Lib Novel Page 25
After I remove the nightdress, Parma wraps the gauzy garment around me. It’s voluminous, almost cape-like. A strip of black satin belts it at my waist, turning it into a sort of dress, but it’s so sheer that it barely veils my body—which is no doubt the King’s intent. He wants to shame me, as he did my mother. At least he’s allowing me some semblance of clothing, while she had to appear naked. Rahzien is sending a message to the people—that even though I’m one of the defeated royals of this land, I have surrendered to him, so I benefit from his mercy.
When I do as I’m told, I receive good things.
I hate that Parma is here, caught in the middle of this. The King knows I care about her, which means he can use her as leverage.
She’s leaning close, applying cosmetics to my face, so I risk another whisper, barely audible so the guards outside the door won’t hear.
“What about Taren and Huli?” I whisper.
“They fled to her brother’s farm,” she breathes. “They are safer there.”
Relief swamps my bones, turning my muscles liquid. Physically, I don’t feel like myself at all—I’m weaker, wearier. What if it’s not just because of the deprivation, or the fever, or carrying the dragon eggs? What if Rahzien is right, and something virulent is twining along my nerves, slithering through my veins? Something the healer couldn’t cure—the poison that tethers me to the King.
Can I really feel it, or am I merely imagining that I can? Maybe I’m losing my mind at last, after the volatility and peril of the past few weeks.
Both Kyreagan and I suffered terrible grief and a massive upheaval of our worlds, far beyond what most people endure. At first, we had little time to process any of it; we were too focused on surviving. And yet, we began to slowly unwrap those bundles of grief and trauma together… laying the pieces out in the open, viewing each other’s pain, and healing in the process. We were shockingly good for each other, and I miss him more terribly than I’ve ever missed anyone.
The sudden flare of pain in my heart triggers a chain of panicked memories, things I had lost temporarily while I was unconscious. The poison Rahzien mentioned, contaminating all the flocks and herds of the Middenwold Isles. A poison triggered by dragon saliva.
Kyreagan isn’t dead. He’s not dead, he can’t be dead. But he might die soon, and I have to warn him… but I have no way to warn him, and any message I send would be too late, too late… I love him, I love him, and I never told him I love him, oh god I’m spiraling, I’m sinking, and I can’t stop…
“Your Highness.” Parma’s gaze glimmers with sorrow as she tries to sweep neat black lines beneath my eyes, but I’m crying, and the moisture is making her task impossible.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be sorry.” She gives a little sob, sucks in a breath, grits her teeth. She drags her thumb beneath my left eye, wiping away the smeared paint. “The King wants you in full makeup, and I’ll keep working until we get there. I don’t want that bastard to have any excuse to hurt you.”
The insult is barely audible, but it’s more defiance than I’ve ever seen from her. Parma is a timid person. When she first came to work at the palace, she could barely squeak a terrified word. Determined to draw her out, I shone kindness on her like the sun, and I made sure my other servants treated her well, too. She was only just beginning to blossom when Vohrain invaded. Seeing her brief flare of courage makes me proud.
A Vohrainian guard marches into my sitting room and speaks to the two men by the bedroom door. “It’s time. She’s been summoned.”
Parma expertly paints my mouth with a dash of my favorite lip color and steps back. I rise from the stool.
But instead of heading for the sitting room, I walk to the door of my study. My fingers curl around the handle, and I hesitate, scared to look inside.
I’m proud of the library of books within this room. I’ve always allowed the servants and staff to borrow novels, poetry collections, historical volumes, and anything else they desire, as long as they mark it in the ledger I keep by the door and put it back precisely in its place when they’re done.
In addition to books of all genres, I have quite the collection of sheet music, most of it composed by the great musicians of our land. And there are shelves of slim leather-bound volumes filled with my own compositions as well.
“Come, Princess,” demands one of the guards.
“One moment.” I hold my breath and open the study door.
Bare shelves, some of them smashed.
A torn page lying discarded here and there.
The piano’s keys have been crushed by something hard and heavy.
Wretchedness grips my heart in pitiless fingers. Why did I think a conquering nation would leave my possessions alone? Why did I hope that everything might be exactly as I left it?
Maybe because my bedroom looks intact. Even though some items are missing, it appears as it did the morning I left to visit the wounded soldiers.
And yet nothing is the same.
My heartbeat quickens as I turn back into my bedroom, as I rush to one of the dressers and yank open its top drawer, then the next drawer, and the next. All empty. I keep racing around the room, frantically opening drawers and boxes, while Parma and the guards watch me.
My delicate underthings, my hosiery, my keepsakes, my slippers, my ribbons, my jewelry—gone. The loose sheets of paper with partially completed song lyrics scrawled on them—gone. The sketches and portraits I commissioned of some of my servants and guards—gone. My embroidery and cross-stitch supplies, my perfumes, my body creams—gone.