Page 4 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Four

T he next morning, I was greeted by a headache gnawing at my temples and eyes gritty from a restless sleep. I’d dreamt I was tied to a pyre, flames licking at my feet as a crowd of faceless people watched. They’d ignored my pleas for help, and the smell of singed hair still clung to my memory, making my hands shaky as I splashed water over my face, trying to shock myself back into the real world.

Not that the real world was any kind of balm, considering what I would have to do today.

Skin still wet, I crossed to the cabinet that stood in the corner of my bedroom and unlocked it with the little key I hid in a drawer. The bottles of liquor posed a temptation that I almost accepted, but drinking before breakfast might be the first step on a path that would lead to becoming my mother, and I’d sworn I’d never be as bitter and pathetic as she had been. So, trembling hands it was, then .

It took several deep breaths and a slew of goading insults muttered to myself to force my hand to the partition hiding the back of the cupboard from view. I lifted it in one swift jerk, thinking it was better to get it over with as fast as possible.

There was the mirror, the immaculate surface reflecting something I didn’t want to see. Not that morning. Not after I’d dreamed of fire. Not when so much rested on today. I gripped the sides of the cabinet as I stared at my reflection, at the scars of another life. The left of my face was shiny, blotchy, jagged, where once flames had devoured skin, and the tired, care-worn woman who wore those scars was one I no longer recognised. I waited for the feather-light feeling of hands on my face to flush my skin ice cold and let me know the glamour was in place for another day, obscuring my real face with one of devastating beauty. When it was done, I slammed the partition down again, gasping against the wave of nausea that had swept over me and dizzy with an irrational fear. Locking the cabinet back up, I almost sprinted into the wash room, where I could sit on the cold floor without seeing the damn thing and wait for the trembling and nausea to subside.

By the time Leela brought my breakfast tray, I had pulled myself together again, and the food did me a world of good. Once I’d finished eating, I began pacing the room, trying out different variations of what I could say to the council, as though a specific phrase could hide the fact that I was announcing my involvement in a second unauthorised royal marriage.

By the time I headed to the council chambers, I had managed to smother the worst of my apprehension. The dress Leela had picked for me was youthful, pastel-purple with a low neckline and a subtle train fanning out behind me. I wore my hair loose and studded with little diamond pins that glinted like stars, and my neck was wrapped in a choker that matched the emerald earrings bobbing from my ears. I wanted to look pretty. Young. Unthreatening.

Draven was already waiting when I entered the chambers, sitting alone with an ankle crossed over one knee, his fingers drumming slowly against the arm of the chair. The weight of his gaze sent a shiver up my spine, dimming that new confidence ever so slightly, but I shook it off and approached with my head held high.

‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘Ought to put them in a cooperative mood.’

I tossed my hair. ‘But I’m caught in the throes of love right now, remember?’

He rose from his chair, a mocking smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. ‘If only.’

We approached the door to the assembly room together. The sound of voices within awoke a flutter of nerves in my chest.

‘Do you know what you’re going to say?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Now if you could just keep your mouth firmly shut, then this will all go down fine.’

The door opened and ‘Her Royal Highness, Queen Regent of Brimordia,’ was bellowed by the door attendant, followed by a din of chairs scraping against the floor as the councillors stood, their eyes slithering over me as I strolled to the chair at the head of the table. The room was already stuffy with their gossiping and scheming and I wished I’d not asked for my stays to be tightened so much. A servant rushed ahead of me to add a seat to my right, and I could feel the tension in the room thickening as eyes sought it out, flicking over to the dark man who was strolling into this meeting of the most powerful people in the country like he had every right to be there.

I sat and tried to look confident as the nerves began to clamber at my throat. ‘Please be seated,’ I said, for the moment ignoring the bug-eyed incredulity directed at Draven as he sat in the chair.

Fortunately, Lord Sherman, who was chairing the meeting, seemed completely oblivious to the discomfort of his peers. With a wet sniff—he must be nursing yet another cold—he opened the meeting, his droopy eyes appearing glued to the agenda before him, the drone of his voice filling the room. Servers began circling as he did so, offering refreshments, pouring water and wine.

‘Lord Sherman, may I steal the floor for just a moment?’ I asked.

‘The floor, ma’am?’ he spluttered, blinking rapidly. Aether’s teeth, did no one ever interrupt him?

‘I have an announcement to make, and it’s rather important,’ I said, trying to sound sweet, apologetic. Which was difficult when I was so agitated. Everything in me wanted to bristle and defend. Every eye in the room was now fixed intently on me. I took a breath. Was there a way I could phrase this that would make them less irate? Unlikely. Best to get it over with fast.

‘I was married last night. I’d like to introduce to you my new husband.’

The immediate response was a moment of silence, like the gaping echo after a gun shot.

Then chaos erupted.

Everyone was talking at once, raised voices climbing over one another to be heard. A number of the councillors leapt to their feet and began waving their arms emphatically along with their ceaseless yelling. Sherman sat in slack-jawed silence, looking as though I had slapped him with something slimy. He was seemingly oblivious to Boccius shouting in his ear with red-faced rage. The Grand Paptich had leaned back in his chair and was shaking his head and laughing with a sort of delirious disbelief, occasionally crying ‘come now, come now,’ into the din.

‘You’re not serious,’ Grand Weaver Dovegni snarled a few seats away.

‘I am,’ I replied, unsure he'd even hear me beneath the uproar.

‘Devious whore,’ he hissed.

‘Quiet!’ Boccius finally roared. His big voice was so loud I flinched. ‘I for one would like an explanation, and we won’t get one like this!’

The clamour died down, aside from a few furious mutterings.

‘Councillors,’ I began, my voice wavering only slightly, but the mutterings quickly caught until the volume began to climb again. ‘Councillors, please—’

Draven rose to his feet beside me, and there was something about the way he did it, with the utmost composure and confidence in his right to hold the floor, that strangled the heated talk until everyone in the room was staring at him. He ran his weighted gaze over each man at the table.

‘You are a committee of councillors,’ he said, each word smacking the silence. ‘Advisors. Your monarch can act without that advice.’

‘Regent,’ Boccius spat.

‘Of course,’ Draven said, nodding in the direction of the red-faced royal cousin. ‘To a missing heir.’

The shock was palpable. I saw it sweep through them. No one had said it aloud so brazenly, no one had suggested that Gwinellyn was perhaps gone for good.

Dovegni gripped the gold sigil of office sitting against his chest, and his expression was guarded, his thin lips pressed so tightly together they’d almost disappeared. ‘Who are you, exactly?’

Draven placed his hands on the table and leaned forward, skewering first Sherman, then Milton, then Boccius with his hard, grey eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter who I am. Your queen has made a decision. Your role is to respect it. Particularly if you wish to keep your seat at this table.’

I expected the noise to rise again, for them to jump to their feet and protest and threaten, but they all sat frozen, eyes wide, as though they couldn’t believe themselves that they hadn’t reasserted their right to speak. My gaze flicked from face to face, hardly daring to breathe in case I somehow pierced the moment and they all took to declarations of war.

‘This will be a time of change. Your princess is missing. Your queen hasn’t been long on the throne. And now you’ll have to deal with me.’

The still, mesmerised faces were beginning to baffle me. How could Boccius have nothing to say to that? And the rest of them? I’d been wrangling this verbose, entitled group of men for long enough now to know that they would wrestle with even a hint that their influence might be under threat. Draven was practically declaring them all at his mercy, this man who wouldn’t even confirm his name, and none of them had anything to say? Had the shock struck them all dumb?

Then I caught a scent in the air. Gunpowder .

‘Your last king was content to be your kitten,’ Draven continued, and I got the sense that he was enjoying himself. ‘But you’re about to enter a new era. Go home and contemplate the word obedience if you want to retain your position here. Otherwise, I’m sure we’ll manage without you.’ He flicked his hand, and chair legs immediately began scraping against the floor. The members of the council stood, and I stood with them, feeling almost as mesmerised as they began shuffling out the door, their usual muttering and grumbling absent. They moved like sleepwalkers.

Draven’s eyes locked onto the last man waiting to filter out of the room. ‘And Dovegni,’ he called.

The Grand Weaver turned. His gaze was unfocused.

Draven studied him with a look of disgust on his face that went far beyond the casual contempt he had held for everyone else. His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed, his lip curled, and I expected at any moment for him to bare his teeth. ‘Don’t ever speak to my wife like that again.’

Dovegni blinked rapidly, then shot a startled glance at me.

‘You don’t need to look at her. You’re talking to me,’ Draven snarled.

That dazed look settled back over his features, and I almost laughed in disbelief as he slowly bent towards me in a low bow. ‘Forgive me, Your Royal Highness.’

‘Better,’ Draven said, which seemed to act as a dismissal as the Grand Weaver followed the rest of the council, and the door was closed behind him.

Draven pulled out one of the chairs and dropped into it. ‘I don’t know what you were so worried about. I think they took that well. ’

That acrid smell of magic still lingered in the air, but it was quickly fading. I studied him for a long moment, like he was a spider across the room: still for now, but the moment it moved I would start screaming. ‘What did you do to them?’

‘They needed a lesson in compliance. They won’t be happy when it wears off, but some will see sense in cooperating.’ He stretched out his long legs and folded them at the ankle as he smirked up at me, and I just stood there like an idiot, unsure what to do with myself.

‘I don’t need you to speak for me,’ I said finally. ‘I’ve been handling them just fine on my own.’

‘But you aren’t alone anymore. For fall’s sake, stop scowling at me and sit.’ He kicked out the chair next to him.

I almost refused to spite him, but I noticed the way he sagged into the chair, and my gaze sharpened. His eyelids were heavy, and he seemed… drained. I’d never seen him look so human before. He needed to sit.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked warily.

‘I have a wife who thinks everything I do is a trap.’

‘I wonder whose fault that is.’ I perched on the edge of the chair. ‘Why are you so tired?’

‘Because you exhaust me.’ He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘How do you expect me to trust you when you tell me nothing?’

‘You’ll likely betray me yet.’ His eyes opened and he considered me. ‘Magic is… draining.’

My heart thumped a little harder. ‘But I’ve seen you work magic before and it hasn’t tired you out then.’

‘One little manipulation to entice you to spill a secret is hardly like enchanting an entire room into compliance.’

‘What about at Gwinellyn’s birthday ball? You used magic to keep people from seeing us leave.’

He leaned back in his chair and smiled like I’d just performed a card trick. ‘Clever. Deflecting attention doesn’t take much energy. If the mind isn’t committed to noticing something, convincing it to move on is as much effort as clapping behind someone so they turn.’

I wanted to keep my eagerness from showing, but I could feel myself leaning forwards, my breathing growing shallow. ‘And the councillors?’

He seemed to stew on his answer for a few moments, and I tried to keep my expression bland. He began to tap his fingers against his knee. ‘They were attached to their rage.’

‘So some things use more energy than others?’

He stood abruptly. ‘Let’s get out of this room. It stinks of privilege.’

I rose to my feet, my mouth tight with frustration as I made to follow him, but I hesitated. ‘Won’t they know what you did to them?’

He stopped with his hand on the door handle, and something about the way he looked back at me made me feel exposed, like I’d let slip a secret, revealed something I shouldn’t.

‘Imagine who you’d be if you stopped fixating on how everyone would react to the things you do,’ he said.

‘Spoken like someone who has never had to suffer consequences,’ I snapped, thrusting my chin into the air as I strode towards him, but I hesitated again a few steps away. Out that door, I wasn’t sure what awaited me. My attendants, definitely. A mob of murderous lords, possibly. And if the gossip mill was as fast as I knew it to be, maybe even a flood of courtiers all come to see for themselves if it was true, that I’d gone and married some man who’d been at court for no time at all without consulting anyone about it. To clap eyes on the man who they would soon be calling king.

‘I assume I’m allowed out of my cell now,’ Draven said, dragging my attention away from that wretched door and all that might be waiting beyond it.

‘I don’t give a whit how you spend your time,’ I said. ‘Linus used to occupy himself with running the country, but if you aren’t up to the task, then you can just leave all that to me.’

His expression darkened. ‘Linus,’ he said, spitting the name out like it tasted sour in his mouth. ‘What a fine king he was.’

I liked the anger. I’d hit a sore spot. I couldn’t help but poke it. ‘What big shoes you’ll have to fill. It must be daunting, knowing you’ll need to follow after a ruler who was so beloved, and who ruled for such a long time. However are you going to do it?’

‘Beloved by who?’ He took a hold of my hand, brought it to his lips. ‘Not by you.’

The touch of his lips was enough to awaken my skin. It thrummed with the memory of those lips, of those fingers, and I quickly slipped my hand out of his grip. ‘Whatever you do with yourself, I’m very busy today,’ I said quickly, finally making for that damned door. ‘Try not to get in the way.’

In the chamber beyond, my attendants immediately began to rise in a rustle of skirts, the gossip dying on their tongues. Their interest wasn’t rabid enough, their attitudes still too full of boredom to suggest they knew what had happened on the other side of the door, and I remembered the glazed expressions of the counsellors. How long did I have before that wore off?

Leela was at my side in a moment, reading me intently, and I knew she would want a recount of everything that had happened. Then there was a hand at my back, and I inhaled sharply.

‘You can’t avoid being alone with me forever, Rhiandra,’ he murmured close to my ear, close enough to provoke expressions of shock in some of my ladies. ‘Find me when you’re not so busy , or I’ll come looking.’ And then he was walking away, when I’d been determined to be the one to walk away from him .

‘Is everything alright, ma’am?’ Leela asked, her voice low. ‘You weren’t in there for long.’

‘They took it quite well,’ I replied.

Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. ‘Quite well?’

‘Mm. Turns out they thought practically anyone would be better to deal with as regent than I am.’

‘You’re teasing me.’

‘Let’s walk on ahead.’ I glanced at the ladies standing by, watching us closely, probably still whispering to each other about how close Draven had stood to me. I set the pace, and Leela matched me, walking the long corridors towards the palace sanctum, where I would, Madeia help me, be seen attending worship like a good little devotee, before I headed into the city with the rest of the court.

‘There will be some ruffled feathers after this. I need you to keep your ear to the ground, now more than ever,’ I said, just loud enough for Leela to hear.

‘I could better serve you if I understood exactly what was going on, ma’am.’ There was a note of disapproval in her voice, and maybe even some hurt. ‘You seemed in a pretty position, reigning alone. Forgive me for being so bold, but I don’t understand why you married that Lord Martalos. His family has little influence, and he’d hardly been at court long enough to gather any on his own merits.’

Our footsteps echoed along the corridor, and I glanced back to make sure the rest of my attendants hadn’t begun to walk too close. ‘This isn’t the time to discuss it,’ I said. ‘But we will soon.’ I didn’t want her to think I didn’t trust her. But how was I supposed to explain the mess I’d tangled myself up in?

‘May I just ask one thing?’ she said as we stepped into the thick, smoky air of the sanctum. I wrinkled my nose up at the sight of the incense columns waving throughout the room, caught in shafts of the stark sunlight let in by the gaping windows. This was the second time I’d been in a sanctum in as many days, which was two times too many as far as I was concerned.

‘Go on,’ I prompted, pausing before I headed to the alter.

Her expression was so serious as she regarded me. Her blonde hair, always so carefully arranged, turned a brilliant gold in the sunlight. ‘Are you being threatened? Does he know something about you that he’s using against you?’

And I suddenly realised that she knew a lot more about me than what I’d told her. Of course, she did. She traded in information the way I traded in beauty. She knew all the gossip, the scandals, who was connected to who. She would have found out what she could about me, too.

‘Not the way you think,’ I said, my voice a little choked with the warmth of gratitude that had bloomed in my chest. Whatever she knew, she hadn’t tried to extort me, hadn’t sold me out. Her only concern now was someone else using it against me.

She nodded but didn’t look any less grave as she drew away from me, leaving me to approach the altar alone, where a minor priest held out a deep bowl of soil. I hated this part, clenched my jaw against the revulsion that came with plunging my hands into the muck, feeling the grit against my skin. It only reminded me of the nights I’d spent curled against the bare earth as a child, of waking with it ground into my cheek and hair. I moved to one of the enormous incense pyramids to pass my hands through the smoke, then knelt on the floor, noticing the eyes of other worshippers flickering to me. Good. I wanted to be seen. That was the whole point.

I mulled over my conversation with Draven as I pretended to pray. I had never realised the magic he wielded with such ease cost him something. I wasn’t sure exactly how much it cost him, but from the way he had gripped the chair when he had stood at the end of our conversation, I suspected it was more than he was letting on. It was a weakness, something I might be able to exploit if he ever made it necessary.

A priest passed before me, flicking water over my bowed head. I’d forgotten how much worship made my legs ache. It was bloody ridiculous to expect anyone to kneel in prayer for longer than a few minutes, really. The incense was making me feel light-headed and short of breath, and those priests seemed far too pleased to see their queen on her knees. I stood, dusting at my hands irritably. Surely, that was long enough .

I marched to a shadowy alcove to wash my hands in a bronze basin provided for the purpose, and I was so absorbed in my thoughts as I scrubbed grit from my fingernails that I didn’t notice someone approach me, didn’t see him lurch out to grasp my arm until he already had his claws in me. I started, water slopping onto my dress as I spun.

‘What have you done?’ The Grand Weaver’s eyes were wild. I tugged my wrist from him with some difficulty.

‘How dare you touch me? I am your queen,’ I fumed, scorching him with my most contemptuous glare. ‘And this is a place of worship. You overstep your bounds.’

He gripped my shoulders and held me tight, his fingers digging into me. ‘You have brought unbound fall spawn into our midst,’ he hissed. ‘Did you know? Are you under enchantment?’

I shook his hands off, my skin crawling. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said with all the scorn I could muster as my heart began to flutter in my chest. ‘You’re blabbering nonsense.’

He searched my face. ‘You did, didn’t you?’ he seethed. ‘You married the creature and you knew. Tell me everything now.’

‘I don’t answer to you, Dovegni.’ I dusted the front of my gown and smoothed at my ruffled sleeves, trying to hide how shaken I was. ‘You’d do well to remember your place and keep your wild accusations to yourself.’ He lurched forward, as though to grab a hold of me again, and I jerked away, my mouth coiling with disgust. ‘Get a hold of yourself.’

‘I’ve never experienced that sort of magic before…’ he muttered. ‘He looks so human.’

‘And you look unhinged. Go and lie down before you hurt yourself.’

His bug-eyed incredulity almost made me feel ashamed. Almost. But then he rushed me, jabbing a finger towards my face. ‘You are a curse on this land.’ Spittle flew from his mouth with the force of his words. ‘All we have had since the day you arrived is chaos. You will bring this country to its knees.’

I wiped the spittle from my cheeks, then offered him a smile that was all teeth. ‘Crawl back to your anthill, little insect, before I squash you,’ I said, sweeping away from him without a backwards glance, even while I felt light-headed with fear. I was half afraid that he would chase me down, would begin screaming his accusations loud enough for others to hear. But he didn’t.

Leela caught sight of me and rushed to follow me, my other attendants not far behind her, but I didn’t pause as I charged out the door and into the fresh air of the hallway beyond. I needed to find my reckless husband.