Violet made of thorns, p.21
Violet Made of Thorns, page 21
So I make him clumsy. Wriggling from his touch as his hands test where they should be, dodging his mouth until I catch his chin and kiss him myself. I feel him smile—impossible not to with my bottom lip in his possession.
Cyrus turns to kiss my injured palm, lingering on that still-gleaming slice of a scar, deliberate in its depth and angle. “Was this from the beast, too?”
The thorn borne from my blood is hidden in a cabinet not ten paces away. In a different thread, I’d be driving it into his heart this instant. It’d be so easy with him pinned down, distracted by the rest of me. He’d never see it coming.
I swallow. “I was careless with a knife” is the half-truth I offer him.
He doesn’t notice my lie. Instead, his fingers slink behind my neck, the small intimacy treacherous in more ways than I understand right now, the kind that unspools new threads in the future.
Every rational thought shouts at me to stop. Princes don’t dabble with witches on the side. What will happen when someone finds out? Bedroom mistakes are always the fastest to rear their ugly, wart-chinned heads. I read the papers; Lacy Things gets delivered to my window every other morning with a whole column of scandals next to the birth-constellation analyses. Cyrus and I wouldn’t just be a headline. We’d be the cautionary tale in history books.
But when he pulls me in and I meet him with a kiss that steals the gasp from his throat, I can’t resist having this power over him.
I shove him down on the sofa with a knee, and he sprawls upon the cushions at my mercy, a slyness crooking his lips. He plays with the tail end of my braid dangling between us—and yanks it so I topple onto him. “No promises,” he says.
My heart is racing, my body hot. Our feelings can’t be removed from the roles we have in the palace, which is why on any day, he’d rather see me humbled than kiss me goodnight. But I don’t need his trust or devotion. Our attraction is simple: we both think we’re one step ahead and we have to prove the other wrong. I want him because I don’t trust him.
Love is a fickle thing traded by fools, but lust is exactly that—no promises. It’s as hungry as any starving creature but honest in what it wants.
And I want him.
“No promises,” I answer and I kiss his open mouth.
Underneath me, Cyrus shudders, hands flexing at my waist, loosening the blouse from my skirt band. I could climb off, leave him cold, but what would be the point? We’d get back here eventually.
One kiss after the ball is a mistake. Two is a challenge. Any more is habit.
Freeing my braid, he buries his fingers in the twists, making a mess of it. “Violet,” he rasps, no humor left. I like the sound of my name on his lips too much.
He undoes the buttons and strings of my clothes with ease as I fumble with those on his—how many times has he done this before? I pull his shirt over his head, and he’s so fit underneath it makes me angry. He gets impatient with my chemise and starts pushing it over my hips, the seams stretching from his carelessness.
Camilla’s bedded plenty of girls; she’s told me about some of it and I know generally how it escalates. How it happens faster than you think the first time, how you have to be more careful with boys. I know what we’re doing is stupid, reckless, a reckoning waiting to happen. But I want to know—
His hands slide under my chemise. I should stop him now. We’re going too far, and I won’t stop him later even if I want to. I curse my pride. I curse my shaking knees as I move into his touch, biting back gasps. I curse him most of all.
“Want more?” The question comes out a breathy plead as Cyrus shifts, rolling me over so I’m between him and cushions.
Yes, I mouth, head flung back. Yes. Yes. Yes.
A knock on the door, just as his fingers find the spot that makes me crumple to him. I’m never more thankful the room is soundproof.
A second knock. It seems so far away that it can’t be real. My bare legs wrap around him. My body is at the edge of breaking.
Then comes Dante’s voice like a drench of ice water: “Violet? You there?”
“Oh, toady hell,” I gasp, sitting up. Cyrus tumbles off me, tangled in his trousers.
There’s a third and fourth and fifth knock in quick succession—the polite but pointedly impatient warnings of someone about to check inside. I pull my chemise down and search for my blouse among the toppled cushions, a thunderous heartbeat in my ears. Cyrus stares at the doorway, panting and flushed. Most of his blood probably isn’t in his head right now, but that doesn’t soften my pitch as I hurl his shirt in his face.
“Hurry up,” I hiss. “I didn’t lock the door. He’s going to open it if I don’t answer.”
“Why wouldn’t you lock—”
“You distracted me!” Hauling my skirts up, I pinch them around my waist; I don’t have time to do the buttons. “You could plan to pose for an hour waiting to seduce me but you couldn’t plan for this?”
Legs wobbly, I stomp over to the entryway as Cyrus mutters, “It was twenty minutes.”
The door cracks open as I grab the knob.
“Vi—?”
I stop the door from opening farther. I jut my face out, the rest of my body hidden. “Hi. I was about to take a bath.” And I’m breathless because I had to run downstairs, not because I was underneath your best friend, I don’t say.
Dante looks away, flustered. His arms are full of notebooks and loose papers. “Ah, sorry, there are a few wedding-day precautions we need your opinion on, but…Later is fine. Sorry! I’ll come back.”
“I can meet you in the gardens or the library in a little while instead?” I suggest. Unless Cyrus wants to sneak out via defenestration.
There’s a scuffle of movement behind me, too soft to be heard outside I think, until Dante frowns and turns slowly toward me. “Er, is someone there?”
I stiffen. “No.”
“Did you know that when you lie, you have a tell?”
“What?” I make a face. I have to stop doing that. “No, I—”
“Having someone over is nothing to be ashamed about,” he says with a short laugh. His expression freezes, a thought blooming. “Unless it’s—”
“There’s no one!”
“I couldn’t find him earlier, please tell me it isn’t—”
“Yes, it’s me,” drones the voice inside the room.
Dante drags a hand down his face, and the crush of papers in his arms drop to the floor. “For the love of—”
Cyrus grabs the door from me, and I yelp, clutching my clothes so they don’t fall. He’s fully dressed, if disheveled.
Dante rolls his eyes as he reaches over and flattens Cyrus’s hair and shoves his shirt into his trousers. “I don’t want to know—actually—no, no, I do. Your crown and a kingdom-threatening prophecy potentially rest on your upcoming marriage and your pants aren’t fully buttoned, so this better be damn worth it.”
“It was until you interrupted.” Cyrus scowls.
“It was a one-time thing,” I say over him, mortified.
Dante picks up his dropped papers. “I am going to give you two a moment to sort…whatever this is…out.” He backs away toward the stairwell, pointing a vehement finger at Cyrus. “Won’t care if you’re naked, if you aren’t outside this tower in five minutes, I will haul you out of here.”
I shut the door and slide against it, hand clutching my forehead. I peek through my fingers to find the prince nursing a smirk. “Don’t look so smug.”
I finish buttoning my skirts properly. Then Cyrus’s hands find my waist, and he pulls me flush against him.
Jolting, I look up. “What are you doing?”
“I believe we have five minutes.” His smile is easy and lethal.
“You seriously want to—”
“I already went through all this trouble. He can haul me out of here naked.”
My sensations have dulled since our earlier thrill, but something else in me flutters at his idle flirting, if only for how unexpected it is. Cyrus said he wants me, but even after all we’ve done, I don’t believe it until now.
His fingers weave with mine and my mind fills with his threads as he kisses me once more:
A clock striking eleven. In the hedge maze, a masked girl in a dress like mist grins.
The gnarled Seer of Balica taking his palm between hers and speaking a prophecy in rhyme.
Grit and vines and splintering thorns enveloping his bloody body. “Violet,” he utters with gasping terror.
I let go of Cyrus.
“Violet?” My name is a soft question on his lips, but I still hear the terrified echo from the future.
“You—” I nearly tell him the truth. That I dreamed a scene of his bloody body before. But this time, in his threads, I saw the setting.
A room in the palace.
I saw not an imaginary version of him but him.
“What did you see?”
Cyrus wants to fix whatever startled me. He wants to fix it because he wants me, and the thought seems more ridiculous the longer it lives in my mind. A question burns in my throat—a stupid one I’d never ask. But if I asked it, I’d tack it onto the end of some blithe statement like it’s rhetorical: I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but I’m still not worth this effort and we don’t even like each other, so—
Why me?
But I can only think of so many answers, and I can’t bear to hear any of them aloud. “It doesn’t matter,” I say, pulling farther away with each word. “There’s no future for us. I’m not—” A laugh bubbles out of me despite myself. “You’re going to be king. And I’m going to be your Seer.”
And that’s that. We had our respite in this divine room, away from the world and our duties, as the gods sneered above. Now we move on, because we have to.
When Cyrus doesn’t budge, I open the door to force the decision upon him. He looks neither stricken nor exasperated when he finally leaves, just resigned, aloofness settling upon him like a well-worn mask.
The Council of Dukes isn’t having a meeting so much as a shouting match.
When fourteen dominions are contending for weapons and supplies and soldiers during the most anxious of prophetic times, every scrap of information opens a new avenue of negotiation. A real pack of wolves would fight over a carcass in a more orderly fashion than the scene in the Council Chamber.
While new reports of beasts have slowed down, dominions are struggling with containing the ones that are still roaming. Now that we know these creatures were once human, we’re hopeful they may have a chance to be human again. Old forts have been repurposed rapidly as makeshift corrals, but it’s difficult, dangerous work.
I enter the Council Chamber a quarter after the hour—when the quarrels have warmed up and insults begin flying. The first thing I hear is Lord Ignacio calling Lord Oronnel “boil-brained” and, in retaliation, Oronnel calling Ignacio’s dyed wig an “aborted squirrel.”
I find a seat perpendicular to the king, against the wall. King Emilius didn’t request my services for this meeting, but he wanted me to be aware of present plans.
Across the room, Cyrus is on his feet, fist driven onto the table. The golden whorls of his coat shine under the hazy lighting. He’s tearing into Lord Denning’s argument with a daggered look he would never wear in public. “We have no intelligence that says burning Fairywood is preventing more beasts. In fact, Raya believes that the Fairywood may be our greatest asset in removing the dark magic from these cursed men.”
“Her demonstration doesn’t fool me.” Lord Denning has been dealing with the beasts for the longest, along with Lord Ignacio and Lord Arus. He recently returned from the Eleventh Dominion, where at least two villages suffered casualties. “She credits her magic to fairy blessings, but the man transformed back in a matter of hours. My wife has it on good authority that she is a charlatan. I make no apology for this, Your Highness, but your bride is in league with that Witch of Nightmares, if not a witch herself.”
“How dare you.” The prince plays his lovelorn part with zeal, no one the wiser of what he and I have done. “The rumors have been recanted—”
“No such thing—”
The noise escalates to a din. While the king and I have proclaimed the witch is to blame for the beasts, my lack of information about her has created a ripe environment for rumors to grow, and I don’t know enough about the witch myself to lie in order to soothe people. Many in court remain suspicious of Raya.
Eventually, King Emilius drums the table. “Peace,” comes his low voice, barely audible, but it’s enough to cascade a hush down the table. “We will have no slander against Lady Raya. Cooperation with our neighbors is the top priority. Lady Raya is our prophesied salvation—and I would gauge further, a sign that the Fates mean for Auveny and Balica to unite one day. The Fates must have reason for tainting our land with dark magic. Consider: is it so that we may defeat it with the joining of an Auvenese prince and a Balican leader? Seer, your thoughts?”
I lift my eyes. King Emilius usually gives forewarning if he’d like me to speak, but I hadn’t prepared anything. He looks the picture of patience as he awaits my response, but his gaze is heavy with expectation and I know this is a test of my loyalties.
I err toward aiding Raya’s reputation. “Lady Raya is chosen by both fairies and the Fates. Though some may doubt her now, what we remember in a decade will be that a spirited outsider attended the ball at the Fates’ will, entranced us all, and brought hope in darkness. The first step of Auveny’s new era.” Pretty words that say just enough without overindulging.
Cyrus is thin-lipped. This isn’t the response he wanted. But his fight isn’t with me; he glowers at his father. “We shouldn’t be thinking about widening our borders regardless. Beasts are walking the earth. Let’s focus on our own issues first.”
“I would argue it’s the best time to think of it,” Lord Ignacio muses down the table. “Balica is distracted. Weak. They beg our aid. We should demand something in return for the soldiers we sent to them.”
“Speaking of aid, we’re sending too many soldiers to Lunesse. Raya requested a small battalion to help secure the capital, not so many to occupy the state. I was supposed to coordinate these deployments with the general, but someone else spoke to him first. Who was it?”
“The orders came directly from me,” King Emilius says crisply. “The extra soldiers were to guarantee her land’s safety.”
“The safety—” Cyrus scoffs. His eyes meet mine, as if these words are truly for me. “It’s an invasion in kinder terms and one that will not be seen kindly by Balicans once Lunesse recovers.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I remain quiet in my seat. I won’t pretend to enjoy these plans, but I won’t pretend I didn’t see this coming.
Shouting rises to headache levels again until the meeting is adjourned. Lords and advisers leave the room jesting and squabbling, continuing their conversations outside.
“Seer,” the king says as I rise. “A moment in my study, if you have the time.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” I wait for him by the arched doorway.
Cyrus brushes past me without acknowledgment. The back of his hand grazes mine, a jolt of a moment that feels more treacherous than it is, even with my hands gloved. King Emilius follows close behind him, and I force a smile to my lips just in time.
The king doesn’t need the aid of another to walk today, but I offer my arm out of politeness, which he takes. Stress, more than anything, seems to be aggravating him. His hair has grown a shade grayer since the start of summer.
We make small talk about the wedding preparations. The main rooms have been redecorated in whites and golds. You can smell the kitchens cooking sweets at every hour.
I edge into more serious conversation as we turn down the hallway to his study. “I do think there is merit to what Cyrus is saying,” I say, careful to seem neutral. “I’m afraid we tempt war with Balica—and Felicita’s prophecy warned of war.”
The noise in the king’s throat is dismissive. “Balica has a minuscule military. We would crush them if events led to that.”
But it’s not about the victory, I want to say. War is war, war is blood, war is death.
I used to dream of wars as a child. It isn’t the same as reading about them in books. I see the things that aren’t recorded: the tears, the cowardice, the confessions given upon a dying breath. Forgotten threads that touch upon times long ago or, maybe, times that never were. It’s all the same now; a history unremembered may as well have never existed.
The people and lands beyond our borders are mere numbers to King Emilius. Pins and flags on a map, valuable only in how they can help us. He doesn’t care.
He unlocks his study and takes a seat at his desk. “I will say Cyrus has true passion for raising this kingdom up,” he muses. “Some of his ideas are ill-advised, but he will grow out of them. I’m glad you’re getting along better. I understand that you are working with him closely regarding Lady Raya’s needs.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent, excellent. But do not overcorrect and become too soft on him. He is still rash, idealistic, overly influenced by his travels and his friends.” His friends. He means Dante. “My son thinks we should walk away from fruit ripe for the picking. He resists bringing new lands under our fold, because he fears the responsibility. You would never do so—you grab every opportunity that gleams. That is the mark of true ambition.”
I smile, even as his flattery suddenly grates me.
The king spreads his hands at the map of the Sun Continent on his wall. If I look closely, I can see where Auveny’s borders have been drawn and redrawn again where the Fairywood was cleared to make way for new dominions. Balica seems so tiny in comparison in the south, a third of the size.
He coughs into a handkerchief, then folds it back into his pocket. “Auveny is a strong kingdom. You know this much. We are kind and generous—no wars waged since my grandfather’s time. Cyrus will be a good king, despite our disagreements, and if we are a great kingdom with a good king, how could Balica or any others complain? They will be thankful.”
