“But you see.” Stretching his legs out from my father’s throne, Vladislov murmured, “He and I had one first.”
There was no soldier more loyal to King Darius than Malcom. Not a one. Which made this foreigner a liar.
As Malcom backed away, Vladislov mused, “She is young, isn’t she? An unopened bloom.”
The one fixture in my life—the lingering, annoying presence of my custodian—walked away without answering.
The question had, after all, been rhetorical.
And I was still on my knees, reddened by the stone. I was dirty, disheveled, unable to look away from the figure in the chair.
“Stand up and let me take a look at you, little one.”
Like a child, dusting my hands on my dusty dress, a look of shame about me, I did.
Chapter Seventeen
There was a hand on my face, turning it to and fro, but no one touched me. A compulsion to move that felt so real I gasped, even as I obeyed.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He murmured from my father’s throne. “I could make you rip out your heart and eat it.”
Those weren’t my thoughts exactly, but near enough that I shivered.
Vladislov’s voice became more beautiful. “You cried that night, the innocent tears of a hurting babe. I found it moved me. Old as I am, very little does.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” In this room for this meeting. My father wouldn’t want me near the Cathedral or this man. The power of that latent thought was so insidious, so all-consuming that my eyelid twitched.
A frown, the expression insincere when his eyes shone so bright. “Then why did you open a portal and come to me?”
“I don’t… know.” I couldn’t cast portals! I didn’t know how I’d come to be here or why Malcom had vibrated with apprehension. Why he’d told me to think of hate, and how easy it had been to fall into the habit.
My father had not noticed me. Because my thoughts were ugly and unremarkable in the sea of ugly unremarkable minds.
Hypnotic, a voice I could love moved through my spirit, my flesh, and made all the little aches go away. “Tell me of your father. Spill every secret you know.”
And I laughed, loudly. “I know none.”
“Ahhhh, child.” The caress of that endearment, of Vladislov’s complete attention, warmed me despite the chill of the room. “Start at the beginning, and let’s peel back some of these layers, shall we?”
My story began with my head cracking against the wall, the sensation of my brain matter spilling out. The smells of the floor and taste of grape as I’d dragged my carcass to my casket. How a stranger had come with handfuls of me to put back in the crater. One who sewed me up with tar-black blood and careful attention. Freely, I told that man these things.
I spoke of beatings and sex. I unfurled every bit of personal shame, all the words spilling from my mouth like a corruption. Decades of my life purged, belched, made the air grotesque, but not once did Vladislov lose interest. He listened without speaking.
Uninterrupted hours.
Until I felt unburdened, changed.
Chin resting in his palm, soaking me in attentiveness, the man sitting the throne said, “And you thought you knew no secrets. What a vault he’s made of you. Can you even recall half of what you told me?”
I felt so young then, nothing but a little girl in a blue dress. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“Child, tell me one more secret, and I’ll send you on your way.” I’d tell him anything. Anything he’d ever wish to know. “What would you do to this Cathedral had you the power to act as you pleased?”
No hesitation, I wasn’t even afraid to say something so hideous. “Burn it to the ground.”
“With or without your father’s flock inside?”
That was the question that stumped me, because I had no answer.
Hands to the armrests, Vladislov stood, moving like a cool breeze. Whispering past me he said, “Think on it. I’m interested in knowing you better.”
And then he was gone.
Alone, barefoot and underdressed. I stood like an urchin before a vacant throne, unsure what to do with myself or where to go.
I never even heard his steps before a coat was wrapped around shivering shoulders. “Of all the places you could have traveled through portal to…” Malcom pulled me to him, wrapped me in strength and a niggling, itchy comfort. “Time to return home.”
Portals could not be cast within the warded Cathedral. Antechambers existed that allowed the magic to work, but I had somehow, without chanting and without meaning to, landed in the middle of an audience.
I had done that. Not Malcom.
It was to myself I muttered, “I don’t know how I did it.”
But I thought of home and how badly I needed to be anywhere but where I currently stood. And then I was. My kitchen was a mess of takeout containers and empty ice cream bins. It smelled like human laziness and petulance. It smelled of several days gone.