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Chapter forty

A strid spent hours with Dimitri’s metallurgist, creating pauldrons, corsets, and glittering ornaments for her hair. Keres took her leave when the midday meal arrived. Astrid rowed her new belongings in front of Dimitri’s collection of polished leather boots.

She straightened and looked around the closet she now shared with him.

Clothing, hung with a maddening precision, surrounded her.

The servants clearly knew of his idiosyncrasies, and the consequences of error, terrified every time they entered his room.

The court had to be aware, too, but none were bold enough to mention his compulsions.

What is so out of control in your life that you need absolute control over your things and space?

Astrid wondered as she brushed her fingertips along the sleeves of his shirts.

Silks, cashmere wool, and fine linen—materials of luxury met her touch.

Dimitri’s belongings were curated, emanating wealth.

A sophisticated noble. High-born.

But he’d said his mother was low-born. A soul weaver whose family raised swans. Had he been with her when she caught the eye of his noble stepfather or did his mother bring her comfort recipes to court?

Her real curiosity was the previous queen.

Astrid donned her coat and strapped Dimitri’s blade to her thinner, more delicate sword belt.

She could wield the weapon, but the gleaming metal wasn’t for protection.

It was a not-so-subtle reminder of the hate and rage that would descend upon this court if they so much as touched her hair.

The click of her heels echoed through the empty halls.

She reached the library without incident.

The expansive room was bright and airy, and full of scholars.

The priest who’d forcefully married her to Dimitri cautiously approached, while the other seated Ledivites made note of the weapon on her hip and hastily retreated.

“Princess Noctis,” Dobromil said with a bow. He clutched a stack of books to his chest as though they might shield him from her. “I have not been able to locate more text on Death Spirits, Your Highness.”

Astrid held up two fingers. “I want the life of the previous Queen. Her betrothal to the King. Ambrose’s birth. All of it.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the priest said with a small bow, before rushing to the shelves.

Astrid removed her coat and took a seat at the table closest to the fireplace. The roaring flames popped and crackled as her attention slipped to the tall windows. She glanced over the sea of pine trees. Their pointed tops and outstretched branches were topped with fluffy clumps of snow.

She missed Clorea. The warmth and beauty of her palace gardens. The scent of dozens of flowers drifting through the open windows. The melodic birdsongs at dawn and dusk.

Ledivion was quiet and cold—a blank canvas her people painted in blood.

“Your books, Princess,” Dobromil said, interrupting her thoughts.

He placed two books in front of her. They weren’t the heavy leather-bound tomes she’d read previously. The volumes were covered in pale ivory. Astrid brushed the textured surface.

Linen.

Astrid opened the cover to a portrait of a beautiful female.

Her dark hair was swept up and pinned, highlighting her delicately pointed ears.

Every detail was painstakingly recreated, from her jeweled nails to the throne she occupied.

The Queen’s luminous blue eyes were so life-like, swirling with unspoken secrets Astrid was eager to uncover.

She read, content in the glow of the hearth. The silence and warmth reminded her of home where reading had been her constant companion. Her father dismissed her desire to campaign with her cousins and expand Clorea’s borders, but even he couldn’t silence her mind.

Queen Vesta was a priestess and served the Three-Faced Mother. Astrid curled the corner of the page up, tapping her nail on the point as she read. Vesta had traveled to Ledivion with a dozen other priests and priestesses, erecting temples for soul weavers within the Royal Legion.

Astrid read pages upon pages chronicling her pilgrimage and King Constantine’s notice of her. Vesta abandoned her service to the Three-Faced Mother and took the crown Constantine offered.

A pang of betrayal struck Astrid. Queen Vesta turned her back on the Mothers to please a male. Traded her purpose for wealth and power. This female didn’t deserve to be remembered as a soul weaver.

Astrid continued reading, growing increasingly irritated with each new detail. Vesta acclimated to life in Ledivion and grew pregnant their first year of marriage. Astrid blinked. The child was still born and in a fit of rage Constantine killed everyone in the birthing chamber.

The soul weavers.

The archivist.

Everyone.

He ordered the earth weavers to level the temples dedicated to the Three-Faced Mother.

After his tantrum, the only temples that remained were conscripted to the God of Conquest and Blood.

The Queen didn’t fight for the priests and priestesses she’d traveled to Ledivion with.

She was hardly seen at all. Queen Vesta mourned for years, and little was recorded of her during that time.

She bore Constantine’s sole heir nearly seven years later.

The spine creaked as Astrid closed the book with a soft thump and pushed it away. She couldn’t fathom how Vesta willingly cast her faith aside and allowed the desecration of so many temples. This female was spineless, but somehow managed to rein in Dimitri’s loyalty and devotion.

Astrid stood and the sword at her waist wobbled. Her hand covered the rounded pommel, and the metal chilled her palm. Did Queen Vesta welcome his depravity? Bow to him and his compulsive requisite to be superior?

It didn’t matter , Astrid told herself. She couldn’t stomach subservience. The serpents would guide her home before she allowed Dimitri to fuck her at his convenience. She wielded her Death Spirit well enough now, and her explorative research of the prior monarchs gave her little insight.

“Your Majesty,” Dobromil said, loudly enough for her to hear, but it was the tinge of fear in his voice that drew her attention.

Did he fear for his king or was it that a male was in the same room with her and Dimitri could choose to lay the offense on his shoulders?

When Ambrose approached, Astrid slid her hand down the hilt of Dimitri’s sword, pushing it behind her as she curtsied. “My king, it is a pleasure to see you this evening.”

Dobromil walked into her line of sight behind Ambrose and shook his head once.

“It would be a pleasure to have you in my bed,” Ambrose crooned, brushing his index and middle finger along her jaw and ending on her chin.

The urge to rip his soul from his extremities and step on the arrogant male’s throat was overwhelming, but Astrid smiled and leaned into his touch.

“Dimitri will return in a few hours,” she said, burying her instinct to bite until she tasted blood. Instead, she kissed his fingertips. “His next assignment could be farther. It could take him three days to complete, if it pleases you, my king.”

Time enough for her mother to escape this frozen prison.

“And how would you please me, soul weaver?”

Ambrose crowded her, gliding his hand over the small of her back. The bitter taste of bile flashed in Astrid’s mouth and she stifled her revulsion. His touch was soft and smooth. There were no battle-hardened callouses. No roughness from laborious work. Not a day of hardship. Nothing earned.

So unlike Dimitri.

The errant thought surprised Astrid, and she banished it as it formed.

“You’ll have to teach me how to please you,” she answered, stepping out of his arms, “the next time you send Dimitri away.”