in her nearly five decades, but according to Tertulyn’s reports, Delilah managed to keep her delights endlessly renewed.
I didn’t trust Delilah enough to make her one of my ladies, but she could be depended upon for behavior predictable within a certain set of boundaries. She took being the emperor’s vassal to heart and eagerly displayed her desire to please our cruel overlord by indulging Leuthar as proxy. Her ambitions likely reached to some fantasy of bedding Anure himself.
Though I strongly questioned her taste, the single-mindedness of her scheming made her useful. She also made a study of Leuthar’s various perversions and displayed remarkable inventiveness—so Tertulyn relayed to me—in catering to them.
Delilah and I maintained a relatively simple truce: She didn’t hurt anyone, she fed information to me via Tertulyn, and I turned a blind eye, allowing her full sovereignty over her shadow kingdom. I leaned a bit on that scale by asking her for this favor, so I didn’t do so without careful consideration.
Still, the odd whispers of the ring, along with a possible army of feral wolves descending on my peaceful shores with an explosive weapon that had dropped the walls of Keiost like fragile glass, convinced me that the lean season had arrived in full force.
Delilah agreed to assist, though she clearly disliked being called to attend me, and I rewarded her generously. Hopefully she wouldn’t withhold valuable gossip from Tertulyn in retaliation. I funded a small project to supply Leuthar with a new vice, yilkas, a powdered seed that produced exotic dreams when smoked. Combined with sensual pleasures—and fortunately Leuthar possessed enough physical charms to lure plenty of willing partners in that—a person could lose days, even weeks, in that haze if carefully tended. Leuthar wouldn’t be in any state to observe my preparations to elude Anure’s grasp while fulfilling the letter of his demands.