“I propose a wager, then,” Perun said. “I will send you into his past, before he met you. He won’t know who you are. You’ll have three days to make him love you. A kiss of true love will be required to prove it, before dawn on the third day.”
“I agree,” she said quickly.
“Wait, you haven’t heard it all yet. Your mother wants me to tell you that if you fail, you will join her hunt, forget about your husband, and never return to the mortal world again.”
“I agree,” she said again, without hesitation. “Whatever yousay.”
“All right.”
And on the lonely mountaintop, Perun and Liana shook hands and sealed the deal.
Chapter 6
Melia
Melia woke witha start, the remains of a nightmare rattling in her head: the dead horse, the entrails spilled in the dust. She reached across the bed for Amron, but his side was empty and cold, all the warmth long evaporated. The moon poured its silver light over the room’s unfamiliar objects. Melia had her own room across the corridor, a tiny space with a bed, a chest, and a desk—the palace in Abia was crowded because of the royal wedding, they couldn’t find anything better for her—but it felt so claustrophobic she preferred sharing Amron’s bed.
The window was open, letting in the unfamiliar sounds of the palace that never slept and the cold night breeze. Melia reached for her silk wrap, her fur-lined slippers, and got up to close it. By the time she’d forced the heavy latch to slide into its place, she was fully awake and disgruntled with Amron’s absence.
Where did he go in the middle of the night?
Melia tried to convince herself that he probably couldn’t sleep and went for a walk to clear his head, but a small, nasty voice at the back of her mind called her a fool. The poison that cursed lady-in-waiting had poured into her ear was eating her alive.
She returned to bed, overwhelmed by the madness of the upcoming wedding, the high tension running through the palace like a ball of lightning, the sheer, infinite wickedness of the courtiers. Sleep evaded her as thoughts buzzed in her head.
She got up and opened the door, feeling foolish. There was no guard to see her, just a small page sleeping on a pillow like a scrawny kitten. Careful not to wake him, she slipped into thedark maze of corridors.
The palace was crowded, the queen and her ladies-in-waiting busy with planning the wedding. The idea that one of them could slip out to—no, it was ridiculous. And yet, Melia’s feet kept moving, away from Amron’s room, towards the royal chambers.
• • •
Melia was requiredto join the queen’s ladies while the court was in Abia. She had no idea what was expected of her, there had been no gathering of women in Syr since her mother’s death. The ladies who surrounded Queen Orsiana were refined, idle, and studiously ruthless. A lion’s den padded with velvet and wool.
When she first arrived, they welcomed her with smiles and chatter, sweet wine and light gossip. For a heartbeat she balanced on the edge of hope that her status as a new bride, as Amron’s wife, could protect her, that they would allow her to become one of them.
Her illusion came crashing down soon enough, as she discovered everything about herself was wrong. Her clothes were unfashionable, her manners provincial, her accent ridiculous. When she gathered the courage to utter her first full sentence, she saw how their eyes widened, how they exchanged long looks. One of the girls replied to her and for a moment Melia thought it wasn’t so bad, because the girl’s accent was also vaguely southern. In conversation with her, Melia didn’t sound so hopelessly provincial. And then the girl’s accent slipped, someone sniggered, and she realized the girl was affecting, mocking her.
They were bad when they were together, but they were even worse individually. And Vella was the worst. She ambushed Melia one afternoon in a cozy nook overlooking the garden. Aftertrying to bait her with the most recent court gossip, she suddenly said, “And how is Amron these days?”
Melia stared at Vella’s large blue eyes, her button nose, her stunning auburn hair, unsure what the question really meant.
“I thought you should know we had something going on just before he left for Syr,” Vella continued, her smile wide and warm. “He was quite besotted with me, couldn’t get enough. I taught him that trick with the tongue, you know, when—”
“I don’t know,” Melia interrupted her. “And I don’t want to know.”
“Oh, but you do.” The girl’s pale fingers wrapped around Melia’s in an iron grip. “There are no secrets between friends, and I want to be your friend. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything behind your back, so I wanted to ask you if you would mind us picking up where we left off?”
“I would,” Melia said, tearing away from Vella. “I’d mind it very much.”
“Oh, perhaps I was too direct, I’m sorry. You still have a lot to learn about court life. If not me, it will be somebody else, some girl who might not want to be your friend.”
Melia wanted to tell her that no woman who ever slipped into Amron’s bed could be her friend, but it felt too crude and provincial in that place where refinement comprised enchanting music, elegant poetry, glorious tapestries, and sleeping with other women’s husbands.
Vella smiled and shrugged apologetically, but Melia hadn’t been fooled. She knew with absolute certainty that this had been a duel, and that she had lost.
• • •
As she wanderedthrough the dark corridors, Vella’s poisonous whisper echoed in her ears. Melia was too much ofa coward, too uncertain of her slippery position in the infinitely complicated court hierarchy to challenge Amron directly, although she’d watched him closely, looking for a morsel of proof. There was nothing to see. He didn’t even come close to his mother’s ladies: He moved almost exclusively among the men of the court, his brother’s clique, his sparring partners and drinking buddies.
