Page 16 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Sixteen

I woke the following morning expecting to find a warm body next to me. Confusion set in as I reached out to find the bed beside me cold and empty. As the mist of sleep began to lift, I realised I’d only dreamt that he’d come and found me.

But he hadn’t.

Which was probably for the best.

When Leela brought my breakfast, she told me she’d found out nothing new about Lester, other than that he seemed to lose a lot of money at cards. I asked her to keep any eye on Dovegni. I needed to know if any members of the council were meeting with him regularly, though I wasn’t sure how useful that information would be, or what I’d do with it if I had it.

‘There’s something else you should know, ma’am,’ she said as she poured coffee and I smeared a slice of bread with a thick layer of boysenberry jam. ‘There’s a fight in the southern courtyard.’

‘Don’t tell me. Lord Terame has been caught in bed with someone’s wife and he’s been challenged to a duel,’ I suggested, always ready to enjoy gossip about the fool things the courtiers got up to.

‘Not this time.’ She shot me a sideways look that wiped the smile off my face.

‘Then what?’

‘Your husband is involved.’

I almost choked on my breakfast. ‘What?’

‘I believe it’s only a training match, but it’s drawing a bit of a crowd.’

I swore under my breath, abandoning my breakfast. Well, at least I knew where he was now. ‘Help me finish dressing.’

Within a few minutes, I was sweeping out of my apartment and down towards the scene in question with my attendants swishing along behind me. The courtyard was unusually crowded for so early in the morning. Encircled by a waterway crossed by stone bridges, the centre was a mosaic of coloured tiles. Small groups of courtiers paraded very slowly through the covered galleries on the level above, craning their necks to watch the spectacle taking place below. Some had stopped altogether and stood whispering to one another as they leaned over the raining, fluttering fans or passing coins back and forth, wearing expressions that ranged from shock to disdain to calculation.

Two men were darting across the tiled mosaic as three others lounged on chairs nearby, stretching their limbs and presumably waiting their turn in the centre. The two fighters were shirtless and unarmed, attacking each other with nothing more than fists in the early morning sunlight. It was immediately obvious that Leela hadn’t heard wrong, and one of the fighters was Draven.

He moved fast, with the smooth gestures of someone well practised, his weight shifting from back foot to front foot as he swung his body forwards, delivering a flurry of blows and ending in a fierce uppercut. As I slowed and my attendants caught up, I heard giggling, and the word ‘barbaric’ hissed from one to another, though the chatter dried up when I shot a glare over my shoulder.

I could see why the fight was drawing attention. Elaborate sword play was the sport of the nobility. They would never have expected a display of hand-to-hand combat from a king. He might as well have started a drunken brawl.

But despite the ridiculous display, I couldn’t help feeling a spike of sharp, savage pleasure at the shock I saw around me. Because the spectators couldn’t fail to notice how glorious Draven was, with a torso of lithe muscle on display, swarthy skin glazed with sweat. Let them be shocked. Let them stare. Let them wish they could touch him like I had. My step faltered briefly as I shook away that thought, perplexed by the brief attack of pride.

Crossing one of the footbridges, I paused at the end of the mosaic and folded my arms. He ignored me for a few moments longer as he dodged another blow, but when he laughed and clapped his opponent on the shoulder, his eyes finally found me. A smirk flickered across his face as he shook out his hands and nodded at one of the other men, who stepped up to take his place.

‘What are you doing?’ I demanded as he approached me.

‘Sparring,’ he said matter-of-factly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘You should try it. I think you’d like it.’

‘You’re prancing around exchanging punches like a barbarian.’

He swept his hair away from his damp forehead. ‘If I’m a barbarian, you’d better get out of my way. ’

‘Look at everyone up there watching you,’ I said, jerking my head in the direction of the gathered courtiers. ‘They’re all wondering where you learned to fight with your fists, and before the day is done a new crop of rumours will be tearing through the court and every plotter and conspirator will be looking for a way to use it against you.’

‘Let them talk. You don’t need to worry what these people think of you, and you definitely don’t need to worry what they think of me,’ he said, before he lifted his fists again. ‘If you’re going to stand there looking like you’re ready for a fight, take a swing at me.’

I barked a laugh. ‘You want me to what?’

‘I remember a woman in a suvoir who got the better of an angry man who had her by the hair. Can you throw a punch as well as you can break a hold?’

I shot another look towards the crowd of whispering onlookers. ‘You’re mad. You’ve completely lost your mind.’

‘Are you the same woman who held a hairpin to my throat and threatened to kill me, or does all that ferocity dissolve as soon as you don your pretty dress?’

Infuriating, arrogant man. ‘Oh, I’d happily strike you, Draven,’ I said smoothly. ‘But I’m not going to look a fool using something as inadequate as a fist to do it.’

Darting forward with unsettling speed, he gripped my arm and yanked me against him, twisting me into a choke hold with his forearm against my neck. I hissed with fury, my hands immediately going to his arm, digging into him with my fingernails.

‘You like to talk,’ he murmured, his breath feathering my neck. ‘You can talk all you like. Talk to anyone you like. But in the end, that’s all it is.’

Now it made sense. This was some sort of punishment for going to talk to Lester. With a swift kick, I sank the heel of my shoe into his shin. He inhaled sharply and released me. I lurched away, straightening my dress and smoothing at my hair. ‘If you grab me like that again, I’ll show you some of the other tricks Madam Luzel taught me to defend myself against brutes like you.’ I shot a look at the courtiers above. Fire and brimstone, there would be some sizzling gossip over lunch today. At least Dovegni would be pleased to think his theory about our marriage was right.

‘I might enjoy that. I did last time,’ Draven said, rubbing at his shin. Then he straightened. ‘Come on, take a swing. You know you want to.’

‘So this is how you want to deal with your anger? By fighting me?’

‘This isn’t fighting, Vixen, this is foreplay.’

‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’ Throwing up my hands in frustration, I spun away from him. ‘Come and find me when you’re ready to be reasonable.’

He caught my wrist. ‘Wait.’ The sobriety in his voice stilled me, and when I turned back, I was both relieved and apprehensive to find a shadow over his face.

‘Yes?’

‘Come with me. We can’t talk here.’ He threaded my hand through his arm, as though he was escorting me to a ball and he wasn’t half naked and covered in sweat.

‘Oh sure, but provoking me to punch you in front of half the court is perfectly fine,’ I grumbled as I allowed him to lead me away from the courtyard and into one of the covered galleries that fringed it. It was cool and quiet, coloured in dappled morning sunlight and empty of the courtiers that were congregating above. He swiped up his shirt from where it was draped over a bench and shrugged it on as I watched with folded arms, feeling strangely uncomfortable. He… smelled good. Looked good, all glossy with exertion. A memory absorbed me, of his hands sliding up my nightdress, gripping my hips, pulling me against him. I had the absurd desire to press my mouth to his stomach, to trace the lines of his abdomen with my tongue. Inconvenient, when I was sure he was going to interrogate me again on where I’d been the day before, or on what I’d learned from Lester. Perhaps he’d ask about the blood stone necklace, since he’d seemed to react when he’d seen me wearing it.

‘I’m going away for a few days,’ was what he said instead as he tucked the shirt into his trousers.

‘Going where?’

‘To the Oceatold border.’

‘Why?’

‘Because people keep complaining to me about attacks on the coast and I want to divert some resources.’

I studied him. He was lying. I was sure of it. ‘And the real reason?’

He cocked his head. ‘How about you tell me where you really were yesterday and I’ll tell you why I’m really going?’

I said nothing.

‘What’s wrong, have you run out of lies to sell me?’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Or have you realised I won’t keep buying them?’

I tightened my arms against the strange, clawing feeling in my chest, as though I could contain it. ‘Why are you accusing me of lying?’

‘I told you, you’re more transparent than you think you are.’

My heart thudded a little harder. Surely, he couldn’t read me that well. I was a good liar. And I’d already sold him a far bigger lie than the one about where I’d been the day before. ‘Maybe you’re just a bit paranoid.’

He shook his head, turning that bitter smile to the ground. Then he drew closer, siphoning away the space between us. ‘You want to be treated like a partner?’ he said, leaning in. ‘Then start acting like one.’

‘So this whole trip away is just to punish me,’ I said, refusing to back away, even when the words came out huskier than I meant them to. A part of me liked that I was getting to him, that he’d been angry the night before, that he seemed all jagged edges now. Why did he smell so good?

His gaze dropped to my lips. ‘No, but I’m glad you think my absence is a punishment,’ he said, then he picked up his coat. I let out a captive breath, tried to wrestle my focus back to things that weren’t imagining pinning him against the wall and kissing him like I had on Aetherdi.

‘And what do you expect me to do while you’re gone? Embroider?’

‘Rule,’ he said simply. He laughed at my expression when he turned back. ‘What else did you think I would say? If you’re worried about the courtiers, then stay here and keep an eye on them. Do whatever you think needs to be done to bring them to heel. I trust you to do that.’

‘Even if you don’t trust me with anything else.’

‘And who’s fault is that? ’

As I looked up at him, I tried to remind myself that this was just a game. That I shouldn’t get so provoked by it. That it shouldn’t hurt. I softened my eyes, fluttered my lashes, reached up to brush a lock of hair off his forehead. ‘You’re right. Maybe we need to stop toying with each other.’

His expression hardened immediately and he caught my hand. ‘Don’t try that,’ he warned. ‘I can take your deceit and your spite, but don’t try to pander to me like you do everyone else.’

I reclaimed my hand, burying it behind me as I scowled down at the ground, uneasy that he so consistently saw through me.

‘Take care of yourself while I’m gone,’ he said after a moment, his voice quieter.

His fingertips brushed my cheek lightly, briefly, and then he was walking away. I watched him, watched as he ran a hand through his hair, his shirt sitting lopsided and clinging to his damp shoulders, until he disappeared around a corner, and I tried to imagine standing before a court and condemning him. Tried to imagine letting Dovegni haul him off to a dungeon.

Tried to imagine what he would do if the rumours about the dark-haired girl in the Yawn somehow reached him.

The palace felt strangely empty while he was gone, and I kept myself distracted. I tossed Dovegni’s offer around in my head, trying and failing to find an angle that wouldn’t make me feel like I was caught between a rock and a hard place. While I did, I paid visits to a handful of the more influential courtiers and tried to assert my presence. I commissioned the portrait I’d decided to have hung around the kingdom, avoided a governance meeting, spent time plucking away at my lute and sleeping late, and pretended Draven’s absence didn’t make me feel alone. Pretended I didn’t miss the way his gaze ran over me. Pretended I didn’t sometimes think of him in the middle of the night.

It also seemed too good an opportunity to miss having Cotus return to the Yawn to restock his cabin. It served the purpose of reassuring him that I wasn’t planning on abandoning Gwinellyn, though it was becoming more and more difficult to envision a future where I could bring her back without ushering in consequences I didn’t want to face. And, I hoped, he would see some evidence that she wasn’t dead to loosen my guilt for a while longer.

I organised a sitting for the portrait on the day Draven was supposed to return. The painter, a man by the name of Mr Leclair, twitched whenever I so much as breathed too deeply. He also sucked on the end of his brush and had an annoying tendency to brag about his other portraits while he painted, making the sitting even more tedious, a feat I hadn’t thought possible.

‘Are you almost done?’ I asked him yet again, and he was caught in a little spasm of displeasure at the fact that I’d moved.

‘You cannot rush art, Your Majesty,’ he said for the third time that session.

‘Of course I can, I’m the queen,’ I said pointedly, but he only burrowed into mixing his paints. I was beginning to regret commissioning the painting, but I couldn’t very well let Linus’s portrait hang on the walls of every tavern in the city as though he was still the one on the throne. A memory of him blank-faced and still, of red froth at the corners of his mouth, sprang to mind unbidden, and I blinked it away, shifting enough that the artist started twitching again.

‘If you are growing tired, Your Majesty, it might be best to take some rest,’ he murmured, leaning so close to his canvas he looked like his was going to begin painting with his nose.

‘I’m fine. Keep going,’ I said, lifting my chin and arranging my expression again. He exhaled a quiet sigh that I chose to ignore. I went back to wondering what Draven had done while he’d been away. By all accounts I’d heard, he’d been to the border as he’d said. He’d met with captains and soldiers and essentially conducted himself as though he was just a benevolent king interested in his country and his subjects. I wasn’t so easily convinced. Would he think what I’d done while he was away just as suspect?

‘Your Majesty, you’re moving again,’ Leclair protested after a few more quiet minutes. I blinked down at my hands, where they’d been unconsciously twisting at the fabric. One of my attendants rushed forwards to rearrange the skirt. She didn’t speak a word other than to whisper instructions about turning this way or that, her fingers trembling as she smoothed out the fabric. I remembered Leela cautioning me to know the ladies tending to me, and I watched her with a frown.

‘Marie isn’t it?’ I asked as she readjusted my headpiece. She flinched as though I’d yelled at her.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ she said.

Ah. Lord Sherman’s daughter. I tried to think of something to say to her, but all I could think of was those trembling fingers and down-turned eyes. She was afraid of me. I was uncomfortable with that realisation.

‘Have you peeked at Mr Leclair’s progress? ’

She shook her head rapidly. ‘No, of course not, ma’am.’

‘Then go and look. Tell me if it’s any good.’

‘It will not do to see the painting before it’s finished, Your Majesty,’ Leclair objected in a tone far too peevish for someone talking to a monarch. He lifted an arm above the canvas, as though to shield his work.

‘Oh, come on, let her look or I’ll get off this stool and look myself,’ I said, but the rustle of skirts and the sudden onslaught of whispers from the attendants dozing around the fringes of the room distracted me. Leclair straightened up and offered a bow.

‘So this is where you’ve been hiding?’ Every muscle in my body tensed up at the sound of the voice, and I stood up straighter and smoothed at my bodice, trying to iron out non-existent creases, as though being immaculate would give me the upper hand.

Draven appeared in my line of vision, pacing towards the painter. He stood by his side, despite the man protesting and flapping his hands about, to stare at the painting with a strange expression.

‘What?’ I finally asked, stepping off the stool I’d been balancing on with a flick of my skirts, my elaborate hairpiece teetering dangerously for a moment before I righted it.

‘Your Majesty, the arrangement...’ Leclair said weakly, his shoulders slumping, clearly realising that we weren’t about to pay him a lick of attention as I stormed over to stand beside my husband.

The portrait, even half-finished, was exquisite. Despite the painter’s irritating manners, he was clearly as talented as I’d expected him to be. The woman staring out of the canvas was formidable, dark eyes fierce and rendered in thick oils. He had expertly captured the perfection of my features, the glowing heat of my beauty in the face that he had clearly spent most of his time on, as though he had obsessed over it. My surroundings were unfinished, just vague shapes, my dress a block of colour without any of the decoration I had burdened myself with specifically for the sitting.

‘What do you think?’ I asked Draven, suddenly anxious to hear his thoughts, to pop the silence that was his presence beside me. The space felt strange between us, stiff, swollen with injured confidence and tender vulnerability. But he was wearing such an odd expression as he stared at the painting, I wanted into his head.

‘It’s proficient,’ was all he said, before turning away from it and crossing the room.

‘Proficient?’ I repeated, narrowing my eyes.

‘Impressive,’ he amended, standing by the door like he was waiting for me to follow him.

‘You don’t like it,’ I said. Leclair was puffing up like an angry blowfish.

‘I don’t need to. I doubt you’re having it painted for me. Now will you hurry up? I have something to show you.’

I glared at him.

‘Please,’ he added, seeming to realise that I was about ready to pick up one of Leclair’s paint brushes and throw it at him. ‘It’s important.’

‘Fine.’ I huffed in indignation as I swished out of the room in the heavy gown. He’d been back for five minutes and already he was ordering me around, like I was a toy in a dollhouse who’d just been waiting patiently to be picked up again.

When I was dressed in something easier to move in, I re-joined Draven and he offered me a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I took it, and the touch of his fingers made something in me relax slightly. But then I turned his hand over, frowning down at his bruised knuckles. When I raised my eyebrows, he shook his head slightly. Not here .

Waving off my attendants, I followed him out of the room, and surveyed him as we walked. There was something askew that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. ‘What happened to your hand?’

‘Nothing that won’t heal.’

We lapsed into silence as we reached a flight of stairs, and I realised I was disappointed. Maybe I’d expected a warmer reunion, though I wasn’t sure why, given how we’d left things.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked him when we reached the bottom of the stairs, and to my surprise, he gave me an answer.

‘Sentinel’s Tower.’

Threads of foreboding settled over me, like walking through a spider’s web. Sentinel’s Tower was an old part of the palace, a lonely spire against the southern wall used for housing political prisoners, mostly, or members of the aristocracy who were serving out a prison term. Linus hadn’t been the type to lock up his courtiers for offending him, and Draven seemed more inclined to feed people to creatures in the menagerie, so I didn’t imagine it had many residents.

‘What business do I have there?’

‘I think it’ll be better if I show you.’

It was cold and dimly lit inside—no ropes of glowing glisoch slowly corroding above us here. The bare stone was in stark contrast to the opulent interiors of the rest of the palace, but I found it more honest, somehow. Less constricting. Like this place wasn’t trying to hide its cruelty behind glittering decoration. Yes , the walls breathed, I am made for misery. I’ll make no apologies for it .

Draven flickered through the shadows ahead of me, and if his presence demanded recognition when he was presiding over a room of courtiers, here he seemed less of a contrast with his surroundings, like he was made for shadows and stone, not for crowns and ballrooms. He said nothing as he led me up a staircase that climbed the tower’s innards, making me wonder what was going through his head with each echoing step.

Finally, we reached a nondescript wooden door. He opened it to reveal a dim room beyond.

Stepping inside, I wrinkled my nose. ‘Why are we here? It smells foul.’

‘For them,’ he said, gesturing across the room as he closed the door behind us.

I followed the gesture to three figures kneeling on the stone. Their clothes were filthy, torn, bloodstained. They looked like they’d been beaten. One of them let out a low moan. An itch of familiarity began to prickle at me, as though I recognised the voice. ‘Who are they?’

‘Prisoners awaiting your sentencing.’

Their hands were bound behind their backs, and one was slumped so low over his knees I wondered if he might be unconscious.

‘Why would they be awaiting my sentencing?’ I asked. Then one of the figures looked up.

I froze. Panic stopped my lungs, my heart. His face was crusted with blood and one of his eyes was almost swollen shut, but I could still make out a jagged scar cutting across his right cheek. Suddenly I wasn’t in the room, I was pinned down in the dirt as a man with a scarred face gripped my ankles and watched another grope my breasts.

‘What have you done?’ I choked, stumbling back a few steps as I scrambled to master myself.

‘I found them for you.’ Draven strolled across the room and knelt next to the scarred man, metal flashing as he seemed to produce a blade from thin air. He took the prisoner’s face in hand, wedging his fingers in his cheeks and prying open his jaw until he could slip the blade of the dagger between his teeth. The prisoner whimpered.

‘We’ve spent a bit of time together now, haven’t we, Bane?’ He twisted the blade and the man let out a gasping sob as he widened his mouth to accommodate it. ‘You keep pleading for your life as though your snivelling would move me,’ Draven said, meeting my eyes as he leaned in to the speak the words directly into the prisoner’s ear. ‘As though I’m the one you should be begging.’

The prisoner moaned, trying to shake his head around the blade in his mouth. His frightened gaze flickered to me.

Draven withdrew the blade and rammed the hilt into the back of the man’s head, sending him sprawling forward. ‘You don’t look at her,’ he snarled. ‘You don’t look at her or speak to her unless she asks you to. Understood?’

‘I’ve told you and told you, I don’t know what we’ve done!’ the prisoner blubbered from the floor. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

Draven rose to his feet, lip curled with disgust. ‘No, I suppose you don’t. I’m sure you’ve attacked so many women that you can’t keep them all straight in your head. But don’t worry, you’ll remember by the time we’re through with you.’

Spots were beginning to burst before my eyes. I felt light-headed with something I could hardly identify. Perhaps it was terror. Perhaps it was rage. When a touch landed on my arm, I jerked away before I saw it was Draven. I didn’t even realise he’d moved. He gently took my hand. ‘I’ve taken my pound of flesh, but I thought you’d want to take yours.’

I stared at him, battling my now racing pulse. He wrapped my fingers around something cold and hard. The hilt of the dagger. I clenched it tightly.

‘You are, after all, a queen,’ he crooned, turning me gently back to face that repulsive, diabolical trio kneeling on the floor. ‘ My queen. If you want to end their lives, then end them. Have your vengeance. Defeat your nightmares.’

I couldn’t breathe. Heat was churning in my veins, flushing my skin, as I stared down at the people who had changed the course of my entire life. Who had filled my nightmares with fire and singed hair, who had made me hate my own face. The sound of the dagger clattering to the floor was enough of a shock to make one of them flinch.

‘Outside. Now.’ I made the demand without looking at Draven, just turned and marched back out of that room. When he joined me, I was leaning against the wall, gasping for breath with lungs that didn’t seem be able to fully inflate.

He stood before me, but I could barely focus on him. ‘Breathe,’ he said.

But I couldn’t. My head was spinning, the air was empty, and I could only gasp. Wrapping me in his arms, he pulled me against him. He held me tight, and in the dark warmth of him I felt my body begin to relax, my chest loosening until I could draw in a lungful of air. When I was finally steady, I scrubbed the tears that had spilled down my face and pulled away to lean against the wall.

‘You had no right,’ I said after a long moment, staring at the blank wall opposite, my voice wavering. I was still trembling.

He said nothing.

‘No right to bring them here,’ I continued. ‘No right to spring them on me like that.’

‘The memory of what they did is holding you prisoner.’ His hand cupped my jaw, turned my face gently towards him. ‘I want to set you free.’

‘Why?’ I bit out the word. It clattered to the ground between us.

‘Why?’ he repeated, dropping his hand.

‘Why does it matter to you? What could you possibly have to gain from bringing them here? They’re no threat to you. They have no idea that I’m the woman they beat and burned all those months ago.’

‘But you do.’

I surveyed him, cradling my stomach, feeling like my insides were twisted and squirming, like I wanted to crawl out of my body and go and hide in someone else’s. Had he done this to hurt me? Because it was working. It was working really fucking well. ‘This is the cruellest thing you’ve ever done to me,’ I said finally.

‘I’m not trying to be cruel,’ he said, his expression grim. ‘You’re afraid of them. Afraid of the memories. And you’re afraid of really taking power, of pushing those around you too far and forcing them to fall into line because you know how ruthless men can be when you make them angry. But you could be ruthless too. You could be the one to fear.’ He looked down at the ground, seemed to cast about for his next words before meeting my eyes again. ‘I want to help you.’

‘All you’ve done is brought my past screaming into the present,’ I said, pulling away from him. ‘I just want to forget, and you won’t let me.’ I pushed myself off the wall and slipped past him, starting off down the hallway, ready to put as much space between myself and that room as I could.

‘What do you want done with them?’ he called after me.

I paused briefly. What did I want done with them? I wanted them to have never been born. I wanted to go back in time and undo what they had done to me. ‘You brought them here. Do what you want with them. Just leave me out of it,’ I replied without turning around.