Page 15 of Ties of Deception (Tethered Hearts)

Chapter

Fifteen

T oday was the first day I was allowed to do petitions since the incident, and I knew the empress—plus potentially every important person in Yienna—would be observing the results.

I tried not to be nervous or fidget as Flavia fastened the tops of my tunic with a golden broach. It glittered with green and red gemstones. Nerves wouldn’t help me feel happier and the empress had said one of her people would be taking extensive notes on how well I Blessed my petitioners. I still didn’t know what exactly being retired involved, though Ethen had mentioned he suspected that goddesses’s souls were destroyed when they were no longer useful. Was retirement what he was referring to? I made a mental note to ask him more next time. I still had so many questions.

I noticed one of my hands was shaking and dragged in a deep breath. I had healed all those people in the hospital just by walking past them. I had fixed Flavia’s husband’s leg. I could do this. Ethen had shown me that I could do this, and I had shown myself.

Flavia gave me a small smile. “Are you feeling all right, my lady? After what you did last week, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’re much more powerful than you know. Is there anything I can do to ease your nerves? Chamomile tea perhaps?”

I shook my head.

Flavia frowned and looked me full in the eyes. “Lady Purity, you healed a man’s leg that had set wrong. He wasn’t a standard petitioner like the ones you’ll be seeing today. You didn’t even have anything around you to make you happy. Today will be easy for you. You can be calm.”

I nodded, sucking in a deep breath. “Thank you.”

I turned to my dressing table to select some jewelry and blinked in surprise. A bracelet I didn’t recognize that was out of its box, lying in the center of the table. It was a simple gold band. Beneath it was a folded sheet of paper.

My heart stuttered. How had he—how was this even possible?

I looked over my shoulder, but Flavia was folding away a shawl. I angled my back so she wouldn’t see what I was doing and unfolded the note.

‘This bracelet used to be yours. You inherited it from your mother. When you were nervous about something, you would turn it around and around on your wrist. Not once, in all the time I’ve known you, did you ever back down from a challenge. You fought until the end. And you won. Always.’

The words made my throat tight, and I swallowed thickly. I hid the note in the thigh strap of my sandal and slipped the plain gold band onto my wrist. I might have imagined it, but its weight seemed familiar.

I’d been trying not to think about Ethen too much in case I let myself get distracted or carried away when I needed to be behaving perfectly today. But it looked like that was a lost cause. He was everywhere.

I left the rest of the jewelry untouched in the boxes and stood to give Flavia a nod to show that I was ready. Together, we entered the corridor to the petitioners’ room.

You fought until the end. And you won. Always.

This god had such unshakable faith in me, and now Flavia did too. Even when everyone else doubted that I could do this. They both gave me strength.

I twiddled the bracelet and smiled to myself. I would fight, and I would win.

I nodded to Flavia and strode into the room. I remembered the joy of all the people I had Blessed who truly needed it. And I would Bless these people who had come today—not for me or to save my own skin. I wouldn’t even think about the empress anymore. I would Bless these people for themselves, for their happiness mattered as much as my own. That would be my focus.

“So we need to find out how the priests are stealing souls from the Unseen Lands, giving them the powers of Ismara, and changing their bodies.” I popped a grape in my mouth as I sat opposite Ethen. He was in a particularly distracted mood this evening, though his eyes would soften every time they flicked to the bracelet around my wrist. He had come to congratulate me on my first day of successful petitions.

He took a sip of his wine and leaned forward in his chair, propping his elbows on his knees. “I have a plan, and it’ll work best if we work together. All the people in the palace are naturally cautious around me and aren’t about to spill their secrets near somebody they see as a borderline enemy. However”—he grinned at me, his face full of mischief—“if you can gain their trust, and if they believe you are nothing more than something they can use, you could find out many things I can’t. Secrets. Clues. Anything. There must be several people in the court who know at least some of what is truly going on. Meanwhile, I will do everything I can to keep you safe.”

I chewed on my lip as I thought. “The prince has been showing an interest in me. Maybe, if I go along with it, he will give me a way into the palace, an excuse for being there. Especially if I want to access areas not normally permitted. If I’m accompanied by him, I would be allowed to go almost everywhere.”

Ethen grimaced. “Be very, very careful with him, Purity.”

I couldn’t help a teasing grin and raised my eyebrows. “Is he making you jealous?”

His scowl deepened. “Of course he will make me jealous if he’s trying to seduce you. But it’s more than that. From what I have seen, he enjoys courting every goddess he can and doesn’t care about the consequences. He seems to have a taste for pretty women and stealing their Blessings. And of course he gets away with it since he’s the empire's prince. I…don’t like him.”

I kept my knowing grin in place. “I’ll be careful.”

He continued to scowl into the middle distance. “See if you can get closer to Constance too. She seems willing to take you under her wing. She is very clever. In fact, we think she may have been here for over a century. My father thinks he might have even met her when he was the Aidis and visited Atos, but that’s only going by my description. There have been multiple goddesses for each name, so we can’t be certain. Either way, she is sure to have noticed things she turns a blind eye to.” He looked back at me and raised a finger. “But becoming a good player of this game is learning that Constance is just as dangerous as Charity. The two of them will stop at nothing to become the next empress.”

I nodded. There really was nobody I could trust here. I wanted to trust Ethen so I could have a rock in this confusing, unforgiving place—a perspective to see this world by. But for now, I kept at least some of my guard up against him too. I was useful to him after all, so he had a self-serving motive to involve me.

A sudden thought struck me, and I raised my head to look him full in the eyes.

He gave me a wary look and leaned his head back. “I know that look. Whatever you’re about to say is not a good idea.”

I opened my mouth in indignation. “How dare you say that when you haven’t even heard what it is yet!”

He sighed. “Well, I expect to be proven right within the next thirty seconds. What is it?”

I folded my arms. “I thought we were meant to be a team that supports each other.”

He grinned at me. “Yes. In that we support each other in wise courses of action that will result in us both—, well, surviving.” He rotated his hand at the wrist. “Come on. Out with it.”

I frowned at him and raised my chin but continued. “Your plan relies a lot on luck. There is one sure way I could find out the information we need to know.” The tension in his face betrayed that he knew what I was about to say. I continued anyway. “If I am chosen to be the next empress, I will be given all the information. Gaining Graces is essential to how the empire rules after all.”

Ethen’s expression was stony. It was strange how his face could change so suddenly—humorous and teasing one minute, hard and serious the next. “You’re going to marry Prince Sebastian?”

“No, no, no. I’ll merely go as far as getting into this contest his mother is organizing for his hand. Somehow.” I waved my hand. “We can discuss how later. Anyway, I have no intention of actually marrying him. But I’ll be in the thick of things in the palace, and the empress will be obliged to share some things with me if I become Sebastian’s first choice.”

He shook his head slowly. “To do so would put you at great risk. Every Grace would have a motive to target you. Not to mention you would be under huge scrutiny by the empress herself—she already doesn’t like you. And then there’s the prince. He would need to choose you as his potential bride. You would have to act as if you’re happy to be with him. Flirt with him.”

I nodded, though the enormity of what I was suggesting was only just starting to sink in. “You can help me beat the other goddesses. And as soon as I know the empress’s secrets, I’ll leave.” At his uncomfortable expression, I felt the need to repeat myself. “I wouldn’t actually marry Prince Sebastian. Or kiss him. Or…anything. I’ll tell him I only want to kiss after marriage or something. It will make me different from what he’s used to. Hopefully intriguing.”

Ethen’s expression remained heavy. “It still carries enormous risks of you being harmed or even killed. And if you’ve been reborn once already, your soul doesn't go to the Unseen Lands a second time—you cease to exist. Besides, the empress might not share the information we’re looking for with you until you are indeed married to Sebastian. Maybe even years later.”

My mind was racing, thinking about all the possibilities. “But I would still be their confidante. I would be privy to huge amounts of information. And I bet Sebastian’s tongue is looser than his mother’s, especially if he was trying to impress me. I could work on him until he told me.” The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like the best way of getting the results we needed. “The empress has given Sebastian a list of suitable Graces. It suggests she wishes for him to choose a wife soon.”

Ethen still looked very unhappy about the idea. I touched his arm and he startled at the contact before relaxing into it. I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ll be careful. I have no intention of letting him get too close to me. And if everything goes wrong, you will be able to take me out of this place at a moment’s notice, won’t you?”

He scrunched his eyebrows together. “Well, at least you seem to be gaining some trust in me.” His words lacked their normal humorous edge. “We can…try it. But, Purity, there will be tremendous pressure on you. You have to be in control of your emotions. You have to be powerful. And you have to outwit them in every one of their games to shame or scare you.”

I pulled in a deep breath. “I know. But now I have an aim and a purpose to keep me going…” I met his eyes again. “Whatever is going on, I want to know. And if it’s as evil as it sounds, we must stop it.” I set my jaw in determination. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Serene.”

His eyes didn’t leave mine—deep and harsh, yet somehow warm. “You’ll have to deceive them, Purity. You’ll have to gain their trust and then use it against them. Are you sure you can do that and not lose yourself in the process? You need to be clear from the start what you are willing to do and what crosses the line.”

I looked down. I would do it. I had to. If playing this game of deceit was the only way to win, I would remember how desperate our cause was—and our need to discover how they had gained souls to force them into new bodies.

I looked up with a shaky smile, eager to move on. I could think this through more thoroughly later—without him staring at me. “And you? Other than helping me, do you have a plan?”

He gave me a long, lingering look, as if telling me the discussion wasn’t over, before replying. “My men and I have been exploring the palace and grounds and also much of Fierro as well as Yienna. We are good at avoiding being seen, but there is still much we haven’t found. The priests are extremely secretive. We have noticed however, that they barely ever use the streets, not on foot nor in litters nor by horseback. It makes us suspect there are tunnels under both cities. Tunnels linking the temples to who knows elsewhere. However, we haven’t found any entrances. They must use them to transport something—or someone—without anyone knowing. Maybe the materials they use to resurrect Graces.”

I frowned. “You think the tunnels are where they perform whatever rituals they use to create the goddesses?”

He shrugged. “However they capture the souls, resurrect them, give them powers, wipe their memories, and change their appearance must be a complicated process. Maybe it involves a lot of different people and stages. One theory is that they secretly move a dead body to the temple so it can receive a soul. There must be some signs. Bodies of young women disappearing. But so far we have…nothing. We can’t even tell who is involved when a goddess is born—beyond a priest.”

I frowned, tapping my chin. The more he explained what was happening, the stranger it felt.

He pinned me with an intense gaze. “But it sounds like most of my time will be spent protecting you. I’ll see what I can find out from the Graces and maybe scare a few into giving something away. We’ve been watching the ones that frequent the palace, and I have information that may help you if you really do intend to compete with them.”

I scoffed. “You act so severe and serious in the palace, all of them will be scared of you.”

He huffed a laugh. “Well, I am a god of death after all. The fearsome Aidis. They should be at least a bit scared of me.” His smile widened as he looked at me, a glint of pride in his eyes I was certain I didn’t deserve. “But I have the feeling they should be absolutely terrified by you.”