Page 41 of Shadow Throne King
“Would you like to bathe first or rest?” Quuri asked. “You must be tired from the road, Your Highness.”
I breathed in the flower-scented air, thinking of the last time I had been in a bath, the intimacy that Tallu and I had shared, which hadn’t gone quite as far as either one of us wanted.
“I’ll bathe,” I said. Quuri looked sharply at the servants, and two broke off, hurrying to the back, where I heard the splash of water against rocks.
“Is this how Empress Koque left it?” I asked. I began circling the room, noting that despite the decorations, there was no hint of the former mistress here. No papers or books left behind, no trinkets tied specifically to the empress. Other than the distinct fingerprint of her style, it was clear that Koque had been expunged.
“All of the belongings she brought with her were sent back to the Mountainside Palace,” Quuri said. I nodded, my eyes skimming over the room again. I looked through a pair of wide-open doors and saw a massive bed that took up nearly the entire room. When I entered it, it smelled clean, as though the linens were changed frequently enough that any lingering perfume from the empress had disappeared.
It was so different from how she had been treated at the Mountainside Palace. There, the servants had maintained her rooms with such loving devotion that I could almost believe she would return at any moment.
Here, where she had actually died—or not, if we believed the King of the Shadow Throne—it was as though the servants wanted to erase her, as though they were eager to turn her into merely the woman who had occasionally occupied the rooms.
“Your Highness,” Quuri said. “The bath is ready.”
I looked over, roused from my thoughts by her tone. She was watching one of the servants, a bath maid by the uniform she wore. I nodded, turning to follow the woman before a hint of movement caught my eye. Naî stood in the doorway, back in the form of a dragon, her gaze roaming over the room. I shook my head, annoyed at myself for having forgotten her.
Quuri stared, and a gasp echoed around the room as every servant saw their first dragon.
“This is the dragon that chose Emperor Tallu,” I said, although it seemed unnecessary. Who else could this dragon be?
“Should we… That is… What does the dragon require?” Quuri finally managed to finish her sentence but couldn’t break her gaze away from Naî. The dragon carefully picked her way into the room. She was about the size of a large dog, and her tail swished back and forth, the small spikes at the end threatening a nearby table, although no one rushed to chastise her for it. A stream of sunlight from one of the large windows highlighted a section of the marble floor, and she curled up in it, wrapping her tail around her and settling her head on her paws. The gleam of one eye narrowed, just barely open.
She was pretending to sleep, even if the reality was that she was aware of everything going on.
“Food, I suppose. Otherwise, she’ll eat any nearby herd of cattle you have available.” My smile grew self-conscious as the servants all stared back at me in shock.
The echo of wonder in the room turned into murmurs of curiosity as the yellow-clad servants dropped their performance of formality, all too curious about the legendary creature now sleeping in my quarters.
Quuri managed a small nod. “Of course…”
She cleared her throat and looked at one of the other servants, directing her to bring meat from the kitchens. The bath maid stepped forward again, bowing and then gesturing with an open palm for me to follow her.
As I trailed her, I observed the rooms. Each was exquisite, and yet, they still held very little of Empress Koque in them. In the bath, the maid helped me out of my clothes, handing them over to another servant before leading me to the showers.
Just as in the Mountainside Palace, the showers were made of pure white stone. It had to have been imported from somewhere else in the Imperium—everything else in the palace seemed made of brown granite or dark black stone. But this was nearly as white as snow.
The maid stood nearby as I scrubbed my skin clean, digging deep into my hair with my fingertips. I finished washing, letting the water rinse the last of the sand from my skin.
When I turned, I half expected to see Tallu. It had been so long since I had had him out of my reach. We had been an eternity on the road together, and there, he was never more than an arm’s length away.
The bath maid was silent, her eyes fixed on the floor. She had a thick robe in her hands, offering it over as I stepped out of the shower. I put it on, letting her lead me through another door intoa room steaming from hot water. The bath was made from the same black stone I had noticed throughout the palace in accents and statues. When I touched it, it was smooth, but it retained its heat like glass.
“What kind of stone is this?” I asked.
The servant dropped her eyes, gesturing with one palm again for me to enter the bath. Shrugging off the robe, I stepped in, my muscles shivering in appreciation at the heat.
I lounged in the bath, aware of quiet murmurs I could hear from the other room. When I cracked open my eyes, I saw the shadow of a Dog in the doorway.
“Simpleton. I should drown him right here to show him how careless he is.”
I didn’t startle at the cruelty I heard in Asahi’s voice. I wanted to believe that it was only my own madness that made me hear things like that in his voice, but the part of me that was my mother’s son knew better. But what could I do? Attack a third Dog, this time one who had never raised a hand against me?
I had no evidence, no proof. More than that, even if Asahi wasthinkingsuch cruel thoughts, his actions had been faultless. Even now, he was guarding me when I was without my own weapons.
I had no choice but to trust that whatever he wasthinking, he wasactingin my best interest. It hurt to know that that was what the man I’d considered a friend thought, but I had no right to his affection as well as his loyalty.
The knot that had tightened at the base of my spine since we had left the Mountainside Palace began to loosen, my muscles finally giving in to the relentless pleasure of the bath. I cracked open my eyes and asked, casually, “Were you a servant of Empress Koque?”