“His account paints Ptolemy in a paltry light,” my grandfather is saying.
I think Silvius mutters, “Timeus is a contemptable man.” The scathing look my grandfather tosses the commander’s way tells me I must’ve heard correctly. “Apologies. My commentary was out of line.”
“Make sure not to let your tongue fork again in his presence.”
“He’ll be in attendance?” Silvius enquires. “I thought Cato had settled the financial aspect of your granddaughter’s—”
I lean so far forward that my slipper catches on the seam between the flagstones and another golden bridge. I pinwheel my arms, smacking the back of the guard in front of me. He spins around, ripping a nasty-looking dagger from his baldric.
I spring backward, raising my palms.
A sword whispers through the air. I’m expecting the blade to swing my way, but Justus aims it at the guard. “Put your weapon away before I separate your hand from your arm, soldato.”
The admonishment makes the soldier’s gray eyes widen, and his Adam’s apple jolt over the high collar of his uniform. “Scusa, Generali.” He lowers both his blade and eyes.
“It would be in poor form to slice the girl’s neck before she can atone for her sins.”
That’s twice now that I misinterpret condemnation for kindness.
Although the crooked olive trees have done nothing to warrant my anger, I glare at them, at their branches dripping with golden fruit. On our side, olives grow a yellowish-green, not a yellowish-yellow. I imagine these trees were bred so their fruit matched the bridges and the columns of the estate rising behind the gnarled trunks.
Dante mentioned living in a stone house girdled by gold columns. He even pointed it out once from the rooftop of our school, but the thick vegetation made it difficult to spot. Is this his home?
I must’ve asked my question out loud because the entire delegation has stopped walking and the two men spearheading it are looking over their shoulder at me.
“Yes. This is Prince Dante’s home,” Justus says. “Although I hear he much prefers sleeping in the filthy brothel where you toil.”
Twenty-Eight
Iitch to correct Justus Rossi’s terminology, tell him that what he calls a brothel is first and foremost a tavern, but I bite back my retort because I don’t care what he thinks of me and my job. “You’re mistaken. Dante doesn’t sleep atBottom of the Jug.”
“Dante?” One of my grandfather’s eyebrows crawls up his forehead.
“I did my schooling with him, so I find it difficult to use his title.”
“For someone who received the best education our kingdom has to offer, you speak and act like a Tarelexian scazza, my dear.”
Oh, this man. I move my grandfather’s name to the top of the list of men I will remove from power once I become queen.
Three bridges later, not only have I reached a shortlist of perfect candidates for his position, but I’ve also reached the heart of Isolacuori. There are more guards here than on the barrack islands, an entire regiment of men dressed in Lucin whites with golden baldrics slung over squared shoulders, sword hilts glinting even though they’re far more modest than Justus’s.
The soldiers neither blink nor stare as we pass by them, appearing more like statues than men. I wonder if any would break rank and attack if I stepped out of line or if they’re merely decorative.
The clap of a hand against a neck drags my gaze back to my grandfather, who’s just splattered an insect instead of allowing it to live out its ephemeral life.
I don’t loveallanimals—after all, some sting—yet I cannot help loathing the man a little more for his pitilessness, the same way I cannot help wishing an entire regiment of bees would descend upon the man and bloat his lithe figure. He’d surely drown them all before they could embed their stingers, but it would make for quite the spectacle.
At the end of the wall of brawn, sits massive golden doors, carved with sunrays that match the Lucin crown.
“Open!” Justus yells.
The air-Fae, who wanted to prod me with his dagger earlier, shoots gusts of wind from his palms that move the thick metal. The doors grind open revealing an entrance stippled with mosaics depicting the sun surrounded by the embodiment of the four Fae divinities, all of them male.
When I was younger, I asked Nonna why no god was female. She explained it was to cow women into believing they are less and help men feel like they are more. It took me years to grasp what she’d meant.
As I tread inside the throne room, I study the tiled sun before lifting my gaze to the dais and studying its embodiment. Marco sits upon a throne as large and golden as everything else on Isolacuori. In many ways, he resembles the man I love. Yet, in so many others, he doesn’t.
His jaw is squarer, his hair darker, his eyes sharper. As I approach, those eyes rove over the delegation before settling on me. Unlike Dante, whose irises are the blue of summer skies, Marco’s are a deep amber that matches the fire crackling in the center of the square room that’s as wide as it is tall, a cube of polished gold roofed in glass. Since there’s no need for heat, what with the room being bathed in sunlight, I assume it’s purely symbolic. After we circle the hissing bouquet of flames, the commander and general come to stand on either side of me.
