“Well, what do you think?” Alaric asks, even though my horrified expression makes my feelings perfectly clear. “You have an opinion about everything.Don’t hold back now.”
I glare and hold my tongue, just to spite him.
“I’ll leave you to settle in. My chamber is just around the corner, if you need anything,” he says. But his sharp tone and acidic smile make it clear I’d betternotneed anything.
Before he vanishes, I call out, “How can you live with yourself?”
Alaric pauses and scrubs a hand over his face—as if I’m the one who’s exhausting and unreasonable. “What are you talking about? We’re treating you like a queen.” He gestures around my glittering chamber, then widens the arc of his arm to encompass the entire walledcity beyond.
“This is the room Rowenna occupied when shedied. Don’t you find that a bit insensitive? Not to mentionforeboding?” I give him a critical look. “Or have you already forgotten you were married to my sister first?”
“I do my best to forget irritating people. Now, believe it or not, I have work to do that doesn’t involve babysitting.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re busy planning the raid of another vulnerable kingdom,” I shout at his back. “Or perhaps the murder of your second wife!”
“The latter sounds more appealing every second,” he says, slamming the door in my face.
I continue standing there, heaving for breath, my thoughts as erratic as the rainbow light refracting off the gemstone walls. I didn’t expect a smooth transition to life on the mountain, but I didn’t expect everything to feel so horriblywrongeither.
Nothing is what I expected—or how Rowenna described in her letters. I’d blame the discrepancy on my poor reading comprehension or failing memory, but her descriptions were too vivid and visceral to forget. She described these rooms like a prison cell: cold thick walls without a single window, and a reeking chamber pot beside the bed.
Technically, none of it is a lie. She said the room waslikea prison cell, not that it was one. And the part about the windows and chamber pot are true too. But it’s hardly the whole truth. The entire ceiling is made of glass, so the room isn’t dark and dreary, despite its lack of windows. And, in addition to the chamber pot, there’s an en suite bathing room almost large as this room.
“Was this truly your chamber?” I ask the echoing room. “If so, why paint such a grim picture? Why lead me to believe you were imprisoned here when this castle is finer than the hillock palace in every way?”
Ro remains silent for so long, I think she’s not going to answer. But then she says with a steely edge to her voice,A gilded cage is stilla cage, little sister.
Eleven
I spend all night inspecting my rooms the way I would a toxic plant. Thegigantic feathered bed with a poker to see if it snaps shut like a Venus flytrap. Then I slowly pull down the gauzy bed curtains the way I’d pluck petals from the center of a poisonous flower.
There’s a reason the Vanzadorians put me—and Rowenna, if Alaric is telling the truth—in this chamber. A reason she felt compelled to paint a distorted picture of this place in her letters, and I won’t rest until I’ve uncovered them.
Hour after hour, I tear through the wardrobe, chests, and drawers, looking for letters or notes or baubles. Something personal, to prove my sister was actually here. But all I find are delicate lace gowns, silky bloomers, bejeweled gloves and stockings, and too many frilly shoes to count. All of which I toss to the floor.
Ro might have worn these things, but they didn’tbelongto her.
I kick through the mess of finery, despising each piece more. Then, as dawn peeks through the skylights, I stomp into the adjoining washroom, which of course, is as lavish as the rest of the palace. The bathtub is white marble swirled with soft coral pink, and bottlesof every shape and size line the shelves. Towels as fluffy as freshly washed wool hang from bejeweled hooks, and tall crystal vases filled with scrub oak are artfully arranged across the countertop. It makes me want to scream, because it’s all so different from the quarters Rowenna described in her letters. I know she would never lie to me, so if she insisted her time here was torturous, I believe her. Which means there’s a reason for these discrepancies. Something she was trying to tell me.
I make my way past the vanity to a small door nestled in the corner of the washroom. I expect to find a linen closet or laundry chute, but the door swings into a much larger, darker space. While I grapple about for a lantern or torch, my legs slam into something hard, and I pitch forward with a scream. I close my eyes and brace myself to hit the unforgiving stone floor, but I land on something soft and lumpy instead.
Something that groans andmovesbeneath me.
I scream again and stumble back into the washroom, crashing into the tub so hard I nearly fall in. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my rooms?” I demand as I fumble for something to use as a weapon. When my hands close around a long-handled scrubbing brush, I laugh bitterly. I’m certain no one has everwashedan assailant to death, but I raise it like a sword anyway.
“Come out!” I command, cursing the tremor in my voice.
After a long second, there’s a soft creak, followed by a shamble of feet. A thin oval face appears in the doorway, and I don’t know what I was expecting—perhaps the mysterious hooded assassin who murdered Rowenna, not a girl who looks to be my age. She has thick golden hair that hangs in a rumpled braid, and she’s wearing a plain black shift. A ratty blanket falls around her shoulders and her eyes blink furiously, still heavy with sleep.
“I-I live here,” she stammers. “In case you need anything. B-but I don’t have to, if it’s not to your liking.” Frantic, like a bird whose nest has been discovered by a fox, she retreats into the dark and begins draggingsomething that makes a horrid metallic screech.
“Youlivein here?” I ask, venturing back toward the door. “Like a maid?”
We don’t keep maids in Tashir. Not personal ones. Every hand is far more useful tending to the hillock palace as a whole, and most especially, in the fields.
The girl nervously blathers as she attempts to angle a cot through the door. “I’ll take my things to the hall. Or back to the balcony, like Miss Rowenna preferred. Though the wind is bitter cold at night.”
“Wait… Did you say Rowenna?”
