—and again and again. Pain layered upon pain. Until, in the dead of night, a miracle happens.
*
After facing the Senate, Valerie hadn’t thought it possible that the pit in her stomach might get worse. She was wrong. Following the butler into the east wing of the house, she thought of all the things the Emperor might say or do to her, and it was all she could do not to turn and bolt right there and then.
They reached a closed door no different from the rest in a hallway no different from the rest.
The butler gave it a single rap.
“Enter.”
He opened the door and gestured for her to go inside. Valerie clenched her fists. The Emperor wouldn’t kill her, would he? He couldn’t.
The scariest thing was that in the moment she couldn’t think of a reason not to.
She entered a study not unlike Lord Avon’s, with wood panelled walls and shelves stuffed with books. A large bay window might have let in some light except for the heavy curtains blocking the glass. Instead, a veiled oil lamp burned red on the desk and candles flickered on the mantelpiece, giving the entire room an ominous glow.
Well, he wasn’t sitting here reading in that light.
Emperor Reinard stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing at a portrait of a white-haired man in military uniform.
“Lady Valerie,” he said without looking at her.
“Your Excellency.”
She curtsied, feeling a stir in the air as the door closed behind her.
“Come here.”
A lump formed in her throat. She crossed the few feet to stand beside him. The man in the portrait wore a brass-buttoned coat and bicorne hat, his hand resting casually on the sword at his hip. A ship awaited in the harbour behind him, while a raven perched on a rock in the foreground.
“Lord Owain Avon,” said the Emperor. “Eleventh Duke of Yirona and Admiral of the first Drakonian fleet.”
She looked at him. “Your ancestor?”
“A man of singular vision. When the monarchy drove Drakon into bankruptcy, he had the foresight to envision a different future.”
“He started the Republic?”
The tension bubbling within her hadn’t gone away. It simmered, made her shift on her feet, restless and confused. She didn’t understand why she was getting a history lesson. What was the purpose of all this?
But the Emperor nodded thoughtfully, seeming content with her playing along.
“Yes. From the ashes of the old kingdom and the might of Yirona… The Republic of Drakon was born. At every stage of the Empire’s history, my family has been instrumental in its expansion. But even after one hundred and eighty years, some still regard us as foreigners.”
“Foreigners?”
“Foreigners,” said the Emperor, turning on Valerie with sudden and frightening intent. “Yironians. Seafaring pirates who stole Drakon from its people and now sit at its very heart.”
His eyes blazed. He spoke with an intensity that rivalled his son, and she felt it like a physical blow. But here she didn’t have Avon to shield her. Instead, she instinctively stepped back, raising her hands.
“I don’t understand—”
“Of course you don’t.” He advanced on her as he spoke. “You know nothing of the noble families of Drakon. You know nothing of our history.”
Valerie backed away, trembling. She thought of the book she had read on the way to the capital, her half-forgotten lessons in the convent, Lady Melody’s indoctrination into the world of courtly manners… But these were feeble things. The Emperor was on a tirade, and she dared not inflame his ire further.
“I want to learn, Your Excellency,” she said earnestly. “I really do, I…”
“Oh, you’ll learn,” he said, with a foreboding tone that sent chills down her spine. “You will not jeopardise my legacy. When my son’s good name is called into question, so is mine. So is our entire family. Those slithering snakes at court are all too eager to bite. They look at you and see a feast. Have you grasped this yet, witch? Do you think by destroying us, you will save yourself?”
“I’m not trying to destroy you! Your Excellency, please—”
“You bewitch my son. You corrupt my daughter. You openly practise witchcraft—”
Her back hit the wall. She gasped for breath, trying not to panic. “Why do you hate magic? Why are you against Lord Avon’s plan?”
He towered over her, a force of pure, cold rage. No, not anger, she thought. Fear. Avon had been right to call him a coward. Maybe he saw himself as an outsider. Maybe his enemies in the Drakonian court really were plotting to bring him down. Had fear truly blinded him to the opportunity Avon had presented?
Reinard’s lip curled. Then he stepped forward and cuffed Valerie across the cheek. A cry tore from her throat; the blow froze her into stunned shock.
“That,” said the Emperor, “is for speaking out of turn.”
He moved away, clicking his fingers. Valerie looked up, cradling her bruised jaw, and gasped as another man emerged from the shadows. She hadn’t even noticed him before. He was dressed in the attire of a valet, but it was like putting a frilly hat on a bear. The man was big, brutal and surly. He grabbed her by the arm, marched her over to the desk, and pinned her down.
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Terror electrified her. She felt sure that at any moment he was going to snap her neck and that would be it. Instead, the manservant ripped away the fastenings of her corset.
A fresh wave of panic coursed through her. “What are you doing?”
The corset came loose, exposing her back. She was bent double, her cheek pressed against the mahogany wood.
Then the switch lashed her back, and Valerie screamed.
“One lash,” said the Emperor, “for disrespecting my wife.”
It burned like fire. She couldn’t see the weapon the manservant was using to flog her—a rod of some kind, taut and hard. Her shoulders tensed, every muscle in her body desperate to get away.
Another lash. An eruption of agony. A third immediately followed, and her world shrank in on itself, consumed by the pain.
“Two lashes,” said the Emperor, “for whispering your poisonous words into my daughter’s ear.”
She could see him. Reinard. Tears blurred her vision, but he was leaning by one of the bookcases, watching her. Entirely unmoved.
“Three for your performance at the Senate House.”
She screamed again. And again. And again.
“And four,” said the Emperor grimly, “for bewitching my son.”
Her entire back stung. The last few lashes struck the wounds that had already opened, and she felt as though she had been cut to ribbons.
Finally, the manservant retreated. Valerie collapsed to the floor in a heap. It hurt to breathe. She gulped in air, the room spinning around her.
“Remove her,” she heard Reinard say.
The butler came in and took her away.
*
Somewhere between leaving the Emperor’s quarters and arriving in Lord Avon’s, Valerie lost consciousness. She woke up to Priska’s concerned face hovering above her. That, and a damp flannel on her forehead.
“Valerie!”
“Maska,” she muttered. Her back throbbed. She wished she could pass out again.
Priska ran her a hot, salty bath, which hurt so much she whimpered at first, but maybe the steam helped to clear out her lungs because she did start to breathe more easily after a few minutes.
The matron came in, took one look at her and said, “Well, I’m not surprised.”
“Go away!” she snapped.
So it was Priska who stayed with her, Priska who washed off the blood and dead skin, and Priska who helped her into bed.
“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “This is all my fault…”
Valerie lay down on her stomach, head resting on a fluffy pillow, back sore and tender. Priska dabbed a soothing ointment on her raw-red flesh. She tried not to grimace.
“It’s not your fault, Priska.”
But the girl seemed distressed. “No, it is. I…” She looked around the empty bedchamber. “The letter,” Priska whispered. “I took it.”
Valerie felt as if the heavens had turned upside down. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I… I was trying to help.”
“Help?”
She nearly laughed. After getting herself flogged for suspecting Lady Juliana of stealing the letter, now Priska chose to confess that it had been her all along?
“We thought we could use the letter to discredit Lord Avon,” Priska whispered. “So maybe he wouldn’t come back to Maskamere…”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Titus. He had the idea—” Priska whirled around, then froze.
She’d heard something that Valerie hadn’t, because a few seconds later Avon stalked in. His eyes met hers, then his face darkened.
“Out!” he ordered Priska.
The girl fled.
Avon approached, and a tiny shiver of fear ran through her veins. She didn’t like him seeing her like this, half-naked and vulnerable. Especially with the welts on her back. She hadn’t seen them herself, but they felt ugly.
She felt the weight of him sitting down on the bed and tensed.
“Relax,” he said. Then he frowned at her injuries. “How many?”
“Ten,” she muttered.
“Only ten? That’s lenient.”
He leaned over, and she shuddered as something cold touched her back. The balm. Avon was taking over where Priska had left off. She forced herself to relax, but then the implication of his words sank in and she had to suppress another shudder.
“So is this how Emperors rule? He just beats anyone he doesn’t like?”
“It’s how fathers rule,” said Avon. “We’re in his household; we are his guests. I’ve reminded him not to damage my property, but you need to take greater care.”
Any sympathy she might have felt for him instantly vanished. Maska, she thought, I hate them all. These stupid people, with their stupid rules and their stupid rivalries, and their stupid, unfounded, undeserved sense of superiority. She wished she wasn’t flat on her stomach. She would have leapt up and punched him.
Instead, she turned her head and risked a neck crick to spit out the angriest response she could muster:
“I was following your orders!”
“In the most bare-faced, disruptive way possible. I didn’t expect you to throw the entire household into havoc. Have you any sense of self-preservation?”
The annoyance in his voice stood in stark contrast to the gentleness of his hands on her skin. It didn’t soothe her.
“Obviously not,” she shot back, “since I already died once.”
“Well,” he said after a moment, “I would like you to think more than two seconds ahead if you’re capable of that, Valerie. I told you not to trust anyone, and you voiced your suspicions about Lady Juliana in front of at least three servants. What exactly did you think was going to happen?”
“I thought she’d be rattled. Which she was.”
“So you chose to provoke her.”
“She already hates me. I didn’t ruin some blossoming friendship.” She sighed. “Not like it matters.”
“What?” he said sharply.
He stopped applying the ointment, leaning back to stare at her.
She swallowed, then sat up. The silk sheet slipped; she lifted it to cover herself. “Sorry, my lord. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“If you can’t take this seriously…”
“I am! I’m the one who could die here, Avon, do you think I don’t know that? Is this some game you’re playing, you and your father? If I’m your property, then isn’t he disrespecting you by hurting me?”
At last she thought she saw something like guilt flicker in his eyes. He looked away. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Can you promise he won’t do it again?”
He looked back at her and frowned. “No.”
“It felt like a threat.” She let an edge of fear put a tremor in her voice. “Like next time he’ll kill me.”
“That’s not what he wants.”
“Then what? What does he want?”
She was tired and battered and confused. Even at her best, it would be hard to figure all of this family history out. She hadn’t been at her best for some time.
Avon replaced the stopper of the ointment bottle, then shifted away from her and put it down on the bedside table. He did all of this at a maddeningly slow pace. She didn’t have the energy to yell at him for it.
When he finally spoke, it was with the same slow and deliberate precision. “He doesn’t want to kill you himself. He wants me to do it.”
To prove that he wasn’t bewitched. To stop her from being a weight around Avon’s neck, the cause of all this fear and doubt—all because she was a Maskamery witch.
Was that three death threats now? If she counted this as a new one.
“You should,” she said. “You’ll never have a better chance. You’d be free of all these rumours. The Senate would have to reelect you. And you’d never have to worry about me or the queen again.”
“Yes,” he said, “and to do that would be admitting failure. It would be giving up. This crisis is only the first obstacle in a long road ahead. If magic is ever to be accepted in Drakon, we have to fight for it. You have to fight for it.”
“I am fighting. I’ve got the scars to prove it. What are you doing? Because from where I’m standing, your plan has been a big fat failure so far.”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?” His gaze burned into her. Obviously, she couldn’t contradict him. “Do as I say next time, Valerie. I’d rather you survived unscathed.”
“Do you think I got hurt for nothing? You haven’t even asked me if I found the culprit.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”
“Yes. Titus Steward.”
Surprise flickered across his face. “That’s a Maskamery name.”
She nodded. “He got stuck here during the war and never left.”
“Interesting,” said Avon. “Because I just learned today that Titus Steward is standing against me for the position of Chancellor of Maskamere.”