Everybody but her.
She was the intruder, a creature of the woods, neither a clerk, nor a soldier, nor a servant. A lady who was not a lady, and a wife who was not really a wife.
She entered a string of rooms, empty and yet murmuring with other people’s lives, glowing with the silvery imprints of their footsteps; the warm, wooden chairs worn out by their touch; the glass panes breathed on by so many mouths. A continuity which had nothing to do with her. She had no family, no venerable ancestors, no name beside the one her mother had carelessly flung at her. Her bedroom with large windows overlooking the sea, her massive walnut bed with green brocade curtains, her mirror in its gilded frame—all of it was just borrowed. She had slid into this life sideways, a shadow, a traveler just passing through.
Liana sighed and took off her muddy riding boots, leaving them by the door, threw her cloak over a chair, and walked barefooted across the woolen carpet to the bathtub waiting for her by the fire. The palace did not agree with her tonight, but it was not the palace’s fault.
Every evening, the maids filled the bath for her with warm, fragrant water. But when Liana touched it to check its temperature, her hand sank into a gray, ice-cold sludge. Thepungent odor of decay hit her nostrils. Dark and deadly, like the sacrificial pond in the heart of the woods where they used to drown people to placate the hungry goddess. A white hand emerged from the depths, grabbing at her fingers.
Liana jumped back with a yelp, tripped over the edge of the carpet, and fell. Not waiting to see what would crawl out of the bathtub, refusing to even look at the cursed thing, she scurried to the nearest wall and lifted a corner of a tapestry, revealing a small door. She clawed at the latch and threw herself into the darkness on the other side, slamming the door shut behind her.
Sprawled on the carpet, breathing hard, she waited for the wet lurch, the scratching, the creak of hinges. But the soft silence was interrupted only by her thunderous heartbeat.
Stagnant waters were the realm of Morana, the Goddess of Death. Ponds, moats, abandoned wells. And bathwater, apparently.
Liana hadn’t been hallucinating up in the hills and she wasn’t hallucinating now. Something was wrong. The world had become thin like a painted porcelain vase, she could see the shadows moving behind the fragile surface. The gods were knocking, looking for a weak spot.
“Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you.”
Time trickled in the darkness. Her heart struggled to find its beat while her eyes searched for comfort in the snug familiarity of the room. Books and papers were stashed precariously on the large desk, under the silver moonlight that poured through the window. A canopied bed dozed in the corner like a massive animal. Wind whispered in the empty fireplace.
Liana took a deep breath, reached for the tinderbox, and lit a candle. The light flickered, emphasizing the darkness rather than driving it away. Shadows danced across her hands and pooled in the creases of her shirt. The fear, the feeling of wrongness, grabbed her again.
The world was cracking around her. The stag, the bath water, this empty room that still smelled of frankincense and bergamot, as if Amron had stepped out a moment ago. The desk where he used to sit and where she liked to sneak up on him, the bed where he held her in his arms while the waves murmured outside, the window where he loved to watch the clouds roll over the sea. His lingering presence in all things.
“What happened? Why didn’t you come home?” she asked.
Instead of an answer, she heard commotion in the other room.
“My lady, where are you?” Nina called with shrill urgency.
Liana opened the door and stepped back into her room. “Here.”
“My lady—” A soft linen bathrobe shook in Nina’s white-knuckled grip. Liana glanced at the bath, expecting some new horror, but the bathwater was clear and still, steaming gently. The darkness had retreated, there was nothing in there to scare the girl. And yet…
“At least you’re not in the bath.” Her maid chuckled, and that sound, broken and ill-suited, snapped Liana back into this moment, into this room. She barely had the time to register the panic on Nina’s face when a chorus of male voices boomed in the corridor.
“In the name of the king,” someone shouted, and a group of soldiers barged in, crowding together like a pack of curs in a dark alley. Five young men reeking of sweat, their boots leaving dirty footprints on the carpet.
Liana lifted her chin a little, a barefooted lady hiding her trembling hands. “What is the meaning of this?”
Their eyes widened when they saw her face.
“My lady, I tried to stop them,” the maid stammered, still holding the bathrobe, “but they claimed they were here on His Majesty’s orders.”
“It’s fine, Nina,” Liana told her. “You can leave us.” Then sheturned to the men. This breach of her privacy was calculated, surely, to catch her unawares. In bed, in the bath, alone and vulnerable. “What do you want?”
Finally, one messenger, lanky, liveried, cleared his throat and said, “Mistress Liana?”
Mistress, notlady. King’s instructions, surely, petty and disrespectful like the man who issued them. For dynastic and legal reasons, for her own unwillingness, for the king’s objection, Amron had never married her.
Liana let the insult slide like water over glass.
“I’m here to bring you the news.” He paused and Liana could discern a faint swamp-green outline around him, invisible to his companions. Time slowed down again, and for a moment she hoped it would stop completely. But then the young man cleared his throat once more, and said, “His Royal Highness, Prince Amron, is dead.”
There it was.
Right there.
