He straightened and crossed his arms. “Unlike many women I’ve known, Imogen, you dissemble poorly and probably wouldn’t recognize coyness if it bit you on the hand.” He returned to his seat on the column top. “I’ve almost nothing left to me except time, and far too much of that. We can sit here all night if you wish until you choose to tell me why you’re frowning and burning holes through me with your stare.
She blushed, scrambling for some response that might appease him. “Would you believe me if I said I was admiring your looks?” She groaned under her breath. That was less than inspiring.
Cededa laughed, the expression temporarily ridding his fair features of the malice carved around his mouth. Imogen really did gawk at him with admiration then. He was truly breathtaking to behold.
The laughter died, but a smile remained. “Make no mistake. I’m flattered, but you’ve complimented me many times on my handsomeness without impaling me with a look.”
He’d given her the perfect opening for which to satisfy her curiosity; still, Imogen floundered. How did one ask so intrusive a question without sounding shallow, or even worse, insulting? She grasped another, less controversial topic.
“How is it you speak my language?” She brightened. That was good. And true. Too overwhelmed by Tineroth and its solitary ruler, she hadn’t even considered the oddity of his ability to speak her tongue so easily.
His eyes narrowed, his gaze measuring as if he judged her honesty and found it lacking. “Your mother,” he said. “She read to me as I healed from wounds. I listened, and I learned.”
It was Imogen’s turn to give him a doubtful look. That wasn’t quite how Niamh described it. Ash and bone coming together to remake an entire man was a lot stranger and more complex than healing wounds.
“I’ve never seen you eat or drink,” she said. “Not in all the time I’ve been in Tineroth. Do you not hunger or thirst?”
Cededa scowled. “I suspect that isn’t the question hovering on your tongue. But I’ll answer it.” He stood a second time and grasped her hand. “Come with me. I’ve something to show you.”
He led her back to the palace, through hallways and past rooms she’d become familiar with, down stairs she was certain hadn’t been there earlier in the day.
They entered a suite of rooms on the second floor through a pair of enormous doors equal to those that served as the palace entrance. Inside, an impenetrable blackness reigned until Cededa conquered it with a whispered word. Torches blazed to life on their own, spilling golden light across a space as grand and as neglected as the receiving hall.
Cededa led her to its center and released her hand. “These were once my chambers.”
Imogen pivoted in place, silent and stunned by the grandeur before her. The ceiling curved high above her, beyond the illumination of the torches. The floor lay concealed in a layer of dust ankle deep, but in places where the drafts stirred it clear, she spotted complex mosaics made of brilliantly colored tile. Rotted tapestries hung in tatters from bent hooks, some shredded by age and moths, others by the more ordered cut of a sword blade.
Light flickered on the walls, revealing a series of frescoes that stretched from floor to as high as the rooftop of her mother’s cottage. Those above an arm’s stretch were faded but otherwise untouched. Those below, however, bore the same ruin and destruction she’d seen on the statues and the murals in her chamber.
A pile of wood lay heaped in one corner, remains of what must have once been an enormous bed. More rubble littered the room, as if someone had come in and smashed every stick of furniture to splinters.
“Gods,” she whispered. “Who destroyed so many beautiful things?”
“I did.”
Her mouth fell open. Cededa had defaced his own palace? She blinked. “Why?”
His silent footfalls sent clouds of dust swirling upward as he paced the chamber’s perimeter. “I didn’t do this myself. Men of great anger and great purpose wielded their hammers and their chisels against these chambers, and others, but I was the reason for their actions.”
A melancholy settled on her spirit as she viewed the damage wrought. “Is yours the face destroyed on each statue? Each mural?”
“It was my face then.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I was not as you see me now, Imogen. The Waters changed me in more ways than just longevity.” He reached out and ran a fingertip over one of the murals, tracing the faded outlines. “To answer your question, I don’t thirst or hunger. My body doesn’t need food or drink, or even sleep if I wish it. Some might say it’s a gift of the Waters to their guardian, a means of survival and protection.”
She frowned. “I don’t know that I’d call such a thing a gift. You’d never starve, but there is a pleasure in good food, good wine, and a soft bed if you’re lucky enough to have them.”
His dry chuckle echoed in the expanse. “Yes, there is. And you’re wise in your observations. Unfortunately, the Waters’ gifts are not truly gifts. Each comes with a price. I have no need of food or water, no need of sleep. My sight and hearing are greater than any mortal man’s, and I walk with the tread of a ghost.” One hand curled into a fist, though his voice remained even. “But I cannot even eat or drink for pleasure. All is dust in my mouth. I’ve almost forgotten the sweetness of honey.” He paused. “Or the taste of a woman on my tongue.”
Imogen stiffened. She’d asked him one question. He’d answered several, including the one she most wanted to ask but didn’t know how to approach. “You’ve lost your desire?”
His short chuff of laughter echoed bitter in the torch-lit chamber. “I lost my manhood long ago. I hardly remembered the belly-burn of desire.” That otherworldly gaze rested on her, heavy and no longer cold. “Then you crossed the bridge into Tineroth and brought sweet death with you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Torchlight flickered warm color across Imogen’s drab clothing, sparking memories for Cededa of Tineroth noblewomen in their court finery. A glittering procession of butterflies whose jewels caught the light of a thousand candles that illuminated his once majestic throne room. The colorful garb didn’t stay on their graceful bodies for long once they reached this chamber, though the jewelry sometimes did.
